Are the Rabbis Right? — Michael L. Brown

I want to take a little time with you and ask a very important question. Something that you may have thought of, maybe you've never thought of. But the question is simply this. Are the Rabbis right? Are the Rabbis right?

The Foundations and Authority of Rabbinic Judaism

Now, you may ask me, well, who are the Rabbis? Do I mean Reform Rabbis or Orthodox Rabbis? Do I mean Hasidic Rabbis of a hundred years ago? Who am I talking about? Well, there are certain foundations of Judaism worldwide that even though you have different expressions, even though you have different communities with different customs, there are certain foundations which basically all Jews hold to.

And even believe that there's a God. I'm talking basically about those that accept that there is such a thing as Judaism and that the heads of Judaism are the Rabbis. And basically as the Rabbis have taught, so our Jewish people have gone through the centuries.

And when I speak of the Rabbis, I get upset when I hear anti-Semitic slurs. I get upset when I see in our very own country all types of ugliness and attack on our Jewish people. And by no means do I want to attack the rabbinic community or criticize.

What I want to do is have open dialogue. I've sat down in public and private with many Rabbis. I'm friendly with a good number of Rabbis and have had them in my house and been in their home. We've debated in public and in private.

So basically what I'm saying to you is I just want to have an intelligent discussion with you and raise some important issues to get you to think about this question. Are the Rabbis right? Now when I quote to you from the Bible, from the Hebrew Scriptures, I'm going to be quoting from the New Jewish Version.

This is an accepted, authoritative Jewish translation made by the greatest Hebrew scholars of our day. All Jewish men in consultation with conservative Orthodox and Reform Rabbis. So I'll be quoting to you from the New Jewish Version.

And then other sources that I quote are traditional Jewish sources. I'm not going to be bringing in some outside interpretation. I'm going to be challenging you to see what our sources actually say. And ask you the question, are they right or are they wrong?

Christ, Messiah, and the Authority of Rabbinic Tradition

Now, it's often said by the rabbinic community, the Christians, that you cannot have a Christianity without a Christ. And it's said in somewhat a negative way. In other words, you can have a Judaism without a Messiah.

But you cannot have a Christianity without a Christ. You cannot have a religion that is based on a Savior figure without a Savior. You cannot have a Messianic faith without a Messiah. That's what they're saying.

Well, I don't take that as an insult. I thank God for a Messiah. I thank God that he sent us a Messiah, sent us a Savior. But I want to give you a parallel statement. You cannot have Christianity without a Christ.

Here's the parallel statement. You cannot have rabbinic Judaism without a Rabbi. You cannot have traditional Judaism without a tradition. And according to the rabbinic teaching, and I'll just quote it to you, from an introduction to the Talmud by a famous Jewish scholar named Tzvi Hirsch Hayes, he said the Torah, divine instruction, is divided into two parts.

This is the traditional view I'm giving you now. The written and the unwritten law. The former, the written law, consists of the Pentateuch, which was divinely revealed to Moses at Sinai. So everyone accepts, this is no longer quoting, I'm just explaining this now, everyone accepts that the five books of Moses are authoritative of the written law that God gave and that formed the basis for all later Jewish thought, all later Jewish law, all later Jewish teaching.

This is the foundation. We agree with this. But now Hayes goes on to say, the latter, the unwritten law, comprises expositions and interpretations which were communicated to Moses orally as a supplement to the former.

The traditional Jewish view is that God gave Moses the written law, which is concise, which is often obscure, which doesn't tell you everything you need to know. That was put down in writing. And then God told Moses all the other things, really hundreds and thousands of laws and interpretations and insights into the written scriptures.

And then he gave these things to Moses and told him to pass them on, transmit them to Joshua, then Joshua to the elders that lived in his day, then the elders to the prophets, and so on and so forth, right up to Jesus' day.

And then after that, right up to the rabbinic community to this day. Some of those traditions got written down. That's called the Mishnah, the Talmud, and the later Jewish law codes. Other traditions were just passed on orally.

But the fact is, according to Hayes, allegiance to the authority of the said rabbinic tradition is binding upon all sons of Israel, since these explanations and interpretations have come down to us by word of mouth from generation to generation, right from the time of Moses.

Those sentences I just quoted to you are the traditional standard view, that the oral law was handed down to Moses, and that he handed it down, directly transmitted it, and it's been transmitted verbatim throughout all the ages.

And it says here, they have been transmitted to us, precise, correct, and adulterated. And he who does not give his adherence to the unwritten law and the rabbinic tradition has no right to share the heritage of Israel.

And according to the words of Chaim Shemel, a Jewish lawyer who wrote a book called The Oral Law, speaking of our Jewish people, he says this, and this is very surprising. They do not follow the literal word of the Bible, nor have they ever done so.

They have been fashioned and ruled by the verbal interpretation of the written word, more particularly by the Torah, which embraces both the written and the oral law. Now here's the problem I have with all of this, and it's very simple.

I can show you, by the five books of Moses, and throughout the rest of the scripture, that there was no such thing as an authoritative oral tradition. This is something we're going to come back to a little later.

But I can demonstrate to you that God made the covenant with Israel, God made a covenant with our people for all time, based on a written word and on a written word alone. And that every single reference in the entire Hebrew Bible to violating the Torah of Moses is only a reference to violating the written Torah, and there is never any reference to violating any oral law, oral tradition, or anything.

Not at all. Why? Because it didn't exist. It's something that came up much, much, much, much later, and then, in the memory of the people, was just put back to an age way, way, way in the past. But yet, in spite of that, in spite of the fact that there's no evidence, and I said I'll come back to that, I'm not just making a statement, but in spite of the fact that there's no evidence, let me tell you what the rabbinic community has said about the importance of the oral law.

Quoting from the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Gittin 60b, it says this, The Holy One, blessed be He, did not make His covenant with Israel except by virtue of the oral law. And then in the Jerusalem Talmud, in Tractate Peah section 3, Halakha 3, it says this, and these are words that a rabbi was reflecting on.

He was trying to figure out which was more important, the oral law or the written law, which was more valuable. So he says, words were given orally, and words were given in writing, and I didn't know which of the two sets was the more valuable.

However, from the verse, Exodus 34 .27, according to these words, have I made a covenant with you, we learn that those that were transmitted orally are the more valuable. Now, let me read to you from the New Jewish Version, Exodus 34 .27, And the Lord said to Moses, write down these commandments, for in accordance with these commandments I make a covenant with you and with Israel.

Look at that, write down these commandments, for in accordance with these commandments I make a covenant with you and with Israel. How in the world did they get the interpretation based on Exodus 34 .27 that the oral law is more valuable than the written law?

Because the oral law explains the written law, and the oral law interprets the written law. How did they come up with it from this verse? Very simple. It's by a total misinterpretation of the Hebrew words translated in accordance.

The Hebrew words are Al Pi, and that sounds exactly like the Torah Sheba Al Peh, the Torah that is transmitted orally. The Hebrew words Al Pi, if taken separately, would mean on the mouth. Therefore they say, you see, this is the oral Torah, this is the Torah that's transmitted orally by mouth.

Even though every Hebrew scholar in the world would agree, it doesn't mean on the mouth here, it means in accordance. That's the way it's translated in the new Jewish version, and every Jewish translation I've ever seen.

So God didn't say, I'm making a covenant with you based on the oral law. He said, I'm making a covenant with you based on what you're going to go and write down. You see, many times the rabbinic community accuses us as Messianic Jews, Jews who believe that Jesus is the Messiah.

We base our faith on the Hebrew Bible, but we're often accused of taking Scripture out of context and of twisting the meaning of Scripture. And I'd say with all respect to the learning, the great learning that many rabbis do have, that the foundations of rabbinic Judaism are based on misinterpretation and twisting of Scripture.

What I want to challenge you with is this, that rabbinic tradition has usurped divine authority. Rabbinic tradition has replaced the prophetic voice. Rabbinic tradition has taken the place of a face-to-face encounter with God.

And let me explain what I mean to you about a face-to-face encounter with God, and then I'm going to give you some examples that may surprise you, may amaze you, but if you'll study them out, you'll see they're all true.

In Deuteronomy chapter 5, this is now Moses speaking to the children of Israel as they're about to enter the Promised Land after almost 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. He says, Deuteronomy chapter 5 verse 2, again reading from the New Jewish Version, The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Korah, that's at Sinai.

It was not with our fathers that the Lord made this covenant, but with us, the living. Every one of us who is here today, face-to-face the Lord spoke to you on the mountain, out of the fire. You say, well, what does that mean?

Didn't God make a covenant with our forefathers? And here Moses said He didn't. He didn't make it with our fathers, but only with us. Here's what it means. God made the covenant, Moses said, with us, the living.

Every one of us who is here today, face-to-face the Lord spoke to you on the mountain, out of the fire. Yes, He did make a covenant with your fathers, but they're dead now. They're not here anymore.

They died in the wilderness. You that heard God speak from the mountain, face-to-face, and are still alive, you are the ones that He made the covenant with. Why? Because God doesn't make covenants with dead people, but only with living people.

I can't say, well, God made a covenant with my forefathers, therefore I'm in it. No, I have to, myself, enter into it. I, myself, have to have that living experience, that living, entering into the relationship of the covenant with God.

Now, if you look over in Deuteronomy chapter 11, it says, in verse 2, take thought this day, that it was not your children who neither experienced nor witnessed the lesson of the Lord your God. And now He refers to all the great things that God did.

His majesty, His mighty hands, His outstretched arms, and so on. It was not your children, but that it was you who saw with your own eyes all the marvelous deeds that the Lord performed. What's so important with that?

You say, didn't God make a covenant with our forefathers? Yes, but they're dead. So we, ourselves, must enter into that covenant in a living way. But didn't God also make that covenant with our children?

Yes, but they, themselves, must enter into it in a living way. I remember some time I spent with some Lubavitch Hasidim in Brooklyn, New York. They were very kind and gracious to me. We had some wonderful hours together in dialogue.

But when I asked a man point blank, why do you do what you do? Why do you live the way you live? The basic gist of his answer was, well, it's pretty good. It's pretty good. My father did it. I learned it from him.

Now I'm going to teach my children, and they're going to learn it from me. And they're going to grow up and do the same things I do. The question was, have you entered into that relationship with God that Moses and the first generation of Israelites had?

Or have you simply mimicked what you learned, and your fathers mimicked what they learned? I don't mean mimic in a negative way. I'm simply saying, follow traditions that have been learned by Roe. Is that what you're doing as a traditional Jew?

That's the question that I had to ask him. Well, the fact of the matter is this. Human authority has replaced divine authority. Human opinion, human learning, human brain power, human study, has replaced a personal relationship with God.

Jesus as the Mediator to Direct Knowledge of God

I don't know if you've ever heard it said that Jews pray directly to God, but Christians go through a mediator. They have to go through Jesus. Well, that's a totally incorrect concept. Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, Yeshua, came to earth and made God, His Father, known to us.

He came forth from God, and He made God, His Father, known to us. And through Him, we have direct access to God. Through Him, we can know God personally. Through Him, we can know God face-to-face, so to say.

Whereas, it's the rabbinic community that has put an endless chain of tradition between us and Moses. I know what to do, and I know how to relate to God, because my father told me, and he learned it from his father, who learned it from his father, who learned it from his father, all the way back to Moses.

That's what the rabbinic tradition says. So, I say the rabbinic tradition emphasizes the middleman, whereas the Messianic Jewish faith takes the middleman out of the way. Yeshua made God known to man.

He opened the way that we could know God directly. But I don't want to preach at you. I just want to give you some things to think about. So, let me give you some amazing examples where rabbinic tradition has overthrown the authority of the written Word.

The Talmudic Oven and Majority Rule

Let me give you one of the foundations of rabbinic tradition, and it comes at the end of an incredible story in the Talmud. There are many things in the Talmud I disagree with. There are many things in the Talmud that are wonderful and beautiful, and there's just some brilliant discussion in there, too.

It's an incredible document, if you can call it a document. Volume upon volume, somewhere around two and a half million words of discussion, and that's without all the millions of words of commentary that have been written on it.

Well, there's a story about Rabbi Eliezer the Great, and this is found in the Babylonian Talmud in tractate Baba Metzia, beginning on 59b, if you want to find an English translation of the Talmud and look it up yourself.

But Rabbi Eliezer was basically one of the greatest, if not the greatest, sages of his day. His name is mentioned more in the Talmud than any other scholar who lived at that time. And he got into a debate with the other rabbis, and there was an oven called the Ahnai Oven, and based on his understanding of the way it was constructed, he said that it was ritually clean, and the other rabbis said that it was unclean, it was not fit for use.

So he debated them, and he gave them every possible answer that you could come up with, and they still didn't accept it. So he then asked for supernatural proof, according to the story, and he said, if the Halakha, if the legal ruling is according to me, then let this carob tree be uprooted and let it be moved a certain distance, and it happened.

And they said, we don't accept the testimony of the carob tree. Well, he then said, if the Halakha is according to me, then let these waters just stop in their course as they're flowing by. And they stopped and just stood up like a wall, and they said, we don't accept testimony of that.

And then, according to the story, he says, if the Halakha is according to me, then let the walls of this house of study, this Beit Midrash, begin to collapse. And they began to collapse, and Rabbi Joshua jumped up and rebuked them, and he said, what is this to you?

This is just a dispute between scholars. And out of respect to Rabbi Joshua, the walls stopped falling, but out of respect to Rabbi Eliezer, they remained half-bent. Well, finally, a voice speaks from heaven.

The so-called bat kol, the heavenly voice, speaks forth and says, what are you arguing about? What are you bothering with? The Halakha is always according to Rabbi Eliezer. In other words, God himself vindicates the ruling of Rabbi Eliezer, at which point Rabbi Joshua, Rabbi Yehoshua, jumps up and says, It is not in heaven.

Meaning, the Torah is no longer in heaven. It's been given to man. We do not depend on miracles. We are not moved by miraculous testimony. The only thing that matters to us is what we can figure out, what we can deduce, what we can understand, because it's no longer in heaven.

It's been given to man, and therefore, human understanding, human interpretation rules. And, a verse is quoted to prove this. Basically, that if all the rabbis say it's unclean, and one rabbi says it's clean, even if God backs that one rabbi up, you follow the majority.

And the verse that's quoted is this. Exodus chapter 23, verse 2, says this, according to the Talmudic quotation, follow the majority, or turn after the majority. Now, do you know what the English actually says, or the Hebrew, the whole of that Hebrew verse, actually says?

You shall neither side with the multitude to do wrong, you shall not give perverse testimony in a dispute, so as to pervert it in favor of the multitude. In other words, the Hebrew says, don't follow the majority.

I'm making this very simple for you, without getting into a lengthy Hebrew discussion. The Hebrew says, don't follow the majority, and to try and give you the feel for it in English, what the rabbis did is they knocked out that word, don't, and they just took the end and said, follow the majority.

In other words, majority rules. It doesn't matter what God says, it doesn't matter what the scripture says, it doesn't matter what the interpretation that's correct says, what matters is the majority rules.

If you can't prove your point, and miracles don't count, you can't prove your point, then it's real plain and real simple, the majority rules. I heard a leading rabbi say, I know that Jesus is not the Messiah, because the Sanhedrin, the ruling Jewish community of his day, said that he was not the Messiah.

You ask the question, what if they said he was the Messiah? Then he would have been the Messiah. There's another man, a well-known anti-missionary rabbi, a man that violently opposes what we do and believe, when I say violently, I mean with all of his emotion, with all of his desire, and he says that we'll know who the Messiah is, because sometime in the future in Israel, there'll be another Sanhedrin, and when they get together and vote, and tell us who the Messiah is, then that's who it'll be.

That's how we'll find out. Now I don't claim that every Jew on the planet, or every rabbi on the planet, would agree with such a statement as that. All I'm saying is very simple. One of the foundations of rabbinic Judaism is majority rules.

Prophetic Authority, Miracles, and the Messiah

The only text in the Bible that is used to prove that is Exodus 23 .2. Admittedly, if you'll read rabbinic scholars talking about it, it is admittedly taken out of context, and changed in meaning. Nowhere does the Bible hint at such a thing as that whatsoever, that the majority of the leaders in the community have the right view.

In fact, many times, basically every time, that you read the history of our Jewish people in the Bible, the history of Israel, you'll see very plainly that the majority, even the majority of leaders, was almost always wrong.

You say, well how did you know who was right or wrong? Well, first thing, we had the written word. Whoever violated the written word, or changed the meaning of the written word, could not be following God.

They could not be right. Not only that, God would confirm His word with miracles, with signs, with wonders. This is not just something that the faith healers talk about, and people talk about, and weird religions.

No, it was a basic thing. The Israelites knew that their God was the true God, because He brought them out of Egypt. There was the Exodus. There was the triumph over all the gods of Egypt. There was the parting of the sea, and the miraculous deliverance.

All these great historical events, that's how the children of Israel knew that their God was God. Just like during the Six Day War, when everyone stood back and was amazed that Israel defeated its enemies so quickly.

That was a sign that God was fighting for Israel. Not that God hates the Arabs, but that God was miraculously preserving His Jewish people, even up to this very day. Now, another way that God would speak was through the prophets.

These men that He would speak through, that would supernaturally speak of things to come, and supernaturally reveal the sins of their people, and speak for God. But Rabbinic Judaism didn't have any more miracles, wonders, and signs.

Where were they? They were with the Jews who were following Jesus. That's right. The Talmud mentions that you could not go to a Jew who believed in Jesus, and have Him pray for you, and even if He healed you, it was a terrible sin for you to go to Him.

But it's kind of a backhanded compliment to say that these Messianic Jews, these Jews who said Yeshua is the Messiah, they were going around healing people. There's even an account of someone who was healed, and is criticized for it.

And another man they said it's good that he died before he was healed. It's better than being healed. Why? Well, the Messianic Jews had the miracles. The Rabbis, the Rabbinic community didn't have it anymore.

You say, what about the prophetic voice? What about the prophetic word? Well, I want to share something with you that may surprise you. One of the greatest Rabbis that ever lived, one of the great geniuses that Judaism has produced was Moses Maimonides, who lived from 1135 to 1204.

And he's called the Rambam by religious Jews. And he produced some major philosophical works. He produced the first systematic law code of Judaism, and it's still studied as authoritative to this very day.

And he also produced a commentary on the entire Mishnah, which was also the first of its kind. And in his introduction to his commentary on the Mishnah, he says some very startling things. He says there that if you have someone who is a proven prophet, this person is known to be a proven prophet, what they say comes to pass.

Not only that, their words are attested by miracles. If this proven prophet tells you to violate what the Bible says, well then, he's a false prophet. In other words, he may have been good, but now he's bad.

Strangle him. That's what should be done. That's the penalty. Strangulation. Well, that makes sense. Doesn't matter how many miracles, doesn't matter how true and right on the person has been in the past.

If they get off, if they violate God's word, well then, they're no longer his true prophet. But he goes on to say this. If a true proven prophet, so this is someone accredited by miracles, and having a track record of what they said coming to pass.

If a true proven prophet tells you, follow the literal word of the Torah, and the literal word runs contrary to the rabbinic interpretation, he's a false prophet. He deserves strangulation. Did you hear what I said?

Study this out on your own. This is in the introduction to the commentary on the Mishnah by Moses Maimonides, written originally in Arabic, and translated many times since then into Hebrew, and available in English translation.

He plainly said, that if a proven prophet, this is a man accredited by miracles, and with a proven track record, tells you, follow the literal word of the scripture, and that literal word violates the rabbinic interpretation and the rabbinic tradition, he's a false prophet, don't listen to him, listen to the tradition.

That is saying that human rabbinic authority is more weighty, more powerful, more decisive than the testimony of a proven prophet following the literal word of the scripture. You know it says in the Talmud, I know there are many different statements on almost every subject in the Talmud, but it is foundational that the scripture does not depart from its literal plain sense.

No, you have to understand allegory, you have to understand parable and poetry, we know that, but the plain sense of the Bible is what's binding, otherwise the sky's the limit, I can make anything mean anything.

And yet Maimonides says, if he tells you, if this prophet tells you, follow the plain sense of the Bible, and it violates the rabbinic interpretation, he's a false prophet, don't listen to him. It says in one of the very early rabbinic interpretations of the five books of Moses called the Sifre.

It says there, about the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 17, and we're going to turn there now, Deuteronomy chapter 17, the Sifre says, that you must follow what the judge, which later came to be interpreted to mean the rabbi, you must follow what he says, and even if what he says to you sounds like he's saying that the right is left, or that the left is right, you follow what he says anyway.

Follow what he says anyway. I've just given you three statements from major Jewish sources, one of the Talmud that we're going to come back to, because it's such an amazing story, we've got to see the end of it.

One of these interpretations tells us that even though God spoke from heaven, he was overruled by the majority. In fact, it is taught in the Talmud that God can make a decree, but a righteous man can overthrow it.

Did you hear that? God can make a decree, but a righteous man can overthrow it. That's actually taught in the Talmud. So we saw that one testimony, that the heavenly voice of God can be overthrown by the majority rule.

And then I gave you the statement from Moses Maimonides, one of the most definitive scholars in Judaism that's ever lived, that a proven prophet attested by miracle signs and wonders whose words always came true, plus the plain sense of the Bible, have less weight than rabbinic interpretation and rabbinic authority.

And then the third witness I gave you says that even when the sages tell you go this way, and it seems in your judgment to be the exact opposite of what's right, do what they say anyhow, because they really know, because they really understand.

Now, bear in mind, these sages were not immoral men. These sages were not drunkards. These sages were not telling people to go out and sin and do horrible things. No, no, absolutely not. Don't ever get that idea.

Don't get the idea that these sages were ignorant fools. No, these were great scholars. These were men who studied for many years, but their primary authority was human and not divine. And therefore, it led to the system where tradition took on a higher plane, a higher meaning, a more important place than truth itself.

Deuteronomy 17 and the Scope of Legal Authority

Now let me go over to Deuteronomy 17, and then we're going to go back to that story in the Talmud after that. It says in Deuteronomy 17, 8, If a case is too baffling for you to decide, be it a controversy over homicide, civil law, or assault, matters of dispute in your courts, you shall promptly repair it to the place that the Lord your God will have chosen.

This is referring ultimately to Jerusalem and the tabernacle that would be there and then the temple that would be built there. You must appear before the Levitical priests or the magistrate, the judge in charge at the time, and present your verdict.

When they have announced to you the verdict in the case, you shall carry out the verdict that is announced to you from that place that the Lord chose, observing scrupulously all their instructions to you.

You shall act in accordance with the instructions given to you and the ruling handed down to you. You must not deviate from the verdict that they announced to you either to the right or to the left. Should a man act presumptuously and disregard the priest charged with serving there the Lord your God or the magistrate, that man shall die.

Thus, you shall sweep out evil from evil, excuse me, you shall sweep out evil from Israel. All the people will hear and be afraid and will not act presumptuously again. Now, in looking at Deuteronomy 17, it seems pretty basic here.

The case is too baffling for you to decide. We had a controversy over homicide, civil law, or assault. Now there's a dispute in your courts. You shall promptly repair to the place that the Lord your God will have chosen.

So you had lower courts and this was kind of a supreme court. And you had a dispute, legal dispute, homicide, civil law, or assault. Then basically you had to take it to the supreme court of the day. I'm making this very basic.

You take it to the supreme court, to the Levitical priest or the magistrate. These people had authority in Israel and they would tell you what to do. They would give you the verdict. And whoever would not follow what they said was to be punished, was to be put to death.

You had to do exactly what they said. Now, basically that's just saying follow the ruling of the supreme court. And if I lived in Israel today and the rabbinic court made a decision that said, for example, that a certain type of offense was punishable by thus and such, that someone was guilty of stealing, or evading taxes, that it was punishable in thus and such a way, well, I have to abide by that law.

I have to abide by that rule as a citizen. What happened is, as there were no more Levitical priests and magistrates who had authority in Israel, who were governing in Israel, that this authority got transferred to the rabbis.

Now, this has nothing to do with the rabbis here. This had to do with legal authorities that had national rule throughout the country. Not on sages and scholars. It's not referring to sages and scholars and their interpretation of texts.

And that's who the rabbis are. It's talking about the people who had legal court authority, basically the supreme court of ancient Israel. Well, what happened was that the rabbis now took the authority here and said that every single area of a man's life, be it rising in the morning, washing one's hands in the morning, washing one's feet in the morning, what words to say when laying in bed and getting out of bed, how to pray, when to pray, what words to say when praying, when to stop praying, when to continue praying, how to have sexual relations with one's wife, what is right and what is wrong, how to raise one's children.

All details, how to celebrate the holidays, to every minor detail, what type of food to eat and what not to eat. Every single area of the religious Jew's life is governed by specific rabbinic law. You say, by what authority?

Whoever thought of such a thing? The Torah doesn't deal with all those things. The Torah deals basically with social areas and how to live and how to approach God, the sacrificial system and the priestly system, and then basically morality, holiness, etc., and the feast and holidays.

But where does it legislate every little detail like this? And where does it get into a man's private life and tell him, yes, there are certain things that are right or wrong, but where does it tell him in his most intimate life how to pray and what words to say?

It doesn't. It just gives general guidelines and one or two prayers and that's it. And the rest really was to be worked out by the individuals, by the people, by the community, by the people of faith as things grew over a period of years.

But what happened was the rabbinic authorities usurped authority that didn't belong to them. And I'm going to explain that statement in a minute because I know it's a strong statement. I don't mean it again in an arrogant and sinful way that these men were just terrible and they usurped this authority because they were evil.

No, I mean they were doing their best to fill in because they had a void. There was no more prophetic voice. God wasn't speaking from heaven. And they themselves had to figure out how to interpret every little detail of life and because they were convinced that the Torah governed every single area of a man's life from the moment he woke up to the moment he fell asleep to the moment he was born to the moment he died, that because of those things they had to find all these interpretations and come up with them and one way or another make all these decisions.

Now, the first problem is that this had nothing to do with these areas. It was homicide, civil law, assault, basic court disputes. That's all. Nothing to do with how a man prays. Nothing to do with whether he washed his hands a certain way or not in the morning.

No, not at all. Number two is I said it had to do with the court, the Levitical priest, the magistrate who would rule and officiate in that day. Not the religious scholars so much and not the rabbis of later communities.

It had nothing to do with that. And thirdly, when God wanted to communicate his will to Israel, above and beyond what was written in the Torah, he raised up prophets. And it says in the very next chapter of Deuteronomy, namely Deuteronomy chapter 18, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your own people like myself.

Prophetic Revelation and Jesus as the Promised Prophet

Him you shall heed. This is just what you asked of the Lord your God at Koreb on the day of the assembly saying, let me not hear the voice of the Lord my God any longer or see this wondrous fire any more lest I die.

Whereupon the Lord said to me, they have done well in speaking thus. I will raise up a prophet for them from among their own people like yourself. I will put my words in his mouth and he will speak to them all that I command him.

And if anybody fails to heed the words he speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account. But any prophet who presumes to speak in my name an oracle that I did not command him to utter or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.