Fast of Tammuz

[Ged]

When did the “fast of Tammuz” (17th) begin to be observed? Anyone know? I thought that it related to the destruction of the 2nd temple, but Josephus speaks about the "solemnity of the fast" on the 3rd month at the start of Herod's reign. (Antq. 14. ch16. 4)

However, I don't recall it being mentioned in the law.

Ged

[semiopen]

My Rabbi held a class on this, but it made me more confused.

It turns out that the 17th day of Tammuz is also the day that Moses broke the tablets. 17th of Tammuz is the 41st day from when he went up Mt Sinai.

Seventeenth_of_Tammuz

This day also commemorates the destruction of the Twin Tablets of the Ten Commandments. The Seventeenth of Tammuz occurs forty days after the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. Moses ascended Mount Sinai on Shavuot and remained there for forty days. The Children of Israel made the Golden Calf on the afternoon of the sixteenth of Tammuz when it seemed that Moses was not coming down when promised. Moses descended the next day (forty days by his count), saw that the Israelites were violating many of the laws he had received from God, and smashed the tablets.[3]

This somehow relates to the story of Ruth, but it is (unsurprisingly) somewhat circular. Ruth "converted" on Passover but couldn't marry Boaz until 90 days later which was 17th Tamuz. I asked if it was kosher for Boaz and Ruth to have sexual relations on a fast day which made him think. Finally he said it wasn't an observed fast then - so I guess it's not kosher to have sexual relations on a fast day. Funny that we wouldn't fast on tablet breaking day though, we fast if a Torah is dropped, how much more so on breaking the original tablets.

The 90 day rule is Rabbinic but probably based on Ruth. The idea is to make sure the female convert isn't pregnant.

If Josephus observed the Fast prior to the Temple's destruction it was probably because of the tablets, my Rabbi's song and dance notwithstanding.

Both temples were destroyed on the ninth of Av, which is the major fast.

I have some doubts about the second temple actually being destroyed on this day. I have doubts about the first one also but I think that is in the bible somewhere. The key thing about the 9th of Av is that it is midsummer, at least the 9th of August is.

[austendw]

When did the “fast of Tammuz” (17th) begin to be observed? Anyone know? I thought that it related to the destruction of the 2nd temple, but Josephus speaks about the "solemnity of the fast" on the 3rd month at the start of Herod's reign. (Antq. 14. ch16. 4)

However, I don't recall it being mentioned in the law.

Ged

AND now Titus gave orders to the soldiers that were with him to dig up the foundations of Antonia, and make him an easy ascent for his army to come up; while he had Josephus brought to him - having learnt that on that day, which was the seventeenth day of Panemus, the sacrifice called "the continual Sacrifice" had ceased to be offered to God, for want of men [or for want of lambs], and that the people were terribly despondent about it...

[Josephus, War 6.93-94]

This seems the most likely candidate for the event that ws commemorated with an actual fast. All the other biblical events were surely associated with it later.

[Ged]

Thanks. It sounds like one of those "tack ons" from the post-captivity era.

[semiopen]

Actually the third month is Sivan.

Antiquities of the Jews — Book XIV - http://penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/ant-14.html

for although the city was taken on the third month, on the day of the fast,

Footnote -

That is, on the 23rd of Sivan, the annual fast for the defection and idolatry of Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin; or possibly some other fast might fall into that month, before and in the days of Josephus.

This is Ged's reference -

This destruction befel the city of Jerusalem when Marcus Agrippa and Caninius Gallus were consuls of Rome, (30) on the hundred eighty and fifth olympiad, on the third month, on the solemnity of the fast, as if a periodical revolution of calamities had returned, since that which befel the Jews under Pompey, for the Jews were taken by him on the same day, and this was after twenty-seven years time.

The footnote seems to assign a pretty stupid reason to fast over, even by the standards of that period.

The chapter 4 reference above also gives

Which thing when the Romans understood, on those days which we call Sabbaths, they threw nothing at the Jews, nor came to any pitched battle with them, but raised up their earthen banks, and brought their engines into such forwardness, that they might do execution the next days.

The Jews apparently, did not attack on Sabbath, which gave the clever Romans an advantage... really hard to believe.