Josephus describes Herod the Great's vast rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple, the decades-long project John's Gospel points to when the crowd says the temple had been 'forty-six years' in building.
Josephus on the New Testament world
Josephus on Herod's rebuilding of the Temple
Antiquities of the Jews
And now Herod, in the eighteenth year of his reign, and after the acts already mentioned, undertook a very great work, that is, to build of himself the temple of God, and make it larger in compass, and to raise it to a most magnificent altitude, as esteeming it to be the most glorious of all his actions, as it really was, to bring it to perfection; and that this would be sufficient for an everlasting memorial of him; but as he knew the multitude were not ready nor willing to assist him in so vast a design, he thought to prepare them first by making a speech to them, and then set about the work itself; so he called them together, and spake thus to them: "I think I need not speak to you, my countrymen, about such other works as I have done since I came to the kingdom, although I may say they have been performed in such a manner as to bring more security to you than glory to myself; for I have neither been negligent in the most difficult times about what tended to ease your necessities, nor have the buildings. I have made been so proper to preserve me as yourselves from injuries; and I imagine that, with God's assistance, I have advanced the nation of the Jews to a degree of happiness which they never had before; and for the particular edifices belonging to your own country, and […]
William Whiston's 1737 translation (Public Domain, Project Gutenberg #2848)
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“This temple took forty-six years to build,” the Jews replied, “and You are going to raise it up in three days?”
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