The Jewish Religion: Its Influence Today
JMD Morgan
by Elizabeth Dilling
I. THE PHARISEES, THE TALMUD, AND MODERN JUDAISM
Chapter Summary
Bible scholars are aware that Jesus Christ denounced the Pharisees. He
said they nullified all the Commandments of God by their Tradition,
"teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" (Mark 7:13; Matt.
15:6-9, etc.). His invective, in truth, cannot be equalled. All of
Matthew 23 is like a whiplash. He likened Pharisaism to a whited
sepulchre, indeed beautiful outwardly, but "inside full of dead men's
bones and of all uncleanness." Christ climaxed one condemnation after
another with the expletive, "Hypocrites!" He called the Pharisees
children of them that killed the Prophets. He foretold they would go on
killing, crucifying and persecuting until the guilt for all the
righteous blood shed from Abel on down would be upon them. "Ye serpents,
ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?"
Christ asked.
Christ is as utterly devastating of Pharisaism in the record of John 8.
Although He admitted that His hearers were descendants of Abraham, He
said they were, spiritually, of the devil. Christ told them:
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye
will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the
truth, because the truth is not in him. When he speaketh a lie, he
speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it (John 8:44).
The Missing Link
"But," says the disinterested Christian, "what has that to do with us
today? What a group of Pharisees did two thousand years ago is over and
done with!"
However, the missing link in Christian understanding on the subject of
"Pharisees" is best supplied by the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia (1943):
The Jewish religion as it is today traces its descent, without a
break, through all the centuries, from the Pharisees. Their leading
ideas and methods found expression in a literature of enormous extent,
of which a very great deal is still in existence. The Talmud is the
largest and most important single piece of that literature � and the
study of it is essential for any real understanding of Pharisaism.
Concerning the Pharisees, the 1905 Jewish Encyclopedia says:
With the destruction of the Temple (70 A.D.) the Sadducees
disappeared altogether, leaving the regulation of all Jewish affairs in
the hands of the Pharisees. Henceforth, Jewish life was regulated by the
Pharisees; the whole history of Judaism was reconstructed from the
Pharisaic point of view, and a new aspect was given to the Sanhedrin of
the past. A new chain of tradition supplanted the older priestly
tradition (Abot 1:1). Pharisaism shaped the character of Judaism and the
life and thought of the Jew for all the future. (See Exhibit 264 herein.)
Historically speaking, scripture believers had accepted Christ as the
Messiah foretold. They were no longer "Jews," but called themselves
"Christians." They were persecuted as such by the Pharisees. The word
"Pharisee" comes from the word "separated." (See Exhibit 300.)
The Babylonian Talmud, Sole Authority
You may ascertain by turning to top Jewish authorities today that the
Babylonian Talmud, the written form of the Tradition of the Pharisees,
is the sole authority of the so-called "Jewish" religion, or Judaism.
Rabbi Louis Finklestein was chosen in 1937 by the Kehillas (Jewish
communities) of the World as one of the top 120 Jews best representing
"a lamp of Judaism" to the World, together with Maxim Litvinov
(Finklestein), the Communist Commissar and bank robber terrorist;
atheist communist Albert Einstein; those indefatigable Marxist reds,
Harold Laski and his friend Felix Frankfurter (U.S. Supreme Court
Justice) who shared honors with Rabbi Finklestein and others.
Finklestein has long headed the Jewish Theological Seminary of America,
with branches in New York and Los Angeles. In his two-volume work "The
Pharisees." Rabbi Finklestein writes:
Pharasaism became Talmudism � But the spirit of the ancient
Pharisee survives unaltered. When the Jew � studies the Talmud, he is
actually repeating the arguments used in the Palestinian academies. From
Palestine to Babylonia; from Babylonia to North Africa, Italy. Spain,
France and Germany; from these to Poland. Russia and Eastern Europe
generally, ancient Pharasaism has wandered. (See Exhibit 1, Exhibit 2,
and Exhibit 3 herein.)
In Rabbi Finklestein's history of the Jews, he states:
The Talmud derives its authority from the position held by the
ancient academies. (i.e. Pharisee) The teachers of those academies, both
of Babylonia and of Palestine. were considered the rightful successors
of the older Sanhedrin . . . At the present time, the Jewish people have
no living central authority comparable in status to the ancient
Sanhedrins or the later academies. Therefore, any decision regarding the
Jewish religion must be based on the Talmud as the final resum� of the
teaching of those authorities when they existed.
[page 2] (The Jews � Their History, Culture, and Religion , Vol. 4,
p. 1332, Jewish Publication Society of America, 1949).
"The Talmud: Heart's Blood of the Jewish Faith," was the heading of a
November, 1959, installment of a bestselling book by the Jewish author,
Herman Wouk, which ran serially in the New York Herald-Tribune.
To quote:
The Talmud is to this day the circulating heart's blood of the
Jewish religion. Whatever laws, customs or ceremonies we observe �
whether we are Orthodox, Conservative, Reform or merely spasmodic
sentimentalists � we follow the Talmud. It is our common law.
Why Was It So Often Burned?
Why is the Talmud kept so unknown to non-Jews? Why was there no usable
English translation of the Talmud until the Soncino Edition, 1934-48?
Why, in European history, when the laws of the Talmud became commonly
known, was it burned over and over by order of the Popes, excoriated by
Martin Luther, denounced everywhere, and its followers exiled from one
country after another down through the centuries?
The Talmud's basic law is that only the Pharisee Jew ranks as a man, or
human being. All others rank as animals, "the people who are like an ass
� slaves who are considered the property of the master." The attitude
resulting from such teachings has been resented by non-Jews in all
countries and centuries. Such resentment, however, is always portrayed
by Jews as "persecution of the Jews."
Moses, on the contrary, was most insistent upon having one law for the
stranger and for the "home-born" and in teaching that the stranger must
not be oppressed. (Exodus 12:49; Lev. 24:22, Num. 9:14; 15:15-16, 29,
etc.) In fact, he ordered: "Love ye therefore the stranger; for ye were
strangers in the land of Egypt." (Deu. 10:19) It was only the
abominators he warned against.
Babylonian Talmud � The Law
The Babylonian Talmud is the law for so-called Judaism. However, its
pornographic, anti-Gentile and anti-Christian doctrines have often
caused hostility against it. It may then be argued by some Jews that
there is a Palestinian Talmud which is innocuous. Nevertheless, you may
look up the fact that Jewish authorities state it was lost for a
thousand years, has missing parts and lacks the "Gemara" and other
essentials, and is only used as a scholar's curiosity. Note the
statement of British Chief Rabbi Hertz in his foreword to the Soncino
edition of the Babylonian Talmud (Exhibit 33):
The Palestinian Talmud � was for many centuries almost forgotten by
Jewry. Its legal decisions were at no time deemed to possess validity,
if opposed by the Babylonian Talmud.
Was Christ Just to Pharisees?
Without some knowledge of the written form of the "Tradition of the
Pharisees," the Babylonian Talmud, one is unable to intelligently judge
whether Jesus Christ was fair and just in His acid denunciations of
Pharisaism, or not. One needs proof, offered by the irrefutable exhibits
from Jewish authorities (set forth elsewhere herein) that the Talmud
reverses every one of the Ten Commandments, the teachings of Moses and
the Prophets, and enshrines their opposites under a "whited sepulchre"
which is a disguise for murder and "all uncleanness," as Christ charged.
Murder of non-Pharisees is always permitted; theft, sodomy, incest, rape
are all permitted. For example, the righteousness of grown men violating
baby girls under three is a favorite topic for discussion in book after
book of the Talmud.
Talmudic literature is one long paean of praise for the very name
Babylon, and all that it means to Babylonian Talmudism today, whereas it
is a term of reproach in Old and New Testaments.
Note the Foreword to the first English translation of the Babylonian
Talmud by the late Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, J.H. Hertz, who, like
Rabbi Finklestein, was one of the 120 Jews chosen in 1937 by the
Kehillas of the World as best holding up the "lamp of Judaism:"
The beginnings of Talmudic literature date back to the time of the
Babylonian Exile in the Sixth pre-Christian Century � When a thousand
years later, the Babylonian Talmud assumed final codified form in the
year 500 after the Christian era, the Roman Western Empire had ceased to
be. (See Exhibit 30).
Rabbi Hertz extolls the Babylonian Exile, saying: "The Babylonian Exile
is a momentous period � During that Exile Israel found itself. It �
rediscovered the Torah and made it the rule of life �"
What he really means is that it was discovered how the Torah or Bible
could be used as a "whited sepulchre" for Babylonian degeneracy, as even
a cursory study will reveal.
One Rabbi Akiba was a First Century Talmud "sage," of whom Moses was
even supposedly jealous! (See Exhibit 32). Rabbi Hertz lauds Rabbi Akiba
(Exhibit 32):
Akiba was the author of a collection of traditional laws out of
which the Mishna actually grew. He was the greatest among the rabbis of
his own and of succeeding times � His keen and penetrating intellect
enabled him to find a Biblical basis for every provision of the Oral Law.
Still enthusing over the Babylonian derivation of Pharisaism, Rabbi
Hertz continues (See Exhibit 34):
When we come to the Babylonian Gemara, we are dealing with what
most people understand when they speak or write of the Talmud. Its
birthplace, Babylonia, was an autonomous Jewish center for a longer
period than any other land; namely from soon after 586 before the
Christian era to the year 1040 after the Christian Era � 1626 years.
(Exhibit 34)
[page 3] You will note in reproductions of Talmud pages that the word
"Gemara" designates the argumentation of the rabbis, the ultimate
decision being summarized as the "Mishnah."
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The Jewish Religion: Its Influence Today
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