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48 Is JUDAISM the Religion of Moses?

An other state ment, in Yebamoth 72b, con cerns one Eleazar, the son of Pedat, who hap -
pened to use a Scrip ture text to re fute the per sonal opin ion of his op po nent, an other Phar i see, on a
par tic u lar ques tion. The op po nent, en deav or ing to re pu di ate the son of Pedat in front of the other
Phar i sees, an swered with these words: "I see that the son of Pedat STUDIES IN THE MANNER
OF MOSES."

No tice the plain im pli ca tion here! If a per son used the Scrip ture to prove or to dis prove a
par tic u lar point of doc trine, he was con temp tu ously ac cused of teach ing IN THE MANNER OF
MOSES -- as Mo ses did!

The Phar i sees were fully con scious of the se ri ous ness of the ac tions they were tak ing. They
ac tu ally knew better! But they went ahead with their de signs to teach with out any Scrip tural sup -
port.

"The teach ers who in tro duced the con cep tion of the Un writ ten To rah [the tra di tional laws]
... WERE QUITE AWARE OF THE EXTREME GRAVITY OF THE STEP THEY WERE
TAKING" (Herford, Tal mud and Apoc ry pha, p. 113).

No won der Christ re buked the Phar i sees so strongly. "But woe unto you, scribes and Phar i -
sees, hyp o crites! for ye shut up the king dom of heaven against men: for ye nei ther go in your selves,
nei ther suf fer ye them that are en ter ing to go in." (Matt. 23:13)

"Woe unto you, scribes and Phar i sees, hyp o crites! for ye com pass sea and land to make one
pros e lyte, and when he is made, ye make him two fold more the child of hell than your -
selves." (Matt. 23:15)

Pharisees Enact Multitudes of Commandments Without Scripture Support

By the time of Christ, the Phar i sees had made new com mand ments num ber ing into the thou -
sands. They dealt with ev ery phase of re li gious life among the Jews. Christ said that these
COMMANDMENTS OF MEN were so bur den some that they were ex tremely dif fi cult to bear, and
in fact, many of them were im pos si ble of ful fill ment (Matt. 23:4). (We will see what some of these
man-made com mand ments were, in later in stall ments.)

To show you how mul ti tu di nous they were, we need only turn to the Jew ish Tal mud. The
Eng lish trans la tion of the Tal mud, which con tains the ma jor part of the in de pend ent teach ings of
the Phar i sees, is a huge work num ber ing 34 vol umes.

Some of the laws re corded in the Tal mud were en acted af ter the time of Christ, but the ma -
jor ity were in ex is tence dur ing New Tes ta ment times. Even the Ju da ism of mod ern times is based
upon these Phar i saic laws. The mod ern or tho dox sec tion of Ju da ism ad heres al most com pletely to
these laws re corded in the Tal mud.

The Berean Voice