"SEARCH FOR THE REAL PARENTS OF MY SOUL!" The Social Psychological Odyssey Continues

SEARCH FOR THE REAL PARENTS OF MY SOUL

The Social Psychological Odyssey Continues

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

November 4, 2014

ORAL LAW GAINS ACCEPTANCE

The theory of the “oral law” was accepted only gradually. 

“The theory of an authoritative law (which might be taught independently of the Scriptures) was altogether too new to be unhesitatingly accepted … the theory was too startling and novel to be unconditionally accepted” (Lauterbach, 1951).

The greatest opposition to the so-called “oral law” came from the priests, who, as a whole, declared that the Scripture was the only necessary code of laws to obey.

“This apparently simple solution offered by the priestly group in the Sanhedrin did not find favor with the lay member of that body” (Lauteerbach, 1951).

And, with the passage of time, the lay teachers ultimately came to constitute the majority of representatives in the Sanhedrin.  These Pharisaic lay teachers succeeded in convincing the people that they were right and that the priests were wrong.

Some of the people’s fears concerning the priestly Sadducees were apparently valid.  Many of the priests did become worldly minded and they found worldly politics far more interesting than religion.

The Sadducees eventually adopted the belief that there was no resurrection and that angels did not exist (Acts of the Apostles 23:8).  This was probably a result of the influence of the Greek Epicurean philosophy.  It taught that there was no future life of any kind, and that man should therefore seek as many physical pleasures in this life as possible, since that was all there was.

NEW LAWS OF THE PHARISEES

Many of the Pharisees came to believe what they were doing was God’s will.  “It is certain that they (the Pharisees) regarded themselves as the successors of the prophets, and not merely in fact but by right as well (Herford, 1933).

Based on this claim of authority, they adopted a method of teaching what they believed to be Laws of God, without any initial reference to the Scriptures for authority.  “Finding no convincing proof for such laws in the Bible, they taught them independently of scriptural proof, i.e., in the Mishnah-form” (Lauterbach, 1951).

Mishnah-form was the name given for laying down laws to be observed, apart from the Scriptures.  This is not to say that Mishnah-form avoided Scripture references altogether.  But it was only after a law had already been accepted that the Scriptures might be checked for corroboration.  Sometimes, it seems, “affirmation” of a new law was forced from the Scriptures totally unrelated to the particular subject.

The word Mishnah is related to the Hebrew root word meaning “second” and “study.”  Mishnah-form was the second form that the Pharisees adopted for “study” as opposed to the original form of properly expounding the Scriptures, which was called “Midrash-form.”  This older, original form was known as “teaching after the manner of Moses” (Talmud, 1963).

 Midrash-form is based on deducing laws, teachings, legends, etc., from the Scriptures.  As time went on it too became perverted.  Lauterbach writes:

“Whenever there was the remotest possibility of doing so, they would seek by means of new hermeneutical rules (rules pertaining to Biblical interpretation) to find in the words of the Torah support for these traditional laws” (1951).

Thus the Pharisees were able to “find” the traditions they were now approving of by twisted interpretations of Scripture.  In doing this, they still claimed to be using the Midrash-form.  Ezra is said to have taught in Midrash-form when he, and his helpers “read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading” (Nehemiah 8:8).  There was, however, one major point which Ezra was aware, but which the Pharisees missed.   It is this:

God, in the Bible, never contradicts Himself.  Malachi, a contemporary of Ezra was inspired to write: “For I am the Lord, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed” (Malachi 3:6). 

But many of the traditional laws the Pharisees approved of did contradict Scripture.  What is more, many of them even contradicted one another.

With the introduction of the new Mishnah-form, Scripture came to be less relied on than before.  New laws, which were not even necessarily traditional, could be enacted.  For the Pharisees found the Mishnah-form to be an important weapon in their conflict with the Sadducees.  Laws that were accepted after being handed down in the Mishnah-form tended to enhance the authority of the Pharisees, since it was solely on their authority that the law was accepted. 

The very first individual of whom we have any record who began to teach new commandments in the Mishnah-form, apart from the Scriptural basis, was Jose ben Joezer of Zareda.  Jose laid down three new commandments. 

The first concerned the eating of a certain locust (no less);

The second, the blood of slaughtered animals; and

The third, the touching of a dead body. 

In doing this, he became known as “Jose, the Permitter” (Talmud, 1963), evidently because all three decisions “he permitted” were things that had been formerly considered forbidden (Lauterbach, 1951).

These new laws of Jose were not customs of the people inherited from Hellenism.  “It is therefore evident that these Halakot (rules) … were not older traditional law transmitted by Jose as a mere witness, but Jose’s own personal teachings.  He was one who ‘permitted’ and he deserved the name (the Permitter).” (Lauterbach, 1951)

These commandments, then, of themselves were not earth shaking violations of Jewish law, but they did set a new precedence.  Eventually, others began to set down all sorts of new laws.  Jesus came to call them “the commandments of men,” not God (Mark &:7).

THE PROSBUL OF HILLEL

Many others ultimately followed in the steps of Jose.  If the majority of Pharisees agreed on a new decision, it was accepted as the “Word of God” even if Scripture taught just the opposite.

Of the myriad of new laws laid down, perhaps the best example of this is the “Prosbul of Hillel.”  Hillel the old, headed a Pharisaic school in the days of Herod.  He was noted for his gentleness and was greatly beloved among the people, but his decisions nonetheless were not always in keeping with the “Word of God.”

For instance, “All private loans are automatically remitted at the end of the Sabbatical Year" (Deuteronomy 15:2).  

Hence it became difficult to obtain loans immediately before the onset of that year.  In order to avoid hardship and encourage lending, Hillel instituted the Prosbul (Greek, meaning “for the court”), which in a declaration made before a court of law by the creditor, and signed by witnesses, stating that all debts due him are given over to the court for collection.

Since the remission of loans during the seventh year applies only to individuals but not to public loans, the effect of the Prosbul was to render the individual’s loan public, and it was therefore not remitted.” (Werblowsky and Wigoder, 1955)

Hillel’s motive was apparently quite practical.  And yet the Bible clearly states, “Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, the seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest his nought; and he cry unto the Lord (Eternal God) against thee, and it be sin unto thee.” (Deuteronomy 15:9)

It was because of rules like the Prosbul that Christ told the Pharisees, “Thus have you made the commandments of God of one effect by your tradition.” (Mathew 15:6)

Hillel saw that the poor were unable to obtain needed loans and were trying to remedy the situation, but he was not doing it God’s way:

“Trust in the Eternal with all thine heart; and loan not unto thine own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5)

There were of course many such instances where the Pharisees enacted many new laws based solely on their own human reasoning in an attempt to make what they thought would be a better way of life.  Yet God tells us, 

“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the ends therefore are the ways of death.” (Proverbs 14:12; 16:25)

A PRIORI

The Pharisees’ error was a classic one.  Seeing wrong situations but relying solely on themselves, they attempted to treat the effect rather than the cause, something that haunts us to the present day

Take note of the case of Hillel’s Prosbul.  God plainly tells us that the cause of the problem was in the hearts of the people. (Deuteronomy 15:9)

Speaking parenthetically, today too many see the problems besetting mankind from a solution perspective without the necessity of clearly defining the problem.  Governments have their solutions at the ready, as do revolutionary movement.  All attempts are only to treat the effects of the problem while the cause of the problem gets scant or no attention. 

None get at the real cause which is to be found in the motives of men.  To uncover these motives is no easy task as these motives are often in conflict with each other, or an open war between the head and the heart. 

And so to get at the real cause it would be well to examine “the tilt of the social landscape”:

“There is probably no better way of gauging the nature of a society than by finding the direction in which ambition and talent flow.” (Hoffer, 1968)

God’s Law as revealed in the Scripture could be summed up by the word, Love – Love first of all toward God and then towards one’s fellowman, but above all, towards God.  That is why Jesus came to be called, “the last Christian.” (Kaufmann, 1955)

God’s Law shows us exactly how he would live if He were a human being.  This is precisely what Jesus attempted to do when he emptied himself of his divinity and took on human flesh, giving evidence in the process of never once violating a single of God’s Laws.

The rise of the Pharisees in the period between the Old Testament and the New Testament represents an attempt on the part of the people to keep the Law.  They lacked a clear understanding of their own human nature as revealed in the Scripture.  Notice God’s deeply felt near lament in Deuternomy 5:29:

“O that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children forever!”

But, of course, such a heart was not in them at the time.  They had the human nature that we all naturally possess, the heart that is … “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?” (Jerimiah 17:9) 

Joshua told his generation:

“…Yet cannot serve the Lord…” (Joshua 24:19)

To serve the Lord Joshua was saying was simply not in the people’s nature, nor is it apparently in ours.

That said man was not left without hope.  There was a promise of better things to come.  “And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.” (Deuteronomy 30:6)

The Pharisees as well as the other sects of the period wanted to serve God and keep His commandments.  They has, as the Apostle Paul (who well knew) put it, “… a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.” (Romans 10:2)

Not aware of the necessity for a chance in their own human nature, they found it necessary to change God’s Law.  Not that this was done outwardly, but rather by forced interpretation, rationalization, attempted codification of laws that were all encompassing; new laws that were not admitted to be new, but old laws made refreshingly comprehensible.

By changing the Law they made it of “none effect,” that is to say, it did not have the effect necessarily that God’s Law should have had on those who would keep it.

Inasmuch as the Pharisees did keep some of the law correctly some of the time, it did have some good effects.  The overall results that come by living in total harmony with the law the Creator set in motion simply were lacking.  Pharisaic society did not abound with the love of God.  You could never convince the Sadducees (with whom they often were in dispute) that it was otherwise.  

Nor could you convince the Romans.  Nor, indeed, could you convince the unlearned Jews of that day whom many of the Pharisees thumbed their noses at with the epithet “am-ha-aretz” (people of the land).  The term is used in a derogatory sense throughout the Pharisaic writings after today’s term “redneck,” meaning uncouth, ignorant and crude. 

Pharisaic society was filled with strife.  When Alexander Jannaeus, a Maccabean king, ruled, the Pharisees were virtually at war with him and there was much bloodshed. 

The Talmud itself is a record of the Pharisees striving among themselves, one with another in religious debates, each one trying to convince the other of the correctness of a particular view or idea, rather than all working together harmoniously to seek God’s will.

Today, professed Christians are treading down tht same well worn path that the Pharisees once took.  Writers, such as Nietzsche are being given more than cursory attention.  On the one hand, where is the sect that has not attempted to read its own ideas into the Bible which it professes to obey?

Where is the denomination that is truly bearing the fruits of God’s Spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, virtue, temperance?  In fact, given the struggle and the deception, does any single sect know what true love is?

A word of caution before moving on.  The century and one half before the birth of Jesus the Christ religion was in total turmoil.  More than anything the period displayed a need for a change in the human heart.  This is precisely what Christ insisted was his mission, the reason he came into the world, and what he came to offer.

As we continue to follow the Weberian model of organization, it might be remembered that the sociologist held the view that there is rarely a close relationship between social location and material interests when it comes to the articulation of religious ideas.  Part of the reason is that much of the content of the theology during the inception period is fluid and often contaminated with spurious contradictions.  Despite these inconsistencies supporters of the ideas are likely to fight to the death in their defense.   

Those not inclined to religion or religious beliefs find this frustratingly incomprehensible failing to understand that religious ideas are generally derived from purely religious sources.  Weber writes:

“It is not our thesis that the specific nature of a religion is a simple ‘function’ of th social stratum which appears as its characteristic bearer, or that it represents the stratum’s ‘ideology,’ or that it is a ‘reflection’ of a stratum’s material or ideal interest-situation.  On the contrary, a more basic misunderstanding or the standpoint of these discussions would hardly be possible.  However, incisive the social influences, economically and politically determined, may have been upon a religious ethic in a particular case, it receives its stamp primarily from religious sources, and, first of all, from the content of its annunciation and its promise” (Gerth and Mills, 1948).

The assertion made here that a religion is not just a reflection of a stratum’s material or ideal interest-situation is cautionary for the student of sociology.  Much as there is to be learned from this there is the ideological flow which would seem a force outside such limitations.  This rather long summary of the period between the Old Testament and the New Testament is consistent with Max Weber, and a necessary foundation for that which is to follow.

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NEXT: THE BRIDGE BETWEEN THE OLD TESTAMENT AND NEW TESTAMENT – THE ROMAN EMPIRE!