71. THE BIBLE OR THE TALMUD?

 71. THE BIBLE OR THE TALMUD?
What the Talmud Reveals About the Purity of the Jewish Race

2:9. "... those who say they are Jews and are not..." 
      As we have shown in lesson 70, those calling themselves Jews today are not an identifiable racial group as such. By New Testament times they were making proselytes throughout the Roman world, Matthew 23:15. Proselytes need have no drop of genetic blood from Abraham, yet claimed to be Jews. This process has continued even to modern times. Today’s so-called 'Jews' are no different genetically than the general populace of which they are a part. Only in Jesus’ blood do we have the blood of the Covenant. That blood was poured out at Calvary for whosoever will.

     There was major controversy between the Jews who returned and those who remained in Babylon after the captivity about who were the true Jews. The Babylonian Talmud represents the viewpoint of the Jews who did not return from Babylon, and therefore is biased against the faction that did return to Judea. Contrary to what the Talmud reports, the Biblical account is clear that the Jewish leaders of the time proudly regarded the community that returned to Judea from the captivity, and it alone, as the true remnant of Israel. Are we to believe the Bible or the Talmud?
     Here we have a study of the “remnant doctrine.” The Church began with the remnant of Jews who believed in and followed Christ. 

“Those returning to Palestine considered themselves the purified remnant of Israel, whom Yahweh had redeemed from bondage and made heirs to the consummation of his promises,” Bright, History of Israel, 379 and 431.  It was this remnant that was the rightful heirs of the promises.

The “great refusal” of Jesus by Israel meant the death of “Old Israel,” a doom is pronounced on the Temple, (Note 5: Matt. 26.60b-1; cf Acts 6.14; Mark 13.2, (14).58), the fig tree will no longer bear fruit. (Note 6: Mark 11.13. See also Mark 12.1f. for the figure of the vineyard). Nevertheless, the “Temple” will be raised up, (Note 7: Mark 14.58; Matt. 26.60b-1; John 2.19), a “New Israel” will be established, and in the Eucharist the disciples are being treated as the nucleus of the “New Israel,” (ibid. 101).

[*Ephesians 2.11f] In short, the Gentiles “in Christ” had ceased to be strangers and foreigners and had become Israelites in the true sense, (ibid. 113).

 Some interpret Ezra 9:1-10:44 as saying that it was the people who had remained in Judea who had corrupted the community with mixed marriages. However, the Biblical text shows that it was the "people of Israel, the priests, and the Levites," Ezra 9:1. Ezra gathered them together "because of the transgression of those that had been carried away," (9:4). The phrase "carried away" is the one used to indicate those who had been taken to Babylon.

   In Ezra 10:5, it was the "chief priests, the Levites, and all Israel," and in 10:7, the message was to "all the children of the captivity." The decree to assemble for judgment against mixed marriages contained the threat that those who would not come up in three days, "his substance should be forfeited and himself separated from the congregation of those that had been carried away" 10:8. The list in 10:18-44 is that of the sons of the priests who had committed this offense.

   It seems, therefore, that the Biblical account indicates that the mixed marriages were principally among those who had returned from the captivity, and not merely those who had remained in Judea, (ibid. p. 18, note on 8:68-9:36). Ezra, therefore, had cleansed the community of the returning remnant.

Since the Messiah was to come from the lineage of David, it was necessary that the record of His genealogy be carefully documented. The Biblical record is pure, clean, and authoritative. However, the Talmud makes it clear that the family records of those who purported to be of "pure Jewish blood" were highly suspect:

“R. Jochanan said, ‘By the Temple, it is in our hand to discover who are not of pure blood in the land of Israel: but what shall I do, when the chief men of this generation lie hid?’” (that is, when they are not of pure blood, and yet we must not declare so much openly concerning them.) “He was of the same opinion with R. Isaac, who said... ‘A family (of the polluted blood) that lies hid, let it lie hid....’ (...Some eminent man, by a public proclamation, declared it [a certain family*] impure) But he caused another which was such [that is, impure*] to come near.  And there was another which the wise men would not manifest.”

When it especially lay upon the Sanhedrim, settled at Jerusalem to preserve pure families, as much as in them lay, pure still; and when they prescribed canons of preserving the legitimation of the people..., there was some necessity to lay up public records of pedigrees with them: whence it might be known what family was pure, and what defiled.... “I saw” (saith he, [Simon Ben Azzai*]) “a genealogical scroll in Jerusalem, in which it was thus written; ‘N., a bastard of a strange wife.’” Observe, that even a bastard was written in their public books of genealogy, that he might be known to be a bastard, and that the purer families might take heed of the defilement of his seed….

It is, therefore, easy to guess whence Matthew took the last fourteen generations of this genealogy, and Luke the first forty names of his; namely, from the genealogical scrolls at that time well enough known, and laid up in the public... repositories, and in the private also.

      Jesus' lineage was proven pure by Matthew and Luke from these records. Note, however, that these public ‘repositories’ and all other official buildings were later burned, some by Herod and all others in the War of 70 AD. There are now no official records dating back to Abraham except those in the Bible.

And it was necessary, indeed, in so noble and sublime a subject, and a thing that would be so much inquired into by the Jewish people as the lineage of the Messiah would be, that the evangelists should deliver a truth, not only that could not be gainsaid, but also that might be proved and established from certain and undoubted rolls of ancestors, (Lightfoot, CNT, vol. 2, pp. 9-14, quoting from the Talmud).

The Talmud shows that the Jews assimilated racially even from the time of the Babylonian captivity, that is, more than 500 years before the New Testament era. It says that the Jews who returned to Judea, under Ezra and Nehemiah after the Babylonian captivity consisted of those whose racial purity had been defiled either by unlawful marriages, by proselytism, by those born out of wedlock, and those simply gathered up off the streets who didn't know who their fathers and mothers were.

“For Ezra went not up out of Babylon, until he had rendered it pure as flour”....the gloss explains thus; “He left not any there that were illegitimate in any respect, but the priests and Levites only, and Israelites of a pure and undefiled stock....Therefore he brought them to Jerusalem, where care might be taken by the Sanhedrim fixed there, that the legitimate might not marry with the illegitimate.” (Lightfoot, vol. 2, pp. 7-8 quoting from the Talmud.)

     Jesus is the One and Only surviving legitimate Heir to the promises.

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[*] indicates my comments.

This lesson is an edited excerpt from my book Revelation In Context. My Book is available at the Living Word Bookstore in Shawnee, Oklahoma and is also available online at www.amazon.com  or www.xulonpress.com. Free downloads are available at www.revelationincontext.sermon.net