Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

Now, that's a sweeping statement (three, in fact)! I'll stay away from the
NT authors, but what source do you have about "common Jews", besides the NT,
which clearly has an issue with Pharisees? In general, it was the Priestly
Sadducees, who denied the validity of the "oral Torah", who were removed
from the "common people". The Pharisees were far more "connected" to
"popular religion", which included the oral tradition (this does NOT mean
that every rule recorded in the Talmud necessarily reflects 1st century
custom).

Did "every Jewish boy" study Torah? That would have certainly been the
ideal, but literacy was uncommon at best, including among Jews. What all
Jews DID learn, was the ORAL traditions, both as Bible-stories and as rules
for daily life.

As far as the weekly readings: we don't really know how many Jews regularly
attended synagogue services. We don't really know how common the cyclic
reading of the Torah was at the time. And we have no idea what "additional"
readings, if any, were read. The earliest evidence we have of a prophetic
reading after the Torah reading (what today is called the "Haftarah") is, in
fact, the story about Jesus reading in the synagogue a Nazareth in Luke
4:16-30. (By the way, the local tradition has it, that when they chased
Jesus to "the brow of the hill upon which the city is built", and "he passed
through them", he actually leaped from the hill south of Nazareth all the
way to Mt. Tabor - the hill is called Har Haqepitzah - the hill of jumping.)

And even assuming that most 1st century Jews attended synagogues, in which
both the Torah and the Haftarah were regularly read, more or less as they
are today, the Haftarot actually cover only a small selection of the
Prophets, and none of the Writings. Graduates of Orthodox Jewish education
today are notorious for NOT knowing a whole lot of Nakh (Nebiim and
Ketubim).

Yigal


----- Original Message -----
From: "VC" <vadim_lv AT center-tv.net>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2004 7:50 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] OT: a link about Modern Hebrew


> Dear Chris,
>
> Neither common Jews, nor the Nt authors were concerned with the Oral
> Tradition. And Torah was studied by every Jewish boy. They were also
> familiar with Tanakh from weekly readings.
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Vadim Cherny
>
>
> > Dear vadim,  whatever you think of yeshua of Nazeret one thing can be
> clear,
> > that his fingure pointing at the faults of the 'religious authorities'
was
> > accurate.  The working class jewish man and woman of that day could,
with
> > some accuracy, be likened to the religious masses of 14th and 15 century
> > Germany and England.  It was, to some extent, advantageous that the
> > religious authorities had carved out for themselves an element of
> > exclusiveness.  So I would hesitate to call them odd Jews who did not
know
> > Tanach.  They knew what was important, they were aware of the prophecies
> and
> > they went to the feasts.  Just as today Jews that I met in Israel are
very
> > much aware of popular thinking and feast celebrating,  but many of them
> find
> > the oral aspect of their law-interpreting leaders a burden.
> >
> > Regards Chris.
> >
> >
> > Surely, very odd Jews those have been. They did not know Tanakh, cited
> > garbled quotations of the verses the should have studied in childhood
(if
> > you know about bar Sheta reforms) and were unobservant. Wishful thinking
> >
> > Sincerely,
> >
> > Vadim Cherny
> >
> >
> > Sincerely,
> > Michael Abernathy
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > b-hebrew mailing list
> > b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > b-hebrew mailing list
> > b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> b-hebrew mailing list
> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
>