Solomon’s Colonnade

A covered colonnade along the east side of Herod’s temple, traditionally built on the ancient eastern wall from Solomon’s temple; Jesus taught there during the winter Festival of Dedication, and the early apostles gathered and taught there—mentioned three times in the Christian Greek Scriptures.

Solomon’s Colonnade was a covered portico on the eastern side of the temple built by Herod the Great. The Jewish historian Josephus records that when Herod rebuilt the temple, a colonnade with three rows of columns supporting a roof ran along the ancient eastern wall overlooking the Kidron Valley; tradition held that the foundations of this eastern wall went back to the temple of Solomon, which gave the structure its name. John’s Gospel records that during the Festival of Dedication (Hanukkah, in the month of Chislev, about December) of 32 C.E.—“it was wintertime”—Jesus was walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon. The Jews surrounded him and pressed him to say plainly whether he was the Christ; Jesus answered that his works done in his Father’s name bore witness about him, and that he and the Father were one. The covered colonnade offered shelter from the strong winter east wind and was a natural setting for public teaching. After Jesus’ ascension the colonnade remained a prominent venue for the early Christians’ public witness in Jerusalem. Acts records that after Peter and John healed a man lame from birth at the temple gate called Beautiful, all the people ran together to them “at what was called Solomon’s Colonnade,” where Peter addressed the crowd (Ac 3:11); and later, as many signs and wonders were performed through the apostles, the believers “would all meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade” (Ac 5:12). It is mentioned three times in the Christian Greek Scriptures (Joh 10:23; Ac 3:11; 5:12), marking it both as a setting of Jesus’ public ministry and as a center of the apostles’ teaching.