By Ishaya Ibrahim
The Rabbis of Judaism have so much influence on the Hebrew Bible, to the point of almost recreating the textual meanings.
For clarity, the Hebrew Bible is the equivalent of the Christian’s Old Testament, the only slight difference being its arrangements. For instance, in the Hebrew Bible, also called the Tanakh, the books are arranged in the following order – Torah (First five books written by Moses), Nevim (Prophets) and Ketuvim (Writing).
The Rabbis are the scholars of Judaism, an expertise one acquires by studying the Talmud (a compendium of Jewish tradition which covers both the oral and written Torah).
The latitude the Rabbis have in the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible is such that they could fill up gaps in a given passage of the Bible.
For instance, since Bible did not provide any reason why God made Abraham the patriarch of the Jewish people, they decided to create some reasons for God’s action.
One commentary reads that when Abraham was a boy, he helped his father Terah who was an idol manufacturer look after his shop. One day, Terah went away and left Abraham in charge of the store. A man walked in and wished to buy an idol. Abraham asked him how old he was and the man responded “50 years old.” Abraham then said, “You are 50 years old and would worship a day old statue!” At this point the man left, ashamed.
The Christians will disagree with the Rabbis on this reason why God chose Abraham as the Patriarch of the Jewish people.
For Christians, since such interpretation is not deducted from Bible, Christians are likely to reject it as heretic. But the Jews will accept it as part of the Oral Torah, that is, those laws, statutes, and legal interpretations that were not recorded in the Five Books of Moses, but which also have canonical value.
Another remarkable difference in how Scripture functions in Judaism and Christianity is in the way the laws of the Torah are interpreted. Christians view the laws of the Torah as prefiguration of Jesus Christ. For Christians, Jesus’s death has fulfilled all the demands of the law, hence the provision of another covenant called the New Testament. So, Christians no longer see the law as binding in their literal sense. But Judaism is still stuck with the laws, some of which are impracticable, like capital crimes such as blasphemy, Sabbath breaking or being a rebellious child.
The Rabbis have devised the means of balancing between preserving the sacredness of the Bible and the demand of a modern society that would not accept the killing of an unruly child or a Sabbath-breaker.
What the Rabbis did was to make such law impossible to implement by creating legal hurdles for a number of witnesses who must give consistent evidence before a capital conviction could be arrived at.
While the works of the Rabbis have almost eliminated Bible sanctioned killings because it will be outrageous to kill anybody on the grounds I had referenced, such interpretation or recreation made by them, has its own downside. Some may argue that by giving interpretation completely different from the original meaning in the Bible, the sages may have unwittingly discounted the sacredness of the Bible. This is because the facts presented about God in the Torah is that of infallibility. So, how can God give laws that humans would have to rework to make it legally enforceable. In other words, the laws now rely on humans to make them realistic since some of them are not in tandem with modern reality.
The Christians have no such problem because for them, Jesus Christ’s death is the payment for a new covenant with God which is governed by love.
Another remarkable difference between Christianity and Judaism is in the use of the Tiffilin and the Mezuzah, although not all Jews used this sacred objects which in some sense has similarity with some Christian tradition, especially the Catholics who have certain objects they venerate like the Rosary.
The Tiffilin and Mezuzah are used by conservative Jews in keeping with Deuteronomy 6:9 which talks about strapping God’s word around the hand and hanging them on door post.
But generally, Christians think of the Bible as God’s living word which can only be effective when one believes in them, not as the conservative Jews, who strap their hands with the Tiffilin (an object on which the laws are inscribed), or the Mezuzah, a similar object hung by the door post bearing letters of the Torah.
But despite these differences, both sides share a major canon – The Hebrew Bible (for the Jews) or Old Testament (for Christians.)