A lot of people don’t understand how post-Biblical Judaism developed.
For one thing, there never was a Biblical Judaism. There never was a Judaism limited to the Bible. Before there was a Bible, a Torah, there was an oral tradition that became the Torah and the Bible.
As long as there’s been an oral tradition, there’s been another oral tradition interpreting the oral tradition written down in the Torah and the Bible. They’ve always run together like ham and eggs.
Dennis: “I have no reason to believe that Moses wore a yarmulke. Certainly there was no Hanukkah, no Purim. These are rabbinic holidays. How did Pharisaic law become Jewish?”
I was raised a Protestant. It holds “sola scriptura.” The Bible and the Bible only shall be our creed. Protestantism holds that tradition is not bad but it is a human creation.
Dennis: “How did the rabbis claim authority to make later law? They base it largely on this sentence — the Torah is not in Heaven.”
“A Jew cannot say on law that I got a voice from G-d and I can prove in miracles that I am right.”
“The rabbis say the Torah says follow the majority and…our religion is on earth and we will determine what it is for Jews will do.”
