Two Israeli believers have just published a book that sets out to debunk one of Judaism’s fundamental pillars: adherence to the Oral Law.
According to rabbinic Judaism, the Oral Law contains all of the directives that God is believed to have shared with Moses on Mount Sinai, none of which are recorded in the Torah.
In their book, Eitan Bar and Golan Brosh set out to critique traditional rabbinic Judaism which has held the religion “hostage” by its reliance on Oral Law.
“The focus of the rabbinic religion has been to study and meditate on the Oral Law. In fact, the Oral Law serves as the foundation upon which all the traditions of rabbinic Judaism stand,” the authors write in the introduction.
If the Oral Law is proved invalid, all of Judaism falls, the authors contend.
Bar, one of the authors, is known in Israel for his evangelism and apologetics of the Messianic faith. He said adherence to the Oral Law is keeping Jews from understanding their need for a savior.
“The idea that God gave Moses an Oral Law on Mt. Sinai — which only the rabbis have the keys for — is the foundations and base for Judaism,” Bar told KNI. This “basically keeps them away from understanding their need for a savior, for Yeshua,”
Bar and Brosh note that the book is not an attack on Judaism or on other Jews but rather a “discussion between Jews who believe in Yeshua (Jesus) and those who do not yet follow Him.”
“In order to establish their authority over the Jewish people, the rabbis came up with the revolutionary idea according to which their philosophy, traditions and teachings (i.e., the Oral Law) were passed on through the generations, beginning with Moses and ultimately with God Himself,” they write. “Henceforth, the focus of the rabbinic religion has been to study and meditate on the Oral Law (Oral Law). In fact, the Oral Law serves as the foundation upon which all the traditions of rabbinic Judaism stand. Without the rabbis’ traditions, rabbinic Judaism losses all its validity and existence. In other words, if the divine origin of the Oral Law is nothing but a myth, then rabbinic Judaism has no leg to stand on.”
The book also examines “the implications of the Oral Law on Judaism today, especially in regard to Israel’s relationship to the New Testament and Yeshua.”
“We are not objective, we do not believe that God gave Moses an Oral Law on Mount Sinai, that is our premise,” Bar told KNI. “We are making polemics from many different directions, including the debunking of the classic, pro-Oral Law rabbinic claims which are well known in Judaism.”
The book will be expanded and released in Hebrew by 2020, Bar said.
Bar is also known for a video series “Eitan and Moti” which has now expanded to “Eitan, Moti and Anastasia” in which the three Messianic Jews seek to prove that Yeshua is the Messiah as they take on popular rabbinic concepts. The video series has earned them more than one death threat from rabbis here.
Bar also co-authored Reading Moses, Seeing Jesus: How the Torah fulfills its goal in Yeshua and just published another book, Did God punish and kill God?: Did God the Father punish and kill God the Son? He holds a degree in Biblical Studies from Israel College of the Bible and an M.A. in Theology from Liberty University. He was born and raised in Israel. He currently serves as One for Israel’s director of the Media & Evangelism\Apologetics departments.
Brosh, also a native Israeli, is a professor at Israel College of the Bible.
The book, The Oral Law Debunked: Debunking the myth of Rabbinic Oral Law, is available on Amazon in Kindle form.