Let's Talk Judaism (2)

[Splinker]

I think the phrase you are looking for is “Two Jews, three opinions.”

 

[Robbinson]

Very Interesting, Brother. Could you give me a reference to it?

Agreed - its a very powerful, almost incredible, statement in the Talmud. Its in Yoma 39(b) of the Babylonian Talmud:

It reads:

“Our Rabbis taught: During the last forty years before the destruction of the Temple the lot ‘For the Lord’] did not come up in the right hand; nor did the crimson-coloured strap become white; nor did the westernmost light shine; and the doors of the Hekal would open by themselves, until R. Johanan b. Zakkai rebuked them, saying: Hekal, Hekal, why wilt thou be the alarmer thyself?5 I know about thee that thou wilt be destroyed, for Zechariah ben Ido has already prophesied concerning thee:6 Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars.”

(The references to the Lord not coming up in the right hand, nor did the crimson-coloured strap become white", etc. were “signs” of the forgivness of sins of the Jewish people, according the Talmud - so this dialogue is marveling at the fact that the sins of the Jewish people were not forgiven for the "40 years before the destruction of the second temple). The Temple was destroyed in 70AD - 40 years earlier was 30AD which coincides to the timing of the crucification of Jesus.

Blessings,

Brian

 

[Splinker]

Another way to look at it was that the jews were being punished for following Jesus. That is, the fact that Jews were listenting/converting to Jesus caused the trouble.

 

[Timothy17]

The Septuagint, the rabbi’s translation of the Hebrew to Greek, was only of the Torah or the five books of Moses. Christians often mistakenly refer to the Septuagint regarding this translation by the rabbi’s as also being a translation of the prophets. Secondly, the Torah is held in Jewish tradition to have been dictated from God to Moses. There are no “versions” of the Torah. A Torah scroll with even a single letter wrong may not be used. When the mass in-gathering of Jews occurred following the Jews regaining their independence over their homeland, Torah scrolls from Jewish communities around the world, many isolated, were gathered together. There were no textual differences in any of the Torah scrolls except for a single letter in scrolls from a single isolated Yemenite community, which had no effect on the textual meaning and was immediately corrected. Thirdly, the rabbi’s feared the possibility that their translation of the Torah into Greek could be tampered with. Therefore 15 key passages of the Septuagint translation were placed in the Talmud, Tractate Megilla 9a-9b, so that the Septuagint could always be compared to the original translation of these passages. In the current version of the Septuagint, Christian translators have altered the translation of thirteen of the fifteen passages that the rabbi’s placed into the Talmud.In other words, Christian translators have falsified the rabbi’s original Septuagint translation of the Torah and it cannot be relied upon for linguistic proof.

I find that unlikely, as Christians were converting 1st century Jews as a priority, and said Jews -especially those like Saul/Paul or Timothy, who was enamoured with the Sacred Scriptures- would never have forgiven such abuse ; furthermore, how come on Jewish sites I have read that the modern Jewish scriptures were not finalized in their versions until between the 9th and 10th centuries ? I don’t mean Talmudic writings. Granted, these versions were the addition of vowel signs to the Hebrew letters, but nonetheless, I never heard a single site claim God dictated to rabbis which jot or title would be added to which consonant of the Hebrew original.

This being said, the rabbi’s do not have even the Old Testament scriptural authority to authoritatively teach the Torah, as say the Magisterium has the authority to teach the Scriptures or give their approval on any given version. This duty was assigned, in both Old and New Covenants, to the priesthood. Now, unless those rabbis who added the final vowel markers that are so utterly important in determining the final meaning of Hebrew words can be demonstrated to have all been also firstborn sons of the Levitical tribe, then I find your claim that the Jewish version of scriptures has been unaltered since before the time of Christ to be spurious at best. Even a short introduction to Hebrew will allow the student to understand the influence vowel markers can have on the meaning of a Hebrew word.

Pax,
Tim

 

[Robbinson]

I find that unlikely, as Christians were converting 1st century Jews as a priority, and said Jews -especially those like Saul/Paul or Timothy, who was enamoured with the Sacred Scriptures- would never have forgiven such abuse ; furthermore, how come on Jewish sites I have read that the modern Jewish scriptures were not finalized in their versions until between the 9th and 10th centuries ? I don’t mean Talmudic writings. Granted, these versions were the addition of vowel signs to the Hebrew letters, but nonetheless, I never heard a single site claim God dictated to rabbis which jot or title would be added to which consonant of the Hebrew original.

This being said, the rabbi’s do not have even the Old Testament scriptural authority to authoritatively teach the Torah, as say the Magisterium has the authority to teach the Scriptures. This duty was assigned, in both Old and New Covenants, to the priesthood. Now, unless those rabbis who added the final vowel markers that are so utterly important in determining the final meaning of Hebrew words can be demonstrated to have all been also sons of the Levitical tribe, then I find your claim that the Jewish version of scriptures has been unaltered since before the time of Christ to be spurious at best.

Pax,
Tim

Agreed - also, chosen people, I missed your post re: the septuagent -it absolutely included more than the Torah - in fact, it included all of the “old testament cannon” and 7 additional books ultimately not included in the cannon established in the mid first centry by the Jewish authorities (including the Macabeees books (the only place, ironically in the Old Testament mentioning the events we celebrate today as Chanunkah).

Blessings,

Brian

 

[swariffin]

I think the phrase you are looking for is “Two Jews, three opinions.”

Previously, there was a Jew using the nickname Ben Masada in this forum. He mentioned that there are several Jewish “denominations” just like the Christian. How many Jewish denominations are there?

 

[Robbinson]

Previously, there was a Jew using the nickname Ben Masada in this forum. He mentioned that there are several Jewish “denominations” just like the Christian. How many Jewish denominations are there?

Many - the three “core” types of Judaism are:

Orthodox Judaism (takes the bible literally, follows all of the dietary laws and other laws of the Torah and believes the Talmud is of equal authority to the Bible and represents a “second Torah/law” given orally by God to Moses on Mt. Sinai)

Conservative Judaism (does not take the bible literally, follows, generally, to some extent, the dietary laws and many of the traditions of Orthodox Judaism).

Reform Judaism (this is the largest “denomination” of Judaism worldwide). As a generalization, takes the scriptures as inspired by God - not literal. Does not follow the dietary laws or many of the “laws” of the Torah. Does not accept the Talmud as of equivalent authority with scripture.

This is a broad generalization - within the Orthodox there are many different groups with different views; Modern Orthodox, Hassidic, etc. There is another denomination called “Reconstructionist” which, for lack of a better description, is somewhere between Conservative and Reform.

Even within a “denomination” there will be different opinions and understandings of the Torah and Talmud, lines of authority, etc.

This was true in Jesus day as well - thus the references to debates between the Pharasees (today’s successors of the Pharasees is rabbinic judaism - Orthodox judaism) and the Sadduccees (they believed only in the Torah, not in the balance of the Old Testament) and they disappeared shortly after the destruction of the 2nd temple when the Levitical laws/sacrificial laws were no longer possible.

Blessings,

Brian

 

[Splinker]

The fact is that with the destruction of the Temple in 70AD, over 2/3 of the levitical/mosaic law could no longer be fulfilled. That, together with the Talmlud’s own recording of the fact that the sins of the Jewish people were not forgiven for the 40 years before the destruction of the temple (which coincided remarkably with the crucifiction and sacrifice of Christ (Yoma 39b) is something to think about (at least).

Blessings,

Brian

The Rabbis taught that forty years prior to the destruction of the Temple the lot did not come up in the high priest’s right hand nor did the tongue of scarlet wool become white . . . ."

Christians will often say that this started the year Jesus was crucified, 30 CE, and cite this as proof that since animal sacrifices could not attone for sins, the wool not turning white proved our sins were not forgiven. And they conclude this is a result of Jews rejecting Jesus as God.

The above argument relies on a Jewish text – our Talmud. So I think it is only fair that it be addressed from a Jewish perspective.

It is a complete leap of faith to argue Jesus as the reason for the thread not changing colors and the logic behind such an argument requires first taking a christian belief and then attaching it to a Jewish text. Such a conclusion is no more believable than a more jewish belief that the reason the scarlet strip of wool did not turn white was due to the fact that masses of wayward Jews had followed the false messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. (IMO, both explanations are incorrect.)

Also, we believe animal sacrifices will resume when the Temple is rebuilt. Much of the book of Eziekal deals with this. I understand christians would reject this argument based on their own doctrine.

Finally, the portion of the Talmud that deals with this discusses it in context of Yom Kippur. Page 39a is talks about Israel’s declining spiritual condition during the Second Temple period. Things like the thread changing color are an indicator of the spritual condition. When it’s good, miracles happen (red to white). When it’s not so good, then red to… red.

The talmudic discussion starts with the miraculous events that occurred during the forty years when Shimon HaTzaddik was high priest. It then relates how the appearance of these miracles progressively diminished after he died.

Shimon HaTzaddik was a great man. He’s famous for:
“The world exists on three things: the Torah, divine worship, and acts of kindness.”

After he died, we failed to maintain the spiritual heights achieved during Shimon HaTzaddik’s lifetime. And so we have the Talmud’s assertion that after the death of Shimon HaTzaddik the occurrence of these miracles became sporadic; there were some years when these miraculous signs occurred, and there were other years when they did not. The low point being the last 40 years of the second Temple period.

And we don’t need to guess or bring Jesus into the equation to understand what we Jews did during those last 40 years that stopped the events altogether. The Talmud tells us.

The big sin of Israel was hatred for each other. which we believe was the reason for the Second Temple’s desturction. There was an increase of violence against each other. The Sanhedrin didn’t even bother to impose capital punishment for murder because it was so prevelant.

Oppressing the poor and doing violence to the weak is enough to warrant the destruction of our Temple. Isaiah compares Israel to the people to Sodom and Gomorrah. He says if you are going to treat your neighbor so poorly, then God’s not interested in how you keep the Sabbath.

You can’t keep a Sabbath holy if you’re going to treat people like garbage. That’s a central message of Isaiah and that’s the central reason why the miracles in the Temple ceased, according to the Talmud.

 

[Robbinson]

The above argument relies on a Jewish text – our Talmud. So I think it is only fair that it be addressed from a Jewish perspective.

Absolutely - and thank you for sharing this in the thread. That being said, it is interesting (as a Jewish believer in Christ, I’d say more than interesting, but at least interesting) that viritually coincident with the crucifiction of Yeshua, the sins of the Jewish people were, according to the Talmud, no longer forgiven and this continued until the destruction of the second temple which eliminated even the possibility of further “sacrifice for sin atonement” (as commanded by the mosaic law) for what has been now over 2,000 years.

I recognize there is an alternative Jewish/rabbinic explanation for this 40 year period and for the destruction of the temple (in fact the Talmud has numerous alternative explanations for just about everything ). . But given this “spectacular event” which dramatically changed the covenant understanding of judaism in terms of sacrifice which has lasted for over 2,000 years, together with the fact that the Scriptures tell us the messiah suffer and be rejected by the Jewish people and become a light to the Gentile nations, coupled with the fact that Jer 31:31-34 predicted that the mosaic covenant would one day be replaced with a “new” covenant (expressly different than the mosaic covenant), I think, even if not “believeing in Yeshua”, someone can appreciate perhaps why the apostles (all Jews) came to believe that Yeshua was the messiah.

Blessings,

Brian

 

[Splinker]

The Talmud does not state the sins were no longer forgiven (I don’t think). Rather, it deals with the cessation of miracalous signs.

 

[Kaninchen]

Central to the whole business is differing interpretations of the series disasters that took place from the arrival of the Romans to the consequences of the Bar Kokhba revolt.

To Christians, the destruction of the Temple is linked to Jesus.

To Jews, it’s about understanding total catastrophe - rather like ‘Where was God at Auschwitz?’ in modern times.

Could be the preliminary to an awful lot of ‘Oh, Yes it was!’/‘Oh, No it wasn’t!’, if one had the time and/or inclination.

 

[Robbinson]

The Talmud does not state the sins were no longer forgiven (I don’t think). Rather, it deals with the cessation of miracalous signs.

Yes, but those were the “miraculous signs” that indicated whether or not the sins of the jewish people were forgiven.

Blessings,

Brian

 

[Robbinson]

Central to the whole business is differing interpretations of the series disasters that took place from the arrival of the Romans to the consequences of the Bar Kokhba revolt.

To Christians, the destruction of the Temple is linked to Jesus.

To Jews, it’s about understanding total catastrophe - rather like ‘Where was God at Auschwitz?’ in modern times.

Could be the preliminary to an awful lot of ‘Oh, Yes it was!’/‘Oh, No it wasn’t!’, if one had the time and/or inclination.

Agreed - The Talmud says what it says, so I agree we can all draw our own conclusions and, to be fair, I agree that there is not way to prove that the signs showing sins were not forgiven for the 40 years before the destruction of the Temple had anything to do with the crucifiction of Yeshua/Jesus or that the destruction of the temple (even though predicted by Yeshuah) had anything to do with the end of the mosaic covenant and commencement of a “new covenant”.

Its either an amazing coincidence (and that is possible) or something much more - we can’t be sure.

Blessings,

Brian

 

[Kaninchen]

Agreed - The Talmud says what it says, so I agree we can all draw our own conclusions and, to be fair, I agree that there is not way to prove that the signs showing sins were not forgiven for the 40 years before the destruction of the Temple had anything to do with the crucifiction of Yeshua/Jesus or that the destruction of the temple (even though predicted by Yeshuah) had anything to do with the end of the mosaic covenant and commencement of a “new covenant”.

Its either an amazing coincidence (and that is possible) or something much more - we can’t be sure.

Blessings,

Brian

Well, of course, I’d say words to the effect of “the New Testament would say that, wouldn’t it?” over what Jesus may, or may not, have said - after all, it’s not exactly difficult to have reportedly said something would happen, after it had happened.

There was a lot more going on at the time than Jesus.

The thing is that we could go on with these ‘Terribly Important!’/‘No Big Deal’ themes for ages and ages - along with being ‘amazed’ at one another’s positions, of course. Not much point really - like most ‘proof text’ arguments, I might add.

 

[SnakeMauler]

I respectfully disagree with Chosen People’s assertion that sacrifices were never offered for intentional sins. I believe, however, that sacrifices were not the exclusive means of attonement, and Chosen People is correct when he says prayer, repentence, etc., were also used as a method of attonement.

As set forth in Hosea 14:3, we render instead of bullocks the offering of our lips (Hosea 14:3).

Also, King Solomon confirmed that prayer is a valid means to obtain forgiveness of sins, I Kings, 8:46.

Over time, the standard jewish prayer service has evolved to parallel the system of sacrifices which, as everyone agrees, was largely abandoned after the destruction of the Temple.

Chosen People was also correct when he pointed out that a blood sacrifice was not the only means of obtaining forgivness from sins. There were grain offerings, etc. Also, look at the book of Jonah. An entire town is forgiven of their sins without any sacrifice whatsoever.

Finally, from a Jewish perspective, the blood sacrifice was anything but a symbol of a savior to come. More likely, it was a holdover from older pagan practices. A concession to our tendancy to backslide into known traditions. So, rather than prohibit sacrifices outright, since they were a pagan practice and therefore a danger, Judaism transformed the sacrifice in such a way as to strengthen their connection with God. By instituting strict rules as to when, where and how, it ensured that sacrifices would strengthen the monothesitic religion, rather than work as a tool to encourage paganistic behavior.

So, why isn’t anyone making an effort to rebuild the temple? Put it this way, if something prevented me from upholding Jesus’s commandments (like going to a priest for confession), I’d friggin make sure that I could get that done. I wouldn’t just lay my hands down and say game over. If God tells me something, I’m gonna do it, and not base something on speculation and “well, this one king said we could just pray…”

 

[Kaninchen]

So, why isn’t anyone making an effort to rebuild the temple? Put it this way, if something prevented me from upholding Jesus’s commandments (like going to a priest for confession), I’d friggin make sure that I could get that done. I wouldn’t just lay my hands down and say game over. If God tells me something, I’m gonna do it, and not base something on speculation and “well, this one king said we could just pray…”

Rebuilding the Temple is Messiah’s job.

 

[SalomeBintullah]

Rebuilding the Temple is Messiah’s job.

Haven’t there been several movements to rebuild the Temple in the past? I seem to remember that they tried once but an earthquake or some other kind of natural disaster wrecked the plans. Not sure about that though, I think I got the information from Wikipedia.

 

[Kaninchen]

Haven’t there been several movements to rebuild the Temple in the past? I seem to remember that they tried once but an earthquake or some other kind of natural disaster wrecked the plans. Not sure about that though, I think I got the information from Wikipedia.

It’s not a mainstream thing - there are always people who think that there are ‘signs and portents’ or that going through the motions might induce Messiah to turn up, or whatever. Bit like there are Christians always seriously on the lookout for 666’s or whatever.

 

[jakasaki]

Rebuilding the Temple is Messiah’s job.

Isn’t the Messiah suppose to be a king…???

Are there any kings around, living today from the 12 tribes - & isn’t he suppose to be from the family/line of King David…??

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Haven’t there been several movements to rebuild the Temple in the past? I seem to remember that they tried once but an earthquake or some other kind of natural disaster wrecked the plans. Not sure about that though, I think I got the information from Wikipedia.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Temple

Scroll down to “Julian.” According to Christian sources this project did not go well!