The prohibition of Gentiles in the main court of the temple during the first century is well known. Paul refers to a “dividing wall” of hostility between Jews and Gentiles in Ephesians 2:15, probably an allusion to the warning to Gentiles in the Temple courts that crossing into the Court of the Men would result in their death. Paul is accused of breaking this Law by sneaking a Gentile into the Temple courts (a false charge, but it nearly cost Paul his life).
Inscription from the Second Temple warning Gentiles from entering any closer to the Temple (Istanbul Museum)
But in the Torah a Gentile was permitted to bring a sacrifice in the same way any Israelite does, presumably right to the altar of the Tabernacle (Num 15:14-16).
By the third century B.C., however, Jews began to prohibit Gentiles from entering the Temple enclosure. Antiochus III made a decree to…
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James' Ramblings 