Human Tradition & Divine Revelation: 3 Traditions in Judaism

Table of Contents

1 Recognizing Traditions in Christianity
2 Evaluating Traditions in Christianity
3 Traditions in Judaism
4 Traditions in the NT
5 Traditions of the Early Church Fathers
6 Traditions in Romanism
7 The Papacy in Romanism
8 Mariology in Romanism
Appendix A Detailed Contents

Chapter 13.3

Traditions in Judaism

Table of Topics

A) Historical Background of Traditions in Judaism

B) Examples of Traditions in Judaism

C) An Evaluation of Traditions in Judaism

Publications & Particulars

Primary Points
  • Even a simple reading of the NT tells us that the Jewish religious establishment had many traditions.
  • These Jewish oral traditions were considered an additional source of divine revelation which often served to interpret, supplement, and at times even correct written Scripture. At some point, these rabbinic traditions were written and make up a very large collection of Jewish literature, often referred to as the Mishnah or Talmud.
  • These Jewish writings contain hundreds of “rules taught by men,” (Matt 15:9) many of which we encounter in the NT.
  • Some of these traditions reflected good intentions. However, there were many reasons why the practice of some of these Jewish customs offended God.

A) Historical Background of Traditions in Judaism

In the previous chapter we have already mentioned several Jewish traditions that Christ spoke of in the Gospels. Even a simple reading of the NT tells us that the Jewish religious establishment had many traditions. The Pharisees simply referred to them as “the tradition of the elders” (Matt 15:2; cf. Mark 7:3, 5), and Paul may include them in his reference to “the traditions of my fathers” (Gal 1:14). There is also several references to the “customs of our fathers” in Acts (cf. 28:17; cf. 6:14; 15:1; 21:21; 22:23; 26:3). These phrases primarily refer to the teaching handed down in writing in the Pentateuch by Moses. However, the Jewish rabbis distinguished between the written divine revelation recorded by Moses in the Bible and an oral divine revelation that had been passed on from generation to generation.[1]

Along these lines, William Barclay explains:

For long the Jews were content with [the OT]. But in the fourth and fifth centuries before Christ there came into being a class of legal experts whom we know as the Scribes. They were not content with great moral principles; they had what can only be called a passion for definition. They wanted these great principles amplified, expanded, broken down until they issued in thousands and thousands of little rules and regulations governing every possible action and every possible situation in life. These rules and regulations were not written down until long after the time of Jesus. They are what is called the Oral Law; it is they which are the tradition of the elders. [2]

This oral tradition had several sources as the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia notes:

There seem to be three classes of these oral teachings: (a) some oral laws of Moses (as they supposed) given by the great lawgiver in addition to the written laws; (b) decisions of various judges which became precedents in judicial matters; (c) interpretations of great teachers (rabbis) which came to be prized with the same reverence as were the Old Testament Scriptures. [3]

These Jewish oral traditions were considered an additional source of divine revelation which often served to interpret, supplement, and at times even correct written Scripture. At some point, these rabbinic traditions were written and make up a very large collection of Jewish literature, often referred to as the Mishnah or Talmud. [4]

B) Examples of Traditions in Judaism

These Jewish writings contain hundreds of “rules taught by men,” (Matt 15:9) many of which we encounter in the NT. These include: the sin of insulting someone with a word like “Raca” [5] (cf. Matt 5:22), almsgiving [6] (cf. Matt 6:2), fastings (cf. Matt 6:16), eating with “sinners” (cf. Matt 9:10-11), healing on the Sabbath (cf. Matt 12:9-10), calling religious leaders “Rabbi,” “father,” or “teacher” (Matt 23:8-10), swearing oaths “by the gold of the temple” or “by the gift” on the altar (cf. Matt 23:16, 18), “blood money” (cf. Matt 27:6), the “ceremonial washing” of “hands . . . cups, pitchers and kettles” (Mark 7:3-4), devoting things (corban) to God (cf. Mark 7:11), casting lots for determining priestly duties (Luke 1:9; Acts 1:26), recognition of adulthood at age twelve (cf. Luke 2:42), the belief that the Pool of Bethesda had some healing properties (cf. John 5:2), and burial customs (cf. John 19:39-40). [7]

In addition, the Apostle Paul apparently depended on Jewish tradition when he wrote: “Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth” (2 Tim 3:8). While the account of this incident in Exodus 7-8 does not name the Egyptian sorcerers who opposed Moses and Aaron on behalf of Pharaoh, Jewish tradition had preserved their names. NT scholar George W. Knight explains:

The Egyptian sorcerers who opposed Moses before Pharaoh (Ex. 7:11 ff., 22) were called [Janis and Jamborees] in Jewish writings (e.g., Targum Ps.-Jonathan 1.3; 7.2; at an earlier date in CD 5:17-19). The names were also widely known in pagan writings (e.g., Pliny, Natural History 30. 1.11), so Paul’s reference to them would have presented no problem for the church at Ephesus (especially not for the false teachers, with their interest in genealogies [I Tim. 1:4]).

Even though the names do not occur in the OT text, there is no reason to doubt the reliability of the Jewish tradition (so Ellicott; for further discussion of the names and references to primary and secondary literature see BAGD; H. Ode berg, TDNT III, 192f.; Star-B 111, 660-64; McNamara, NT and Palestinian Targum, 82-96). [8]

C) An Evaluation of Traditions in Judaism

One could say that some of these traditions reflected good intentions. The washing of hands, for example, no doubt promoted sanitation. In addition, the practice of many of these traditions in and of themselves was more than acceptable. In fact, many of them reflected aspects of Scriptural commands and principles. [9] However, there were many reasons why the practice of some of these Jewish customs offended God.

First of all, as already discussed, God is offended by a man-made tradition when it nullifies or detracts from a divine command. For example, Matthew records:

Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked,  2“Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!” 3

Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?  4For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ 5But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,’ [corban, cf. Mark 7:11]  6he is not to ‘honor his father’ with it.

Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:  “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’” (Matt 15:1-9)

The practice that Christ is denouncing was the dedication of something for use in the Jewish temple by merely pronouncing “corban” over it (cf. Mark 7:11). However, as John MacArthur explains:

Except for what may have been actually given to the Temple or synagogue, however, the korban possessions remained in the person’s hands. And when he decided to use them for his own purposes, tradition permitted him to do so simply by saying korban over them again. In other words, the tradition was not designed to serve either God or the family but the selfish interests of the person making the hypocritical vow. To avoid giving up his possessions in order to support his parents, he could declare those possessions sacred and unusable; but as soon as he wanted to use them for himself he could just as easily reverse the vow. [10]

The self-interest inherent in such a tradition would alone make it objectionable, but it was also used to violate the direct command of God to “honor your father and mother” (Exod 20:12). Obviously the above example concerning corban not only violated a specific command of God, but the general command to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt 22:39) as well.

Publications & Particulars

  1. While this was certainly true of the Pharisees, the Sadducees had considerably less reverence for Jewish tradition as compared with canonical Scripture. ↑

  2. William Barclay, Daily Study Bible, CD-ROM (Liguori Publications, 1996), Mark 7:3. ↑

  3. Charles B. Williams, “Tradition” in International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, James Orr, ed. Electronic Edition STEP Files (Parsons Technology, 1998). ↑

  4. This type of Jewish literature is rather complex with several different words referring to it. Van Engen reports in the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology:

    By the third century B.C., at least, Jewish rabbis had produced a “traditional” interpretation of the scriptural text known as the Mishnah, of which scribes and Pharisees became the keepers and teachers. This continued to grow until it was codified in the fourth and sixth centuries as the Talmud, which provided until modern times the traditional (and therefore binding) Jewish interpretation of the OT. Van Engen, EDT, 1104.

    More specifically C. A. Evans writes:

    Rabbinic midrash [commentary on Scripture] falls into two basic categories. These categories are distinguished not by method but by objectives. Halakah (“to walk”) refers to a legal ruling. Hence, halakic midrash is in reference to legal interpretation.

    The purpose of halakoth was to build an oral “fence” around written Torah, making violation of it (written Torah) less likely.

    Haggadah (lit. “telling”) refers to the interpretation of narrative and is usually understood as homiletical or non-legal interpretation. . .

    The legal corpus in which halakic concerns predominate is made up of Mishnah (lit. “repetition” or “[memorizable] paragraph”; c. a.d. 200), Tosefta (lit. “supplement [to Mishnah]”; c. a.d. 300) and Talmud (lit. “learning”; Palestinian [or Jerusalem]: c. a.d. 500; Babylonian: c. a.d. 600. (“Midrash” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, Joel Green and Scot McKnight eds., CD-ROM, Parsons Technology, 1997). See this article for some suggested examples of how rabbinical literature effected some of Christ’s statements and the writing of the Gospels ↑

  5. Barclay added:

    The Jewish teachers spoke of “oppression in words,” and of “the sin of insult.” They had a saying, “Three classes go down to Gehenna and return not–the adulterer, he who puts his neighbour openly to shame, and he who gives his neighbour an insulting name.” . . . Raca is an almost untranslatable word, because it describes a tone of voice more than anything else. Its whole accent is the accent of contempt. To call a man Raca was to call him a brainless idiot, a silly fool, an empty-headed blunderer. It is the word of one who despises another with an arrogant contempt. (Ibid.) ↑

  6. Barclay added:

    To the Jew almsgiving was the most sacred of all religious duties. How sacred it was may be seen from the fact that the Jews used the same word–tsedaqah–both for righteousness and almsgiving. To give alms and to be righteous were one and the same thing. To give alms was to gain merit in the sight of God, and was even to win atonement and forgiveness for past sins. “It is better to give alms than to lay up gold; almsgiving doth deliver from death, and it purges away all sin” (Tob.12:8). (Ibid.) ↑

  7. For a much fuller treatment of Jewish traditions one can consult The JPS Guide to Jewish Traditions, Ronald Eisenberg, (The Jewish Publication Society, 2004). ↑

  8. George W. Knight, The Pastoral Epistles (Eerdmans, 1992), 435. ↑

  9. The fact that most of the teaching of the Pharisees reflected the OT may account for the following statement from Christ which has caused some difficulty. We read in Matthew 23:

    Then Jesus said to the crowds and to His disciples: 2“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. (Matt 23:1-4)

    Verses 2-3 are difficult to interpret because they contradict at least two things: 1) Christ’s constant criticism of what the Pharisees told people to do, especially their extra-biblical traditions (cf. Matt 15:1-9), and 2) Jesus immediately describes the Pharisees’ teachings negatively as “heavy loads” in stark contrast to the Christ’s invitation to “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28).

    One thing seems clear: Jesus is not literally encouraging the people to do “everything” that the Pharisees told them, including crucifying the Lord. D. A. Carson makes a case for suggesting that Jesus is being sarcastic (Matthew in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Frank E. Gaebelein ed. CD-ROM [Zondervan, n.d.]). However, the most common and traditional interpretation (e.g. Allen, MacArthur, Plummer, Schlatter, Stonehouse) is probably the best one and is reflected by Albert Barnes who, commenting on Christ’s use of “all” here, wrote:

    That is, all that they teach that is consistent with the Law of Moses—all the commands of Moses which they read to you and properly explain. The word “all” could not be taken without such a restriction, for Christ himself accuses them of teaching many things contrary to that law, and of making it void by their traditions, (cf. Matt. 15:1-6). (Barnes’ Notes on the New Testament; online at http://www.ccel.org.) ↑

  10. John MacArthur, MacArthur’s New Testament Commentary, Electronic Edition STEP Files CD-ROM (Parsons Technology, 1997), Matt 15:3-9. ↑