Why do Christians reject the Talmud?

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Hello again, @Rabbi:
FYI, I’m a cradle Christian. It’s been ages since I posted on this thread.

Christians don’t reject the Talmud. It isn’t on our radar screen. Jews don’t read the writings of the Doctors of the Church for the same reason.

Without my frum Torah study partner, Abby, I wouldn’t know anything about halacha and the Talmud. Abby comes from the generation of women who didn’t study Talmud.

As I understand it, Jewish scholars formulated the Babylonian Talmud to write down the halacha given to Moses. Halacha was not supposed to be written. But the greater fear was that the oral Law would be forgotten. The rest of the Talmud consists of commentaries by sages.

I looked at a sample of Adin Steinsaltz’ English translation. My head was spinning so much that I nearly called for paramedics. 😃

P.S. Christians aren’t exposed to the concept of halacha. In church, I was taught that God Himself revealed the written law to Moses on Mount Sinai.
 
meltzerboy2 said:
Interesting argument with regard to the Catholic belief in the lack of original sin of Mary. I don’t recall exactly what Protestants say about this, but I think most believe Mary has original sin as well as any other human being despite her special status. What sayest thou, Catholics?
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The Catholic teaching on original sin is that we don’t receive the original holiness and justice that Adam and Eve were created with. Secondarily, we also lack the preternatural gifts given to Adam and Eve (immortality, for one).

Mary was conceived from the moment of conception with God’s grace. That is, she was always justified and holy, not through any merits of her own, but by God’s free gift, in anticipation of her son’s meritorious offering, his merits being applied retroactively. This is fitting for she who would be for a time the tabernacle of God and the Ark of the New Covenant, bearing in her womb the high priest, the law/Word, and the true heavenly manna. It’s also a work of love by God for she who would be mother to him in the Incarnation.

Jesus, also being God, was without sin, and his human nature was also always justified and full of grace, his humanity glorified by its association with God. Jesus’ human body was also the tabernacle of God and a type of the Ark. In his nature there was no sin, but he assumed the penalties of sin in the flesh (mortality, etc…) so as to be like us.
 
Hi, thank you for posting. You mentioned Abby being a “frum partner” who’s taught you all about the halacha and Talmud, but then say that she hasn’t studied Talmud. I’m curious if this is just a typo or something else.

You are right regarding everything else, and I welcome you back to Catholic Answers.
 
Thank you, Wesrock, for your customary information and insight. I hope I don’t derail the thread too much by asking you just how holy Adam and Eve are according to Catholic teaching? What I mean is that both were capable of disobedience toward Gd, with the assistance of the snake, or Satan, I believe. Since they seem to have had this capacity to sin within them, and their will did not conform to that of Gd in this instance (unlike the human nature of Jesus), how holy were they created?
 
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As I said above “Abby comes from the generation of women who didn’t study Talmud.” She took a college class in Talmud.

This paragraph summarizes what I learned through her. As you can see, it’s not extensive.
As I understand it, Jewish scholars formulated the Babylonian Talmud to write down the halacha given to Moses. Halacha was not supposed to be written. But the greater fear was that the oral Law would be forgotten. The rest of the Talmud consists of commentaries by sages.
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Through that, she was able to give me an quick overview. She knows about halacha as it pertains to religious observance.

Then, I switched to what I’ve picked up through our lessons. We usually select a video lecture and then discuss it.

Plus, I looked up Adin Steinsaltz’s translation of the Talmud all by myself.
 
Well, in Jewish tradition, Adam was first to receive the soul. Take that as you will.
 
@Rabbi:
Well, in Jewish tradition, Adam was first to receive the soul. Take that as you will.
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Animals received souls before Adam. Humans and animals share the nefesh, but not the neshama. Does that count?
 
From my understanding, angels are a spiritual force, and therefore, there isn’t a need, per se, for a soul. They have have a form of spiritual energy, which the rabbis said were recharged when the sacrifices were made. I’d assume prayer has this same effect today, as it has ultimately replaced sacrifice.

Also note that angels don’t have free will in Judaism.
 
meltzerboy2 said:
Thank you, Wesrock, for your customary information and insight. I hope I don’t derail the thread too much by asking you just how holy Adam and Eve are according to Catholic teaching? What I mean is that both were capable of disobedience toward Gd, with the assistance of the snake, or Satan, I believe. Since they seem to have had this capacity to sin within them, and their will did not conform to that of Gd in this instance (unlike the human nature of Jesus), how holy were they created?
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They walked with God… until they didn’t. When they walked with God in all things they were in union with him, their wills conformed to his will. This is to be holy. However, yes, they had the capacity to choose to walk another way and sin. One of the preternatural gifts the Church teaches they had is that their rational thinking was superior to their animal appetites. This doesn’t mean they couldn’t choose selfishly, but… it may be easier to talk about you and me for a moment. If I’m hungry, perhaps even starving, my animal appetite can overwhelm my thinking and lead me to bad behavior. My culpability may be reduced in extreme cases, but I might still do something very bad in response to the hunger. We call this concupiscence. Adam and Eve didn’t suffer from this. Their animal appetites didn’t domineer over their wills. So when Adam and Eve ate the fruit (I take “eating the fruit” as symbolic, but for the sake of this post), it wouldn’t be something like hunger compromising their choice. It was truly deliberate. Prideful. Even in Eastern Orthodoxy, which has some qualms with Catholic understanding of original sin, many Orthodox Christians hold that mortality was the only consequence, but that mortality led to suffering, hunger, and other animal appetites.

Anyway, long story short, to be holy is to walk with God. That is our way to holiness/sainthood still today. And Adam and Eve walked with God at the start, and were in union and harmony with God and creation. Sin brought a loss of holiness and disunion.
 
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Is that one of the reasons why Jews are supposed to be like angels on Yom Kippur, that is, in order NOT to have the free will which might choose to disobey Gd’s will?
 
Rabbi two things angels do have free will that’s why lucifer choose to disobey God secondly in your law it says not to add or take away from the Torah.

Who is Yeshu in the Talmud rabbi ?
 
Rabbi^ I hope you have studied the Bible and read the New Testament other wise you will never know the truth!
 
Be careful in telling me what I don’t know. Who knows the truth! We all search for it but the Muslim and Hindu will make the same claim. “We have the truth!” So? What is truth? How do you measure truth? Is it bulletproof? IS truth subjective? Is it objective? Is it nothing? Maybe it is better off not to have truth!

The Lucifer story is a mistranslation in Tanakh. According to us, no angels ever rebelled against Him. Why would they, if they are literally an extension of Him, as the Kabbalah teaches us? Think of angels like transformer on an electrical charge. Angels, traditionally, are like garments on the body. It is the same with the sefirot. Again, there is no Lucifer character, according to us, in Isaiah or Ezekiel or anywhere else for that matter.

As far as Jesus is concerned, he is absent in the Talmud. The rabbis were not concerned with him, why should they? They wanted to know the halacha, regardless if he was the Messiah or not.

But I want to ask you an honest question. Did you know I’m part of a minority who believes Bar Kochba is the Messiah? Now, in your opinion, why isn’t he the Messiah?
 
Rabbi tell me about the Merkabah, i already know about it but I’d like to hear from a rabbi what he has to say of it ?
 
The מרכבה is sketchy. It surely isn’t UFOs. It was first mentioned in Ezekiel, later in the Talmud, which prohibited study due to the very nature of the concept (it could drive you insane, Rabbi Akiva was lucky and smart), but the Rambam didn’t care about that in his Guide. The sefer by the navi mentions the spiritual via physical imagery. Why is this important? Because the מרכבה wasn’t meant to be taken literally. It is an allegory. According to the Avodat HaKodesh, the navi was given images of physical objects to describe or compare, spiritual objects, or abstracts. We have to remember that the most important revelation was at Sinai. Other nevi’im discussed the chariot, too, and called it a “secondary revelation.” The haftarah portion says it was a means by which to “see” the Divine. However, they were careful to say that the מרכבה somehow encapsulated the revelation at Sinai. How so? It overlaps. While the Torah was a one time event, to help reinvent the world, we have to understand that G-d is not isolated from the physical world. The Tanya says we don’t exist - since we are “in” G-d, insomuch that we’re at the source - being He encompasses the entire universe. But all physical objects have chains linked to spiritual realms, so we don’t live in the Matrix. But both are different realities: compare a stone to a mathematical equation. Try explaining the equation to the stone. Good luck! Though they’re both components of the physical world, they exist separately, in different contexts. It is the same with the world, it is finite, and G-d, the opposite. In fact, there is a cut in the chain between the sefirot, and this is the theme in Ezekiel’s vision: the physical images he was shown no longer obstructed G-d; they were the ramp to spirituality. The Talmud tells us that Isaiah’s vision was like a city kid laying eyes upon the king for the first time, whereas Ezekiel’s was like a kid from the local village. Because the city boy lives near the palace, he pays no mind to its artifacts. In the parallel, this is because Isaiah lived in Eretz Yisrael, where spirituality was easily accessible. To Isaiah, all the royal pomp of the palace was just a matter of going about one’s business. To Ezekiel, who had no concept of a royal palace, it was magnificent. This is why the chariot wasn’t merely a “milieu” in which G-d was seen. Ezekiel was excited to understand the king, the palace, G-d. In essence.

So, remember, the giving of the Torah was an elevation of the physical world. But Ezekiel wasn’t immune to this, and neither are we. We live in an age without nevi’im. Therefore, all physical reality is just an “picture” of the Divine, on the surface.

I just gave you the premise of the מרכבה. Through it, we hope to see G-d through creation, and hopefully, fulfill our purpose in it.
 
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