I have enjoyed your page on Messianic Expectations.I replied:I am looking for the Talmudic references to the mystery of the Temple doors that opened 40 years before 70 AD Destruction of Jerusalem.
Also Josephus describes the same or similar event.
Any references????
well, I am a year late...and with only HALF the answer...I cannot find a Josephus ref to this, but b. Yoma 39b reads:
"Our masters taught: During the forty years preceding the destruction of the Temple, the lot "For the Lord" did not come up in the high priest's right hand, nor did the crimson strand turn white, nor did the westernmost lamp burn continually. And the doors of the Temple Hall would open by themselves, until Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai reprimanded them, saying "Temple Hall, Temple Hall, why do you yourself keep sounding the alarm? I already know about you, that you are to be destroyed, for long ago Zechariah, a descendant of Iddo, prophesied to you, 'Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars'" (Zech 11.1).