And even today the reasoning still stands, except that it applies only in exceptional circumstances?

Indeed. Thus we rule that a religious court may punish not according to the formal law. (Though even about this the halakhic decisors wrote — at least regarding corporal punishment — that it applies only to the leading religious court of the generation.) In truly exceptional circumstances there is the concept of a transgression for the sake of Heaven, and that is entrusted even to ordinary people.

And with “a time to act for the Lord” one also preserves transparency. No halakhic decisor should present it as Jewish law, but rather as a special dispensation under the rule of “a time to act for the Lord.”

I saw a Talmudic passage and it totally scrambled my mind, and presumably you’ve dealt with it. In Pesachim 27, the Talmud suggests in one answer that Samuel switched the wording of the Mishnah he quoted between Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi and the Sages so that they would rule like the Sages (that is, like the original Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi), because Samuel himself held like Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi!

Maybe that is because Samuel is also considered a tanna and can dispute them, and held that everyone can argue and think for themselves and isn’t forced to accept? Otherwise, where is the respect for their autonomy? What kind of thing is this? Maybe all through the Talmud Rav Ashi attributed his own views to Rav and Samuel, and also distorted the wording of a few Mishnayot as he went along, and presented some of his own reasonings as a law given to Moses at Sinai? Lying is fine, whether when a person thinks he is right (if that’s enough for himself then all the more so to mislead others), or as a wink, as a temporary ruling so they won’t get confused by the truth — but even to me it doesn’t make sense to do that for generations in a way that can never be discovered. And certainly not in the Mishnah, because your whole point is that a person shouldn’t just eat from the teacher’s mouth but should think independently. The Magen Avraham too presumably believed that when Tosafot wrote something in the name of Rabbenu Tam, and he tried to resolve contradictions in Rabbenu Tam and drew practical implications from that, he never imagined that someone in Tosafot had simply invented his own answer in Rabbenu Tam’s name so that people would accept it. Presumably hanging something on a great tree is only for something incidental and passing, and only when the person doing it is as certain of his own view as the sun at midday, and later on he will come back and reveal the truth, and when there are no side effects. Maybe Samuel relied on the fact that the correct version was well known and in the end people would discover that he had reversed it. Also in Hullin 111, in the Ritva you brought in the article on pluralistic Jewish law (“do not place a stumbling block” when one who thinks something is permitted serves it to one who thinks it is forbidden), it comes out that Samuel hung something on a great tree — Rav — so that the other person would accept it (Rav’s student).

Now I was thinking, in honor of the upcoming Purim, that maybe this explains the book Ha-Eshkol of Rabbi Tzvi Benjamin Auerbach. It is known that the Albecks proved conclusively — and others after them added more — that Rabbi Auerbach, author of Nahal Eshkol, forged Ha-Eshkol as if it were his own, stole and denied and placed it among his vessels. And everyone is astonished, since Rabbi Auerbach was known as a genius and a righteous man, and his descendants are distinguished. From this they came up with theories that some earlier anonymous person forged it, and the manuscripts somehow came to Rabbi Auerbach, and the manuscript was mistakenly buried away so the truth remained unknown — all this in an effort to vindicate the one presumed righteous from the start. Maybe Rabbi Auerbach, in his innocence and righteousness, was simply hanging something on a great tree in order to place it before the learner.

Regarding forged books, like Besamim Rosh and the Jerusalem Talmud on Kodashim, I wrote about that here on the site — whether the above-mentioned Magen Avraham really provides a basis for permission.

Here is one quotation I just found by searching for “Besamim,” and it is in column 21 on holy lies:

“The esoteric issue is a broad question that I did not enter into here. And so too the matter of hanging something on a great person. The clearest example in the Torah world is the forgery of the Jerusalem Talmud (and also somewhat the book Besamim Rosh). But the forgery of the Jerusalem Talmud is really a problem, since the Jerusalem Talmud is Talmud and therefore a source of authority. And according to my explanation it is forbidden to forge a source that one is genuinely obligated to accept what is written in it. Just as it would be forbidden to say something in the name of the Sanhedrin, since one is truly obligated to accept its words.”

And just to note that in the above-mentioned Pesachim 27, the Talmud itself suggests that Samuel forged a source of authority.