New Testament - second temple

Jerusalem Temple at time of Christ 

Banking Functions

The Treasury in the Temple also performed banking functions, receiving donations as well as the required taxes and tithes. The Temple Tax of a half- shekel demanded of each male every year insured that money flowed into the Temple treasury from all over the known world, from Adiabene in the east to Spain in the west. Other gifts insured outstanding wealth within the Temple, including Herod the Great’s lavish edifices and spoils of many wars (Ant 15.402). The fee for entering the Temple increased the deposits in the bank and demanded moneychangers made so famous by the Gospels.11  

The abuse of the moneychangers in the Temple is supported by warnings in Rabbinics about the abuses of the high priestly families and Josephus’s report that the High Priest Ananias sent his slaves to confiscate the tithes reserved for the priests; they were so successful that some of the priests starved to death (Ant 20.205-07). See the helpful discussion by Randall Buth and Brian Kvasnica, “Temple Authorities and Tithe Evasion,” in Jesus’ Last Week, ed. R. Steven Notley et al., Jewish and Christian Perspectives Series 11 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 53–80.

The architecture of the Temple was both elegant and monumental; it was almost always a political statement: We are Jews. We are important. We were chosen by the one and only God.

Within the Temple were more divisions: the Court of the Women, then further inside, the Court of the Men of Israel, and the Court of the Priests. In this sacred area were the altar of incense, the golden lampstand, the table for bread offering, and the place for slaughtering animals. Above this courtyard to the west was the Porch or Ulam (אולם); it separated the Court of the Priests from the Heikal (היכל), the interior of the sacred area. The Holy of Holies, or Debir (דביר), was the most sacred area. In this area, the Ark of the Covenant once stood.

Note how Eupolemus’s account of the Sanctuary and Temple harmonizes with, but also adds details not found in, Josephus’s works:

He also made two bronze pillars and overlaid them with pure gold, a finger in thickness. …

Especially impressive today are the massive retaining walls, including the Western Wall (also called the “Wailing Wall”), with its beautifully chiseled and embossed Herodian ashlars (polished stones with an elegant border). These archaeological discoveries often prove that Josephus’s descriptions of Jerusalem and the Temple before 70 ce are not mere hyperbole; sometimes they are astoundingly accurate. One stone in the western retaining wall weighs approximately 570 tons and is 13.7 meters long, 3.5 meters high, and about 4.5 meters wide.19

from book by James Charlesworth -  Jesus and the Temple