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Is JUDAISM the Religion of Moses? 45

"THEY INSISTED THAT THEIR DECISIONS MUST BE ACCEPTED AS AU-
THORITATIVE ...'' (Rab binic Es says, p. 235).

If any one would op pose them, such as the Sad du cees or other groups, when the Phar i sees
taught their laws in de pend ently of Scrip ture proof, the Phar i sees would haugh tily main tain that
they did not need the Scrip ture to back them up. They felt they could teach in the Mish nah-form any
time they pleased and needed no Scrip ture proofs for their teach ings.

It is dif fi cult to be lieve that men who claimed to be the ser vants of God would re sort to such
de duc tions. But the Phar i sees did!

AND TODAY THERE ARE MANY CHURCH DENOMINATIONS CLAIMING TO BE
CHRISTIAN WHICH DO THE VERY SAME THING. There are mil lions of peo ple, call ing
them selves Chris tian, who feel they do not have to keep the Words of the Bi ble, but rather must
obey the words of their re li gious lead ers who teach many doc trines com pletely con trary to the Bi -
ble.

There are mil lions of peo ple in the world to day who are no better than the Phar i sees. Many
church de nom i na tions to day use the same Mish nah-form of in ter pre ta tion (not us ing the Scrip ture
for their doc trines), just like the Phar i sees did be fore and dur ing the days of Christ. Christ con -
demned the Phar i sees for teach ing as true doc trines the com mand ments of men (Mark 7:7). The
Jews THEN -- as many NOW -- know ingly taught their new laws and com mand ments "ON THE
AUTHORITY OF THEIR OWN REASON AND CONSCIENCE, AND NOT BY SEEKING
THEIR AUTHORITY IN THE WRITTEN TEXT [the Bi ble]" (ibid., p. 70).

If we are the chil dren of God, we had better be obey ing EVERY word of God as Christ com -
manded (Matt. 4:4).

The Phar i sees had their chance to fol low the Scrip tures be fore they ac cepted the cus toms of
the peo ple that had been in her ited from Hel le nism. But to please the pop u lace as a whole, they
adopted the new cus toms and re jected the Word of God which com manded them not to do such
things (Jer. 10:1-4). The Word of God was re jected, and in its place was in sti tuted the re li gion of
Ju da ism.

Lauterbach tells us why the Phar i sees had to prac ti cally aban don the older method of teach -
ing that was used by Ezra, Nehemiah and the Sopherim -- termed the Mid rash-form. No tice what he
says:

"The ex clu sive use of the Mid rash-form threat ened to en dan ger the au thor ity and teach ings
of the Phar i sees. These ap pre hen sions caused the Phar i saic teach ers to make more ex ten -
sive use of the Mish nah-form and in some cases even to pre fer the same to the Mid -
rash-form. For to give all the halakic teach ings [new laws] of the Phar i sees in the
Mid rash-form as based on Scrip ture WOULD HAVE EXPOSED THESE TEACHINGS to
the at tack of the Sad du cees" (ibid., p. 231).

The Berean Voice