What happened to the chief cornerstone in the temple-building legend?
In the temple-building legend, the chief cornerstone was brought in early, but the builders did not recognize it. Not knowing what to do with it, they dumped it in a vacant lot, where weeds grew around it. It was the stone meant to hold the whole architecture together.
Les explains that this is a legend, not Scripture, associated with the Old Testament analogy Peter uses of Christ as the chief cornerstone. In the legend, at Solomon's temple site there was never the sound of a hammer or chisel because everything was pre-cut at the quarry. The chief cornerstone was brought in way ahead of time, but the engineers and architects could not recognize it. Not knowing what to do with it, they dumped it in a vacant lot, and weeds grew up around it. That stone should have been the chief cornerstone holding all the architecture together, for in arch architecture the top stone supports everything. Les says this pictures what Christ was to have been, yet the builders dumped that very stone, and people walking through the vacant lot would bump into it.