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82 Is Judaism the Religion of Moses?

In assuming the religious leadership, the Pharisees reasoned that they were taking the place
of the priests whom they considered unfit to govern the people on account of their rejection of the
traditional laws.

Pharisees Reckoned Themselves as Prophets

Upon appropriating to themselves the religious authority among the Jews, the Pharisees
thought themselves also competent to be the ultimate judges concerning all religious questions.
This gave them, so they reasoned, the right to speak in the name of the Eternal even as the prophets
of old had done.

IT IS CERTAIN that they [the Pharisees] regarded themselves as the SUCCESSORS OF
THE PROPHETS, and that not merely in fact BUT BY RIGHT (Herford, Talmud and
Apocrypha, p. 71).

The Pharisees contended, by their own statements, that they had been given the spirit of
prophecy as had the prophets of old.

They had already accepted the new customs as divine law -- and they reckoned that only in-
dividuals under the influence of the Spirit of God could do such things! In the Jewish Talmud, a
compilation of Jewish writings from the days after Alexander the Great to about 400 years after
Christ, there are several statements of these early Pharisees in regard to their belief that they had the
same authority as the prophets. In the talmudical tractate called Baba Bathra, in section 12a, we
read this: "PROPHECY WAS TAKEN FROM THE PROPHETS AND WAS GIVEN TO THE
WISE [the Pharisees]." To this remark is added: "AND IT HAS NOT BEEN TAKEN FROM
THESE."

Herford deduces from this particular reference, among many others in the Talmud: "The rel-
evance of this passage ... is that the Rabbis [the Pharisees] felt that they had, NO LESS BUT EVEN
MORE THAN THE PROPHETS, DIVINE AUTHORITY FOR WHAT THEY TAUGHT, and that
this was given to them after the time when the prophets ceased to function. It was the way of ex-
pressing the belief that the REVELATION DID NOT CEASE with the extinction of prophecy"
(Talmud and Apocrypha, p. 72).

The audacious Pharisees considered their laws and commandments as having more weight
than those of the Prophets! That divine revelation did not cease with the prophets, but was now in
action in the Pharisees as well! They were confident that what they were teaching -- even though in
so many cases it did not agree with the plain and simple commandments of God as revealed in
Scripture -- was divine teaching as prompted by the Spirit of God.

The Pharisees felt that God was "revealing Himself now as He had revealed Himself to the
prophets, AND SPEAKING NOT ALONE IN THE WORDS OF AN ANCIENT TEXT, but in
words which came FROM THE HEART AND CONSCIENCE OF MEN who felt His hand laid
upon them to 'guide them into all truth'" (ibid., p. 69).

The Berean Voice November-December 2002