What is Rabbinic Judaism?
When people hear the term Judaism, images of the Old Testament tend to jump to mind. Phrases like 'Judeo-Christian values' enter the imagination. However, the religion known as Judaism today is Rabbinic, not Biblical . This is to be distinguished from the term Jewish, which can ambiguously refer either to the ethnicity or the religion. In religious Judaism however, the figures of authority are no longer Scripture — but rather the rabbis who claim to interpret Scripture (often called 'Sages' ).
Hence the more accurate name, Rabbinic Judaism. These rabbis supposedly:
To summarise Rabbinic Judaism in its own words:
"There is greater stringency with regard to traditional rabbinic interpretations of the Torah than with regard to matters of Torah."
What Happened to Judaism That Turned it Rabbinic?
Two main catalysts in history propelled Judaism away from the Old Testament:
- The Pharisees' rejection of Jesus.
- The destruction of the Temple in 70 AD.
1. The Pharisees' Rejection of Jesus
Before the days of Jesus, Judaism looked much like many Christians still suppose it is: attempted adherance to the Old Testament (Tanakh). However, by the time Jesus entered the scene, the seeds of rabbinic revolution were already being sown:
3 And He answered and said to them, 'Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, 'HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER,' and, 'HE WHO SPEAKS EVIL OF FATHER OR MOTHER IS TO BE PUT TO DEATH.' 5 But you say, 'Whoever says to his father or mother, 'Whatever I have that would help you has been given to God,' 6 he is not to honor his father or his mother.' And by this you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition.
This "tradition", as Jesus called it, was eventually codified into the Talmud. Its emergance, however, began beforehand. Up through the time of Esther, the Jewish people had the Prophets to interpret the Law of God for them. However, as even the Apocrypha tells us, after Esther no prophets arose to to communicate God's will to man — much less remind people of His Law:
A terrible oppression began in Israel; there had been nothing like it since the disappearance of prophecy among them.
Note: This is one of many reasons the Apocrypha is not inspired Scripture. It rules out its own possibility of being a Word of God given to man.In this void arose a faction of fervent men, the Pharisees, who sought to fill this void left by prophets. If no prophet remained to tell them the will of God, then they would build fences around God's Law to ensure no one ever got even close to breaking it ever again. These 'fences' came to be known as the "Oral Law", as commented on by Josephus and confirmed by Jesus Himself:
The Antiquities of the Jews 13.297-298
What I would now explain is this, that the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the laws of Moses; and for that reason it is that the Sadducees reject them, and say that we are to esteem those observances to be obligatory which are in the written word, but are not to observe what are derived from the tradition of our forefathers. And concerning these things it is that great disputes and differences have arisen among them, while the Sadducees are able to persuade none but the rich, and have not the populace obsequious to them, but the Pharisees have the multitude on their side. But about these two sects, and that of the Essenes, I have treated accurately in the second book of Jewish affairs.
— Flavius Josephus
3 the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the traditions of the elders; 4 and when they come from the market places, they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves; and there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots. 5 The Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, "Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?" 6 And He said to them, "Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: 'This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. 7 But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.'
7 Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men."
By the days of Jesus, the Pharisees' had gained political sway through Judea. However, they were (as Josephus and Christ both testify) only one strain of Judaism competing among several: namely, the Essenes and the Sadduccees.
In fact, The Dead Sea Scrolls (written by the Essenes) went so far as to call a teacher of the Pharisees the "Prophet of Lies"!
However, when Jesus entered the scene, all changed. For the first time in history, the Sadduccees and the Pharisees united to oppose the threat Jesus brought to both their systems of Judaism: the Sadduccees, seemingly for the political threat Jesus posed; the Pharisees, seemingly for the religious threat Jesus posed.
47 Therefore the chief priests [Sadduccees] and the Pharisees convened a Council, and were saying, "What are we doing? For this man is performing many signs. 48 If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation."... 53 So from that day on they planned together to kill Him.
Not only did an unprecidented political alliance form that day, but both the Pharisees and Sadduccees became fully devoted to their teachings — regardless of reality. The day Jesus rose was the day the Pharisees decided their Sages' traditions could trump reality itself. For them to admit otherwise would be to admit that Jesus was the Messiah:
11 some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests [Sadduccees] all that had happened. 12 And when they had assembled with the elders [Pharisees] and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, 13 and said, 'You are to say, 'His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep.' 14 'And if this should come to the governor's ears, we will win him over and keep you out of trouble.' 15 And they took the money and did as they had been instructed; and this story was widely spread among the Jews, and is to this day.
Doubling down on such blasphemous lies, the Pharisees soon granted their oral traditions godlike authority. To question the words of their traditions was to question God Himself:
Onkelos then went and raised Jesus the Nazarene from the grave through necromancy.... Onkelos said to him: What is the punishment of that man, a euphemism for Jesus himself, in the next world? Jesus said to him: He [Myself] is punished with boiling excrement. As the Master said: Anyone who mocks the words of the Sages will be sentenced to boiling excrement. And this was his sin, as he mocked the words of the Sages.
2. The Destruction of the Temple in 70 AD
Vespasian then said to Rabban Yoḥanan ben Zakkai: I will be going to Rome to accept my new position, and I will send someone else in my place to continue besieging the city [Jerusalem] and waging war against it. But before I leave, ask something of me that I can give you. Rabban Yoḥanan ben Zakkai said to him: Give me Yavne [a different city] and its Sages and do not destroy it [Yavne], and spare the dynasty of Rabban Gamliel [Paul's teacher, per Acts 22:3] and do not kill them as if they were rebels, and lastly give me doctors to heal Rabbi Tzadok.
By the time Rome had Jerusalem under seige, the Sages themselves report that they had the ear of Vespasian. When given an opportunity to ask for anything, instead of following Esther's example, they neither asked for the lives of their people nor the preservation of God's Temple.
- Instead of asking for the lives of their people, they asked for the lives of their Sages.
- Instead of asking for Jerusalem (and thus its Temple), they asked for Yavne — an epicenter of their rabbinic system.
That day, the Pharisees sacrificed their own people and God's Temple upon the alter of their oral traditions. When their people needed them the most, their true colors shone once more. Before, they had only betrayed the Jewish Christians. Now, they betrayed their entire people.
With that single request, the Temple — and all the rival factions within Judaism — were destroyed. By the end of 70 AD, Jerusalem had fallen, the Temple was in ruins, and its people had been carried off in chains. The only surviving form of Judaism? "Yavne and its Sages".
In that one conversation Rabbinic Judaism crushed all opposition. In so doing, it secured itself as the dominant — and only — available form of Judaism. That is, unless one decided to follow Jesus the Messiah instead.
Christianity's Response
By God's grace, Christianity flurishes still. Following Jesus' example, most Christians today have long since turned back in love for those trapped within the web of Rabbinic Judaism, seeking only their well-being and peace with God (salvation). To quote Paul, a Sage himself who eventually embraced Jesus:
1 I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, 2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, 4 who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the Temple service and the promises, 5 whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ [Messiah] according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.
Conclusion: So What is Rabbinic Judaism?
Rabbinic Judaism is, simply put, exactly what it sounds like: rabbinic. It follows the teachings of the Pharisees' descendents (the Sages) as its de facto authority. It means complete submission to the movement which killed our Saviour.
To quote the very first verse from the Sages mentioned in this article:
Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim 22b
"The word et in this verse was not explained until Rabbi Akiva came and expounded: “You shall be in awe of [et] the Lord your God”: The word et comes to include Torah scholars, and one is commanded to fear them just as one fears God."
For Zion Ministries' Response
Lest you read this and think For Zion Ministries holds any hatred whatsoever for those in Rabbinic Judaism, please think again. We hate the chains which bind people to their sins and prevent them from seeing Jesus, the true Messiah. We love the people who are bound.
The Sages are those chains. The Talmud codified those chains. The followers of Rabbinic Judaism today are those trapped within those chains — bound to their sins and prevented from seeing Jesus as their true Messiah.
We at For Zion Ministries' seek to be a tool God uses to free them.
For Zion's sake I will not keep silent,
And for Jerusalem's sake I will not keep quiet,
Until her righteousness goes forth like brightness,
And her salvation like a torch that is burning.
I [Jesus] came that they [the Jewish people] may have life, and have it abundantly.