QUESTION: Were there globes on the two pillars on the porch of Solomon's Temple?
ANSWER: The Old Testament description of the building of Solomon's Temple includes two pillars, named Jachin and Boaz, on the porch of the Temple (I Kings 7:21). on each chapiter or capital atop the pillars was a bowl (I Kings 7:41), probably used for the burning of incense or oil. A metal network covered each bowl and may have given the impression of a globe.
There have been many explanations of both the pillars and the globes. The Masonic interpretation of the globes obviously has to be a modern one, made at a time when the concept of a round earth had been established. According to Charles Clyde Hunt, the first published account of the globes being on the pillars was made by William Preston in the 19th century. Preston called one globe terrestrial and the other celestial, maintaining that together they symbolized the universality of Freemasonry. Hunt has also summarized their Masonic meaning:
"The globes symbolize the great truths that man is a citizen of two worlds, the material and the spiritual, the earthly and the heavenly, the temporal and the eternal, and they teach US to so regulate our lives that when we pass from the earth, the terrestrial, it may be to that other and better world, the celestial."
Author Unknown
ANSWER: The Old Testament description of the building of Solomon's Temple includes two pillars, named Jachin and Boaz, on the porch of the Temple (I Kings 7:21). on each chapiter or capital atop the pillars was a bowl (I Kings 7:41), probably used for the burning of incense or oil. A metal network covered each bowl and may have given the impression of a globe.
There have been many explanations of both the pillars and the globes. The Masonic interpretation of the globes obviously has to be a modern one, made at a time when the concept of a round earth had been established. According to Charles Clyde Hunt, the first published account of the globes being on the pillars was made by William Preston in the 19th century. Preston called one globe terrestrial and the other celestial, maintaining that together they symbolized the universality of Freemasonry. Hunt has also summarized their Masonic meaning:
"The globes symbolize the great truths that man is a citizen of two worlds, the material and the spiritual, the earthly and the heavenly, the temporal and the eternal, and they teach US to so regulate our lives that when we pass from the earth, the terrestrial, it may be to that other and better world, the celestial."
Author Unknown