I can't believe my eyes...

Just to bring everyone up to speed on this...

The fundamental Biblical support for rabbinic authority is Exo. 23:2. But you can hover your cursor over that reference and see what it says--do you see any authorization of rabbinic authority...check, make that SOLE rabbinic authority...to interpret Scripture for YHWH's people?? How do they extricate their authority from this verse? By quoting the verse as "follow the multitude (RABhbiym in Hebrew!)". According to them, the only legitimate interpretation of Scripture is that which is agreed upon by the majority of RABbis, the RABhbiym. The very word "rabbi" comes from the word rabh used in verse 2, which means "multitude" or "majority". But how can they possibly arrive at that interpretation? Obviously, they begin by excising the word "not". Francis said:

Francis said:One is the most costly word to omit accidentally: not.

...except the rabbis didn't "accidentally" omit the word. They willfully and deliberately ignored it.

Let's give this some context. There is an "Explanatory Fable" in the Talmuudh that sets up this shocking interpretation of Exo. 23:2. One rabbi, Rabbi Eliezer, was promoting an interpretation of a situation that the other rabbis disputed. Convinced of his view, Eliezer called for YHWH to perform miracles supporting his position, which He did. The other rabbis were not fazed, and finally YHWH spoke clearly and said, "Rabbi Eliezer is correct." The response of the other rabbis was, "We do not regard a Voice from heaven."

Just to keep this factual and not "my opinion", this is the what the Talmuudh says about this "decision" granting interpretive authority to the rabbis.

There it is. All of rabbinic authority is justified by simply ignoring a negation--removing the word "NOT" from the scripture they quote. By removing and ignoring the word "not", the RABbis effectively BECOME THE VERY MULTITUDE THAT FOLLOWS AFTER WICKEDNESS that the Bible admonishes people NOT TO BECOME.

Here is another breakdown of the myth from a website I just pulled up at random...(I bolded the sections directly addressing Exo. 23:2)

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The Lord God said: “The Law will go out from Me; My justice will become a light to the nations” (Isaiah 51:4). The Psalmist rejoiced, “Blessed is the man You discipline, O LORD, the man You teach from Your Law” (Psalm 94:12). King David consulted no rabbi, but cried for understanding from God:

The rabbis take the opposite view: “from the moment of the giving of the Written Law – ‘from Heaven,’ at Sinai … it is handed over absolutely to the judgment of the human intelligence of the scholars of the Oral Law, who accept the ‘yoke of the kingdom of Heaven’ but give halachic ruling according to their understanding …”.[21] God is not permitted any further role.

In the famous account of a rabbinic dispute over a clay oven, various supernatural signs were given to support the view of a single dissenting rabbi, while the rest of the rabbis persisted in the opposite opinion. Eventually a Voice spoke from Heaven declaring the dissenting rabbi to be correct. To this one of his opponents responded: “it [the Law] is not in Heaven” (i.e. where God may yet rule on its application), but on earth (where the rabbis alone shall have jurisdiction) – at which God laughs and says, “my sons have defeated me”.[22]

The dissenting rabbi, Eliezer the Great (the first rabbi mentioned in the Talmud), was subsequently excommunicated.

From the position of Reform Judaism, Harold I. Saperstein writes, “The implicit understanding was that the law came from the Almighty. But in reaching decisions about it, the rabbis took the authority out of God’s hands.” [22a]

The insidious practice of following human opinions in place of the word of God was already evident at the time of Isaiah. Through this prophet, YHVH lamented:

“These people come near to me with their mouth and honour Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. Their worship of Me is made up only of rules taught by men. Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of their wise [חכמיו] will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish … You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!” (Isaiah 29:13-16).

Through Jeremiah, the LORD announced:

“The priests did not ask, `Where is the LORD?’ Those who deal with the Law [תפשׂי התורה] did not know Me [לא ידעוני] …” (Jeremiah 2:8).

“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken Me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jeremiah 2:13).

“How can you say, ‘We are wise, for we have the Law of the LORD,’when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely? The wise [חכמים] will be put to shame, they will be dismayed and trapped. Since they have rejected the word of the LORD, what kind of wisdom do they have?” (בדבר־יהוה מאסו וחכמת־מה להם) (Jeremiah 8:8-9).

These prophecies suggest that God remained keenly interested in the way that the Law was applied, and held those accountable who handled it corruptly.

‘It is not in heaven’

The rabbis’ response to the Voice from Heaven is taken from Deuteronomy 30:11-14:

“Now, what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, ‘Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, ‘Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?’ No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.”

While this is presented as proof that God has no further interest in how the Law is interpreted and applied, it is rather a beautiful assurance to anyone who seeks to obey Him. Namely, that the Word of Life is ‘not too difficult for you’, so that you need to rely on the understanding of others. It is not ‘beyond your reach’ – God empowers the humble to obey. ‘It is not in heaven’ – so that none but the super-spiritual should reach it. Nor is it in the depths, i.e. needing to be uncovered through occult or kabbalistic practices. ‘No …,’ it is very near you; ‘it is in your mouth’ (as you read it), ‘and in your heart’ (as you resolve to do it), so that you may obey it!

This requires faith in the Lawgiver to inform the hearts and minds of those who seek Him (the faith King David demonstrates in Psalm 119). But the rabbis have stolen this faith away and redirected it toward themselves – so that most Jews today believe in their rabbi, instead of their God. (cf. Psalm 118:8, טוב לחסות ביהוה מבטח באדם׃)

The reason for rejecting the Heavenly Voice is derived from Exodus 23:2:

“‘It is not in heaven!’ – what did he [i.e. the rabbi who rebuked the Voice] mean by this? Explained Rabbi Jeremiah: that the Torah had already been given at Mount Sinai; we pay no attention to a Heavenly Voice, because THOU hast long since written in the Torah at Mount Sinai, After the majority must one incline.”

A careful review of the Torah reveals that no such command, i.e. to follow after the majority, is to be found. What is written instead, is “You shall not follow a multitude unto evil”.

On the presumption that they are not out to do evil, but good, and not out to pervert, but to uphold – the rabbis turn this into a positive command: “you must follow after the majority [of the rabbis] to do good”.

Who, then, is the final arbiter of good and evil?

Since God has been purposely eliminated from making such judgments, we must conclude that the rabbis claim this privilege for themselves. Their reading of Exodus 23:2 presumes that ‘good’ is whatever the majority decides.

Can we confidently accept that the rabbis should be custodians of such a radical authority? What do the Scriptures say about the majority view of ‘good’?

“In the Torah, it is difficult to find a place where the majority was not in opposition to the will of God. They were in Egypt. They were in the wilderness. That is the Biblical reason for the wandering in the wilderness. The people would not believe Joshua and Caleb [the minority]. The believed the majority of the spies [the quorum (minyan) in the synagogue was in fact taken from the number of the evil majority, namely ten – see Megilla 23b]. Time after time, Moses stood alone against the majority of the people and the majority of the leaders; e.g., the Golden Calf and the waters of Meribah. In various supernatural ways, God made it clear that Moses was right.

“The rebellion of Korah is an instructive example because it arose concerning the same issues that put Rabbi Eliezer in conflict with … the majority. Korah, Dathan, Abiram, On, and 250 leaders of the people challenged the authority of the Aaronic priesthood and the leadership of Moses. These men were all “princes of the congregation, the elect men of the assembly, men of renown”. According to Rashi, Korah… “drew the heads of the Sanhedrin among them … He arose and assembled two hundred and fifty, the heads of the Sanhedrin …”. Had the authority of the majority of the sages been established at that time, Moses would have been excommunicated…”.[23]

The later prophets, also, were a solitary and lonely voice, speaking directly on behalf of God against the prevailing sentiments of Israel’s religious and political leaders – for which they were often persecuted and killed.

The rabbis accept no correction from a prophet.[24]

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On the last point, apparently that includes the Prophet from Nazareth.

Okay, so that should establish the backstory...and with that backstory, I hope folks can see why I'm shocked by this *Note. This note isn't just "wrong" in a pedestrian sense. It's wrong in a shockingly specific and inflammatory sense, in a way that corresponds with one of the most egregious wholesale rejections and perversions of Scripture--AND YHWH's authority--in history.

Francis said:

You did not understand what was happening with the asterix, that's quite okay. It has now been explained to you.

And I accept the explanation, that no ill intent was meant. But I still think that it's inviting problems to have eliminated the inclusion of the Hebrew phrase from the starred notes. To my way of thinking, the ENTIRE PURPOSE (see how I did that?) of an interlinear is to demonstrate as much as possible a literalist one-for-one correspondence from source to target. Given that, the star notes in the current L8 version of LHI are not even attached to the correct words in either verse 1 or verse 2. The star note in L3 handles the idiom much better, imo, in that the star notation is attached to the final word that makes up the idiom, rather than the first. That simply makes sense...but either way, if the note SHOWED the Hebrew phrase that was being considered as idiomatic, there would be far more clarity and much less opportunity to instigate misunderstanding.

Francis said:

I'd like to suggest that you slow down a bit on the EMPHATIC affirmations and sinister declarations with text formatting to boot.

I have over two dozen books I'm working on, all of which are text driven and require making use of numerous attention-directing formatting techniques, so it just comes natural to me to use those when I write. I think your sentence above carries much more tangible effect than if it didn't have the formatting...although, if it were me, I would adjust it as follows...

Francis said:

I'd like to suggest that you slow down a bit on the EMPHATIC affirmations and sinister declarations with text formatting to boot.

That way, "sinister" has much more punch and menacing weight attached to it! [li]

[;)]