The Jewish War, fit the eighth, covering Book VI
Thursday, August 16th, 2012 12:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
And now Titus gave orders to his soldiers that were with him to dig up the foundations of the tower of Antonia, and make him a ready passage for his army to come up; while he himself had Josephus brought to him, (for he had been informed that on that very day, which was the seventeenth day of Panemus, [the Macedonian month corresponding to Tammuz] the sacrifice called "the Daily Sacrifice" had failed, and had not been offered to God, for want of men to offer it, and that the people were grievously troubled at it,)
What we don't tend to remember nowadays is what followed next, which is Titus bringing Josephus to the edge of the Temple in order, as he had done previously during the siege of the city (whose wall was now breached) to try and get the Zealots in the Temple precints to surrender, to spare the city and the Temple.
Some of the citizens and chief priests agreed to surrender, but Josephus's speech merely inflamed the Zealots, who proclaimed to those within the Temple that the ones who had surrendered had been butchered, which spread fear until Titus heard of it and brought them back from where he had sent them, to dispel the rumour.
The other date we associate with this period is that the Destruction of the Temple, of course, the ninth of Av (VI.4):
So Titus retired into the tower of Antonia, and resolved to storm the temple the next day, early in the morning, with his whole army, and to encamp round about the holy house. But as for that house, God had, for certain, long ago doomed it to the fire; and now that fatal day was come, according to the revolution of ages; it was the tenth day of the month Lous [the Macedonian month corresponding to Av], upon which it was formerly burnt by the king of Babylon.Hang on a tick: the tenth of Av? Perhaps then it was the First Temple which was destroyed on the ninth of Av?
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?
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׃
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:
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: the fortress Antonia, next to the Temple, named for Mark Antony, and the three towers Herod built by today's Jaffa gate: Phasael (name after his brother who had committed suicide after being captured by the Persians), Mariamne (named after his wife whom he had killed) and Hippicus.
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
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Date: 2012-08-20 05:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 08:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 09:27 am (UTC)The shiur I attended was on Shavuot, and a large part of it was a discussion of dates, but Yom Kippur is named and dated in the Torah. Neither Shavout nor 9 Av derive their dates from the Torah. This is why I'm sure the link was between Shavuot and Tisha B'Av.
In the meantime, have a look at this, which does point out some interesting links between the two days (none of which have anything to do with the Chief's shiur):
http://torahinmotion.org.c1.previewmysite.com/articles_dvarim/divrei_torah/archives/shavuot_bash.htm
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Date: 2012-08-21 09:31 am (UTC)