The Divinity of Oral Law by slaveofone
Injecting Historical Reality with Theological Truth
Despite concomitant conflict both from outside and within; despite wars, exiles, genocides, slaveries, and even divorce from her own God, Judaism has survived the trials of time. But let no one say that through it all, the religion of Israel has remained unchanged. Judaism is nothing if not a religion of transition. In each new age, the children of Israel have looked through their own particular lens: deciphering the present, past, and future as acts of their God. For since the beginning
, no Word of Yahweh was known unless it manifested in and moved through the material and physical world.
Although the last couple centuries before Hadrian saw a great variety of theological interpretation manifest in what Josephus calls philosophic schools
, history preserved only two of these sects. If by his creation, the will and way of the Creator is made known, then the arm of Yahweh stretches across these historic circumstances and summons the world to see and know it. Just as the early Christians pointed to the historical events of Yeshua’s wondrous deeds, culminating in his physical resurrection, as validation for their theological message, so we meet in the second century AD a theological message behind the second Jewish sect. The Word of Yahweh is interpreted as manifest and moving material and physical history in the being of Israel’s final governing and legislative elders, who revealed in time through the tradition of their actions and decisions, The Mishnah, or Oral Law.
Tractate Aboth, the Sayings of the Fathers
, interprets the historically assured establishment of the thoughts and ways of Pharisaic tradition. When it says Moses received the [Oral] Law from Sinai
(Aboth 1:1) and it was passed on through successive generations until written codification, this is the assertion that Rabbi Akiba’s or Rabbi Johanan’s words and actions that have bearing on religious understanding and practice were prefigured and have fulfillment for the present day in the Law at Sinai. Christians, of course, have asserted that it was Yeshua’s words and actions that were prefigured and have fulfillment in the Law at Sinai (taking it back in some cases even to the work of creation itself).
The Judaic lens reveals Yahweh’s theological truth in historical event. This is not a strange conception, for if there is a God, what he does must be in some way according to himself as the final and deciding authority. Therefore, by looking at creation and history, those things he has done, we may see something of him. The Mishnah is the alternate (and in some sense, competing) second century interpretation of Yahweh’s work in history alongside the claims of Christianity. Throughout time, others have arise from outside, assimilating the Judaic lens for their own purpose (such as Muhammad and the Qur’an). It is our esteemed privilege that we get to look at creation and history in order to judge where, how, and if Yahweh moves in and through reality.