The Second pseudo-evidenceGod said to Moses: "Write these things, for it is by means of these things that I have made a covenant with Israel" (Exodus. 34:27). When God was about to give the Torah, He recited it to Moses in proper order, namely; the Scriptures, Mishna, Haggada and Talmud, for God pronounced all these words:
God revealed to Moses even the answers to questions which distinguished scholars are destined to ask their teachers in the future, for He said all these things.
Then, when God had finished, He said to Moses, "Go and teach it to My sons." . . .
Moses said,
- "Lord"; You write it for them.
God said,
- I did indeed wish[2] to give it all to them in writing, But it was revealed that the Gentiles would in the future have dominion over them. and will claim the Torah as theirs; then would my children be like the Gentiles. Therefore, give them the Scriptures in writing, and the Mishna, Haggada and Talmud orally. for it is they which separate Israel and the Gentiles
And it is quite evident that both traditions must have been forged, after the advant of Christianity, and by no others than the Rabbanites themselves in order to boost their cause!.
Now, taking note of this shacky evidence as a background, I will list below the five justified and logical Main Reasons given by Karaites, for not accepting the Oral Law forged by the Rabbanites:
1. The Oral Law is not mentioned even once in the entire Tanakh[3] (Hebrew Bible)
2. When God told Moses to come up to Mount Sinai to receive the tablets He said: "Come up to me into the mountain, and be there: and I will give thee tablets of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written;" (Ex 24,12).
No mention is made of an Oral Law.
3. The Tanakh reports; that the written Torah was both lost and completely forgotten for over 50 years and only rediscovered by the Temple priests (2Ki 22,8; 2Chr 34,15)
It is inconceivable that an Oral Law could have been remembered when even the written Law was forgotten.
4. The words of the Mishnah and Talmud are clearly the words of men living in the 2nd-5th centuries CE and;
absent are the familiar Biblical formulae "And the Lord spoke unto Moses saying," and "Thus saith the Lord".
5. The Rabbis claim that the "Oral Law" is the official interpretation of the Torah given on Mount Sinai.
Yet if one actually looks at the Mishnah and Talmud they are full of the opinions of Rabbis who disagree with each other on almost every issue. The Rabbis explain that whenever there are such disagreements, "both opinions are the words of the living God". Karaites maintain that it is unreasonable to believe that God would contradict Himself.
In parallel with these five devastating arguments, the Karaites made much use of rhetorics to deconstruct the Rabbanites forged claims.
I cite below, to give you a foretaste of the issues, excerpts from "The Book of the Wars of the Lord" written in rhymed quatrains by the Karaite Salmon Ben Jeroham as a critical diatribe and rejoinder to "The Book of Doctrines and beliefs" written in Arabic by the well known Egyptian Rabbanite Rabbi Saadia Gaon (882 - 941 C.E[4]);
He stated (Saadia) in his misleading discourse,
And he did utter the assertion,
that the Almighty chose to reveal himself to Moses
At Mount Sinai, to give him two Laws for His chosen people
The commandments of the one Law were set down in writing,
While the commandments of the other were kept upon the tongue.
Moreover, they were both to be, into everlasting eternity,
An heirloom for the congregation of the seed of the perfect ones.
My spirit advised, me to reply to him in this matter,
And to place my answer among my congregation in a written epistle,
In order to remove the stumbling block, and to clear the path of stones
And also[5],
You say that the Rock has given Israel two Laws,
One which is written, and one which was preserved in your mouths.
If this is as you say,
Then indeed your deeds are but falsehood and rebellion against God.
The Holy One has given you an Oral LawSo you can recite it orally,
For, say you, He had deemed it, in His wisdom, a laudable command.
why, then, did you write it down in ornate script?
Had the Merciful One wished to write it down,He would have had it written down by Moses.
Now did He not give it to you to be studied orally[6],
And had He not ordained it not to be inscribed in a book?
Yet they altered God's alleged words and wrote it down,
And instead of studying it orally they transferred it into writing.
How, then, can their words be believed, seeing that they have offended grievously?
They cannot withdraw from this contradictory path.
They wrote down both Laws, thus contemning the commandment of the Almighty.
Where, then. is the Oral Law in which they place their trust?
Their words have become void and meaningless,
And out of their own mouths have they testified that they have drawn God's wrath upon themselves.
And again[7],
I have also seen in the Talmud—
Which you Rabbanites regard as if it were your main supporting column,
And which is made by you a partner of the Law of Moses,
And is held beloved and desirable in your hearts—
The bellowing of the School of Shammai against the School of Hillel,
to controvert their words,
As well as that of the School of Hillel against the School of Shammai,
to refute their interpretations of law.
This one invokes blessings, and that one heaps curses upon their heads,
Yet both are an abomination in the sight of the Lord.
The words of which one of the two shall we accept,
The School of Shammai and the School of Hillel, mentioned in the text are two scholastic tendencies in first-century Pharisaism in Palestine, where one can discern, based on the c. 300 pertinent extent pericopes, that about two thirds of the controversies between the two schools deal either directly or indirectly with the food laws.
One can also discern in the school of Shammai a conservative tendency, with a more literal reading of Scripture, to the extent that an event in the Shammai's School is assessed strictly in terms of the action that ensues.
The Hillelistes, on the other hand, are more lenient and take into account the intention behind[8].
Strangely enough, the Oral Law today is a written law, codified in the Mishna and Talmud. Orthodox Judaism has even forged another tradition, under the Influence of the Islamic concept of a chain of transmitters; "Isnad", that says that Moses subsequently transmitted that Oral Law to his successor, Joshua, who transmitted it in turn to his successor, in a chain that is still being carried on (see; Pirqe Abot (1; 1) "Sayings of the Fathers").
This late forgery is the more obvious, since given this claim for the existence of this chain of authority, one wonders why the Mishna and Talmud are filled with debates between rabbis; if all have received the same, unambiguous tradition!
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