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JUDY: Sorry I've been absent a couple of
days with appointments so wasn't able to get back to this thread Slade.
SLADE: That's alright. For a minute, I though you
may have understood me. Sadly, I was wrong.
JUDY: Below is one of the points I have been
trying to get across but this Messianic Jewish person says it so much more
eloquently: It's not about Hebrew or Greek mindsets and it's not about dividing
spirit, soul, and body. Basically it is about the truth of God's Word.... and
this is where we disagree .. Can you see this Slade?
SLADE: No, I do not "see" it. Your friend is just
one of many factions who call themselves "Messianic Judaism." Since she sees
worldview has nothing to do with "it," this proves she doesn't know of what she
speaks. I'm sure you'll feel more comfortable with her explanation [than with
mine] because the philosophy you have brought forward proves she's more
Christian than Jewish. One thing is true and I want you to know I realize this
fact... both you and I seek the Truth of God's Word and we both seek the face of
Messiah. You do it within your cultural bias, and I do within mine. I am not
saying the Hebraic mindset is the only way to Truth because the Hellenistic
mindset has many truths within it as well. They [the two mindsets] are merely
and severely different and I was trying to help you understand some difficult
passages by explaining them within their Hebraic context.
JUDY: Jesus was talking about the Rabbinic
teaching when he referred to Corban.
SLADE: Yeshua was speaking of Corban when He
spoke of Corban. I want you/her to understand that what you/she indicted me of
is a false accusation. You have absolutely no clue what I have been speaking of
when I say the Hebrews have an oral tradition as opposed to a culture that must
write everything down. When I say Torah is memorized and orally passed down from
father to son I mean Genesis through Deuteronomy is memorized and passed from
father to son.
JUDY'S FRIEND:
As Messianic Jews, we do not agree with this foundational principle of Rabbinic
Judaism. To us the written Word is authoritative, not Oral Torah. We don't
accept it as binding. In fact, we do not believe that it was given to Moses at
Mt. Sinai.
SLADE: Never have you
ever heard slade say that the Oral Torah came from the Mountain. You once again
see one thing when I speak something completely different. You are incapable of
understanding me and I accept this fact and after this email, I will waste your
time no more. [As a side note, no Rabbi believes, when you nail them down, that
the whole of the Oral Tradition has been passed from Moses. Do you find this
surprising? Pirkei Avot 1:1 speak of the passing down of TORAH from Sinai...
"Moshe received Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua; Joshua to the
Elders; the Elders to the Prophets; and the Prophets transmitted it to the Men
of the Great Assembly. They [the Men of the Great Assembly] said three things:
Be diligent in judgment, develop many disciples, and make a fence for Torah." In
that verse, do you hear anything about "Traditions" coming from
Sinai???
JUDY'S
FRIEND: This does not mean there are not some good things we can glean
from these writings, but they cannot and should not carry the same weight as the
written Word...
SLADE:
Never once did I say the Oral Torah carries the same weight as the Written
Torah. No one... not even a SINGLE Rabbi that I know... believes
this.
JUDY'S FRIEND: ...And certainly are not a
source of spiritual enlightenment and guidance
SLADE: Oh, I see. The writings of Luther,
Couller, Barth, and Greene are spiritually enlightenment and guidance, but not
the Rabbis? Preposterous.
JUDY'S
FRIEND: What do we base this on? Several scriptures tell us that Moses
wrote down what God spoke to him. Deuteronomy 31.9 "So Moses wrote down this
law." Deuteronomy 31.24 "After Moses finished writing in a book the words of
this law from beginning to end." In other words, he wrote it all down. Other
Scriptures tell us not to add to what has been written (see Deuteronomy 4.2 and
Revelation 22.18).
SLADE: No one
(slade nor any Rabbi) has added to Scripture. Again, a fallacy -- a preconceived
and irrational notion given the rank of truth.
JUDY'S FRIEND: Also, there is never any mention
or allusion to an oral law. In fact, God is always giving us instruction to be
careful to observe the things written in the book of the Law. (See Joshua 1.7,8
and Joshua 23.6).
SLADE: False.
Ezra and the Scribes gave the sense of the meaning of the text, indicating that
something was "missing" that required further study to fully understand. Moshe
and the Elders also sat in judgment over the Children of Israel. We have the
same problem today. No one understands emphatically everything in Scripture. We
use the "traditions" of other men to help us understand the meaning in the text.
Same principle for the Jewish person as the Christian person, and both sources
of information can be very spiritually enlightening and full of guidance...
guidance that Scripture alone cannot provide.
JUDY'S FRIEND: Furthermore, when King Josiah
finds the written Torah (2 Chronicles 34) it is something that the people had no
knowledge of. It had been lost to them.
SLADE: Sadly, your friend denies the existence of
The Remnant.
JUDY'S FRIEND:
If you were to believe in the transmitting of the oral law, then it would have
had to have been transmitted to the sages of Josiah's day. If they knew of the
oral law, they would have had to have known of the written law because according
to Rabbinic Judaism the one is incomplete without the other. The oral law
expounds the written law. Again, this would mean Josiah and his people would
have had to have recognized this written law as what had been transmitted
orally. Again, there is no proof that oral law was given at Sinai. Even Jewish
scholars state, as quoted earlier, that we do not hear of this oral law until
the time of Yochanan ben Zakkai, Akiba, Judah, etc., hundreds of years after
Moses.
SLADE: I have no
problem here. I do not believe the Traditions of the Elders [Oral Torah] came
from Sinai. However, Oral Traditions began AS EARLY AS the Great Assembly during
the time of Ezra. It might be possible to trace it back into the Babylonian
exile, but that might be pushing things.
DEFINITIONS:
Oral Torah: The
commentary on the whole of the Older Testament
Oral
Transmission: Passing information from one person to another from mouth
to ear. A culture whose information is passed in oral transmission rely on
memorization of huge amounts of information. In order to "bring the words back,"
someone merely needs to recite the first few words and the rest of the text
comes to mind. I give a few examples within our own culture: "Hey diddle
diddle..." "Love love me do..." "Love me tender..." "For God
so loved..." "In the beginning..." "Jack and
Jill..."
Remnant: That perpetually existent yet small
group of people whom are the "true believers"
Torah: The first five books of the
Bible
Traditions of the Elders: [See "Oral
Torah"]
Written
Torah: [See "Torah"]
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