JFJ Forums

Response Part B. to Ia.

2. It is not intended to relay the information accurately
That is the intended purpose of the game. The results show that it is not always the case, which is why it is fun game to play. You are talking about almost 6000 years of playing Telephone, if you assert that Adam, too, was given the Oral Torah.

The intention of the game is not to convey information to generations.  That is the point.  And I'm not talking about 6000 years of playing Telephone.  The game has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about transmitting information that is reliable, focussed on memory, and above all, was preserved intact, for thousands of years.
The facts are, the information is preserved, since it is designed exactly the opposite to a Telephone game.  It is NOT a Telephone process.  Please try to understand this.

For further clarification you should listen to the following:
1. http://www.simpletoremember.com/audio/Ra...orah-B.mp3
2. http://www.simpletoremember.com/audio/Ra...tion-B.mp3

It is important to listen to 1 and 2 in order.

The Mishnah, from my own reading, is useful and intelligent. I agree with you on that point. But it is not authoritative (and it is not provable to be accurate all the way to Moses). Nowhere is Moses or God speaking in the Mishnah. Therefore, I could never accept it as being authoritative or anything other than a guide.

Since the NT never says one word about G-d speaking, you shouldn't trust the NT either.

To declare that all the info in the Mishnah is perfect (much less, God's intention for His commandments) is a stretch of realism.

1. I presented for you in Part Ib and Part II that information other than the written text is passed down orally.

2. In addition, lets assume your position, what would I expect from an Oral Tradition that has been lost?  Wide variety of different customs and interpretations, in a wide variance of views.  I don't get that in the Mishnah.

I see that everyone agrees that the beautiful fruit (see Part II), is a citron.

Danny.

[quote=revelation320]
Yes, verifiable testimony, but not hearsay. There were at least two witnesses for all that early Christians claimed: that is what is required by Jewish law. If you want to denigrate your own law, have at it. It can be proved through documents that the teachings of the NT are what the early believers taught. Where is your verifiable testimony from Moses, which you claim is not a hard thing to prove?

I have the entire Jewish people as eye-witness testimony.  If somebody came up and said something wrong, a hundred other people would say, no, its not what I heard from Moses, or its not what I was taught.




For thirty years after Jesus' died, nothing was written down, all was passed on orally.
Yes, by the eyewitnesses, and confirmed by the people who believed in Yeshua who were present in Jerusalem when He died and after His death. Where are your witnesses? The very fact that the rabbis had to crack down on Christians immediately after Shavuot speaks volumes as to the accuracy of the testimony. The fact that 2000 years later you are still having to prove--and not doing it--that Yeshua didn't raise from the dead and that He didn't die for our sins and that He didn't fulfill the prophecies in the OT . . . is telling.

1. I don't know what you're talking about.  The Rabbis went into hiding after the destruction of the Temple.

2. There witnesses to the Oral Torah.    

3.  Its quite simple, 0.42% of the population witnessed it.  At best, no-one is a direct ancestor of these 500-witnesses that Paul mentioned.  It is unclear even how much contact he had with them.

4. Compared with the revelation narrative, 100% of the population saw Moses, heard G-d speak.  I have direct ancestry, as well as a myriad of other people to that event.

5.  the facts are that the only reason Christianity is around today is because of the massive amounts of pagans that converted, the fact that the Romans made it a state religion, and that thousands have been forced to convert, from South America to China.  The Catholic Church for example, has very little membership in European, Western countries. Most of its membership comes from Latin America.  If it weren't for a massive revival in America and the birth of 'born-againism' and fundamentalism, Christianity would not be such a pretty picture.

Few follow Jesus' teachings.  Most of Christianity is a Pauline and Johanine religion, built on the early church.  

Aside: [A. You should understand that Israelis and Israeli politics, and what people claim to be 'Jewish' is not necessarily what Orthodoxy considers Jewish.]

1. The Talmud [Sotah 33a] tells us that the Angel Gavriel told Shimon the Righteous that the king of the Greeks had died.

2. The Talmud [Brachos 3a] relates that R. Yossi heard a voice telling us what G-d said about His children.

3. The Mishnah talks about such traditions as a Leper in the time of Moses (before Sinai) [Negaim 7.1].  the Mishnah talks about the first conquering of the land of Israel [Makkos 2.4] and the prohibition of eating the first fruit of a tree that was already planted before the Jews conquered Israel [Orlah 1.2]  The division of the land is discussed by another Mishnah: [Bava Basra 8.3] with regard to the question posed to Moses: Num 27.1

This shows that the Oral Law existed in the times of Moses.

Exo 24:12 teaches us that the commands are the Oral Law. (Mishnah) [Talmud Brachos 5a].

There are a number of other passages that speak about various events that were passed down from the time of Abraham, such as his age when he moved from Haran.

The points of logic can be found in the Torah itself.
Consider Numbers 12:14:  Hashem said to Moses: "Were her father to spit in her face, would she not be humiliated for seven days?....All the more so, for 14 days for the Divine Presence, but there is it is only sufficient for seven.
This is a fortiori.  This is used all over the Talmud.  So we see a clear example of logic used in the Torah, and applied throughout the Torah.

This is one of the different logical statements applied, with a basis in the Torah.

The accuracy of the Tradition, has been shown, compared with the DSS.

You assume that the date is an historical mistake, when your own sources for his alleged birth are a.) in dispute and b.) are based on the assumption of an early church father who can't do math.

Danny.

HaShem did act (Yeshayahu 29:13-14, Mark 7). Also, we're inviting the illegal aliens into the US for the same reasons that self-hating Hebrews mistreat Jewish and gentile Christians: Because we're more a nation under God's wrath than under God (Romans 1-3).

So don't be interested.  
If you want to rely on the internet for your information go ahead.
Remember though, that the internet as a resource for information is like dipping your finger into a sewage and hoping that you'll find a gem - not impossible, but unlikely.

The Internet provides information, in a fast, economical way, that information is from whomever decided to put that information up in the first place, be it scholar, layman, or 16-year old kid with too much time on his hands.

It is unsurprising then, that universities take internet research in a cautious manner.  Most dispute its usefulness as an information resource.  Remember, the internet is not peer-reviewed for reliability, nor is it managed so that information, if it is found to be inaccurate, will be removed.

Anyone, and everyone can put up information, no matter how reliable or well-researched it is.

That said I'm providing here a list of google.books that might help persuade you:
http://books.google.com/books?as_q=Septu...p;as_isbn=

There are over a 100 citations in a number of volumes written on the subject.  It should be noted that Jellicoe's work is published by the Clarendon Press at Oxford.

I refer you to a more modern work as well:
http://books.google.com/books?id=LUmGZ0N...Ab0SZwmAHM

I would also like to point out that it could be that your sources.  Not saying that this is your fault, but simply that your core view of authors that you trust, don't seem to be including any scholarship done on the NT.
Jellicoe is a pretty standard work.  He is listed as a standard general introduction to the Septuagint.

Danny.

Please provide ample citation and sources to support your position.

Thank you.

Danny.

The source however, for keeping things Oral, is also an inference from a verse.  This is also discussed in the Talmud.

Danny.

Speaking of verses, please read Isaiah 29:13-14 and Mark 4.

The Jewish traditional literature although it mentions Jesus only quite sparingly (and must in any case be used with caution), supports the gospel claim that He was a healer and a miracle worker, even though it ascribes these activities to sorcery. In additon it proves the recollection that He was a teacher and had disciples and that at least in the early Rabbinic period not all the sages had finally made up their minds that He was a "heretic" or "deciever."

M. Wilcox
"Jesus in the light of His Jewish environment"
Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt 2 no. 25.1 (1982), 133.

What cor517 just mentioned reminds me of the famous incident recorded in Matthew and Mark. The anti-missionaries, like the Pharisees and Talmudists, can be forgiven for blaspheming YHVH-Avinu and Y'shua-YHVH-Ben-El-Chai and ben-Miryam; but whoever (unsaved) would blaspheme Ruach-HaKodesh is unforgivable: for the unsaved who blaspheme Ruach-HaKodesh would be guilty of an eternal sin.