Not quite. Your friend is appealing to the “Council of Jabneh (Jamnia)” held in 92 AD. During that “council”, a group of scholars fashioning themselves a reconstituted Sanhedrin got together to discuss the tanakh (Hebrew Bible). They decided to accept only books written in Hebrew as “canonical” in order to preserve their heritage (at this time the vast majority of Jews in the diaspora spoke only Greek and used the Septuagint), and to try to quell the Christian “movement”, which they saw as an “evangelical” branch of Judaism speading heresy. Thus, the elimination of Greek writings killed two birds with one stone: since the Christians used the Septuagint in “evangelizing” (and used it as proof of Jesus fulfilling the Messianic prophecies), and were using their own writings in Greek (which would become the New Testament) and seeing them as on a par with the Old Testament Scriptures), those at Jabneh thought they could quell the spread of Christianity.
I don’t know that the Palestinian rabbis were so pointedly and consciously anti-Christian. They were significantly anti-Greco-Roman. Even the Septuagint is heavily flavored with anti-Greco-Roman sentiment. And the Romans under Titus had recently annihilated Jerusalem. I suspect that their main goal was to be “Jewish” – I don’t think that it was to be “non-Christian.”
Not so. Substantial portions of Ezra, Nehemiah & Daniel are in Aramaic.
Greek is not more expressive than Hebrew! And besides, Hebrew (or Aramaic; see above) is the o-r-i-g-i-n-a-l!
I do not want to read an interpretation of God’s words, I want to read God’s words in the original. It is our belief that only the original Hebrew/Aramaic version of the scriptures can, in any way, be considered authoritative (to say nothing of authentic). We view “translations” of the Tanakh (what we call what you call the “Old Testament”) as, at best, study aids and, at worse, gross misrepresentations of God’s words (which were, after all, originally recorded/spoken in Hebrew).
(cont.)
Thanks for the correction, ssv. I guess it would be more accurate to say they rejected those books written in Greek (e.g. 1&2 Maccabees).Hi all!
mtr01, you posted:
mtr01:
Not so. Substantial portions of Ezra, Nehemiah & Daniel are in Aramaic.
For this, we rely on our Sages, who pass on the traditions that they have received from their teachers, who received them from their teachers, etc., all the way back to the people who actually wrote the books and/or were there at the time. We rely on our Sages in much the same way as you rely on the Church.
2,300 +/- year-old Greek is necessarily better in this respect than 3,000 +/- year-old Hebrew? Ya lost me.
As per Sr. Rabassa, no translation is as good as the original.
The issue here is that, to my knowledge, the Jewish Sages do not enjoy the same notion of infallibility that the Church does. Sages can, have been, wrong in their interpretations and understandings of Scripture and contemporary events. Also, while you write off the Sadducees, for example, we must remember that they enjoyed seats on the Sanhedrin, and even served as high priests. They had their own Sages, and had their own vital community at one time, even participating in the heart of the Temple life. While their views certainly differ from the Pharisees and their spiritual descendants, it can’t be argued that they didn’t hold a critical place in the shaping of then contemporary Judaism at one point in history. The only way that their views can be distinguished as heretical is by later writings and Sages of the Pharisees tradition; there seems to have been no means of clearly determining heresy at the time they were a major force in Judaism. So, Sages can and are wrong in certain cases, and don’t even enjoy infallibility as a whole body as, say, the Council of Bishops does. Perhaps I’m wrong in this, but there doesn’t seem to be any “rule of infallibility” in Jewish tradition.
It has nothing to do with the Greek, per se, but the fact that the Septuagint is a contemporary Jewish translation of Hebrew texts. The word choices made by the scholars and Sages who translated the Hebrew into Greek denote a difference in meaning than that given to some words by modern Jews. There were Greek words that fit the modern understanding of Hebrew (the “young girl” vs. “virgin” issue is an example of this), but other words were chosen. What does this say about the transmission of intent? One could argue, and I assume you take this position, that the translators into Greek were in error, and the modern understanding comes from the “true” tradition, but without the protection of infallibility this is very difficult for a non-Jew to accept. There’s also the point that the Masoretic texts also differ from the most ancient extant copies of Hebrew in word choice and usage, though not substantially (roughly by the same amount as the Septuagint, it seems). If the transmission was pure, why would the Masoretic texts differ from the most ancient Hebrew at all? If words were altered in spite of all of this “protection by tradition”, why couldn’t meanings and implications?
While I actually agree with you on this, I believe this because God said so in the New Testament. On what grounds do Jews, who don’t accept the teachings of Jesus, make this argument? To a cynical observer it might seem that this is merely an example of the victors writing the history books. What defined “normative” in the days of the Second Temple when Sadducees served on the Sanhedrin and as high priests, and when Hellenistic Jews were the majority? I’ve honestly never heard an answer to this from any Jews, so this is genuine curiousity speaking. Again, we agree, and Jesus said that the Pharisees were to be obeyed because they sat on the seat of Moses, but I know that statement isn’t appealed to by modern Jewish Sages
Right alongside the identity of the Messiah! Funny thing that I have an easier time discussing such things with you than I do with Protestants
Ok, but you’re buying this time. I’m strapped for cash
I prefer the stout stuff, and we must have guacamole. Quickly, before Passover! 
Infallibility is, of course, a particularlt Catholic doctrine (well duh, ssv!), but we do believe in an unbroken chain of tradition (aish.com/holidays/shavuot/last/chain.htm#precise)
The Sadducees were a small, aristocratic group limited almost exclusively to priestly circles. While there were many priests who were not Sadducees, there were very few Sadducees who were not priests. Their views are as relevant to normative Judaism as those of, say, the Donatists, Arians and/or Bogomils are to normative Catholicism today. The Sadducees are no authority; heretics will say what they will.
And you replied:
Hmm, on what grounds do Catholics, who don’t accept the teachings of our Sages, make this argument?
The fact that the Sadducees may have controlled the Sanhedrin and/or the high Priesthood (at a time when that office was filled according to the whim of non-Jewish civil authorities) is irrelevant. What makes them heretics is that they veered away from a pre-existing path that the Pharisees loyally stuck to (see aish.com/literacy/jewishhistory/Crash_Course_in_Jewish_History_Part_28_-_Greek_Persecution.asp; scroll down to the section entitled Jew vs. Jew).
The problem I have with this is that all sources I can find point to the Pharisees originating around the time of the Maccabean revolt, as well as the Sadducees. In fact, the only sources I can find that say that the Pharisees upheld the normative traditions come from the Pharisees (or their descendents) themselves. This is troubling from a historical perspective because it leaves the “written by the victors” angle wide open for attack. In fact, the writings of the Pharisees that denounce the Sadducees as heretics all come from well after the Sadducees have vanished from the picture, meaning we have no contemporary attacks on the Sadducees’ orthodoxy on record (not that this is suprising given the century of war and destruction that resulted in the destruction of the Second Temple and the Diaspora). The only semi-contemporary mentions of the Sadducees that I can find are by the Essenes with the Dead Sea Scrolls, and there they supposedly use a code-word when talking about them.
The problem with this comparison is that we do have contemporary accounts of the Donatists and Arians and such being heretics and/or schismatics, where we don’t have that with the Sadducees. If this view was indeed held, we don’t have records of it from the time that they existed. They were of a different persuasion and philosophy from the Pharisees and the Essenes to be sure, but there’s no contemporary indication that they were “outside the norm”. While we can certainly agree that these groups are a part of the “dustbin of history”, I don’t see any indication that the Sadducees were uniformly considered heretical during the time of their existance, least of which by any religious authorities. This isn’t to say that they weren’t, just that we can’t know either way, as all accounts come from well after their disappearance.
There is actually a distinction to be made here. Your Sages were speaking well after the fact, while Jesus (Matthew 23, for those who are interested) was speaking during the time that the Sadducees and Essenes still existed. In fact, He doesn’t seem to be presenting a common understanding of the time (that the Pharisees indeed sit in the seat of Moses), but rather a new concept to his disciples as a springboard for actually denouncing the Pharisees. So we’re left with only one contemporary account of the Pharisees holding the true form of tradition, and ironically enough it comes from outside of the Pharisees’ tradition, doesn’t indicate that this view (of Jesus’) is widely held at the time He’s speaking, and is the set up for the ultimate slam against them. Yet it’s the contemporary argument for the primacy of the Pharisees; the Sages have nothing like it in their records, and it can be argued that history attests to a different story than the one they presented.While I actually agree with you on this, I believe this because God said so in the New Testament. On what grounds do Jews, who don’t accept the teachings of Jesus, make this argument?
Hmm, on what grounds do Catholics, who don’t accept the teachings of our Sages, make this argument?
Again there’s a problem with your comparison. We have contemporary, “orthodox” copies of our Gospels to stand against the arguments of heretics, but we don’t have the same for Hebrew. The Dead Sea Scrolls literally are the oldest we’ve got by a long shot. We have an argument that the Essenes were heretics put forth centuries after they were gone, but no indication of a popular attempt within Judaism to eliminate them while they were actually around.