2. The Jewish View of Tradition - Stephen Bohr - The Bible or Tradition

[Music] well welcome once again to session number two of the Bible or tradition now let's review briefly what we studied last time we were talking about the little Horn of Daniel 7 and we noticed that one of the characteristics which is often ignored when the little horn is studied is the fact that it has the eyes of a man we also noticed in our last study that this system is called the man of sin and the system also has the number of a man in other words this is a system that depends upon man now what do I is represent in Bible prophecy symbolically as we studied we notice that eyes represent wisdom but because this little horn has the eyes of a man it means that it does not depend on divine wisdom it depends on human wisdom now I'm going to begin our study today by asking a very important question how can the Roman Catholic Church justify teachings from their belief system commanding things that are not mentioned explicitly or even implicitly in Scripture doctrines such as the following the Immaculate Conception of Mary the Assumption of Mary bodily to heaven supposedly Mary as the Mediatrix between human beings and God the celibacy of the priesthood the sacrifice of the mass Lent infant baptism baptism by sprinkling the confessional indulgences praying for the dead and to the dent reciting the Rosary abstaining from eating meat on Fridays bowing before idols and keeping Sunday as the day of rest how can the Roman Catholic Church justify all of these observances and beliefs that are not found implicitly or explicitly in Holy Scripture the answer is simple it is because of the Roman Catholic view of tradition you see the Roman Catholic Church does not go exclusively but what by what we find in Scripture their standard is not sola scriptura their standard is the Bible plus tradition and many times tradition stands over and above Scripture now in order to better understand how the Roman Catholic Church justifies this type of belief system and base as many of its practices and doctrines on human traditions instead of on the Word of God we need to go back and understand the Jewish view of tradition in the days of Christ you see that view that the Jews had on divine revelation in the days of Christ the view that was held by the scribes and the Pharisees in the days of Jesus has been replicated by the Roman Catholic papacy believe it or not and as the Jewish view of tradition led to the rejection of Jesus Christ in the same way Roman Catholicism which has embraced this identical view as the Jews has led to a rejection of the Jesus Christ that we find in Holy Scripture now we need to realize that in the days of Christ the view that the Jews had of divine revelation consisted in three elements three interconnected elements and what we're going to get into is somewhat technical I'm going to try and explain it as simply as possible but you're going to find that even though it's complex it is fundamental to understand the Roman Catholic view of tradition and of Scripture and it's going to help us as we study along in this series the first element of the belief system of the Jews of the days of Christ was that there was a deposit of tradition which was composed of two things number one the writings of Moses secondly unwritten oral that were given to Moses but were never committed to writing this is what they believe to be the deposit of tradition with a large P in other words it was composed of the writings of Moses and then God supposedly gave Moses many oral instructions that were never committed to writing so the first element of the Jewish concept of tradition is the idea that there was a deposit of tradition composed of the writings of Moses and oral traditions that were given to Moses which were never committed to writing the second element of the view of tradition that was held by the Jews is that there was needed a transmitting mechanism to make sure that the oral traditions and that the Scriptures that Moses wrote were passed from one generation to another in a trustworthy way you see it's one thing for God to have given Moses the writings and all these oral traditions supposedly but from how this deposit of creation had to be transferred from one generation to the next there had to be a succession to make sure that these traditions particularly the oral traditions would be transmitted in a trustworthy way from one generation to another the third element of the Jewish view of tradition is that at each stage or each generation there had to be a living teaching office or a Magisterium that could infallibly explain apply amplify and bring forth from the deposit of tradition truth that were found in the writings of Moses and also in the oral tradition that God had supposedly given to Moses which was never written down and so basically the Jewish view of tradition was composed of three things number one the deposit of tradition composed of the writings of Moses and of the oral traditions that God gave Moses which were never written down the second element is there needed to be a mechanism to pass this on from generation to generation in a trustworthy way there had to be a succession of teachers that could keep the tradition pure and then in each generation there had to be a living teaching office that could infallibly according to the Jewish view explain apply amplify and bring forth from the deposit of tradition the truths that were found in the writings of Moses as well as in the oral traditions that God imparted to Moses now let's amplify these three different types of views that the Jews had these three successive steps you might say of the Jewish view of tradition the scribes and the Pharisees believe that when God spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai he not only gave Moses what Moses actually wrote they believed that God gave Moses many other oral traditions which Moses did not commit to writing in their view there was an original deposit of truth that God revealed to Moses which was composed of two sources one was the writings of Moses that we have in the Pentateuch the five books of Moses and the book of Job and also many oral traditions that God gave to Moses on the Mount but Moses never actually committed them to writing and so basically that was the idea of the deposit of tradition that the Jews had now at first the written word and the traditions the oral traditions were not on the same level Scripture was always higher at the beginning then the oral traditions that were handed on supposedly to Moses but as time passed Scripture and the oral traditions came to be on the same level and in the days of Christ things had degenerated in a way that the oral traditions which supposedly God gave to Moses occupied a higher position than the writings of Moses in other words they were now longer equal value and equal Authority as the written scriptures they were placed above the written scriptures now I'd like to read a statement from the International Standard Bible encyclopedia that explains this idea that the Jews had concerning tradition this isn't the International Standard Bible encyclopedia and it reads like this it that is tradition means in Jewish theology the oral teachings of the elders invent in parenthesis you have distinguished ancestors from Moses on which were reverenced by the late Jews equally with the written teachings of the Old Testament and were regarded by them as equally authoritative on matters of belief and conduct so that is the Jewish view of tradition as it began to be passed on from generation to generation now of course if you have a deposit of tradition the passing on of the written scriptures is not as complicated as passing on oral traditions because you know that in the process of time traditions or ideas that are transmitted orally have a tendency to degenerate with the passing of time and so the Jews believed that there needed to be some reliable way for these oral traditions to be passed along from generation to generation in a trustworthy way and of course they believed that the written scriptures could be passed along quite simply because they had been written by Moses but the oral traditions it was more complex because oral traditions have a tendency as I mentioned before to degenerate in the course of time so the idea was how can we keep the transfer of these oral traditions pure from degenerating now after all we know that with the passing of times things that are passed on orally are distorted and they become unreliable so the rabbi's affirmed that there needed to be an accurate and a faithful transmitting agent and so they believed that there was a there was a teaching office that passed on these oral traditions from generation to generation in a trustworthy way and so the Pharisees believed and taught that the written Scriptures as well as the unwritten traditions were passed on from generation to generation in an unbroken succession of spiritual leaders who were aided by God's Spirit to keep the written scriptures and the oral traditions pure in the process of transmission now I want to read a statement that we find in the interpreters Bible dictionary that explains this process of transmission I'm going to mention the word cow mooed now the talmud is a book that contains all of the traditions that was codified after the times of Christ all these oral traditions were placed bound in written form that had been transferred from generation to generation orally so this statement says the cow mooed which is a compilation of the oral laws which was at first mainly oral grew out of the conviction that besides the written Torah in other words besides the the five books of Moses the Bible there had been from the first from the divine communications to Moses at Sinai onward an oral torah hand it down no less hand it down from generation to generation which lawgiver and prophets sought to engrave on the hearts of the people as teachers succeeded teacher remember these words are very important handed down and now it says as teachers succeeded teacher in the synagogue and school their teachings and often conflicting opinions all based on the Bible were treasured through long practice the power of memory had been greatly strengthened but the accumulated mass of oral traditions and teachings became so unwieldy that the best memory could not be trusted and therefore they were written in what is known as the cow mooed interesting process of transmission isn't it now Flavius Josephus who was himself a Pharisee had something interesting to say about this process as well in the book antiquities of the Jews he says the following the Pharisees had passed on to the people certain regulations handed down now I want you to remember this terminology because we're going to come back to this terminology later on in this series notice once again the Pharisees had passed on to the people certain regulations regulations handed down by former generations and not recorded in the law of Moses are you understanding what's happening here in other words there's an oral tradition that according to this is handed down and passed on incidentally Flavius Josephus was born in the year 37 ad he was born shortly after the death of Christ on the cross and he was a Pharisee so he knew very well how the scribes and the Pharisees passed on this information now Marcel Simone wrote a very captivating book called Jewish sects and he explains that the Pharisees would go beyond the written text and I want read this statement it's found in his book Jewish sects pages 34 and 35 this is what he says about what the Pharisees did with the written text of Scripture they didn't stick to the written text they went beyond it and they expanded upon it and they actually believed that they were drawing out truths that were under the surface of the writings now this is what Simone says in their eyes that is in the eyes of the Pharisees the tradition that they invoked in doing this in other words in qualifying and expanding upon the text far from opposing the Torah that is far from opposing the right of Moses was the natural prolongation and exploitation of it this tradition according to the Jews of Christ II went back to Moses himself just as did the Torah in other words these oral traditions they said that all this goes back to Moses just like the writings of Moses it continued saying an oral law was revealed to Moses along with the written law and this oral law was faithfully transmitted that the key word was faithfully transmitted from generation to generation i understanding the mechanism the deposit of truth the writings of Moses and then the oral things that God revealed to Moses and then you have this mechanism of handing it from generation to generation adding it down or passing it on to succeeding generations now the process of transmission was very very interesting it was a believed that it was passed on from one generation to another in unbroken succession in other words one generation of leaders passed it on to the next and the next to the next in unbroken succession all of these oral traditions I want to read from the Talmud a boat which means the father's chapter 1 and verses 1 and 2 this is the way that the Talmud which is the Jewish codification of all of these oral laws explains it Moses received the law from Sinai and committed it to Joshua and Joshua to the elders and the elders to the prophets and the prophets committed it to the men of the great synagogue the great synagogue according to Jewish tradition had its origin after the Babylonian captivity with Ezra they believed Azra was the founder of what is known as the great synagogue now it's interesting to notice that according to Marcel Simone these words from the Talmud in Chapter 1 and verses 2 to 13 are followed by a list of pairs of scholars through which this process of transmission was made I want to read what he has to say on page 35 hours book he says after mentioning several of these pairs of leaders that lived in different generations in succeeding generations he says after these comes the enumeration of several pairs of teachers and pigness of Sokol received the law from Simeon to just etc whose historical existence is more or less certain the list finally ends with Hillel and Shammai famous leaders of the schools and I would add in the days of Jesus Christ so in other words there's this idea that there were pairs of leaders in succeeding generations and each pair passed on these oral traditions you know in a reliable way to the next pair and the next pair to the next pair all the way from the days of Moses to the days of Jesus Christ now in order to make sure that these traditions were kept pure you not only needed the transmission mechanism but you also needed a living teaching office at each generation that could certify that these oral traditions were really the ones that had been passed on by Moses in other words they needed to be a living voice or a teaching office in each generation that could identify a genuine tradition that could offer authoritative Lee interpret that tradition explain it and apply it to contemporary life and so according to Marcel Simone and I read once again from his book Jewish sex pages 35 and 36 he said that this idea made Pharisee ISM the living element of official Judaism it was the tradition that allowed the Pharisees to justify all the elaborations that they introduced regarding the scriptural precepts on a level of observances as well as on the level of doctrine so in other words this idea that in each generation there was a living teaching office compared a feel composed of theological experts that could certify that this was a genuine tradition and they could explain it and they could apply it to the lives of the people in that generation they believed that that was a living teaching office in that period that kept the tradition pure now George Foote more who wrote a monumental work called Judaism it comes in two volumes and that has a lot of interesting details about Judaism in the days of Christ and also contemporary Judaism had this to say this is in Volume one of his book Judaism page 30 he says the book of the law of Moses might be final law but it was not a finished law in other words the writings of Moses were final law but they were not a finished law then he explains many things which had been generally observed and were regarded as necessary and binding were not contained in it at all in other words many of the binding things that the Jews celebrated were not contained in the writings of Moses he continued saying some of these figure in latter times as traditions of Moses from Sinai others as ordinances of Ezra or of the prophets of his time or the men of the great synagogue or more indefinitely of the suffering or the early fathers and so many of these traditions they would say no these traditions come from Moses and they come through Ezra and they come through the prophets and they come through the men of the great synagogue and they come through the latter elders you see it's the idea of succession unbroken succession in the transmission of these oral traditions now George foot more also has this to say in volume 1 page 31 of his monumental work he says in tracing the continuous tradition of the law from Moses to the days of semi and Hillel semi and Hillel were two rabbis of the days of Christ so in the process of transmitting this from Moses to semi and Hillel then he enumerates Moses Joshua the elders the prophets the perky about has the prophets transmitted it to the men of the great synagogue the last in the prophetic succession were Haggai and Zechariah who had a leading part in the rebuilding of the temple and Malachi whom the Jews made a contemporary of the other two these were the link between their predecessors in the prophetic tradition and the great synagogue Haggai Zechariah and Malachi received the tradition from the prophets the men of the great synagogue received it from Haggai Zechariah and Malachi are you following the argument here in other words the idea is that you have the writings of Moses and you have the oral traditions that God supposedly gave to Moses and then you have this transmitting mechanism from one generation to the next unbroken succession from one group of leaders to another group of leaders all the way from the days of Moses to the days of Christ and in each generation you have this living teaching office that makes sure that at each stage the oral tradition is kept pure that's very important to realize now the question is how were these practices and these doctrines passed on from the times of the great synagogue after the captivity to the days of Christ well George foot more explains Ezra and the men of the great synagogue were believed to have introduced these institutions and regulations by ordinances having the force of law and their successors that is the successors of the men of the great synagogue after the captivity their successors the suffering and the rabbis who succeeded them did and so you have F the men of the great synagogue transferring this to the suffering or the elders and then they transfer it to the rabbis of the days of Christ thus in the minds of the compilers of the cow mooed which is the compilation of all of the oral law of Judaism there was an unbroken succession from Moses to Joshua to the elders to the earlier prophets - hey guys Zechariah and Malachi - the men of the great synagogue of which Ezra supposedly was the originator to the suffering or the later elders and finally to the rabbis of Christ's day in unbroken succession in fact more underlines the fact that to be of any of any use such a chain of tradition must possess unbroken continuity now you say well what does this have to do with the Bible or tradition today you're going to find the Roman Catholicism has the identical view of tradition as the Jews had in the days of Christ they use the identical terminology and they justify all of the practices that are not mentioned implicitly or explicitly in Scripture on the basis of their view of tradition they are the same three identical elements as the Jews in the days of Christ the idea of a deposit of tradition which they believe is the written scriptures as well as oral information that was given to Peter into the Apostles and they believe that there is an unbroken process of transferring this information from one generation to the next it's known as apostolic succession and that in each stage there is a living teaching office or Magisterium that keeps the traditions pure it is virtually an identical copy of the view of tradition that existed in the days of Christ now it's interesting more points out but by the way he is an expert in Judaism that oral law came to be venerated even more than the written revelation than the writings of Moses and I'm reading now from his book Volume one pages 33 and 34 he says the distinction between the ordinances and decrees of the scribes and the biblical law that is the the oral tradition and the biblical law is constantly made in the juristic literature but the authority of the scribe abe's or the learned to make such regulations was not questioned nor was the transgression or neglect of their rules a venial offense on the contrary a more serious matter is made of the words of the scribes then of the words of the written law so says George foot more in his monumental work in other words the oral traditions in the days of Christ were considered not only of equal Authority as in scriptures but they were also in many cases considered to be higher than the authority of Scripture now in our next study together we're going to take a look at mark chapter 7 and we're going to see how this idea Jesus had to battle against it in the issue having to do with the washing of the hand so you won't want to miss the living example of this concept in our next study together now the Jews of Christ they believed that the rabbi's spoke with the voice of God dr. John Cunningham guy key in his very good book which you know it's this is an old book from over 100 years ago it's called the life and words of Christ had this to say about the veneration that the rabbi's were held in the eyes of the Jews in the days of Christ it says he says there from the their pupils the rabbi's demanded the most profound reverence the honor says the Talmud due to the teeth to a teacher borders on that due to God interesting and then he continued saying the common discourse of a rabbi was to be reverenced as much as the law to dispute with one or to murmur against him was a crime as great as to do the same toward the Almighty their words must be received as words of the Living God in other words the interpretations of the rabbi's and their passing on these oral traditions was considered too infallible does that sound familiar now in the teachings of the rabbi's they were considered practically infallible and I want to read from guy key once again where he states this very fact he says in his book once again the life and words of Christ it was a principle universally accepted that the sayings of the scribes were wait here than those of the law and the word law it's not talking about the 10 commandments talking about the writings of Moses Torah he continued explaining the transmission was the key a word transmission of the as yet unwritten opinions of former rabbis forming an ever-growing mass of traditions was the special aim of the rabbi's of each age once honored a rabbis words remained law forever unchangeable and infallible in other words so once added a rabbis words remained law forever though they might be explained away and virtually ignored while affected to be followed so in other words the people would give the impression that they were following them but there were all kinds of ways in which they could escape obeying them while at the same time saying that they were obeying them and we're going to know this this in our next lecture it's very interesting now the role of the teaching office went far beyond explaining and applying the writings of Moses even the oral oral revelation that had been passed along the rabbi's frequently brought forth religious practices and beliefs which were not implicitly and much less explicitly contained in the written revelation when the rabbi's did this were they claiming that they were bringing a new truth that had not been previously revealed not at all they taught that these truths were part of the deposit of unwritten traditions which God had given to Moses they believe that though these traditions had not previously been brought to light or written they had been preserved in the process of oral transmission and they were merely discovering these gems of truth from the oral tradition that then had been passed along from generation to generation you start to catch the the view that in Roman Catholicism the way that all of these biblical all these practices that are anti biblical and contrary to the Bible are justified it's because of the Roman Catholics view of tradition now this brings us to the issue of authority the Pharisees believe that only an elite cadre of carefully trained theologia logical experts guided by God could bring to light explain interpret and apply the written scriptures as well as the unwritten traditions in other common populace could not really understand the Scriptures or the oral tradition they had to have theological experts they had to have theologians that could tell them this is the meaning of the written text and this is an oral tradition that was passed along which wasn't written but we're taking it out of the deposit of oral tradition now the Jerome Bible Commentary which is a Roman Catholic Bible Commentary interestingly enough had this to say about the word cathedra in Matthew 23 verse 2 you know there Jesus said that the scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses seat have you ever read that that statement they're the scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses seat now what does that mean that they sit on Moses seat well we need to know what the word is the word seek there is the word cathedra that's an interesting word in other words the scribes and the Pharisees set on Moses cathedra and you say why is that significant well it's significant because the Roman Catholicism has an interesting way of describing the teachings of the Pope when he speaks with absolute and complete morning do you know how they say that he speaks he speaks ex cathedra in other two-word cathedra means clone so when he speaks from the throne his teachings are absolutely infallible is the idea and that's the very word that is used here for the scribes and Pharisees sitting under cathedra of Moses on Moses seat now notice how the Jerome Bible commentary which is a Roman Catholic commentary explains the idea of the cathedra the phrase is most probably a metaphor for the authority of the scribes to what to teach those because they said it wasn't by the way it wasn't a literal seat you know like like in the Roman Catholic Church you know the Pope is not Cathedral doesn't mean that he's sitting on a throne what it means is that he has authority to teach because he's the king of the church in other words he rules the church and so it says the phrase is most probably a metaphor for the authority of the scribes to teach in rabbinical tradition the interpretation of the law was carried on in a scribal tradition that theoretically went back through an unbroken chain of scribes to Moses and then the Roman Catholic commentary says this view is of course entirely on historical so it's an historical reply to the Jews but it's not on historical it applied for the Roman Catholic Church now when the Pharisees and the scribes spoke ex cathedra that is from the throne their word was to be accepted as final the general public populace was required to accept these rabbinical views and interpretations and obey them without any question thus the genuine meaning of both the written word as well as the unwritten traditions were only to be determined by the rabbi's and the general populace had nothing to say about the matter George Whitmore once again in volume one of his work ages 40 and 41 explains how the theological experts had a stranglehold on the information that the people were required to accept and to believe this is what he says learning is the privilege of leisure husbandmen and artisans are the support of the social structure but wholly occupied as they must be in their several callings and often highly expert in them they have no time for the wide-ranging studies that make the scholar they are therefore not qualified to be called to the council or to take the lead in the assembly they cannot sit on the judges bench for they do not understand the principles of the law and cannot bring out the rights of the case in a just judgment different is the case of the man who gives his whole mind to it and concentrates his thought on the law of the most high he will seek out the wisdom of all the ancients and occupy himself with a study of the prophecies and pay attention to the expositions of famous men and will penetrate into the elusive turns of parables he will search out the hidden meaning of proverbs and will be versed in the enigmas of parables the end of our study last night interesting you notice the experts are the ones that can understand scripture they are the interpreters the theologians are the common people you know they have their jobs they're not able to understand scripture for themselves and so they must accept the interpretations that are given by the theologians who quote other theologians in this way the religious leaders had absolute control over every person and sphere of private and public life who ever questioned the opinion or authority of the rabbi's was in danger of being cast out of the synagogue as we can see from the story of the man that was born blind you remember that they you know his parent they said ask him because they were afraid that they were going to be thrown out of the synagogue now Jesus in Matthew 23 and verse 13 had something to say about the scribes and the Pharisees he said but woe to you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men for you neither go in yourselves nor do you allow those who are entering to go in now how did they do this how did the scribes and the Pharisees shut the heaven so that people could not go in they wouldn't go in themselves and so that other people could not go in Luke 11:52 has the answer to that question Luke 11 verse 52 says that they had taken away the key of knowledge you see they believed that they had the key to unlock the scriptures common people did not have any right to do that they had to accept the interpretations so to speak of the church and of the theologians it says there in Luke 11 verse 52 woe to you lawyers and by the way this is not lawyers like we understand them today these are experts in the law of Moses these are religious lawyers so woe to you lawyers for you have taken away the key of knowledge you did not enter in yourselves and those who were entering in you hindered and so the religious leaders had a stranglehold upon the common populace and the rebuke of Jesus against the scribes and the Pharisees was very very strong in fact in Matthew 23 he was trying Ellen White says that he was trying to break this stranglehold so that people would study the Scriptures for themselves and not accept the mere interpretations of the so-called experts empty illusions George put more in Volume one of his work page 43 had this to say the scribes on the other hand have the support of the Pharisee and party to which many of them belonged the Pharisees now this is important the Pharisees in turn had the people behind them and with the growing importance of the synagogue the professionally educated class gained increasing influence as the teachers of the people now we know why it was so difficult for Jesus to get through to the people it was because they had high regard and respect for their theologians for the scholars for the experts in the law they said how can this man contradict such a long tradition of teaching in Judaism Flavius Josephus who I previously mentioned was a Jew and a Pharisee had this to say about the Pharisees he said the Pharisees have delivered to the common people by tradition from a continuous succession of father's I understanding this now the principles involved here the Pharisees have delivered to the common people by tradition from a continuous succession of father's certain legal regulations which are not written in the law of Moses on which account the Pharisee and sort rejects them affirming that what is written is to be regarded as law but what comes from the tradition of the fathers is not to be observed so in other words this agency said no we only go by reading scripture whereas the scribes and the Pharisees said no we go by reading scripture as interpreted by the theological experts by the rabbis and we also allow the rabbi's to tell us what is a genuine tradition and to take out observances and beliefs from the deposit of oral tradition Josephus continuing on this point the Pharisees have the mass of the people on their side and they have so much influence that anything they say even against a king or a high priest finds ready credence it's almost sounds like the Roman Catholic Church during the 1260 years Ellen White concurred with this view in the book desire of Ages page of 611 and 612 she speaks about the authority that the scribes and the Pharisees had over the people this is what she says the interest of the people in Christ and his work had steady increased they were turned with his teaching but they were also greatly perplexed they had respected the priests and Robert rabbis for their intelligence and apparent piety in all religious matters they had ever yielded implicit obedience to their authority yet they now saw these men trying to cast discredit upon Jesus a teacher whose virtue and knowledge shone forth the brighter from every assault through their reverence for tradition and their blind faith in a corrupt priesthood the people were enslaved are you starting to catch the picture you know as we study this view of Jewish tradition it's amazing if you've done any studies into Roman Catholicism how Roman Catholicism is a virtual copy of the view of tradition that was held by the Jews in the days of Christ is it just possible then that the rejection of Christ by the Jews in the days of Jesus will be repeated at the end of time because of the view that is sustained by the church regarding tradition at the end of time I believe the answer to that is yes now from excellent sources we know that much of the scholarship of Christ they consisted in quoting from the previous rabbis and fathers and what they had said about scripture and tradition rather than quoting scripture itself thus the opinions of men took the place of the Word of God theological works of the scribes were saturated with quotations from previous scholars and what they had said about the biblical text the more they quoted the reputable scholars of the past the more authority they were considered to have you know it's very interesting many of you might know that I belong to the Commission committee that is studying the issue of women's ordination and you know as I look at some of the papers have been submitted by some of the scholars you know you have like probably maybe 15 or 20 pages of text and then you have 15 or 20 pages of footnotes referring to what different scholars have said about the text very very interesting very similar to what happened in the days of Christ you know the scholars they didn't really actually study Scripture what they did was accumulate all of the previous wisdom about what all of the experts had said about that text of Scripture and then they share it shared it as if it was Scripture itself regarding this teaching method of the rabbis Ellen White makes this very telling statement this is found in the review and Herald August 22 1907 she says the teaching of the scribes and the Pharisees was a continuous repetition of fables and childish traditions fables and childish traditions we're going to see that in the next study together when we deal with mark chapter 7 very interest if you know if you really want to know how this worked out in practical terms you've got to come to the next lecture because there I'm going to take a living example from the Gospels mark chapter 7 the issue of the washing of hands you're going to see that this very terminology that we've studied is used there in mark chapter 7 and you're going to see why Jesus was rejected rejected and why they hated him so much in fact after that episode they the Bible says that they were seeking how they could destroy him because he did not fit with their view of tradition and so she continued saying the their opinions and ceremonies rested on the authority now none of what their authority was on the authority of ancient Maxim's and rabbinical sayings which were frivolous and worthless Christ did not dwell on weak and insipid sayings and theories of men notice theories of men remember our last study together you know the eyes like the eyes of a man meaning that this system bases its teachings and its practices on human wisdom and not on divine wisdom Ellen White further states and they found in spirit of prophecy volume 2 page 176 the teaching of the scribes and elders was cold and formal do you understand what that means cold and formal have you ever listened to to a Roman Catholic Mass you know there what does the priest do in Roman Catholic Mass does he expounded on the Word of God with a freshness and you know with with living color absolutely not he has this book in front of him and he just basically reads even the Pope you know when he appears that at that window at Vatican City you know he always has a podium and he has something that he just repeats and he reads you know there from the text very little life and so she said the teaching and thus of the scribes and the elders was cold and formal like a lesson learned by rote what does that mean learned by rote learn from memory they explained the law as a matter of custom but no authority from God sanctified their utterances no holy inspiration stirred their own hurts and those are their hearers perhaps this is the reason why when Jesus told a parable which by the way we're going to study it will be our last study in this series the famous parable of the man who built his house on the rock and the man who built his house upon the sand after Jesus told that story and by the way that was the conclusion also the Sermon on the Mount so that's the concluding story of the Sermon on the Mount we find it's very telling description in Matthew chapter 7 verses 28 and 29 and I'm reading from the New International Version which I believe is clear it says there when Jesus had finished saying these things when he finished the Sermon on the Mount the crowds were amazed what were they amazed about they were amazed at his teaching did Jesus repeat his teachings from men Marie I'm England without any life in them no no Jesus presented the truth with freshness and he took stories to illustrate biblical truths he made the truth come alive and he inspired the hearts of people that's the reason why you had thousands of people that follow Jesus you know and they would sit on a hillside all day without eating and they didn't even get hungry you know and Jesus at the end of the day would say an appointment we can't send these people away hungry you know we already gave them the spiritual food but we've got to give them physical food too and so Jesus you know fed the 5,000 and he fed the 4,000 because the people loved Jesus they loved his teaching because it was fresh and it was alive it wasn't just repeating what other rabbis had said in fact in our fourth study together I'm going to go through the Gospels and I'm going to show you that Jesus not once ever quoted another theological expert he always quoted from Scripture his answer was always based on written scripture he never appealed to oral tradition to defend any view or to correct people who have gone astray and so it says here when Jesus had finished saying these things the crowds were amazed as his teeth at his teaching because he taught as one having what as one having Authority and not as their teachers of the law what law is this talking about started is talking about the Ten Commandments know the word law in Hebrew would be the Torah that is the writings of Moses so in other words what this is saying is that Jesus taught with authority because we're going to see that he actually based his speeches upon Scripture whereas the teachers of law they simply repeated things from memory and therefore had no authority and they were quoting other human beings and what they had said about scripture and so we return to the question that we had at the very beginning of our study together how can the Roman Catholic Church justify teaching doctrines and commanding observances that are not found in the Bible either explicitly or implicitly doctrines such as the Immaculate Conception you know what that means the idea that Mary was conceived without a sinful nature the Assumption of Mary the idea that Mary ascended to heaven bodily she died and resurrected the third day and she ascended to heaven bodily the idea that Mary is the mediator between the father and and us actually you know we go to Jesus and Jesus goes to Mary and then Mary goes to the father sees immediate ryx what about the idea of celibacy the idea of the sacrifice of the mask that that really you know the mass is the death of Christ all over again the idea of Lent and by the way there there's an Adventist Church in Northern California that that is celebrating length and they had a Roman Catholic scholar preach just I believe last week in their church and they had a Lutheran pastor how the scripture scripture reading in their church celebrating Lent where does the idea of Lent come from is that found anywhere in Scripture well no it comes from a long process of oral tradition what about baptizing infants what about baptism by sprinkling what about the idea of confessing your sins to a sinful priest what about the idea of indulgences what about the idea of praying for the dead and praying to the dead what about the idea of reciting the Rosary where in the Bible do you find the idea of reciting the Rosary jesus said don't pray repetitious prayers like the religious leaders what about the idea of not eating meat on Fridays want to know where does that come from is there any text in the scripture that says you can't eat meat on Fridays and there's no place in scripture that would say that what about bowing before idols you know there's a Bible condemned by the bowing before idols second commandment says you don't bow before them how does the Roman Catholic Church justify bowing before idols how do they justify the observance as son of Sunday as the day of rest when the Bible explicitly says it's the Sabbath it's because of the reverence that they have for the tradition of the church the oral traditions that have been passed on from one generation to the next supposedly by an unbroken succession of religious leaders the threefold idea that I shared at the beginning of our study number one a deposit of tradition they say the first deposit is the written scriptures the second is the oral traditions that have been handed on all the time from the days of Peter till the days of the church today they believe that in unbroken succession these truths both from written scripture and from oral tradition have been passed along in unbroken succession from one generation to the next in what they call the process of apostolic succession and they believe that in each generation there is a living teaching Office of the theological experts who are the ones that define explain and bring forth from the oral tradition practices and beliefs that perhaps were not explicitly contained in the written written scriptures but they were contained in the oral traditions and they're simply bringing these things out for the deposit of oral tradition the view is virtually identical and all this might appear to be academic but I believe that the best way to approach the Roman Catholic view is to see the view that was held in the days of Christ because if it's a replication of what we have in the days of Christ it means that the religious world today is in the same situation that it was back then incident we're going to have to Studies on the issue of the Sabbath later on in this series we're going to discuss the Sabbath in the days of Christ see the Sabbath of the Pharisees was not the Sabbath of the Lord it was a Sabbath that was based on human tradition it was a counterfeit Sabbath and the only difference between then and now is that in the days of Christ they kept the Sabbath in the wrong way whereas at the end of time Christians are going to keep the wrong day but the principle we're going to find is the same and so we have very exciting things to study we still have eight more in this series of lectures on the Bible or tradition and I hope that we were all able to understand what we studied this evening raise your hand if you understood what we studied this evening the Roman Catholic view of tradition praise the Lord and the Jewish view of tradition as well so in our next session together we're going to take a look at mark chapter 7 the first few verses of the chapter and we're going to see how this view of tradition plays out in a practical encounter of Jesus with the religious leaders of his day so don't miss the next exciting episode [Music] you [Music] [Music]

Channel: secretsunsealed

Views: 7,538

Rating: 4.8540144 out of 5

Keywords: The Bible or Tradition, Stephen Bohr, Jewish View of Tradition, Bible or Tradition, Secrets Unsealed, Sunday, SUMtv, secretos reveladots, pastor bohr, Pastor Steve Bohr, Pastor Stephen Bohr

Id: 8gBjNAyNx4U

Length: 58min 34sec (3514 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 28 2017