In Luke 21:20 we have other details of this predicted overthrow of the city and the Temple. There Jesus adds, "But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near." Forty years later the Roman armies under Titus came in and fulfilled the prediction to the very letter. With Titus was a Jewish historian named Josephus who recorded the terrible story in minute detail. It was one of the most ghastly sieges in all history. When the Romans came the city was divided among three warring factions of Jews who were so at each others' throats that they paid no heed to the approach of the Romans. Thus Titus came up and surrounded the city while it was distracted by its own internecine warfare. The Romans assaulted the walls again and again, and gave every opportunity to the Jews to surrender and save their capital from destruction.
During the long siege a terrible famine raged in the city and the bodies of the inhabitants were literally stacked like cordwood in the streets. Mothers ate their children to preserve their own strength. The toll of Jewish suffering was horrible but they would not surrender the city. Again and again they attempted to trick the Romans through guile and perfidy. When at last the walls were breached Titus tried to preserve the Temple by giving orders to his soldiers not to destroy or burn it. But the anger of the soldiers against the Jews was so intense that, maddened by the resistance they encountered, they disobeyed the order of their general and set fire to the Temple. There were great quantities of gold and silver there which had been placed in the Temple for safekeeping. This melted and ran down between the rocks and into the cracks of the stones. When the soldiers captured the Temple area, in their greed to obtain this gold and silver they took long bars and pried apart the massive stones. Thus, quite literally, not one stone was left standing upon another. The Temple itself was totally destroyed, though the wall supporting the area upon which the Temple was built was left partially intact and a portion of it remains to this day, called the Western Wall.
One of the obvious effects of the destruction was that Israel no longer had a temple, or a corporate (national) place where sacrificial offerings for atonement could be held. I have wondered why then the Jewish sacrificial system stopped? Why wouldn't it continue in another location or locations where significant numbers of Jews would eventually gather?
One of the resources that I frequent is a website about Judiasm. It has a great feature that has been helpful to me called "ask the Rabbi" where (after registration) you can submit questions and receive answers from a Rabbi. They have just created a site where frequently asked questions and their response are posted for quick reference. Here's an entry from November 22, 2005 that addresses my very question:
What do we do about sacrifices when there is no Temple?
Since the Temple was built, it has not been permissible to offer sacrifices elsewhere; see Deut.12:13-14. When there was a Temple, people who lived far away from it used to make pilgrimages to Jerusalem on the holidays, or at least once a year, to offer any sacrifices that they owed. When there is no Temple we have no way of fulfilling any of the Commandments associated with the sacrifices. But we aren’t punished for our failure to do so, because the lack of a Temple isn’t our fault as individuals (though it certainly is our fault collectively).
Here is the text of Deuteronomy 12:13-14 (NIV) : Be careful not to sacrifice your burnt offerings anywhere you please. Offer them only at the place the LORD will choose in one of your tribes, and there observe everything I command you.
