The Jerusalem Post has now published an editorial from Rabbi Jacob Nuesner in which he continues the dialectical process under the guise of a debate with Benedict. In the editorial Rabbi Neusner states:
"In the Middle Ages rabbis were forced to engage with priests in disputations in the presence of kings and cardinals on which is the true religion, Judaism or Christianity. The outcome was predetermined. Christians won; they had the swords."
I see. My response to this whopper is that some would say it's Judaics who now hold the swords. Ernst Zundel, Germar Rudolf, Robert Faurisson and the others who have been beaten, imprisoned, fined, had their reputations and careers ruined and otherwise been persecuted for refusing to assent to Judaic "holocaust" dogma could certainly attest to that fact. And coincidentally, the Vatican is presently more rotten with philo-Judaism and crypto-Judaism than it has ever been in history. The Vatican is currently headed by a man who has promulgated a document in which he suggests that Christian interpretation of Scripture should be reevaluated in light of the so-called "holocaust" of "The Jews." This, naturally, is why Rabbi Neusner is now in the mood for a "debate" with the Pope.
On the contrary, Mr. Neusner. The fix is in on this "debate," just as it was in Pfefferkorn's case.
Skipping ahead we come to Neusner's primary objection:
[Jesus] claimed to reform and to improve, "You have heard it said... but I say...." We maintain, and I argued in my book[A Rabbi Talks With Jesus], that the Torah was and is perfect and beyond improvement, and the Judaism built upon the Torah and the prophets and writings, the originally-oral parts of the Torah written down in the Mishna, Talmud, and Midrash - that Judaism was and remains God's will for humanity.
We've already shown that this objection is absurd from Neusner's own writings where he himself explains how the rabbis put their words in their god's mouth. This editorial being meant for public consumption, Nuesner will not make any such revelations therein. There we only get the stock account of the "oral Torah."
But if we turn to Rabbi Nuesner's book, Rabbinic Judaism: Structure and System, we find that the concept of "oral Torah" was developed a few centuries too late for it to constitute a valid basis for his objection.
The complex of rabbinically ordained practices ... including most of the rules for the treatment of Scripture itself--do not derive from Scripture at all. Rabbinic Judaism's initial concern was with the elaboration and refinement of it's own system. Attaching the system to scripture was secondary. It therefore is misleading to depict rabbinic Judaism primarily as a consequence of an exegetical process or the organic unfolding of Scripture. Rather, rabbinic Judaism began as the work of a small, ambitious, and homogeneous group of pseudo-priests ...
By the third century (A.D.) the rabbis expressed their self-conception in the ideology of "oral Torah" which held that a comprehensive body of teachings and practices (halachot) not included in Scripture had been given by God and through Moses only to the rabbinic establishment. (Rabbinic Judaism: Structure and System, Jacob Nuesner, pp. 31-34) as quoted in Judaism's Strange Gods by Michael A. Hoffman II
Not only is the "oral Torah" a complete fabrication of the rabbis, but it was still being developed centuries after Christ as it is clearly stated in Nuesner's book. Therefore Nuesner's objection to Christ--that He changed the Law--falls flat. The rabbis themselves changed the Law and created new laws from thin air and they continued to do so centuries after Christ. They're the worst abrogators of Biblical Law that have ever lived.
Rabbi Nuesner closes thus:
... it really is the one and the same God whom together [Christians and Judaics] serve - in difference ...
The challenges of Sinai bring us together for the renewal of a 2,000 year old tradition of religious debate in the service of God's truth.
Someone once called me the most contentious person he had ever known. Now I have met my match. Pope Benedict XVI is another truth-seeker.
We are in for interesting times.
I can agree with nothing stated here aside from the obvious, that we are living in interesting times.
The ball, apparently, is in the "contentious" Pope Benedict's court, and his dialectical contribution to this farce will certainly be forthcoming.
Full article:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1180450948925&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
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