Monday, September 27, 2004
Oral Torah - part 1
This last weekend our group took a few hours out of the day to study how to use the Mishnah (the now written parts of Oral Torah). It involved quite a bit more than the Mishnah. We learned about the Oral Torah, the lineage of kings and development of rabbinical schools of thought that all led up to the Oral Torah being written down. It opened our eyes to some of the social background to "New Testament" times, and the development of Judaism since then. It was an awesome study, one that I had not done for about 10 years, and one that I think we all gained a lot from.
It's sad that Christianity has gotten so far away from its roots, with a couple of thousand years of anti-Semitism, destroying many of the ways, ordinances, cultural ties, studies, traditions, and understandings that it was based in at the start. After 10 years of study into Ancient Judaism, I am seriously inclined to believe that the apostles expected that all newcomers to the faith would be newcomers to Judaism by their faith in Messiah Jesus. They were, after all, God-fearers, "B'nai Noach" (children of Noah), like many non-Jews who had worshipped the One True God in ages past. The difference was that they had never seen quite so many newcomers before. Acts chapter 15 laid out much of what seems to be a plea to follow the Noachide laws within their culture, which are the 7 teachings of life God implemented for all mankind. It was and is a starting place for entering a rich Jewish culture and the beginnings of a deeper study of Torah.
The separation that Christians have from understanding the Torah and Oral Torah and its place in their lives has given room to very superfluous interpretations of scripture, especially the New Testament. The very backdrop of the words written in the NT was the Torah and Oral Torah. Sadly, Christianity in the height of anti-Semitism deemed the Oral Torah "Satanic", disregarded all things Jewish, and most copies of Mishnah were burned much like the book burnings in Hitler's day. As a result, Christianity "grew up" disconnecting Jesus from Judaism. The parables of Jesus are rarely recognized for their origin in the Oral Torah, and Jesus is often deemed a "rebel" for his actions instead of one who relates his interpretations of Torah to Rabbi Hillel, the prominent Rabbi whose commentary Jesus pointed to many times when explaining his actions. Also, as David Whitaker would describe Christianity's early separation from the Oral Torah, "As a result, churchmen and theologians have developed many differing ideas over the centuries about how to practice the many laws found in the Holy Scriptures, or whether the law should be practiced at all."
More later...
