Chronicles was most likely written or overseen by Ezra, which means that the correct priestly order was known after the return from Babylon. There's no reason not to believe that the courses were done in their proper order.
I'd have to look up the Talmudic reference, but to be blunt about it, Edersheim is ignoring basic geography: There may well have been flocks out and about in December--in the lowlands where it was warmer, if still rainy--but not that high up in the mountains, where runoff and the possibility of snow and ice (which are frequent in winter in Jerusalem) would risk unnecessary damage to flocks left wandering about.
Sorry, it still doesn't add up. Nice try, though.
And now, I really must get back to work.
Shalom.
Except for the historical references to the rabbis and Josephus.
I'd have to look up the Talmudic reference, but to be blunt about it, Edersheim is ignoring basic geography: … Sorry, it still doesn't add up. Nice try, though.
As I understand it Edersheim is essentially conveying the historical reality of that time wrt the flocks used to the sacrifices. While I don't necessarily accept the December timeframe in any authoritative way, I do find the typological suggestion of the shepherds coming to attend the true Lamb of God fascinating.
But recall Edersheim’s response in the footnote to this alleged issue:
954 The mean of 22 seasons in Jerusalem amounted to 4.718 inches in December, 5.479 in January, and 5.207 in February (see a very interesting paper by Dr. Chaplin in Quart. Stat. of Pal. Explor. Fund, January, 1883). For 1876-77 we have these startling figures: mean for December, .490; for January, 1.595; for February, 8.750 - and, similarly, in other years. And so we read: ‘Good the year in which Tebheth (December) is without rain’ (Taan. 6 b). Those who have copied Lightfoot’s quotations about the flocks not lying out during the winter months ought, at least, to have known that the reference in the Talmudic passages is expressly to the flocks which pastured in ‘the wilderness’ ({hebrew}). But even so, the statement, as so many others of the kind, is not accurate. For, in the Talmud two opinions are expressed. According to one, the ‘Midbariyoth,’ or ‘animals of the wilderness,’ are those which go to the open at the Passovertime, and return at the first rains (about November); while, on the other hand, Rabbi maintains, and, as it seems, more authoritatively, that the wilderness-flocks remain in the open alike in the hottest days and in the rainy season - i.e. all the year round (Bezah 40 a). Comp. also Tosephta Bezah iv. 6.