Interesting what if we try to get column names in the query using dbms_sql.describe procedure we can see three similar name "time_stamp" and "id":
SQL> declare
2 c int;
3 clm dbms_sql.DESC_TAB;
4 c_n int;
5 begin
6 c := dbms_sql.open_cursor;
7 dbms_sql.parse(c => c
8 , statement => 'SELECT * FROM ( SELECT * '||
9 'FROM table3 tbl3 JOIN table2 tbl2 ON tbl3.table2_id = tbl2.id '||
10 'JOIN table1 tbl1 ON tbl2.table1_id = tbl1.id WHERE tbl2.col2 = ''SOME_CODE'''||
11 ' AND tbl1.col1 = ''SOME_CODE''' ||
12 ' AND tbl3.time_stamp > TO_DATE(''20130901'',''YYYYMMDD'')) where time_stamp < sysdate'
13 , language_flag => dbms_sql.native);
14 dbms_sql.describe_columns(c => c
15 , col_cnt => c_n
16 , desc_t => clm
17 );
18 for i in 1..c_n loop
19 dbms_output.put_line(clm(i).col_name);
20 end loop;
21 dbms_sql.close_cursor(c);
22 end;
23 /
ID
TIME_STAMP
TABLE2_ID
COL3
ID
TIME_STAMP
TABLE1_ID
COL2
ID
TIME_STAMP
But if you come from JOIN syntax to joins in WHERE clause you can get ORA-00918:
SQL> SELECT * FROM (
2 SELECT *
3 FROM table3 tbl3
4 , table2 tbl2
5 , table1 tbl1
6 WHERE tbl2.col2 = 'SOME_CODE'
7 AND tbl1.col1 = 'SOME_CODE'
8 AND tbl3.time_stamp > TO_DATE('20130901','YYYYMMDD')
9 AND tbl3.table2_id = tbl2.id
10 AND tbl2.table1_id = tbl1.id
11 )
12 where time_stamp < sysdate
13 /
where time_stamp < sysdate
*
error in line 12:
ORA-00918: column ambiguously defined
So seems it's just one of the many bugs coming from JOIN syntax.