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The echoes of ancient Jewish wisdom can be heard in the depth of its Gospel fulfillment.
The Talmud purports to be the written version of the oral Torah that Pharisaic and later Orthodox Judaism believed was received by Moses on Mount Sinai when he received the Ten Commandments and the written law.
All agree that the present written form of the Talmud was compiled after the time of Jesus. But the “proto-Talmudic” tradition was “transmitted orally for centuries.” It seems that Jesus was familiar with many oral ideas, later written down. This oral tradition is analogous to apostolic oral tradition, referred to in the New Testament.
For example, Jesus preached in the Sermon on the Mount, “You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not kill; whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment...” (Matthew 5:22, RSV). In other words, his point was that sin starts in the heart and the intent, before we commit an act, and that the intent is as blameworthy as the act that flows from it. Murder starts in anger, which then can become malice, up to and including murder, if it’s unchecked.
Is this an entirely new ethical insight of Jesus? No. Many Jews would have been familiar with the oral tradition later written in the Talmud, in Bava Mezia 58b: “He who publicly shames his neighbor is as though he shed blood.”
Continued below.
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The Talmud purports to be the written version of the oral Torah that Pharisaic and later Orthodox Judaism believed was received by Moses on Mount Sinai when he received the Ten Commandments and the written law.
All agree that the present written form of the Talmud was compiled after the time of Jesus. But the “proto-Talmudic” tradition was “transmitted orally for centuries.” It seems that Jesus was familiar with many oral ideas, later written down. This oral tradition is analogous to apostolic oral tradition, referred to in the New Testament.
For example, Jesus preached in the Sermon on the Mount, “You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not kill; whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment...” (Matthew 5:22, RSV). In other words, his point was that sin starts in the heart and the intent, before we commit an act, and that the intent is as blameworthy as the act that flows from it. Murder starts in anger, which then can become malice, up to and including murder, if it’s unchecked.
Is this an entirely new ethical insight of Jesus? No. Many Jews would have been familiar with the oral tradition later written in the Talmud, in Bava Mezia 58b: “He who publicly shames his neighbor is as though he shed blood.”
Continued below.
From Moses to the Messiah: Oral Tradition Heard in Jesus’ Teachings
The echoes of ancient Jewish wisdom can be heard in the depth of its Gospel fulfillment.
