German update

Here's how my German is after three weeks of German lessons here (following a year and a half of trying to teach myself from a book at home):

lethargic_man:	"Entschuldigung. Wo gibt es Studentenfutter, bitte?"
Supermarket staff:	"剩下的很可能會成為在中國的語言 Obst und Gemüse， 為所有我可以 Seite 告訴大家."
lethargic_man:	"Danke."

The rest may as well be in Chinese, for all I can understand at the speed she speaks it. I head off, hoping desperately I picked up all the key words and didn't miss a "nicht" or something in there, and successfully locate the nuts and raisins ("student fodder" in German) to the side of the fruit and vegetables.

That's the best-case scenario. The more common alternative is that I'm still trying to parse what they said, when they interpret my blank look as incomprehension and repeat it in English.

I need to learn to say "Wieder, langsämer langsamer, bitte: mein Deutsch ist noch nicht so gut" before they get to that point.

The Jewish War, fit the eighth, covering Book VI

Here is the basis for one of the things we mourn on the minor fast of the seventeenth of Tammuz (VI.2) ( Read more... )

The other date we associate with this period is that the Destruction of the Temple, of course, the ninth of Av (VI.4):

( Read more... )

Hang on a tick: the tenth of Av? Perhaps then it was the First Temple which was destroyed on the ninth of Av?

2 Kings 25:8-9	מלכים ב כה ח-ט
And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which is the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, unto Jerusalem: And he burnt the house of the LORD, and the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great man's house burnt he with fire.	וּבַחֹדֶשׁ הַחֲמִישִׁי בְּשִׁבְעָה לַחֹדֶשׁ הִיא שְׁנַת תְּשַׁע־עֶשְׂרֵה שָׁנָה לַמֶּלֶךְ נְבֻכַדְנֶאצַּר מֶלֶךְ־בָּבֶל בָּא נְבוּזַרְאֲדָן רַב־טַבָּחִים עֶבֶד מֶלֶךְ־בָּבֶל יְרוּשָׁלִָם׃ וַיִּשְׂרֹף אֶת־בֵּית־ה׳ וְאֶת־בֵּית הַמֶּלֶךְ וְאֵת כָּל־בָּתֵּי יְרוּשָׁלִַם וְאֶת־כָּל־בֵּית גָּדוֹל שָׂרַף בָּאֵשׁ׃

Maybe not, then: The Book of Kings seems to claim it was the seventh of Av. But Jeremiah also wrote an account of that. What date does he give?

Jeremiah 52:12-13	ירמיהו נב יב-יג
Now in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, which served the king of Babylon, into Jerusalem, And burned the house of the LORD, and the king's house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, and all the houses of the great men, burned he with fire:	וּבַחֹדֶשׁ הַחֲמִישִׁי בֶּעָשׂוֹר לַחֹדֶשׁ הִיא שְׁנַת תְּשַׁע־עֶשְׂרֵה שָׁנָה לַמֶּלֶךְ נְבוּכַדְרֶאצַּר מֶלֶךְ־בָּבֶל בָּא נְבוּזַרְאֲדָן רַב־טַבָּחִים עָמַד לִפְנֵי מֶלֶךְ־בָּבֶל בִּירוּשָׁלִָם׃ וַיִּשְׂרֹף אֶת־בֵּית־ה׳ וְאֶת־בֵּית הַמֶּלֶךְ וְאֵת כָּל־בָּתֵּי יְרוּשָׁלִַם וְאֶת־כָּל־בֵּית הַגָּדוֹל שָׂרַף בָּאֵשׁ׃

He says it was the tenth! So where on earth does the traditional date of the ninth come from? I've heard the rabbis of the Talmud said Jeremiah was so upset at the Destruction he put the wrong date down, but that's no answer to satisfy me! This page pointed me at the Talmud's answer:

Taanit 29a	א כט תענית
How then are these dates to be reconciled? ( Read more... )	ותניא אי אפשר לומר בשבעה שהרי כבר נאמר בעשור ואי אפשר לומר בעשור שהרי כבר נאמר בשבעה׃ ( Read more... )

My feelings are with Rabbi Yoḥānān on this issue.

Of course, it's not only the Temple that was destroyed in these fateful days; it's heartbreaking also to read of the destruction of the towers that had for so long marked the Jerusalem skyline: ( Read more... )

As I mentioned in my review, Josephus has the brand that set the Temple alight hurled by a soldier in defiance of Titus's wishes, and Titus then try and have the flames put out, only for his orders to go unheard in the hurly-burly. He concludes (VI.4):

And thus was the holy house burnt down, without Caesar's approbation.

I'm of the opinion, however, that Titus was at the absolute least concupiscent in the destruction of the Temple; Josephus lies here, because Titus is his patron by the time he's writing this, and he can't risk offending him.

Afterwards (VI.6):

All the soldiers had such vast quantities of the spoils which they had gotten by plunder, that in Syria a pound weight of gold was sold for half its former value.

The Colosseum in Rome was built with the proceeds from the plunder of Judaea. That building is a monument to the death and exile of countless Jews and the wrecking of their homeland, and it makes me very angry to walk into it nowadays and see a big crucifix commemorating the Christian martyrs whose death their at the hands of wild beasts there is not a shred of evidence for. (There is in other amphitheatres, but not the Colosseum).

Josephus notes         Jewish learning notes index