It came from the email box ( a rebuttal of replacement theology II)

B"H

The Greatest Story Never Told
The Relationship of the Gentile and the Torah
By Ariel Bar Tzadok


The Oral Tradition, for Jew and Gentile

According to the simple Biblical narrative, the only commandment which G-d gave to Adam was to prohibit him from eating from the Tree of Knowledge. The Bible does not mention of any other laws given. The narrative continues with the story of Cain and Abel. Yet, nowhere is it recorded what Cain and Abel were supposed to offer as sacrifice. Why then did G-d accept one and reject the other? What set of criteria was used? Was this criteria known to Adam and his sons? The Bible does not say.

Also, when was the commandment not to murder given? Who told Cain that it was wrong to murder his brother? Prior to the flood, there was no written Biblical injunction of law. If so, how could G-d consider any human action to be bad and thus accountable to punishment? Without a knowledge of law and morality, how could the generation of the flood have known their actions to be evil before G-d? Some might wish to say that everyone knows deep down the difference between right and wrong. But this is not always true. Different cultures hold different values. What one culture may hold as perfectly acceptable another culture might find repugnant.

Modern logic claims that everyone knows the difference between basic right and wrong; and that even without the giving of such laws, the pre-flood generations should have known better, even without being told. While this logic might sound good to us today, it does not have any value by Biblical standards. According to the Bible, (ref. Lev.), ignorance of the law lessens a violator's punishment, or exempts him entirely. Therefore, if punishment came, as we see with regards to the flood, then we can logically conclude that certain laws were given (and violated) and the Bible does not outrightly record the giving of these laws.

The holy Rabbis teach us a point that is essential for any student of the Bible to learn and to learn well. Not everything was written in the Bible. As with every other ancient culture, the nation of Israel held a very rich Oral tradition which fills in many of the blanks in the Biblical narrative. Over the many years, the great majority of these Oral traditions have been written down and this is how we know of them today.

The Jewish Oral tradition teaches us that indeed, upon the banishment from Eden, Adam and thus all his children were commanded to observe certain universal commandments. Numbering only six, these universal laws were given to Adam so that his progeny would learn how to create and establish a society based upon morality, righteousness and human rights. The six universal laws given to Adam are as follows:

1. No idolatry
2. No blasphemy
3. No murder
4. No immorality
5. No theft
6. No injustice

Short, simple and direct to the point. It is these six principles that human society was originally commanded to observe. The Bible does not overtly record this, yet the Bible does record mankind being held accountable for them.

After the flood, G-d repeated these laws to Noah and all his children with the addition (Gen. 9:4) of the forbiddance of eating part of a living animal. Yet, other than with this last exception, none of these universal laws are recorded outright in the Bible. Even though G-d punishes Cain for murder and later destroys an entire generation for similar sins, nowhere is there recorded the giving of the law that defined such actions as sin.

The Bible does delete many important facts, that for whatever reason known to G-d He chose not to include. For example, where did Cain and later Seth and others find their wives? The Bible does not record their births. Where did they come from? The Bible also doesn’t mention the names of any of the pre-flood matriarchs and mothers with the exception of Eve (and one or two ). Are we to assume that the other fathers of old were born without mothers simply because the Bible doesn’t mention any mothers? Obviously such type of thinking is quite insulting to human intelligence. We take it for granted that although certain things are not mentioned they are, nonetheless, still there.

Jewish tradition and religion, since its Sinatic foundations, have been built upon a two-fold type of knowledge. The first being the absolute written Word of G-d and the second, equally important and authoritative, the Oral tradition which provided the comprehensive meaning and official interpretation of the written Word. Only with the proper combination of the two can the Bible ever be properly understood.

This is why Jewish scholars throughout two thousand years of Christianity have always dismissed the Christian claim of replacing the Jewish religion. Although the Church has adopted the Jewish Bible, they added to it (the "New Testament") and thereby superimposed a new meaning over the Biblical texts that is not supported by the written Word and by its official interpretation the Oral Tradition. Because the Church could never justify its existence in light of the authoritative Jewish Oral Tradition, it has rejected the Tradition and condemned it as the "work of man" instead of being the divinely inspired Oral Tradition received by men from G-d. This breach of continuity is what has led the sincere Christian to being almost totally uninformed as to the true teachings of the Bible. Any attempt to introduce the Christian into the true teachings of the Bible must necessarily include a Christian willingness to accept the authority of the Rabbis and Jewish Sages as being the true possessors of the authoritative Oral Tradition, which reflects and carries the same authority as does the written Word.