Answer:
The wording of one version of the Eighteen Benedictions, which is preserved in a Geniza fragment (T-S K27.33b), appears to assume that the Temple is still standing, in two lines which are usually not printed. Other features of this version also suggest that it preserves wording which originates from the Second Temple period. It also includes the curse of the Minim which is traditionally regarded as a Jabnean addition, but there is evidence that the curse had an earlier origin, and the wording of the curse is found to be a criticism of the Sadducean priesthood.
Explanation:
Dr. K. KOHLER, President Emeritus Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati
AFTER > from Zunz ALL to that Elbogen has been on written the date by and the various the form scholars of the > from Zunz to Elbogen on the date and the form of the
Eighteen resp. Nineteen Benedictions , a careful study of the
subject makes us feel that the last words have not been spoken.
Nor does Elbogen's recent work, „Der jüdische Gottesdienst
in seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung", 191 3, satisfy us. Too
many of his theories are arbitrary assumptions and corrections
rather than historical elucidations of the facts recorded in the
traditional sources, though his "Studies" have cast new light
upon the composition in general. He starts, in fact, on p. 28,
with the fundamental error of confounding the "arrangement"
( hisdir ) of the Eighteen Benedictions before Gamaliel II by
Simeon of Phakola (ha Pekuli1) with their original "institution"
( Thiknu ), ascribed by Talmudic traditions - as recorded by
R. Johanan, the most trustworthy traditionalist - to the Men
of the Great Synagogue, the 120 Elders who, in the opinion
of the Rabbis, constituted the Great Assembly convoked by
Ezra and Nehemiah (see Ber . 33 a, Meg. 17b and Jer . Ber . 114,
p. 45 where R. Jeremiah is a clerical error for R. Johanan).
1 See I. Klein in Monatssch. (1920), i<J5, who refers to Josephus Ant .
XII. 42 for the name of the town, and rejects the usual translation : "flax
