An argument ensues on today’s daf TB Megillah 10 whether Jerusalem’s sanctity is eternal or limited to when the Temple stands. The preponderance of rabbinic opinion is that Jerusalem sanctity is eternal; consequently, once the Temple was destroyed the sacrificial cult ended, only to be restored when the Third Temple is built. Orthodox Jews still pray today for the rebuilding of the Temple and the restoration of sacrifices.
History is much more complicated. I
can cite three different Jewish temples outside of Jerusalem before and after
the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple during the Second Temple Period. As
proof that Jerusalem’s sanctity is not eternal, we learn in today’s daf about the
temple of Onias located in Egypt. “Rabbi Yitzḥak
said: I heard that one sacrifices offerings in the temple of Onias in Egypt at the present
time. The Gemara cites the basis for the statement of Rabbi Yitzḥak. He
maintains that the temple of Onias
is not a house of idol worship but rather a temple devoted to the service
of God, and he maintains that the initial consecration sanctified
Jerusalem for its time and did not sanctify Jerusalem forever.
Therefore, after the destruction of the Temple, the sanctity of Jerusalem
lapsed and the sacrifice of offerings elsewhere was no longer prohibited. For
these reasons it was permitted to sacrifice offerings in the temple of Onias after the Temple was destroyed.” (Sefaria.org translation)
“TEMPLE OF
ONIAS, temple of the Hellenistic and Roman period
established in Egypt for Jewish worship and sacrifice. Its location is given by
Josephus as being in the district of Heliopolis, where it was built over an
earlier ruined temple to Bubastis, the lioness-goddess; hence the area's other
name Leontopolis. It was established for the worship of "God the most
High," as that at Jerusalem (Ant., 13:62–68). The location is presumed to
be at Tel el-Yehudiyah (Mound of the Jewess), the name serving as a clue to its
identity. It was first investigated by E. Naville in 1887 and in more detail by
Flinders Petrie in 1905. The site is part of an earlier Hyksos encampment
outside the present town of Shirban el-Qanatir, 25 km. north of Cairo. Petrie
found a towered structure beside a small temple-like enclosure, accessed by a
long staircase and surrounded by a mudbrick wall, triangular in plan. He showed
a model of his finds to a meeting of the Jewish Community in London in 1906,
but the model has since disappeared. The location in Egypt has been visited by
a number of archaeologists, including the writer, who have been unable to
confirm Petrie's findings, though it is clear that the alleged site is close to
a necropolis of Jewish burials in the area known as Leontopolis.
The temple
is mentioned several times by Josephus and twice in some detail, but each time
differently. He describes it first as being modeled on the Temple of Jerusalem
(Ant., 13:72), while the second time he says it was built like a fortress in
the form of a tower 60 cubits high, unlike Jerusalem (Wars, 7:426–432). It is
presumed that the second description is a correction of the first. Josephus claims
that it stood for 343 years (ibid., 436), but this is unlikely; 243 years would
be nearer the mark. It was destroyed in 73 C.E. on the orders of
Titus or Vespasian (ibid., 421), who feared that it might become the focus of
further revolt after the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. At
the earliest it could have been built in 170 B.C.E., shortly before
the Hasmonean Revolt, because it is always referred to as the Temple of
Onias (Ḥonia in Hebrew). There are two candidates for that
honor, *Onias III (son of Simon II, the Just), who was
high priest some time after 200 B.C.E., or his
son *Onias IV. It is generally accepted that the earlier Onias, who
was ousted by his Hellenizing brother Jason, was murdered in Antioch (II Macc.
4:34), so Onias IV is the more likely candidate. When he saw that his
legitimate right to the High Priesthood had been usurped by the Hellenistic
party, friendly to the Seleucids, Onias set up a rival sanctuary in Egypt,
under the protection of their enemies, the Ptolemies.
It is
unlikely that he did this to serve the Jews of Egypt as a whole, who may have
had some difficulty in reaching Jerusalem under the Seleucids, as the
temple is never mentioned by Philo or other Judeo-Egyptian sources; nor was it
located in or near Alexandria, the chief center of Egyptian Jewry. It is more
likely that the temple served a military colony under the direction of this
Onias, acting in the capacity of an officer willing to bring manpower and
troops over to Ptolemy VI Philometor and his queen, Cleopatra II.
Josephus records that two sons of Onias acted as generals in assisting
Cleopatra in her fight against her son Ptolemy Lathyrus (Ant., 13:285–287 and
348–349).” (https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/onias-temple-of)
The Temple
of Onias was not the only Jewish Temple outside of Jerusalem. There was a
Jewish settlement of mercenaries at the border station of Syrene/Yeb during the
fifth century BCE. We know about it from the Elephantine papyri. There was a
temple dedicated to the Hebrew God Yahu (YHW, a variant form of YHWH) Titus in
the year 73 CE also destroyed this temple lest it become a focal point for the
Jewish revolt after he razed the Jerusalem Temple.
“Although
Jedaniah (the Jewish community leader at Elephantine-gg) represented his Elephantine
temple as a regular Jewish sanctuary, just like the Jerusalem Temple, scholars
have tended to regard the cult of Yahu as a synchronistic mixture of Yahwism
and Canaanite (especially north and Canaanite) cults of Bethel, Anat-Bethel, Eshem,
Eshem-Bethel, Herem-Bethel, and Anat-YHW. This is because the names of these
deities or refer to in judicial oaths and salutations used by Jews in the Elephantine
documents. Accordingly, a northern, Israelite origin of these colonists has
been suggested. Porten, on the other hand, contends that ‘the evidence for
synchronistic communal cult of the Jewish deity dissipates upon closer
inspection’ (although ‘individual Jewish contact with paganism remains’).
According to Porten, the temple was established by priests from Jerusalem were
gone into self-imposed exile in Egypt during the reign of King Manasseh (c. 650
BCE) to establish a pure Yahwistic temple there.” (Ancient Israel,
edited by Herschel Shanks, “Exile in return: from the Babylonian destruction to
the reconstruction of the Jewish state by James D Purvis, revised by Eric M.
Meyers, page 215)
The Dead Sea
sect built the third Jewish temple outside of Jerusalem. I remembered from my
days at JTS, that the Dead Sea sect also offered up sacrifices there because
they believed that the Jerusalem Temple sacrificial cult had been corrupted
since it did not follow their understanding of Jewish law. I found this
abstract that corroborated my memory. “ABSTRACT Claudia E.
Epley: Sacrificial Cult at Qumran? An Evaluation of the Evidence in the Context
of Other Alternate Jewish Practices in the Late Second Temple Period (Under the
direction of Donald C. Haggis) This thesis reexamines the evidence for Jewish
sacrificial cult at the site of Khirbet Qumran, the site of the Dead Sea
Scrolls, in the first centuries BCE and CE. The interpretation of the animal
remains discovered at the site during the excavations conducted by Roland de
Vaux and subsequent projects has long been that these bones are refuse from the
“pure” meals eaten by the sect, as documented in various documents among the
Dead Sea Scrolls. However, recent scholarship has revisited the possibility
that the sect residing at Qumran conducted their own animal sacrifices separate
from the Jerusalem temple. This thesis argues for the likelihood of a
sacrificial cult at Qumran as evidenced by the animal remains, comparable
sacrificial practices throughout the Mediterranean, contemporary literary
works, and the existence of the Jewish temple at Leontopolis in lower Egypt
that existed at the same time that the sect resided at Qumran.” (Downloads/Epley_unc_0153M_19413%20(1).pdf)
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