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The Oral Tradition of The Jews in the Days of Jesus

Text: Matthew 15 : 1 - 20

The traditions of the Jews were initially “oral” in nature. Though they may have existed in its oral form they nevertheless exerted a tremendous influence on the entire nation.

Jesus made reference to His awareness of the oral tradition in His “Sermon on the Mount”. The phrase that He used in referring to the oral tradition may be found in statements such as this one.

“You have heard that it was said to those of old…”
MATTHEW 5:21, 27 etc

The criticism of the Pharisees of the disciples of Jesus for breaking off heads of grain for food was essentially an oral tradition problem. The written Scriptures did not cover aspects such as breaking off heads of grain on the Sabbath (Cf. Matthew 12:1-14).

Matthew once again brought up the fact that the scribes and the Pharisees were so obsessed by their oral tradition that they seized every opportunity to attack Jesus through it. They knew that they couldn’t fault Jesus by making reference to the written law, but they could if they held out what they called “the tradition of the elders”.

“Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem
came to Jesus, saying,
‘Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?
For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.'”
MATTHEW 15:1-2

THE ORAL TRADITION CODIFIED AND STILL DEFENDED TODAY!

Joseph Telushkin defended the Oral Tradition in recent times. He singled out three reasons why it was necessary for the Jews to have an oral tradition.

“Common sense suggests that some sort of oral tradition
was always needed to accompany the Written Law,
because the Torah alone, even with its 613 commandments,
was an insufficient guide to Jewish life.

The Torah is silent on many important subjects.
Without an oral tradition, some of the Torah’s laws
would be incomprehensible.

An Oral Law was needed to mitigate certain categorical
Torah laws that would have caused grave problems if
carried out literally.”

Telushkin in his book went on to discuss the fact that the oral tradition was not uniformly believed in by all Jewish sects.

“Orthodox Judaism believes that most of the oral traditions
recorded in these books (The Mishna and The Talmud) date back
to Moses on Mount Sinai.

Conservative and Reform Judaism also believe that some kind of
Oral Law was necessary to make the Torah comprehensible
and workable, but they reject the belief that most of the Talmud
date back to Moses’ time. They are more apt to see the Talmud
as an evolving system, in which successive generations of rabbis
discussed and debated how to incorporate the Torah
to their lives.” (Jewish Literacy, NY. Victor Morrow Co. 1991)

THE WRITTEN LAW AND THE ORAL LAW DISTINGUISHED

The Written Torah

The Written Torah was categorized under three main divisions. The Jewish classification of the (Old Testament) Scriptures is quite different from that found in our English Bible, apart from the first five books of Moses.

1. The Five Books of Moses – (Chumash)

(Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy)

2. The Prophets – (Neviim)

Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, The Prophets (Minor prophets)

3. The Writings – (Ketuvim)

(Psalms, Proverbs, Job, The Five Megillot: Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah, Chronicles)

The Oral Torah (The Tradition of the Elders)

The Oral Tradition is a reference to teachings passed down for generations. These teachings may be classified under six main concepts.

1. Legal Explanations and Definitions

2. Rules of Exegesis (13 rules of Rabbi Yishmael)

3. Oral traditions (comments and stories)

4. Ethics

5. Kabbalah Mysticism

6. Sanhedrin and its Council legislations

The Jews were fiercely protective of the Oral Torah. Jesus, the Written Torah!