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Jerusalem Blade · #13 (**permalink**) 09-30-2006, 01:05 PM

LadyFlynt,

Here are some some passages I have excerpted from a discussion I had with Jewish apologists on the so-called Oral Law. I hope they edify; and I apologize if they are too lengthy -- I didn't have time to further edit them down.

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The terrible flaw of the so-called Oral Law -- the Torah she'baal'Peh -- is that its claim to have come from Moses, rather than its inception around the time of Ezra, is spurious and has the effect of giving the authority which rightfully belongs to God and His prophets to the scribes, rabbis and talmudists. As it stands in Rabbinic Judaism, the authority to decide what is of God and what not lies with the (ancient) Sanhedrin or the majority in a Beth Din. Such authority is vested in these arbiters of Halakha [a specific legal ruling, or Rabbinic legal material in general] that they could actually decide against a prophet sent from God, or even the Messiah. Not that this is a new thing in Israel, for after the rulers and scribes refused to humble themselves before God’s word through Jeremiah the prophet, and the chastenings of the LORD by king Nebuchadnezzar, He said through His inspired chronicler, "the LORD God of their fathers sent to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending, because He had compassion on His people, and on His dwelling place: but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised His words, and misused His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, till there was no remedy." (2 Chronicles 36:15,16) The people that belong to the Almighty who abide in modern Jewry will have ears to hear the plain sense of the things that are spoken by those proclaiming God’s word.

When a system of thought -- in this case rabbinic halakha, aka "talmudic theology" -- can supercede the Tanakh [Old Testament] in authority, you have the overthrow of the authority of God and His inspired messengers. This is how one defender of the "Oral Torah" in [an online discussion] typified the written Torah: "When Christianity...adopted the Torah without its Oral Tradition, they were left with a bare skeleton. That is what the written Torah is!"

One may caricature my position by likening it to the Karaites, but they fail to answer my arguments contra the alleged oral torah, demonstrating its falsity from Moses' certain words and the words of inspired Biblical authors.

There are those who assert: "Ezra, Nehamiah, Haggai and Malachi were among the Men of the Great Assembly who gave over that the Oral Torah was from Moshe Rabbeinu..."

But can anyone point to a place in the Book of God that supports this statement, or will one instead just use the circular (begging-the-question) reasoning of so many and resort back to the oral law, so called? If the oral law is its own support -- like the Traditions of the Roman Catholic organization -- that's but a clever legal maneuver to subvert the authority of the written law!

It was said by a Jew, “The reason most Jews ignore the literary prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel is a) we KNOW many are trained to deceive by using those texts so we ignore them; b) the message is for the most part a long winded bummer couched in overblown imagery, and c) it has little or no relevance to day to day living. Which is why Jews focus on Written Torah, Ketuviim, the Book of Jonah, and the Oral Torah..."

And I respond, the LORD our God put it this way to us of old: "And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live." (Deuteronomy 8:3) The prophets spoke the word of the LORD, and how is it that some so blithely dismiss both them and Him?

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On the Oral Law, so called.

When Moses died and God chose Joshua to lead the people, He told Joshua,

"Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law, which Moses My servant commanded you: do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may act wisely wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do all that is written in it: for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall act wisely." (Joshua 1:7,8)

No mention of an "Oral" law.

When Moses neared the end of his career as leader of Israel, he gave them a number of charges; periodically he uses words such as these almost as a formula: "If you will not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious name, The LORD Thy God; then the LORD will make your plagues remarkable..." (Deuteronomy 28:58,59) In the next chapter Moses says, "The secret things belong to the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." (29:29) In chapter 30 he declares to all Israel, "See, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil; in that I commanded you this day to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that you may live and multiply: and the LORD your God shall bless you in the land where you go to possess it....And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it to the priests the sons of Levi, which bore the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and to all the elders of Israel." (15,16; 31:9)

Again and again we find reference to the written law, upon which all the blessings and curses of the covenant devolve. When Israel faithfully and lovingly observes the written Law, she is blessed, when not, she is chastened; when she stiff-neckedly persists in spurning her God's word in the written Law, catastrophy befalls. There is no Oral Law going back to Moses. It is a legal device of the rabbinic school to wrest authority from the prophetic school, whose Chief is God.

Those times when Moses was required to inquire of the LORD concerning hard cases where the law did not specify judgment, those instances were written down. After the death of Moses counsel was to be sought of the high priest "after the judgment of Urim before the LORD..." (Numbers 27:21). Although how the Urim and the Thummim on the breastplate of the high priest was able give judgment and counsel to the children of Israel (Exodus 28:30) has not come down to us, we know that by this means the LORD was to be enquired of (1 Samuel 28:6; Ezra 2:63)

In the book of 2 Kings the inspired author writes, "But the LORD, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and a stretched out arm, Him shall you fear, and Him shall you worship, and to Him shall you do sacrifice. And the statutes, and the ordinances, and the law, and the commandment, which He wrote for you, you shall observe to do for evermore; and you shall not fear other gods." (17:36,37)

There are those who say Deut 30:11-14 refers to an oral law:

"For this commandment which I command you this day, it is not hidden from you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it to us, that we may hear it, and do it?' Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it to us, that we may hear it, and do it?' But the word is very near you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it."

Moses had recently charged the Levites to instruct the people in the law, stating a precept, and having the people "answer and say, 'Amen.'" The last of these precepts (in Deut 27:26) went as follows, "Cursed is he that does not confirm all the words of this law to do them. And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'"

It's a big stretch to assume that "in your mouth and in your heart" alludes to "Oral and Written Torah." The written Torah was in their mouths and hearts.

In fact, the context demands we understand the written commandments are what is being talked of: "If you shall listen to the voice of the LORD your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this book of the law...For this commandment...is not in heaven...but...in your mouth...and heart..." (verses 10, 11, 12, 14). It was something taught them, and in which they were catechized, according to Moses: "And these words, which I command you this day, shall be in your heart. And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up." (Deut 6:6,7)

Although in actuality, these verses are not used by the rabbinic school to prove the above wrong opinion, but a different halakhic rule, using the phrase "not in heaven" to mean, "The Torah has already been given us from Sinai. We are not to listen to a heavenly voice [i.e., in matters of halakhic decision]." –from Not In Heaven: The Nature and Function of Halakha," by Eliezer Berkovits (KTAV, 1983), pp 47, 48.

The talmudic rule expressed here, while of far greater weight than the former opinon, is also spurious, based on rabbinic fables in order to wrest power from the living God and His prophets (who indeed spoke a word from Heaven!) and to a majority in a Sanhedrin or Beth Din. Men would then decide halakha, and not God! This sort of thinking is that which has become the bane of the Jewish people.

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Sitting back and thinking about the state of the "discussion" awhile, here are some of my thoughts. I have sought to present a reasoned view, based on the Law, Writings, and Prophets -- the Tanakh -- of the authenticity of what I term Prophetic Judaism, and the spuriousness of Rabbinic or Halakhic Judaism. If I am impassioned in my presentations it is because this is no mere academic or religious dispute, but a fight to deliver my people, friends, and family from a spiritual darkness that death will not ease, but intensify. I realize mine is a small voice amidst the vastness of voices in modern Judaism, but if I do not speak, blood is on my hands. And the Lord's sheep will recognize that which is of Him, and awake to clarity.

Central to this "discussion" is the validity or invalidity of the Oral Law, so called. If it is validated, it supports the right of the Orthodox rabbis to decide what's what throughout all of Judaism: what the Scriptures mean, who is a Jew, the status of Yeshua of Nazareth, the basis of atonement apart from the Temple, the second-class status of the Reformed and some Conservative, etc etc. If the Oral Law is real, these rabbis run the show, because the Oral Law gives them that power.

My primary objections to the genuineness of the Oral Law are these: 1) It is nowhere attested to in Moses, the Prophets or the Writings, being conceived merely in human minds, based solely on human authority, and supported by nothing but circular reasoning (i.e., assuming what is yet to be proven); 2) The notorious failure of the Rabbinic school to shepherd the people of Israel in safety and prosperity these past two thousand years in their own land according to our covenant promises per Moses. (Those ignorant of the covenant stipulations are unprepared to participate in this dispute.)

In other words, the Oral Torah is a fiction, supporting a religious system and government that is born of rebellion against God, leading to centuries -- MILLENIA! -- of suffering, torment and destruction of our people. This is our story. What else to make of it? When I ask THIS question all I get are revilings of rabbinic defenders who have no reasoned response, and so depend on hackneyed name-calling. (And forget the Gentiles for a moment, this is an in-house matter!)

On the use of the phrase “oral law” instead of “oral torah”: Given that "torah" is rich in meanings, and may be translated law, instruction, teaching, decisions, etc, its replacement in English by the word law is accepted by the Jewish community, and is widely used instead of torah. For example, the Encyclopedia Judaica uses the term Oral Law rather than Oral Torah.

The presuppositions supporting Orthodox Judaism are based largely on tannaitic (i.e., Pharasaic, Rabbinic) evidence..." One author [Lawrence H. Schiffman, in Who Was A Jew? Rabbinic and Halakhic Perspectives on the Jewish-Christian Schism (NJ, KTAV, 1985] justifies this as follows, "...by the time Judaism and Christianity made their final break, it was the tannaitic tradition which was almost completely representative of the Jewish community in Palestine and, to a great extent, of that segment of the Diaspora which remained loyal to its ancestral faith." (p. 5) He elaborates on this "ancestral faith" later, when talking of converts to Rabbinic Judaism: "[the convert], like the people of ancient Israel, must accept not only the laws of the Torah, but also the Rabbinic interpretation or oral Law which, in the view of the tannaim, was given at Sinai as well." (p. 38)

Now it is this so-called "oral Law...given at Sinai" which forms the basis and foundation of the Talmud, and of the halakhah, the Jewish legal system that typifies Rabbinic Judaism.

But there is no evidence in the Hebrew Scriptures to support the existence of this "oral Law...given at Sinai," while there is ample evidence to refute it. The story of Josiah king of Judah is one such example. Having received the throne after his grandfather, Manasseh, and father, Amon (who was slain by his servants), Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and when he was sixteen he began to seek after God, and soon thereafter started to purge Judah and Jerusalem of its idol-worship, yet it was not until he was twenty-six (in approx 621 B.C.E.) that the book of the law of the LORD given by Moses was found hidden in the temple, and evidently lost a long time. When the young king heard the words of the law he rent his clothes, saying, "...great is the wrath of the LORD that is poured out upon us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the LORD, to do all that is written in this book." (2 Chronicles 34:19,21) God was pleased with Josiah for his tender and obedient heart.

It was the WRITTEN Law and not any fictitious oral law which renewed the king and the people before God. Listen to the Scripture: "And the king went up into the house of the LORD, and all the men of Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests, and the Levites, and all the people, great and small: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant that was found in the house of the LORD. And the king stood in his place, and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep His commandments, and His testimonies, and His statutes, with all his heart, and with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant which are written in this book." (v. 30,31)

Make no mistake, we recognize the oral tradition of commentary and exposition that began around the time of Ezra the priest and scribe, when he read from the book of the law before all the people, and those under Ezra's direction "caused the people to understand the law..." and "they read in the book of the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading." (Nehemiah 8:7,8) Down the generations this teaching was memorized in an unbroken tradition, with the rabbis of each generation adding their own interpretations.

By the time of Yeshua this oral tradition was vast, and not all of it in accord with the Scripture it was supposed to illumine. When Yeshua, whose Torah was to be the fulfilling and superceding of the Mosaic Torah, saw the violence done to Moses and the prophets, He critiqued and reproved the Pharisees, which earned Him their undying hatred, save for those among them whose hearts were open to His light. The B'rit Chadashah (New Covenant) tells the story of all these things, for those Jews reading this who are likewise open to Him who is the glory and crown of Israel.

This "oral tradition" and the Talmud of the rabbis, for all that may be meritorious in it, has been a bane to we Jews, for it keeps the people from the plain and fresh reading of the word of God. Such rabbis sound more like Roman Catholics than Jews, who must get their food from their priests and their understanding from the traditions of the Church! Jews are called "People of the Book," but most do not know the Book they are the people of, for a wall of rabbinic learning has been placed between them and their God, as though they were too "slow" to understand for themselves! And how many Jews know the urgent warning of Isaiah the Hebrew prophet, when he said, "The leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed." (Isaiah 9:16) Does one not think he spoke to such a time as this? (as this sort of time has been upon us often!)

Josiah needed no oral law, for there was nothing he needed but the law of the LORD in the Book.
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Steve

[Edited on 10-1-2006 by Jerusalem Blade]