The Israeli Antiquities Authority released news of an archeological finding which suggests that large portions of the temple were not completed within Herod the Great's lifetime, including four bronze coins found underneath the western wall of the temple mount that were struck in 17/18 AD which is around 22 years after the death of Herod's death in 4 BC. The IAA is always trying to scrounge up news to support their national narrative and bring in tourism revenue, but scholars aren't impressed as it confirms what they, Josephus, and John (2:20) already knew, that the temple was only started by Herod but completed later.
But it is news to me. I had always assumed, even after reading Josephus (whose chronology can be difficult to follow at times), that Herod finished his temple. I think most people assume that. That is the common assumption. But now it appears that the foundations of large parts of the temple were still exposed as late as 17/18 AD! Assuming a birth-date for Jesus of 6 BC, this means that Jesus would've been nearly 24 years old at the time the above-ground construction would've... begun. This means that in the years leading up to the beginning of his anti-establishment activity portrayed in the gospels, he would've been aware of and probably saw the the final and most visible phases of construction.
I previously thought of the second temple as having been built with good intentions, completed, and having served a godly purpose for a short time before being corrupted by the Jerusalem leadership and later destroyed. But this new chronology collapses that timeline. It suggests that Jesus pronounced prophetic judgment on the building immediately. It was never legit from planning to completion.
Luke tells the story of Jesus approaching Jerusalem for the final time:
"And when he approached, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, 'If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days shall come upon you when your enemies will throw up a bank before you, and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation."
Then, using an old prophetic technique (Ezekiel's brick under siege, Hosea's prostitute wife), Luke has Jesus demonstrate symbolically that which he just warned about, "And he entered the temple and began to cast out those who were selling."
And indeed, just as Jesus had prophetically acted it out less than a generation earlier, the day came when the Romans entered Jerusalem, threw up banks, surrounded them, hemmed them in, leveled the city, and as can be seen from the picture below, threw down the stones of the walls from atop one another.
Later, overhearing commentary on the beauty of the buildings, Jesus sounded a sour note (my paraphrase of Luke 21:6, 32): "Guys, everything you're looking at will be gone within your lifetime." The disciples were probably thinking, "But it was just built. How can God already be judging it?" This is an indication that God was pronouncing judgment not on this particular incarnation of the temple. After all, it never had a chance to get off the ground (literally) and show its true colors. He was pronouncing judgment on the entire system. And with the destruction at the hand of the Romans on the horizon and the approaching completion of the temple, God was giving this people one final chance at escape.
