Judaism discovered

How the Masoretic Text Falsifies the Bible

Perhaps the most unambiguous and readily accessible example of rabbinic "scribal interpolation" is found in Judges 18:30 in the Masoretic text. The Authorized King James Version reads, "And the children of Dan set up the graven image: and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh,

191

he and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land." This is not how the verse actually reads, however. This is only what the rabbis say it says. Here is the accurate translation: "And the children of Dan set up the graven image: and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land."

The rabbis, on their own authority, changed the name of the grandfather of Jonathan the idolater from Moses to Manasseh. But all the texts agree that Gershom was the son of Moses (Exodus 2:22). The chief rabbinic expositor of the Old Testament, Rashi, states as follows concerning the removal of Moses' name and the substitution of that of Manasseh: "Because of the honor of Moses was the nun (Hebrew letter n) written so as to alter the name." ¹⁵⁵

In other words, in order to allegedly preserve the reputation of Moses by removing a genetic connection between him and the idolater Jonathan, the rabbis tampered with the Biblical text. The Christian attitude toward such matters was rightly expressed by Matthew Henry: "...if indeed Moses had a grandson who was rakish, and was picked up as a fit tool to be made use of in the setting up of idolatry, it is not the only instance (would to God it were!) of the unhappy degenerating of the posterity of great and good men. Children's children are not always the crown of old men..." In their pride, the rabbis could not live with that wisdom from the Christian Israelite Matthew Henry, and took it upon themselves to alter the Word of God itself to suit their own warped pride and egotism.

Rabbis: The Bible Does Not Really Mean What It Says

Isaac D'Israeli, scholar and father of British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli writes, "The Jews have their Talmud...The word of God is lost among those heaps of human inventions. The Talmud...forms a complete system of the learning, ceremonies, civil and canon law of the Jews; treating indeed on all subjects...The rigid Jews persuaded themselves that these traditional explications are of divine origin. The Pentateuch, say they, was written out by their legislator before his death in thirteen copies, distributed among the twelve tribes, and the remaining one deposited in the ark. The oral law Moses continually taught in the Sanhedrin, to the elders and the rest of the

.

192

people. The law was repeated four times; but the interpretation was delivered only by word of mouth from generation to generation. In the fortieth year of the flight from Egypt, the memory of the people became treacherous, and Moses was constrained to repeat this oral law, which had been conveyed by successive traditionists.-.This history of the Talmud some inclined to suppose apocryphal, even among a few of the Jews themselves.

"...It cannot be denied that there existed traditions among Jews in the time of Jesus Christ. About the second century they were industriously collected by Rabbi Juda the holy, the prince of the rabbins...He has the merit of giving some order to this multifarious collection....The learned W. Wotton, in his curious Discourses on the Traditions of the Scribes and Pharisees,¹⁵⁶ supplies an analysis of this vast collection; he has translated entire, two divisions of this code of traditional laws with the original text and the notes...The Jews have such veneration for this compilation, that...(o)f the twelve hours of which the day is composed, they tell us that God employs nine to study the Talmud and only three to read the written law! St. Jerome appears evidently to allude to this work and notices its 'Old Wives Tales,' and the filthiness of some of its matters.. I leave untouched the gross obscenities...

"They make such subtle distinctions, as when an ox gores a man or beast, the law inquired into the habits of the beast; whether it was an ox that used to gore or an ox that was not used to gore. However acute these niceties sometimes were, they were often ridiculous. No beast could be convicted of being vicious till evidence was given that he had done mischief three successive days; but if he leaves off those vicious tricks for three days more, he is innocent again. An ox may be convict(ed) of goring an ox and not a man, or of goring a man and not an ox; nay, of goring on the sabbath, and not on a working day. Their aim was to make the punishment depend on the proofs of the design of the beast that did the injury; but this attempt evidently led

.

193

them to distinctions much too subtle and obscure. Thus some rabbins say that the morning prayer of the Shemah must be read at the time they can distinguish blue from white; but another, more indulgent, insists that it may be when we can distinguish blue from greenl which latter colors are so near akin as to require a stronger light. With the same remarkable acuteness in distinguishing things, is their law respecting not touching fire on the sabbath. Among those which are specified in this constitution, the rabbins allow the minister to look over young children by lamplight, but he shall not read himself. The minister is forbidden to read by lamplight, lest he should trim his lamp...An evidence of that superstitious trifling for which the Pharisees and the later Rabbins have been so justly reprobated.

"They were absurdly minute in the literal observance of their vows, and as shamefully subtle in their artful evasion of them. The Pharisees could be easy enough to themselves when convenient, and always as hard and unrelenting as possible to all others. They quibbled and dissolved their oaths with experienced casuistry...

"The Talmud contains a vast collection of stories, apologues and jests...many display a...wildness of invention which sufficiently mark the features of an eastern parent. Many extravagantly puerile were designed merely to recreate their young students. When a rabbin was asked the reason of so much nonsense, he replied that the ancients had a custom of introducing music in their lectures, which accompaniment made them more agreeable; but that not having musical instruments in the schools, the rabbins invented these strange stories to arouse attention. This was ingeniously said; but they make miserable work when they pretend to give mystical interpretations to pure nonsense...

"Their detestation of Titus, their great conqueror, appears by the following wild invention. After having narrated things too shameful to read, of a prince whom Josephus describes in far different colors, they tell us that on sea Titus tauntingly observed in a great storm that the God of the Jews was only powerful on the water, and that therefore he had succeeded in drowning Pharaoh and Sisera. 'Had he been strong, he would have waged war with me in Jerusalem.' On uttering this blasphemy, a voice from heaven said, 'Wicked man! I have a little creature in the world which shall wage war with thee!' When Titus landed, a gnat entered his nostrils, and for seven years together made holes in his brains. When his skull was opened, the gnat

194

was found to be as large as a pigeon: the mouth of the gnat was of copper and the claws of iron.

"...The whole creation in these rabbinical fancies is strangely gigantic and vast. The works of eastern nations are full of these descriptions...Mountains are hurled with all their woods with great ease and creatures start into existence too terrible for our conceptions. The winged monster in the Arabian Nights, called the Roc, is evidently one of the creatures of rabbinical fancy; it would sometimes, when very hungry seize and fly away with an elephant.

"...What the manna was which fell in the wilderness has often been disputed, and still is disputable: it was sufficient for the rabbins to have found in the Bible that the taste of it was 'as a wafer made with honey,' to have raised their fancy to its pitch. They declare it was 'like oil to children, honey to old men, cakes to middle age.'

"It had every kind of taste except that of cucumbers, melons, garlic, and onion, and leeks, for these were those Egyptian roots which the Israelites so much regretted to have lost. This manna had, however, the quality to accommodate itself to the palate of those who did not murmur in the wilderness; and to these it became fish, flesh or fowl.

"The rabbins never advance an absurdity without quoting a text in scripture; and to substantiate this fact they quote Deut. 11: 7, where it is said, 'Through this great wilderness, these forty years the Lord God hath been with thee, and thou hast lacked nothing.' St. Austin¹⁵⁷ repeats this explanation of the rabbins that the faithful found in this manna the taste of their favorite food!

"However, the Israelites could not have found all these benefits as the rabbins tells us, for in Numbers 11:6 they exclaim, 'There is nothing at all besides this manna before our eyes? They had just said that they remembered the melons, cucumbers etc. which they had eaten so freely in Egypt.

One of the hyerboles of the rabbins is, that the manna fell in such mountains that the kings of the east and the west beheld them; which they found in a passage in the 23rd Psalm: 'Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies!' These may serve as

.

195

specimens of the forced interpretations on which their grotesque fables are founded." ¹⁵⁸

Isaac D'IsraeLi

In 1833 D'Israeli published The Genius of Judaism in which "He is quite explicit about his dislikes, about the 'infinite multiplicity of customs, of gross superstitions, as ridiculous as once were those of witchcraft, the mere inventions of their Talmudical doctors (that) are incorporated in their faith, in their ceremonies and their daily customs.' He questions the 'dubious authority' of the oral law, denounces the parochialism and 'barbarous disdain of all foreign learning...long the haughty distinction of the Synagogue,' and praises the Karaites, those 'Jewish Protestants' and their revolt against the tyranny of the rabbis...Judaism has been totally corrupted by the 'dictators of the human intellect, the Rabbins..." <sup>159

158</sup> Isaac D'Israeli, Curiosities of Literature (London: Routledge, 1893), pp.

.

196

Yet he was not "self-hating" — "D'Israeli...despite his bitter denunciation of rabbinic Judaism...left room for a positive affiliation with his ancestral heritage." ¹⁶⁰ D'Israeli understood that Orthodox Judaism believes that the Bible (Tanakh) is a code book in which the surface or plain literal meaning (Ma'as'eh) is the least important of several layers of meaning. Orthodox Judaism teaches that the text of the Bible, when taken literally, is in many, if not most cases, misleading or even wrong.¹⁶¹ Beneath the literal representation of the Biblical texts, Judaism posits multiple layers of secret meanings, beginning with three major gradations of meaning in ascending order of importance: the Midrashic, or admonitory level, the Haggadic, or allegorical level, and Sod, the level of secret gnosis, the repository of the "truest and deepest meaning" which is the province only of the rabbinic sage. The Zohar refers to the Tanakh as being both hidden and revealed, with the majority hidden portion being the proprietary domain of the Judaic as personified by the rabbi. It is in this vein that Judaism teaches that God entrusted to Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai the secret truths of the Scriptures (Zohar III, 287b-288a). Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai possesses a semi-divine status as witnessed by his declaration, "I am beyond the jurisdiction of any angel or judge in heaven." {Zohar Hadash, Bereshit 18d-19a). Rabbi ben Yohai is the sage who decreed "Even the best of the gentiles should all be killed."

Judaism's Fractured Version of Adam, Eve and the Garden Examples of nullification of the Biblical text and the substitution of rabbinic glosses for the Word of God are vast. For purposes of illustration, let us start at the beginning. According to the rabbis, the plain meaning printed in the Genesis text, when taken literally, is wrong. The rabbis teach that the description in Genesis of Adam's transgression — as having eaten the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil — is erroneous, and that the Genesis text in actuality "conceals his true sin." This rabbinic tradition is presented gingerly and fleetingly in the commentary on Genesis 2: 16-17 in The Jewish Study Bible: "Knowledge of good and bad may be a merism, a figure of speech, in which polar opposites denotes a totality..." This is The Jewish Study Bible's veiled allusion to the Kabbalistic rabbinic teaching

.

197

about the Genesis account of Adam and Eve; that is: this "figure of speech" good and evil, i.e. "good and bad," is a code for the Shekhinah and the Tiferet. According to Judaism, without having access to the esoteric knowledge of the rabbis, the Book of Genesis cannot be understood. The plain meaning can only mislead. This exegetical principle of the necessity of rabbinic mediation for comprehension of Scripture, and its certain misinterpretation without such mediation, is applied throughout Judaism's encounter with the Bible. This is priestcraft.

"In the Zohar, the exact nature of Adam's sin is a tightly guarded secret; the Biblical account of the Garden story is seen as hiding the true meaning."¹⁶² Adam conversed with Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai; "Adam sat by me and spoke to me and asked that his sin not be revealed to the whole world, apart from what the Torah says of it, and that it should remain concealed with the Tree of the Garden of Eden. But I told him that the companions had already revealed it. And he said, 'Whatever the companions have revealed among themselves is good and proper, but not the rest of mankind.' What is the reason for this? The Holy One, blessed be He, is concerned for His own honor and does not wish to publicize Adam's sin, except in respect of the tree from which he ate. But the Holy One, blessed be He, revealed it to me, by the Holy Spirit, and to the companions, so that they might discuss it among themselves, but not to the younger companions or to those who are still to come into the world." (Zohar Hadash, Bereshit 18d-19a, Midrash ha-Ne'elam).

The tightly guarded secret behind what true Christians believe to be the literal truth of Genesis, but what is in fact, according to the rabbis a mere Biblical "figure of speech" (the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil), centers on the spirit-force personified in Judaism as the goddess known as

.

198

Shekinah.¹⁶³ It is the doctrine of Orthodox Judaism that, "Adam's secret sin" consisted of having divided the unity of the goddess Shekinah as she inhabitated Eden with her supernatural male consort, the Tiferet. The unity of the Shekhinah and the Tiferet that was formerly above duality (above good and evil) in the "Ten Sefirot" became, through Adam, a duality of polar opposites, and the "knowledge" obtained by Adam in the Garden was sorcery.

The Babylonian Talmud claims that the forbidden tree in the Garden from which Adam ate was a fig: "Rabbi Nehemiah holds that the tree of which Adam ate was the fig tree" (BT Berakoth 40a). The Kabbalah teaches that the leaves of this fig tree conveyed powers of sorcery and magic (Zohar 1:56b Bereshit). Consequently, in the rabbinic mind, the aprons worn by Adam and Eve, being made from the leaves of the fig tree, were garments that gave the wearers magical powers. These aprons made from fig leaves had the power to give the bearer the ability to enjoy "the fruits of the world-to-come" in the here-and-now. (BT Bava Metzia 114b). It is with this rabbinic understanding that Freemasons and Mormons wear these aprons in their own rituals.¹⁶⁴

The Zohar states that by black magic Adam cut in half the divine unity of the god and goddess. Adam was formerly a giant, but after his sin his physical proportions were shrunk by God and "his erect stature diminished by one hundred cubits." (Zohar 1:53b). In the fertile rabbinic imagination,

199

most of the Book of Genesis, when taken literally, is misleading. In Zohar 1:36a Bereshit, an account is given of the temptation of Eve in Genesis 3: 4-6: "Eat from it and you will really be like Elohim, knowing good and evil." After quoting this text, the Zohar reports that "Rabbi Yehudah said, This is not what the serpent said. For if he had said, 'With this tree the Blessed Holy One created the world/ it would have been a correct statement. What the serpent said was actually this: The Blessed Holy One ate from this tree and then created the world...Eat from it and you will be creating worlds."

Tyranny and Priestcraft

The religion of Judaism's delusions about the Scriptures spring from the propagation of the legend of God having given His people an Oral Law. The rabbinic account of how the Oral Law came to be accepted demonstrates that in Judaic theology God ordains the rule of the rabbis over the people; and that rabbinic rule is a heavy burden that is "accepted" by the people only under threat of death. And who makes the death threat that compels Judaic allegiance to the iron rule of the rabbis? Why, God Himself of course! "The Chasam Sofer wonders why, after the people willingly accepted the Written law they had to have the mountain held over their heads to induce them to respond positively to accepting the Oral Law. He gives a penetrating response which conveys a profound and timeless message. When Klal Yisrael (the Judaic people) stood at Har Sinai, they decided to humble themselves and accept the Torah from Hashem (God). But, when they were given the Oral Law with its implication that they would now have to submit themselves to the talmidei chachamim (Talmud scholars), who are also made of the same flesh and blood as they, they reneged. They were not prepared to humble themselves before the Torah leaders, who were also human beings. Hashem lifted the mountain over their heads and said, 'If you do not submit yourself to the leadership of the gedolei Torah (high rabbinic leaders) of each generation, then you will be buried here. If you do not humble yourself and listen to their adjudication of the law, it is considered as if you were dead and buried."¹⁶⁵

"The sages invested their decrees with such authority and force as to brand one who dare defy them as deserving of death" (BT Eruvin 21b;

.

200

Berakhot 4b). "Lashes for transgressing a Rabbinic ordinance are administered until the culprit relents or perishes." (Rabbi Mendell Lewittes, Jewish Law (Jacob Aronson, 1994, p. 95). Heresy is a death penalty offense in Judaism and one Talmudic definition (cf. Sanhedrin 99B) of a heretic (apikoros) is someone who disgraces a rabbi. Another definition of an apikoros is someone who dares to even ask the question, "How do the rabbis benefit us?" ¹⁶⁶

There is no freedom of conscience or right to dissent in Orthodox Judaism. In 2003 the religious court of Agudath Israel and four other rabbinic authorities¹⁶⁷ issued proclamations forbidding Judaics from reading the weekly Israeli newspaper Hashovua. Stores were also forbidden to sell it. The rationale for the ban on Hashovua was stated in these proclamations issued by the Gedolim: "This publication is reputed for...opposing the will and negating the opinion of Gedolei Yisroel (the supreme rabbis)...the purpose of

.

201

the proclamation is to address a dangerous virus that has started to infect the fringes of our camp: the frightful phenomenon of irresponsible and mischievous people taking matters into their own hands...From time immemorial, every G-d fearing Jew subjected his personal and communal affairs to the guidance of his Rav (rabbi), understanding the folly of following the dictates of his own heart and mind...in addition to their remarkable wisdom and experience, in addition to their scope and keen insight, the Gedolim are blessed with siyata dishmaya (divine inspiration), without which it is impossible to lead and guide Klal Yisroel (the Judaic people) in the right direction. Ignoring all this, and with reckless defiance, this editor flaunted his insubordination to Gedolim...The purpose of the proclamation then is to reiterate that G-d fearing Jews continue to seek and to cherish the invaluable guidance they receive from their Gedolim, to demonstrate their unequivocal loyalty to their leadership and counsel."¹⁶⁸

If necessary, those who disobey the rulings of the rabbis (piskei din), when issued by the beis din (rabbinic court), can be, as Rashi decreed, tortured: leyasro beyissurin ("afflicted with suffering"). This is cited, le'halacha, in BT Moed Katan 16b. How different is this from the western ideal, as expressed by John Donne: "Would you know of a truth? Doubt, and then you will inquire...As no man resolves of any thing wisely, firmly, safely, of which he never doubted, never debated..."¹⁶⁹

The rabbinic literature advocating torture, is extensive but heavily coded and concealed. Since much of the United States government's federal court system, especially since the War Between the States (1861-1865), has grown increasingly Talmudic with the passage of time, it always instructive to note the correspondence between the ever more cruel approach of the U.S. federal government with regard to interrogation of suspects and captives, and the cruelty of Talmudic law. For example, while the Bible has no provision for prisons except to hold defendants awaiting trial or sentencing, or battle captives during war time, the United States of America in the 21st century has the most unscriptural prison system in the western world, one in which the Founders' Christian proscription against "cruel and unusual punishment"

.

202

has been ignored and overthrown in favor of prisons where many inmates are in 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement as a matter of course, or in some cases, where a majority of the prison population are thus incarcerated (e.g. Florence, Colorado), and where in other American penal institutions, exposure of prisoners to assault and sodomite rape, as well as inadequate nutrition and neglect of medical care, are the norm. Since this is nothing like a Christian standard, and since even the prison systems of the mostly agnostic European countries are superior to conditions in U.S. prisons, from whence are the U.S. government's inhumane penal practices derived? Rabbi Moses Maimonides ruled in Hilchos Rotzei'ach 2:4-5, "If the king does not kill them...beis din is nevertheless obligated to incarcerate them in stressful circumstances for many years...in order to frighten and threaten other transgressors."

i) You must honor and fear your Rebbe [teacher) more than your father, because your father [only] brought you to life in this world, but your Rebbe brings you to life in the World to come

It Is.a grave sin to humiliate talmidei thachmim or to hate them. Jeruusalem was not destroyed until they began to humiliatc talmidie chachomins

Kitzur Shitlchan Akuhh chapter 144

Kitzur Shulchan Aruch: Classic Guide to Jewish Law (Metsudah Publications, 1996) v. 2, pp. 988-989

The French historian Henri Daniel-Rops, in his seminal study of Christ and the early Church, writes: "From the Talmudic definition of various ritual observances we can see how well justified were the sarcasms of Jesus; for instance it was forbidden to eat on the Sabbath day an egg of which the greater part had been laid by a hen before a second star was visible in the sky. On the sacred day it was as much a crime to crush a flea as to kill a camel, although Rabbi Abba Saul conceded that one might gently squeeze the flea and Rabbi Zamuel very broadmindedly allowed one to cut off its feet...

203

"We can also see, in these rabbinical texts, their immeasurable contempt for the common people, the peasants, the Am-ha-aretz, who did not enjoy the privilege of knowing the Law. And we can understand how the Gospel, sown among these untouchables, yielded such an immediate and mighty harvest."¹⁷⁰

The Pharisaic condemnation of the Israelite peasant class may be found in John 7:48-49: "Is there a single one of us rulers or Pharisees who believes in him (Jesus)? No! But only this people that knoweth not the Law and are accursed." Israelite peasants were "regarded.,.as louts sunk in ritual impurity," and the Pharisee leader Hillel viewed them as sub-human: "a churl without a conscience." ¹⁷¹

According to the article titled "Am-ha-eretz" by S. Bialoblotzki in the Jewish Encyclopedia, the common people of Israel "encountered only the most brutal repulsion" from the Pharisees, but when they became Christians they found "welcome and affection." Persecution of Christian Israelites by Pharisees of the first century entails not only the crucifixion of Jesus but other murders, the most notorious being the stoning of Stephen, the attempted murder of Paul and, according to Josephus, the judicial murder of James the Just in the absence of the Roman governor.¹⁷²

Judaism is a counterfeit. To make any connection between a religion which directly contradicts Jesus Christ's own solemn, admonitory condemnation of man-made traditions, and the religion of the God of Israel, is not only irrational and unscriptural, but an abomination.

If Judaism were simply —having rejected Christ — a corrupted variant of the ancient religion of the Israelites, then Judaism would not have, over the centuries, despised, reviled, denounced, persecuted, beaten and murdered the Karaites (Karaim, Bne Mikra: "People of the Scriptures").

"The Jewish sects of the present day are...the Rabbis or Talmudists who add to the written law all the traditions of the Talmud. They conceive that the true sense of their scripture is only found in their oral traditions.. They hold the ancient Pharisees in high estimation; and tell us that that they were

204

not a sect, but the whole mass of Jews.. They insist that their character is not fairly represented in the New Testament... They seem to inherit their self-righteousness... The numerous fables, idle stories and otherwise strange materials with which the (books of the) Talmud are stuffed, gave serious offense to many judicious and well-meaning Jews, who were unwilling to believe that such traditions could come from God, but who, notwithstanding, did not allow their dissent to proceed to any breach or schism among them, till about A.D. 750, when one arose from this, which continues to this day. Anan, a Jew of Babylon, and Saul his son, then openly disclaimed and condemned all traditions, excepting such only as agreed with the written word of God. And as those who opposed them and adhered to the Talmud were chiefly the rabbis and their scholars, that party was called the Talmudists or Rabbinists; while the other, declaring for the Scripture alone, which in the Babylonian language is called Kara, were thence called Karaites...i.e. Scriptuarians... The Karaites are sometimes called Sadducees by their opponents the Talmudic Jews, but very unjustly, for they agree with them in nothing so much as rejecting the oral law... Collectively considered, they (Karaites) are men of great learning, probity and virtue..." ¹⁷³

Paul Johnson in his History of the Jews recounts how, in the 1100s, in the walled Jewish ghetto in Constantinople there was an interior wall that separated the thousands of followers of the religion of Judaism and its Talmud from some five hundred anti-Talmudic, Bible-only Karaites. According to Prof. Albert S. Lindemann of the University of California at Santa Barbara, the Karaites are "...an ancient dissident Jewish sect that did not recognize the Talmud. A few thousand of its followers survived in the Caucasus area.. the Tsarist regime recognized this distinctness and did not apply anti-Jewish legislation to them."¹⁷⁴

The Karaites are a tiny Judaic sect which attempts to understand and follow the Old Testament without either the Talmud or Jesus: "...as early as the eighth century of our era the authority of the Talmud was denied in favor of Biblical supremacy by the sect of the Karaites."¹⁷⁵Anan ben David, founder of the Karaites in the eighth century is said to have taught, "Search

205

thoroughly in the Tanakh and do not rely on my opinion." While the Karaites possessed a "tradition," it had the same status as tradition in the Christian Church is supposed to have: nothing contained within it can contradict the Bible. The Constantinople-based Karaite leader Eliyahu Basyatchi wrote in the fifteenth century, "A rule in our tradition (sevel hayerushah) is that (which) is shown to be wrong on the basis of the written text (Bible), will not be accepted any more, for it is not considered as possessing divine sanctity." (Aderet Eliyahu, Seder Tefilah).¹⁷⁶

Yet the Karaites are hated and severely persecuted by the adherents of Judaism. Why? Because Judaism is Talmudism, not Old Testament, and those who revere the Old Testament teachings outside the prism of Talmud are its hereditary enemies. A counterfeit cannot be said to be the heir to a genuine article. Judaism, whether qualified as ancient or not, is totally alien to the only Biblical religion on earth today, Christianity.

206

Traditions piled upon traditions

A page from the eleventh-century Talmud and Midrash gloss known as the Sefer Aruch of Rabbi Nathan ben Yechiel Anav, reprinted in Basel in 1599 and crammed with man-made traditions from North Africa and Babylonia, which were frequently quoted by Nathan's contemporary, Rashi. Rabbi Nathan studied under his father, the founder of the Yeshiva of Rome. Nathan himself founded a synagogue there and among his conceits was the claim to have "traced his family back to the scholars who were brought to Rome by Titus in 73 A.D" (cf. George Alexander Kohut).

207

The religion of the God of Israel is Christianity. It has no root in the religion of Judaism, which is the religion of the Talmud. Judaism is not simply a perversion, to some degree or other, of God's original revelation to the Hebrew nation. It is the very religion of abrogation of the Old Testament; a diabolic counterfeit. Now, what fellowship hath darkness with light? None. When Douglas Jones states, "Christianity ought to look and sound like Judaism except when it explicitly claims to change something," he is, no doubt unconsciously and with good intentions, creating a link in the minds of Christians between those observances practiced by Talmudic rabbis today and the ancient religion of Israel. This is the fatal flaw in modern Christianity. They pay some obeisance, whether small or great, to the heinous hoax that there is a Biblical root to Judaism, Can it be said that Christians who convert to Voodoo have a Christian root? Should we sit at the feet of formerly Christian Voodoo practitioners in order to gain insight into the Early Church? Do the followers of Christ who betray Him to follow strange gods, be they Pan, Zoroaster or Voodoo, offer us some resonance of Christian heritage to which we must pay honor or study? The answer is a resounding no. These people turned their backs on their solemn vocavo, their calling from God Himself. Heeding them in any way, except as wretched failures to be pitied and prayed for, is a recipe for disaster. The Israelites who apostasized to follow the new religion of Judaism and its strange gods — Talmud, Kabbalah and self-worship — have no more claim on us than any other idol-worshipper.