Herod

The Temple of Herod, the last Jerusalem Temple reconstruction, is reputed to have been wondrous: the first century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus tells us it was incredible to those who had not seen it, and simply amazing to those who had.

For our purposes, the really astounding feature of Herod's Temple is its overall outer design. While the inner shrine remained unchanged from Solomon's Temple (20 x 20 x 20 Hebrew cubits), the outer form was vastly enlarged. Recall that Solomon's Temple had been (L x W x H) 60 x 20 x 30 Hebrew cubits. Now Herod's Temple expanded this to an amazing 100 x 100 x 100 Hebrew cubits.

As you can see from the diagram, the shape of the temple was not a precise cube of 100 x 100 x 100 cubits (note the side chambers). Nevertheless, it would have fit snugly inside a cube frame outlined by these proportions.

So like the other ideal or conceptual forms we have looked at, Herod's temple too expresses this idea of unity in its underlying blueprint.