JFJ Forums

Thanks for helping. But I asked a rabbi, "Who wrote the Talmud?" He said, "the rabbis, Rabbinical Judaism" Again, I explained to him, "Did you know that the Pharisees and the Sadducees became Rabbinical Judaism? So the Pharisees already met Jesus Christ but the Pharisees rejected him. Obviously, the Pharisees become Rabbinical Judaism." He said, "No, the Pharisees and the Sadducees are not Rabbinical Judaism. They were with Jesus Christ and they don't follow Moses' laws while the rabbis followed Moses' laws." I puzzled, is he right to explain?

Simple....A Torah scroll, like any other scroll in the Prophets and Writings, is written on parchment without vowel-pointers or cantillation marks.
This means that in order to read it you have to know how to pronounce it, before hand.  This is and was how Jews have the text of the Tanakh.  If you pronounce the word differently you change the meaning of the words.

So how do you know how to pronounce it?  an Oral Tradition tells you how.  in the Middle of the 10th Century CE, this was formalized into a standard system as we have it today called the Ben Asher system.  It should be noted that all Ben Asher did was simply take the traditional way of pronouncing the text and represent it with a standard set of signs and symbols.  (before then, the system of representation was not standard, but the way to pronounce it was)

When you read a Hebrew Tanakh, you will read the text, with these signs and pointers to tell you how to read the text correctly.  If you wish to follow your own system, you will find it difficult to comprehend the text.  Since there is very little indication of how to pronounce it.  There are a large set of different combinations.

when Jerome, the authors of the Septuagint, Luther, Tyndale and the rest of Christian translators, saw the Hebrew text, they saw the text with the vowel pointers already in the text, if they did not, they would be unable to read it, never mind translate it.

Today, any Christian scholar, when he opens up a Hebrew text, will see these in any Hebrew text.  This will enable him to understand the text.
Without such guidance and explanation, he will be unable to understand the text.

Danny.

Danny,

You are giving false information not just here but in other posts also.

The Talmud is a Rabbinic compilation of Oral tradition concerning the Torah.


Septuagint - What is It?
Septuagint (sometimes abbreviated LXX) is the name given to the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures. The Septuagint has its origin in Alexandria, Egypt and was translated between 300-200 BC. Widely used among Hellenistic Jews, this Greek translation was produced because many Jews spread throughout the empire were beginning to lose their Hebrew language. The process of translating the Hebrew to Greek also gave many non-Jews a glimpse into Judaism. According to an ancient document called the Letter of Aristeas, it is believed that 70 to 72 Jewish scholars were commissioned during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus to carry out the task of translation. The term “Septuagint” means seventy in Latin, and the text is so named to the credit of these 70 scholars.

cor517, as you probably are aware, I'm Jewish, Orthodox, and don't believe in Jesus.

That said, the information I present is contrary to most Christians' world-view and belief system.  It is then a fair estimation to assume that what I say is going to be in conflict with that.  That however does not mean what I say is false.

cor517, have you even read the Talmud?
How do you know what is false and what isn't.  Please provide sources for your assertions before you accuse me of giving false information.  

1.  Have you read Jellicoe's excellent work on the Septuagint?
2.  Did you know that most scholars dispute the authenticity of the Letter of Aristeas.
3.  The Septuagint translated in about 250 BCE was of the Five books of Moses alone.  
4.  the Septuagint we have today is not remotely like the original one, it contains a number of recensions and redactions, mostly made by Christian Monks, to support the Christian position.
5.  There are a number of Greek translations made in the period most notably: Aquilla, Theodotion and Symmachus.  All have had an effect on the Septuagint in some way.  Scholars now talk about a Composite Greek Text, rather than a single uniform text.

Jellicoe is recognized as one of the world's leading experts on Septuagint Orthography.

As you are probably aware, you have been giving the differences between
the vowel strokes of the masoretic text, of which you have been corrected. The vowel points were added by Jewish scholars. I have a copy of the  Torah written by the Jewish publication society. Sorry, Danny.

I believe in Y'shua. You discount the New Testament, therefore in my terms you are an Anti-missionary. You have yet to convince me against the New Testament and that the prophecies contained in the Old Testament were not fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

And how does the JPS, know the information?  What is the research and logic that they are basing themselves upon?

1.  The logic is fundamentally flawed.
2.   Your implications are, that for 3000 years, there were no vowel pointers in Hebrew, and suddenly, one day, the Masoretes woke up and decided to add in dots to the letters.  You're telling me that Moses called Israel the land of fat and honey, and then one day, someone decided, that doesn't sound right, and that they changed it to milk and honey. (Exo 3:8)

I would just like to know, how come every manuscript in the world, from the Septuagint to the most ancient DSS, all have milk and honey?  If the Masoretes changed things....how come they made notes of all the variants they found, how come the manuscript evidence supports their readings?

I would just like to point out, that your basis for relying on an introduction to the JPS (a heavily criticized translation), is not scholarly.

3.  You have not answered my critique of the Septuagint.  Why is that? I guess you must still be reading Jellicoe's work.



Now you're shifting the burden of proof.

1. Christianity is the new religion on the block, making claims for Jesus, you have to prove the case for Jesus.
2. I have shown quite reasonably, that in the entire thread of Jesus the Messiah?  no-one has seriously attacked Ezekiel 37, but rather, simply thrown the answer at the great-trash can of the 'second coming thesis'.
3. You see, anyone can be the messiah according to Christian criteria.
4. Ezekiel 37 is exclusive - there can only be one Jewish Messiah that fulfills all the criteria in Ezekiel 37.

Danny.

As if this is something you never do.

You said that the stream of transmission is easy to prove for Oral Torah. I have yet to see any streams of transmission that can be verified. In fact, by your own information, the rabbis are the ones that put down the "traditional" knowledge that was passed by word of mouth. But we all know what happens when things are not written down: it's called telephone. Your argument might stand a slight chance except for a few things:

1) Politics within the Jewish scholarship might change things. Somebody starts their own school; somebody disagrees and goes off and starts their own. We know of at least three different schools of Jewish interpretation just at the time of Christ: Zealots, Pharisees, and Saduccees. We have no idea if the Oral Torah is more teachings by Moses or just the political-group-that-won-out's idea of how to interpret Torah.

2) Your argument is "the Oral Torah is inspired because the Oral Torah says so." What external proofs do you have that there was an Oral Torah with the same interpretations that are used now?

3) Judaism has at least two different versions of the Oral Torah, one of which was transmitted through gentiles. The Oral Torah of Adam, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham--all gentile men, since Abraham was called out of the gentiles and, therefore, counts as both gentile and Jew--obviously could not be the same Oral Torah of Moses, since, according to you, the Oral Torah of Moses interprets the Torah and the Torah was nonexistent before God gave it to Moses. How could Noah have used the Oral Torah to know how to sacrifice if there was nothing to interpret? Obviously, early righteous gentiles (who knew nothing of rabbinical Judaism) already had God's commands. They didn't need a book to interpret those commands. In addition, apparently, the Hebrews had forgotten the original commands during the years of slavery and the Oral Torah, since God had to give Moses the Torah all over again. Two Oral Torahs, two Torahs. Modern Jews recognize they are not the same because Noahides don't have to follow all the commands of the Jews.

4) Traditions change. Noah and Moses, I'm sure, did not wear the black suit and hat of the Hasidim. How do you know the tzitzis of Moses looked like the tzitzis of today described in the Oral Torah? Prove the tradition of sacrifice for atonement has not changed since Moses.

Cor157 is exactly right. Start proving your suppositions. Those rabbis that wrote the Septuagint used the same Oral Torah you have, and yet they got a different result. Whose right? The evidence points to the Septuagint since it is confirmed also by a second separate stream of transmission. What, not the same Oral Torah? Then we have three Oral Torahs running around, and your argument becomes even weaker.

Good post REV320. Looks like Dannyil has some homework to do to asnwer that. Looking forward to it.

Quote:
"As if this is something you never do."

RE:
So true. I think we all do that at times

Part I.



1. Actually, this is a misnomer.  The telephone game is probably the worst example to compare any passing of oral information.

a.)  The Telephone game is done is a whisper format, when people are drunk and having a good time.  The material is usually nonsensical, and there is little incentive to keep the message correct, the opposite, it is encouraged that the message is wrong.

Passing down Oral information in Judaism is not at all like the telephone game.  It is done orally, and the same information is repeated over and over until they get it right.  Those entrusted with passing down the information were allowed to keep private notebooks, recording notes and information.  The material is logical, and people gained prestige, honor and wealth by maintaining the message.  Not only that, people were living the Torah, if they got something wrong, it would cost them time and money.

2. It has been shown that Oral traditions in other cultures are also very reliable.  The entire list of Zulu Kings is given by Oral tradition, records made by Sailors have verified that it is 100% accurate.

Scholars are acutely aware of Oral traditions, and have largely accepted them as valid historical accounts, and eye-witnesses testimony of events.

Danny.

1. So let it be....who is around today....zealots, sadducees?  You think G-d can't control anything? You think He would have a hard time ensuring that His Torah is understood?  I think not.

2. It is very easy to determine what is part of the Torah and what is not.  There is a system of rules of interpretation, that everybody knows and understands, and agrees to.  If you're part of that core, then there will be slight, hairsplitting disagreements as to how to apply those rules.  However, anyone who comes along and decides well, I don't agree with this or that....shows that he is not part of the Torah.  You should know that the disagreements in the Talmud, are hairsplitting, they are so minute and small, they might not even seem like disagreements.  Mostly, everything is agreed upon.  For example.  Everyone agrees what Tzitzis means, everyone agrees what Techeiles is and what it is not.  There is only a little disagreement in how to tie them after the first double knot.



That is not my argument.

My argument is that, given that the Oral Torah is *not* inspired, then I would expect that the Torah is completely perfect and comprehensible.  That means every single word and instruction is spelled out in every detail so that I can perform what G-d says.

I see that the Torah is not comprehensible, since G-d is perfect in His wisdom, and He wants me to do what the Torah says, then I would expect Him to provide the necessary means to understand the Torah.

The Oral Torah is the only mechanism out there, that tells me what the words mean, and how to accomplish G-d's word.  

[The Septuagint, Samaritan, or Peshitta translations, are all much later.  The Oral Torah had to be given at Sinai, since there is no way the Written Torah can be comprehended without it.]

That is my argument.