John2 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 11, 2019 3:44 pm
Ben,
Regarding your OP, I agree that M. Eduyot 8:6 "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," but it at least indicates that it was halachically permissible for Jews to offer sacrifices on the Temple Mount after 70 CE.
I agree it leaves the possibility open.
Regarding pseudo-Philo, the only thing that comes to mind is that the expression "even unto this day" is used fairly often in the OT and refers to the time a particular text was written. Could Pseudo-Philo simply be repeating what the OT says in his rewrite of it and not meaning it as a reference to his own time?
That is an interesting idea, but pseudo-Philo says that it was at Gilgal that Jesus/Joshua appointed the burnt offerings even "to this day," and I am not sure which OT instance of "to this day" this line might be rewriting. Joshua 5.9 talks about Gilgal still bearing that name "to this day," but that is a completely different thing.
Another interesting use of "unto this day" can be found elsewhere:
Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities 26.15: 15 And so saying, he took the stones from the place where they were laid, and as he took them there was as it were the light of the sun poured out upon them, and the earth shone with their light. And Cenez put them in the ark of the covenant of the Lord with the tables as it was commanded him, and there they are unto this day [usque in hodiernum diem].
Taken at face value, this would suggest that the text was written before Babylon destroyed the
First Temple! But
M. R. James reminds us of the legend of the fate of the ark:
2 Maccabees 2.1-8: One finds in the records that Jeremiah the prophet ordered those who were being deported to take some of the fire, as has been told, 2 and that the prophet after giving them the law instructed those who were being deported not to forget the commandments of the Lord, nor to be led astray in their thoughts upon seeing the gold and silver statues and their adornment. 3 And with other similar words he exhorted them that the law should not depart from their hearts. 4 It was also in the writing that the prophet, having received an oracle, ordered that the tent and the ark should follow with him, and that he went out to the mountain where Moses had gone up and had seen the inheritance of God. 5 And Jeremiah came and found a cave, and he brought there the tent and the ark and the altar of incense, and he sealed up the entrance. 6 Some of those who followed him came up to mark the way, but could not find it. 7 When Jeremiah learned of it, he rebuked them and declared: “The place shall be unknown until God gathers his people together again and shows his mercy. 8 And then the Lord will disclose these things, and the glory of the Lord and the cloud will appear, as they were shown in the case of Moses, and as Solomon asked that the place should be specially consecrated.”
At any rate, it looks to me as if pseudo-Philo is writing his own "to this day" references and not copying them from scripture, at least not slavishly.