Sacrifices without a temple and the date of pseudo-Philo (for John2).
Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2019 9:50 pm
Subject: 1 Clement & the Gospel of Matthew?
This passage sounds very hypothetical, and it does not demonstrate to my satisfaction that sacrifices were offered on the Temple Mount after the Temple had fallen to Titus.
I may have found a bit of evidence for continued sacrifices, or at least for the perception (by at least some Jews) that sacrifices were still being offered after the fall of Jerusalem.
I have been meaning to look more closely into the date of the Biblical Antiquities by pseudo-Philo, and have finally done so to a certain extent. I find that there are two primary indicators to examine (there are secondary indicators, as well, but they are far less telling).
First, we have this little gem:
The 740 or 850 years from Moses to the fall of the Temple clearly indicates that the First Temple is in view; so far this is of no help for dating the text, since everybody would agree upon a date later than the fall of the First Temple. The month and day of this event, however, is of value; this text says that it happened upon the seventeenth day of the fourth month. But the Hebrew scriptures beg to differ:
So whence is the seventeenth of the fourth month to be derived? Perhaps it is a guess based on how long it might plausibly take an army to destroy a city after breaching the wall. Or perhaps it comes from a different tradition:
It is true that pseudo-Philo writes of destruction, and not merely of the first breach of the wall, but the specification that this destruction would be comparable to when God broke the Tablets is suggestive of the Jewish tradition of the five calamities:
The Tablets were apparently destroyed (according to tradition) on the same day as the wall was breached; that pseudo-Philo mentions both of these events in conjunction one with the other may not be a coincidence. So perhaps he was careless about which exact stage of the siege was being referred to. If so, then in writing allegedly about the First Temple he has let a date applying to the Second Temple slip in. Thus he wrote after 70.
Second, however, there is a separate possible indication of the date of this text:
So the burnt offerings are apparently still in full swing. If the above indicator of a date after 70 be accepted, then either (A) the author is deliberately trying to mislead his readership into believing that he was writing before 70 or (B) the author thought that sacrifices were still going on even after the fall of the Temple. Or perhaps (C) the text itself is composite; I have no specific hypotheses along these lines, however.
This argument is hardly foolproof insofar as one has to accept a bit of clumsiness on the part of the author as to whether he meant the full destruction of the Temple (or even of Jerusalem overall) or merely the breaching of the wall, and also insofar as one has to suppose that the author was being sincere in his description of the sacrifices as still being current, but the juxtaposition of the breaking of the Tablets alongside an event having to do with the Temple makes it look as if pseudo-Philo is tapping into a tradition by which both events happened on the same day of the same month. If so, then he apparently supposed that the sacrifices were still going on after 70. (This conclusion, in turn, would strongly imply a date of between the First Revolt and the Second Revolt for the composition of this text.
In any case, I am definitely interested in further arguments either to the effect that the sacrifices continued after 70 or to the effect that they ceased.
Ben.
That Mishnaic reference is:John2 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 01, 2019 10:36 am But if that doesn't work for you, I recall that there is evidence that sacrifices continued to be made in Jerusalem after 70 CE.
The people continued to bring sacrifices that were offered on a Temple Mount altar that had survived the destructive fire by the Romans. The Mishnah, a central code of Jewish law codified in the early third century C.E., states that "one may offer sacrifices [on the place where the temple used to stand] even though there is no house [i.e., temple]." Some rabbis held that the sacrificial services continued almost without interruption for sixty-five years following the temple's destruction while others suggest that sacrificial services ceased in 70 C.E. but were resumed for the 3-year period when Bar Kochba controlled Jerusalem.
https://www.meforum.org/3556/temple-mount
Mishnah, Eduyot 8.6: 6 Rabbi Eliezer said, "I heard that when they built the Temple they made curtains for the Temple Sanctuary and curtains for the Temple Courtyard; regarding the Temple, however, they would build from the outside, whereas regarding the Courtyard they built from inside." Rabbi Yehoshua said, "I have heard that we offer sacrifices even though there is no Temple and that we may eat of most holy sacrifices even though there are no curtains. And that we may eat lesser holy sacrifices and second tithes even though there is no wall, because the first original sanctification was valid for that time and for the future."
This passage sounds very hypothetical, and it does not demonstrate to my satisfaction that sacrifices were offered on the Temple Mount after the Temple had fallen to Titus.
I may have found a bit of evidence for continued sacrifices, or at least for the perception (by at least some Jews) that sacrifices were still being offered after the fall of Jerusalem.
I have been meaning to look more closely into the date of the Biblical Antiquities by pseudo-Philo, and have finally done so to a certain extent. I find that there are two primary indicators to examine (there are secondary indicators, as well, but they are far less telling).
First, we have this little gem:
Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities 19.6-7: 6 And when he had so said, God spake unto him the third time, saying: "Behold, thou goest to sleep with thy fathers, and this people will arise and seek me, and will forget my law wherewith I have enlightened them, and I shall forsake their seed for a season. 7 But unto thee will I show the land before thou die, but thou shall not enter therein in this age, lest thou see the graven images whereby this people will be deceived and led out of the way. I will show thee the place wherein they shall serve me 740 (possibly an error for 850) years. And thereafter it shall be delivered into the hand of their enemies, and they shall destroy it, and strangers shall compass it about, and it shall be in that day as it was in the day when I brake the tables of the covenant which I made with thee in Oreb: and when they sinned, that which was written therein vanished away." Now that day was the seventeenth day of the fourth month (= Tammuz).
The 740 or 850 years from Moses to the fall of the Temple clearly indicates that the First Temple is in view; so far this is of no help for dating the text, since everybody would agree upon a date later than the fall of the First Temple. The month and day of this event, however, is of value; this text says that it happened upon the seventeenth day of the fourth month. But the Hebrew scriptures beg to differ:
Jeremiah 52.5-7: 5 So the city was under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. 6 On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. 7 Then the city was broken into, and all the men of war fled and went forth from the city at night by way of the gate between the two walls which was by the king's garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city. And they went by way of the Arabah.
So whence is the seventeenth of the fourth month to be derived? Perhaps it is a guess based on how long it might plausibly take an army to destroy a city after breaching the wall. Or perhaps it comes from a different tradition:
Talmud, Taanith 28b: 28b .... Did this then happen on the seventeenth? Is it not written, "In the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was sore in the city" (= Jeremiah 52.6), and so on? And in the following verse it is written, "Then a breach was made in the city" (= Jeremiah 52.7), and so on. Raba said: This is no contradiction. The one refers to the First Temple and the other to the Second Temple. For it has been taught, "In the First Temple the breach was made in the city on the ninth of Tammuz, but in the Second Temple on the seventeenth of Tammuz." ....
It is true that pseudo-Philo writes of destruction, and not merely of the first breach of the wall, but the specification that this destruction would be comparable to when God broke the Tablets is suggestive of the Jewish tradition of the five calamities:
Mishnah, Ta'anit 4.6: 6 Five events befell our fathers on the seventeenth of Tamuz, and five on the ninth of Av. On the seventeenth of Tamuz, (1) the Tablets were broken; (2) the daily Tamid offering was discontinued; (3) a breach was made in the city wall; and (4) Apostumos burned the Torah; and (5) an idol was placed in the Temple. On the ninth of Av, (1) it was decreed that our fathers should not enter the Land; (2) the Temple was destroyed the first and (3) second time; (4) Beitar was captured; and (5) the city was plowed under. From the beginning of Av, we diminish joy.
The Tablets were apparently destroyed (according to tradition) on the same day as the wall was breached; that pseudo-Philo mentions both of these events in conjunction one with the other may not be a coincidence. So perhaps he was careless about which exact stage of the siege was being referred to. If so, then in writing allegedly about the First Temple he has let a date applying to the Second Temple slip in. Thus he wrote after 70.
Second, however, there is a separate possible indication of the date of this text:
Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities 22.8: 8 And after that Jesus went up unto Galgala, and reared up the tabernacle of the Lord, and the ark of the covenant and all the vessels thereof, and set it up in Silo, and put there the Demonstration and the Truth (= the Urim and Thummim). And at that time Eleazar the priest which served the altar did teach by the Demonstration all them of the people that came to inquire of the Lord, for thereby it was shown unto them, but in the new sanctuary that was in Galgala, Jesus appointed even unto this day [usque in hodiernum diem] the burnt offerings that were offered by the children of Israel every year.
So the burnt offerings are apparently still in full swing. If the above indicator of a date after 70 be accepted, then either (A) the author is deliberately trying to mislead his readership into believing that he was writing before 70 or (B) the author thought that sacrifices were still going on even after the fall of the Temple. Or perhaps (C) the text itself is composite; I have no specific hypotheses along these lines, however.
This argument is hardly foolproof insofar as one has to accept a bit of clumsiness on the part of the author as to whether he meant the full destruction of the Temple (or even of Jerusalem overall) or merely the breaching of the wall, and also insofar as one has to suppose that the author was being sincere in his description of the sacrifices as still being current, but the juxtaposition of the breaking of the Tablets alongside an event having to do with the Temple makes it look as if pseudo-Philo is tapping into a tradition by which both events happened on the same day of the same month. If so, then he apparently supposed that the sacrifices were still going on after 70. (This conclusion, in turn, would strongly imply a date of between the First Revolt and the Second Revolt for the composition of this text.
In any case, I am definitely interested in further arguments either to the effect that the sacrifices continued after 70 or to the effect that they ceased.
Ben.