The timeline…“This is not an uncommon impression and one finds it sometimes among Jєωs as well as Christians - that Judaism is the religion of the Hebrew Bible. It is, of course, a fallacious impression. Judaism is not the religion of the Bible.”Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser, Judaism and the Christian Predicament, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967, p.59, 159
“The Jєωιѕн religion as it is today traces its descent, without a break, through all the centuries, from the Pharisees. Their leading ideas and methods found expression in a literature of enormous extent, of which a very great deal is still in existence. The тαℓмυd is the largest and most important single member of that literature, and round it are gathered a number of Midrashim, partly legal (Halachic) and partly works of edification (Haggadic). This literature, in its oldest elements, goes back to a time before the beginning of the Common Era, and comes down into the Middle Ages. Through it all run the lines of thought which were first drawn by the Pharisees, and the study of it is essential for any real understanding of Pharisaism.”
Universal Jєωιѕн Encyclopedia, Vol. 3 pg. 474
“Pharisaism became тαℓмυdism, тαℓмυdism became Medieval Rabbinism, and Medieval Rabbinism became Modern Rabbinism. But throughout these changes of name, inevitable adaptation of custom, and adjustment of Law, the spirit of the ancient Pharisee survives unaltered.”
Rabbi Dr. Finkelstein, The Pharisees: The Sociological Background of Their Faith, The Jєωιѕн Publication Society of America (1946) p. xxi
“The тαℓмυd is the written form of that which in the time of Jesus, was called the ‘Tradition of the Elders,’ and to which He makes frequent allusions.” *
Michael L. Rodkinson, The History of the тαℓмυd: From The Time Of Its Formation About 200 B. C. Up To The Present Time, Kessinger Publishing, LLC (June 8, 2006), ISBN-13: 978-1428631366, p.70
* “Allusions”? Yes, Jesus damned those man-made traditions for voiding the commandment of God. Mark 7:8-9
“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.”
Rabbi Jacob Nuesner, Rabbinic Judaism: Structure and System, pp. 31-34
“On the surface, Scripture plays little role in the Mishanaic system, The Mishnah [of the тαℓмυd] rarely cites a verse of Scripture, refers to Scripture as an entity, links its own ideas to those of Scripture, or lays claim to originate in what Scripture has said, even by indirect or remote allusion to a Scriptural verse of teaching... Formally, redactionally, and linguistically the Mishnah stands in splendid isolation from Scripture....the Mishnah constitutes Torah. It too is a statement of revelation, ‘Torah revealed to Moses at Sinai.’ But this part of revelation has come down in a form different from the well-known, written part, the Scripture. This tradition truly deserves the name ‘tradition,’ because for a long time it was handed down orally, not in writing, until given the written formulation now before us in the Mishnah.... Since some of the named authorities in the chain of tradition appear throughout the materials of the Mishnah, the claim is that what these people say comes to them from Sinai through the processes of qabbalah and massoret --handing down ‘traditioning.’ So the reason... that the Mishnah does not cite Scripture is that it does not have to.”
Rabbi Jacob Neusner, The Mishnah: A New Translation. New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1988. pp. xxxv-xxxvi.
Note the casual admission that both “qabbalah and massoret [the vaunted, but bowdlerized, ‘Hebrew Bible’]” change Scripture through “process,” “traditioning.” In Judaism tradition is not fixed or faithful, but is an ever-changing “process” that is described as “traditioning.” This is why “the latest Responsa and homiletical interpretations of the rabbis” are Torah, hence authoritative in Judaism. Thus, the rabbis “bury Moses” and “defeat God.”
Indeed all this oral “traditioning” is precisely what Jesus fingered as “make void the commandments of God for the traditions of men.” (Mark 7:9). Since the rabbis are free to “alter even the very content of Mosaic revelation” with impunity, we begin to understand why Jesus said, “there is one that accuseth you, Moses” (John 5:45-47).…https://judaism.is/torah.html