Why do Christians reject the Talmud?

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So back to Isaiah, he lived about 2,750 years ago, and he preached for about some 80 years and wrote his book before he was prematurely killed by his grandson. This cut his life short, per se, and he didn’t have time to assemble his work properly. So who assembled the book of Yeshayahu? Hint: it wasn’t Yeshayahu hamenacheim! It was… you guessed it! King Chizkia! Baba Batra, 15a, B.T., says that his faction, a contemporary of the prophet, assembled Isaiah Mishlei (compilation), Song of Songs, and Kohelet. It is obvious the work WAS edited, no doubt. But by whom is the question, and why? The truth is, Isaiah, having never finished his work, didn’t write it all in its entirely. The Gemara says that it was decidedly edited by a committee after his death. This is some stunning news for you, I bet. Because the rabbis are admitting that in some sense, you’re right, they’re not trying to hide something. They’re not playing games. with that said, however, they’re agreeing that Isaiah was the same author, that he did predict the fall of Babylon, just that King Chizkia needed to do some edits to keep the work readable.
 
Now. Modern scholars believe that Isaiah was written by 2-3 authors, in fact, everything from Ch. 1-39 was written by the “real” Isaiah, and then the second author picked up from Ch. 40-56, and perhaps he also lived during the Babylonian empire; and then Isaiah #3 wrote Chapters 57-66, and none of these people know about the Talmud. Wow! And that’s the consensus of most scholars? Nope. It’s all complete nonsense. Period. Believe me. Its nonsense. If you go to yeshiva, you’ll meet people there who know the book of Isaiah forwards and backwards… in BIBLICAL HEBREW! Now, this is SO IMPORTANT because they KNOW that Isaiah was written by one person. Go and ask one of your friendly scholars in a liberal Christian university if he can write a paragraph of biblical Hebrew, now you get my point. So, its true that Ch. 40:1 does launch comfort, a turn after the illness of Chizkia HaMelech, BUT, other books do this as well. For instance, Isaiah Ch. 1 is about rebuking the Jewish people, and Ch. 2 begins talking about HaMashiach and Olam HaBa. The prophecy always shifts, its always juxtaposed, so to my mind, this doesn’t prove anything. But what these so-called “scholars” are missing, is that they claim chapters’ 1-39 were written by the real Isaiah (the others are forgeries), BUT, the original Isaiah DID write about the fall of Babylon! Where, you ask? 13:19, “And Babylon, the beauty of the kingdoms, the glory of the pride of the Chaldees, shall be like G-d’s overturning of Sodom and Gemorrah.”

Checkmate.

And again in 14:4, “And you shall bear this parable against the king of Babylon, and you shall say, ‘How has the dominator ceased, has ceased the haughty one!’”
 
Now, Isaiah, being a navi, is addressing the Babylonian empire, and I have news for you: the prophet lived before anyone knew what Babylon even meant! So these so-called scholars are really just big idiots, and I bet you a million dollars they don’t even know about these two impressive verses.

Now, why isn’t this known more in the academic world? They claim to be open to all ideas, baloney! They’re no more fundamentalists (in their atheistic view) then we, and those who are honest about it, would never be published again is they dare asserted the truth. And it’s the exact same thing with Daniel. Just check out his last three chapters, especially 10-11; they describe the Greek empire, the death of Alexander the Great, and the four kingdoms which emerged as a direct result of it. How could Daniel, who lived during the Babylonian exile, have known about all this, these scholars ask? And they have their theories, “Haha!” they say, “he must have lived during the time of the Maccabees.” Now, here comes my challenge… and I want you to take it seriously: for everyone who says the book of Daniel is a complete forgery, where’s the support? That’s one extraordinary claim! Ok, fine, challenge from you accepted. First, I’d like to point out that we have something called… the Dead Sea Scrolls. Have you heard of them? They date back to the first-second century BCE, and they’re loaded with the book of Daniel, as Scripture, and these people who wrote them. LIVED in the same time! No. 2, Daniel rose to become the viceroy of Babylon, from the royal house of Dovid HaMelech, and we all know how the Babylonians thought about the Jews, do we! So, my question to you: how do you invent something like that? These people at Qumran must have been very proud of that.
 
No. 3, Daniel’s status is witnessed in the Babylonian empire itself! Unusual, for sure, but what does this mean? A 2,500 year old document survived, and, as it turns out, that document just happens to be the sefer Ezekiel. Everyone knows he lived during the exile, and while its uncommon for a prophet to mention another fellow, even passingly, Ezekiel mentions Daniel, not once, but three times! How would he have known about Daniel according to that stupid theory of your’s? How could Ezekiel have possibly held a conversation about Daniel in Ch. 28:3? Impossible. So I want you to do something, tell me, how would you have convinced the ancient Jewish world that Ezekiel did not know a shred about Daniel? It’s just all mumbo jumbo, but to us Orthodox Jews, we have only one authority and that’s the Hebrew Bible alone and that’s why we’ll never fall for such hogwash.
 
That all should put to rest this silly theory known as the “Documentary Hypotheses.”
 
We must try to kosher this current problematic academic analysis, for we don’t want to mishandle sefer Yeshayahu. Remember, drastic changes in theme, language, or a plain disjunction, was a stylistic choice of G-d’s. Its the way Hashem chose to write His Torah, and if you read Rashi, it all becomes clear why. So you don’t need to take an Xacto knife and cut up nakh and say who faked what. This is why its imperative that you don’t jump to grab the teretz the way you do a conclusion, you don’t have to rely on the al regel achas of these so-called scholars! This isn’t shidduch dating! You don’t have to marry the first teretz, it doesn’t work that way!

So what’s the distinction here? If the rabbis decided to have a committee edit Yeshayahu’s work, since he wasn’t able to complete it due to his untimely death at the hands of his grandson, and if the rabbis perhaps didn’t do the very best at it, causing some today to speculate multiple authors (and this is reasonable, it’s not easy to put together a work which hasn’t be properly bounded together), that’s one thing. If, however, the book was written by multiple dudes, “pretending” to be the prophet, that’s just being plain disingenuous, if not a flat out lie. The latter view would be a blow to Tanakh being the inspired word of G-d. I don’t know about you, but to me, that’d be the case. Your opinion here is just photogenic. True, nakh is not in G-d’s hands, says the Gemara, BUT… you need chazara to understand it because while Torah’s application is in our hands (see the story on Akhnai’s oven, Bava Metzia 59a-b, B.T.), its authorship isn’t. That’s very important. Prophecy in neiv’im is not dogmatically bounded by chumash’s rules, and neither are we when reading it, but please have some iqqarei ha’emunah! You don’t have to go frum, just stop adopting such strange mishegas! After all, who introduced to us the prophets? Um? Can you guess it off the top of your head? Yep. The Prushim (Pharisees)! And I bet you they didn’t think neiv’im was just a bunch of hodgepodge stuff and were willing to just take a whim on it that it was all authentic. Point is, they didn’t just invent it. But the problem with the Goyim is that they accept the prophets, but not our Oral Torah. It’s like the pashut in Devarim, you have to go through it, piece by piece.

So if you find a chumash without the D material, or without the suppossed P material, are you going to ask your ribbono shel olam why you’re being tested?
 
See? Therefore, Isaiah isn’t a composite work under the presumption of one author after all. True, R. Avraham Ibn Ezra hinted a few authors, but R. Shemuel David Luzzatto said it was all just one guy. How long was his prophecy? 61 years, as pointed out by Rashi in 6:1. Rashi says prophets would write their work towards the end of their lives, Isaiah didn’t get that chance. At the bottom of Baba Batra, 14b, B.T., we find that David wrote Psalms, including the works of Adam, Melchizedek, Abraham, Moses, Heman, Yeduthun, Asaph, and the three sons of Korah. So there were many authors, but David had the last word. The same thing happened to Isaiah and Hezekiah, with the latter having the last word! The Netziv’s commentary on the Song of Songs says that the final authors made changes to some earlier prophetic words, but he doesn’t point to Isaiah as an example of this. However, there was another prophet, this is found in Vayikra Rabba 6:5, where it states that his work was too short to have its own book, and so it was interpolated, by the rabbis, with Isaiah’s work. The work begins with verse 19 in chapter 8. Ibn Ezra did make some comments on a secret author through chapters 40 on, he wrote about it in chapters 40:1, 49:7, and 53:12. However, unlike the heretical biblical scholarship of today’s world, Ibn Ezra did not make his conclusions the way they do. He had no issue with a navi seeing into the future, which is why his “secret” isn’t revealed in his peirush (explanation) in either of the two places where Koresh’s name is mentioned, which is what the kofrim love. No, Ibn Ezra came to his conclusion via his sophisticated ability to understand grammar and all its dimensions of poshut pshat, or the simple understanding of a text. In the end, Isaiah was a few times written by other prophets, but this does NOT assume that he did not have prophecy, as these were minor works, to say the least, and likely had nothing to do with Cyrus the Great. Again, biblical criticism has shown itself to be the fool, too bad none of these guys took yeshiva!
 
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A question: how come Jesus did not take on the Buddhist teaching of reincarnation then? In Judaism, we have something similar in gilgulim, but how come this is absent in Christian teaching (outside the Gnosticism)? The whole essence of Buddhism, especially Zen, lies in escaping reincarnation for Nirvana and perfecting one’s karma. So where is it in the gospel message? Had Jesus traveled to the far East, this is something he would have surely not forgotten.

I await a reply, thank you.
 
Here-I-am-Lord said:
Shared thoughts and literary forms are evidence that Jesus was familiar with Buddhist tenets. His biography has big enough gaps to allow traveling and gathering experiences beyond Galilea.
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A better explanation is that Buddhism contains elements of truth.

There’s no evidence Jesus travelled to a Buddhist area.
 
I want to explain something: yes, multiple authors had a hand in Isaiah, as did the rabbis, but this isn’t the same thing which modern biblical criticism purposes us. That’s my clarification. Sorry if I confused you, lol!
 
I see. Good job. Buddhism does have elements of truth, our Chazal taught that Shlomo HaMelech (King Solomon) was famous for his teachings, and that men from around local and distant lands came to Eretz Yisrael to hear him talk. this explains why our concept of reincarnation (which is actually similar to the Hindus), also spread outwards towards the East when Abraham sent his “gifts” off with his concubines. Also, a lot of Hindi words are similar to Hebrew. I personally find that interesting.

If you get a chance to read my work above regarding why Isaiah wrote Isaiah, please do. You’ll get a boost of rabbinics as well, haha! I’m not trying to sell myself (look, buy my book on Amazon), but you may find it worthwhile. Just joking about the book on Amazon.
 
Rabbi said:
A question: how come Jesus did not take on the Buddhist teaching of reincarnation then?
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He did not become a Buddhists. So there is no reincarnation in Christianity. But He may have experienced the importance of the basic tenets of love, peace, no violence and compassion. The last two are alien to Judaism.
 
That’s offensive. What do you mean the “last two are alien”? We certainly don’t believe in violence, but to say Judaism doesn’t teach compassion is a lie. It’s fable, it’s not true. You have to read up on what Judaism teaches before you make claims against it. As far as Jesus being the first to teach compassion, that’s not true either, as you prove by citing the Buddha, who appeared first, but even that is untrue. Compassion is built in our DNA, no one taught us it, and if they did, that’d be an insult to human dignity.
 
curious_cath said:
imposition.
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Incorrect. How does Judaism impose faith and knowledge anymore than Christianity?

I also noticed that your articles seem to support one Isaiah and not ten of them. So why are you against one Isaiah but promoting it?
 
Rabbi said:
A question: how come Jesus did not take on the Buddhist teaching of reincarnation then? In Judaism, we have something similar in gilgulim, but how come this is absent in Christian teaching (outside the Gnosticism)? The whole essence of Buddhism, especially Zen, lies in escaping reincarnation for Nirvana and perfecting one’s karma. So where is it in the gospel message? Had Jesus traveled to the far East, this is something he would have surely not forgotten.

I await a reply, thank you.
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And as it is appointed to men once to die, but after this the judgment:

Hebrews 9:27

The days of man are short, and the number of his months is with thee: thou hast appointed his bounds which cannot be passed.

Job 14:5
 
curious_cath said:
We exactly know who wrote the Gospels, the Acts, the Letters and the Book of Revelation, perhaps except the Letter to the Hebrews. In contrast, hardly any author of the Ancient Judaic literature is known.
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Respectfully opinion only in questioning and in pondering…
Do we really know who exactly wrote the Gospels?
Scholars state …4 Gospels were… not written… by the Apostles, but by unknown authors decades later and only their names were attached, right?

Why Gospels are called in the Bible the …Memoirs of the Apostles, right?

St Paul Epistles or Letters were written by St Paul, but Scholars believe not all of St Paul Epistles or Letters were written by St Paul either, forget which ones experts question and state and why they have determine this also.

Peace 🙂
 
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Sorry I wasn’t able to reply to you earlier. It looks like @Rabbi had a good reply. And he might be better able to answer this than me about Hebrew Prefixes. for example, the Vav (sometimes seen as waw) can be added to the beginning of a word. It doesn’t change the meaning of the word as in changing it to a totally different word. Adding the vav would mean “the”. So for example, (looking at it as “waw” for better clarity), adding a w to the word “omen” wouldn’t change the word to “women”, it would mean “the omen”. There are other Hebrew letters which are used as prefixes as well, and the Mem is one of those, which I believe means “from” when added to the word.

(but really, me trying to explain Hebrew is kind of laughable 🙂 )
 
As I told you once before, I use phrases like ‘rather observant’ because I always try to avoid arguing with other Jews (I’m also female and - hence - no textual scholar).

If I may make an observation, as somebody who has been discussing religion online with Christians for more than two decades, interfaith discussions tend to ‘cascade’, running off in all sorts of directions, it’s always best to take them one at a time and keep them narrow.
 
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