An eyewitness of the Roman siege, Josephus describes the burning of the Jerusalem temple in AD 70, the catastrophe Jesus foretold when he said not one stone of it would be left upon another.
Josephus on the New Testament world
Josephus on the destruction of the Temple (AD 70)
The Jewish War
So Titus retired into the tower of Antonia, and resolved to storm the temple the next day, early in the morning, with his whole army, and to encamp round about the holy house. But as for that house, God had, for certain, long ago doomed it to the fire; and now that fatal day was come, according to the revolution of ages; it was the tenth day of the month Lous, [Ab,] upon which it was formerly burnt by the king of Babylon; although these flames took their rise from the Jews themselves, and were occasioned by them; for upon Titus's retiring, the seditious lay still for a little while, and then attacked the Romans again, when those that guarded the holy house fought with those that quenched the fire that was burning the inner [court of the] temple; but these Romans put the Jews to flight, and proceeded as far as the holy house itself. At which time one of the soldiers, without staying for any orders, and without any concern or dread upon him at so great an undertaking, and being hurried on by a certain divine fury, snatched somewhat out of the materials that were on fire, and being lifted up by another soldier, he set fire to a golden window, through which there was a passage to the rooms that were round about the holy house, on the north side of it. As the flames went upward, the […]
William Whiston's 1737 translation (Public Domain, Project Gutenberg #2848)
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“Do you see all these things?” He replied. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
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