Jezebel was accompanied by a large entourage of sacred personnel to staff the temple of Baal and Asherah that Ahab built for her in Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel.
The temple staff had shown "carelessness," the commissioners noted, and added that current security measures were inadequate.
(It is a traditional East Asian practice that the living offer the dead the food that was their favorite. The temple staff discards the previous day's food every morning).
A group of us were sitting around, joking as temple staff prepared to host Shabbat services when someone got a beep and a news alert and then we all hopped on our phones.
The temples were controlled by self-perpetuating committees whose membership was usually a hereditary privilege and by a large staff of priests and temple servants under a high priest who wielded tremendous power and influence.
On previous occasions they were resisted by temple security staff, according a trustee of the Gurdwara.
For this statue the temple kitchen staff prepared daily meals from victuals grown or raised on the temple's fields, in its orchards, in its sheepfolds, cattle pens, and game preserves, brought in by its fishermen, or delivered by farmers owing it as a temple tax.
With Wat Phra Dhammakaya's thousands of monks and staff, and a massive temple stretching 1,000 acres, not having a system of discipline and order can make things pretty chaotic.
The organization now has experts on its staff to mediate as temples like Farmingdale and Wantagh go through the difficult merger process.
Scarf-wrapped tourists head towards Angkor Wat and the surrounding complex of temples; hotel staff and construction workers flow the other way, into the boom town that is Siem Reap, 15 minutes from the ancient wats (Buddhist monasteries) along a jungle-fringed road.
