Tradition vs the Word of Elohim
This is a passage I refer to frequently. It is one of the most misunderstood passages in Matthew (and Mark) AND has become the faulty foundation stone on which the MANY have created one of the most fraudulent doctrines:
Eat whatever you want.
Uh, oh. Here he goes again telling us how to live.
No…Well, yes, but no. I am a mere signpost pointing the way. You have to choose whether to follow Messiah or follow the MANY. I do not tell you how to live your life. However, the God you (might) claim to worship does. I point the Way back to what Messiah says and contrast it to how the MANY live today.
You can live whatever way you choose. It is your choice.
But don’t tell me that the Scripture doesn’t support what I teach, or you’ll get an “earful” (visually) and a long progression of lessons you’ll simply ignore. Oh, wait! MANY already do.
Since I almost always use this passage from Matthew 15, instead today I will use the passage of the same event from Mark. (I address the second part of verse 19, too.)
Mark 7:1–16 (in segments) — 1) And the Pharisees and some of the scribes assembled to Him, having come from Yerushalayim. 2) And seeing some of His taught ones eat bread with defiled [hands], that is, with unwashed hands, they found fault. 3) For the Pharisees, and all the Yehudim, do not eat unless they wash their hands thoroughly, holding fast the tradition of the elders, 4) and coming from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions which they have received and hold fast — the washing of cups and utensils and copper vessels and couches.
You may have noticed in a recent Wiki link I clearly stated that “unwashed” is a mistranslation. Okay, let me correct myself: sort of. “Unwashed” is the “literal” translation (from the Greek) but is NOT the contextual translation. To a Pharisee, in this specific instance, unwashed, while it is recorded in Greek as a-niyp-tos, which means ceremonially unwashed, in the Hebrew mindset, this would be “common.” This is the Hebrew word “chol” and can be found in reference to bread in 1 Samuel 21:4–5. (See the lesson: It’s About People, Not Meat, for more on the differences of these words as used by Kefa.)
The Pharisees demand to know one thing:
…5) Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Him, “Why do Your taught ones not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with {ceremonially} unwashed {common} hands?”
You’re some sort of teacher claiming to teach Torah, why don’t you teach and demand your disciples to follow the oral torah, as well? (Here is an example of Judaizing.)
Messiah goes straight to the heart of the matter — the man-made religion of the Pharisees (the Talmud):
…6) And He answering, said to them, “Well did Yeshayahu prophesy concerning you hypocrites, as it has been written, ‘This people respect Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. 7) And in vain do they worship Me, teaching as teachings the commands of men.’ <Isa 29:13>
I found the NET2 (New English Translation v.2) offers a very interesting translation of the reference found in Isaiah: (the NET2 is based on the Critical Text, not the Textus Receptus, for you version watchers out there):
YHVH says,
“These people SAY they are loyal to me, they SAY wonderful things about me, but they are NOT really loyal to me. Their worship consists of nothing but man-made ritual.
The oral tradition is nothing but man-made ritual. The Talmud, the takanot and ma’asim of the Pharisees is nothing but man-made religion that pays lip service to The Almighty and is nothing but nonsense that “binds heavy burdens on men” <Matt 23:4 in reference to the oral traditions of the Pharisees> that even they do not actually carry out. It is nothing more than a tool to control and contain those who subscribe to their religion. (Doesn’t this sound eerily familiar to you?)
…8) “Forsaking the command of Elohim {Torah}, you hold fast the tradition of men {your religion}.” 9) And He said to them, “Well do you set aside the command of Elohim, in order to guard your tradition.
You Pharisees take the Torah of Elohim and put little hedges — fences — around all the commands — claiming — to protect them, but by doing so obliterate them and overwrite them with your own LAW.
Messiah provides an example of how they do this:
…10) “For Moshe said {wrote in Torah}, ‘Respect your father and your mother,’ <Exo 20:12, Deut 5:16> and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ <Exo 21:17, Lev 20:9> 11) “But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit {money}you {parents} might have received from me {the son or daughter}, is Qorban (that is, a gift {that I have instead given over here at the Temple}),” ’ 12) you {Pharisees} no longer let him do any matter at all for his father or his mother, 13) {thereby} nullifying the Word of Elohim {Torah, What He says…} through your {oral} tradition which you have handed down {what you say}. And many such traditions you do.”
To help you read the passage, I put in a few notes to identify all the pronouns. The Pharisees created an oral tradition that said to a man: bring the money you would otherwise use to pay for the care of your elderly parents here to us (greedy) Pharisees at the Temple and we will give you a pass on following the Torah of Elohim. In fact, we won’t even LET you take care of your parents because you have given your money for them to US.
You never want to find yourself on the side of, “But you say,” if it is then contrasted with a “But Elohim says…”
How many of you have ever heard of an indulgence? One…Two… Must be the Catholics in the room.
An indulgence was a permission slip, so to speak, that one would purchase from the Catholic church. The indulgence would allow the bearer to commit the sin listed on the slip with impunity (as they so desired for the duration of the indulgence). The rich would buy these to perpetrate all sorts of heinous crimes. Want to rape the little girls in the surf village you control and not face prosecution? Get an indulgence from the church. Want to murder the men in the village that are planning to overthrow your rule? Get an indulgence. Want to murder a man so that you can steal his wife? Get an indulgence. You get the picture. THESE STILL EXIST IN CATHOLISISM!
This is how the church paid to build the Vatican. There are records that provide the evidence of the vast amount of wealth acquired by the church in order to build not just the Vatican, but the tremendous works of high architecture all over the world (cathedrals).
This tradition comes from the Pharisaic tradition of overwriting the Word of Elohim with their own rules. The Catholic church claims a man can forgive you of your sins. By doing this, they can pre-forgive a man of sins he will commit IF that man is willing to pay enough money in advance for his forgiveness. Look these up if you doubt me. I won’t provide citations for these. This time you have to do your own homework. It’s a pretty easy assignment.
So, Messiah calls the crowd to gather closer. He drills down to the heart of the matter:
…14) And calling the crowd to Him, He said to them, “Hear Me, everyone, and understand: 15) “There is no matter that enters a man from outside which is able to defile him, but it is what comes out of him that defiles the man. 16) “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!”
Right here is where churchianity stops and declares: We can now eat anything and everything we want! (There even exists “church added” words after verse 19 that nearly all Biblical versions shun.)
Remember the context of the discussion? What initiated the arrival and confrontation with the Pharisees? Were the disciples eating ham sandwiches? Or were they EATING BREAD WITH CEREMONIALLY UNWASHED HANDS?
Context.
Context!
CONTEXT!!
The context of the entire interaction is about eating bread with hands that have not been washed in accordance with the Talmudic tradition (read about that here).
I can already hear the pork-eaters claiming that the following verses defy this interpretation. I offer this logical assessment of your argument:
What would Messiah have considered food?
Would He ever have put anything in His mouth that was not considered clean already in accordance with Torah?
The issue isn’t that He said, “go eat whatever you can put in your mouth,” rather He was specifically addressing that eating with hands not washed in accordance with ritual tradition does not defile a man — BECAUSE — it is what comes from the heart of a man that defiles him and ritually washing hands before eating will not change what is in his heart!
This means that Messiah would only have been referring to food that goes into the mouth as FOOD, not just anything you can shove in there. He was Torah obedient in every way. He was being pursued by the Pharisees for teaching against Torah in even the smallest way. If Messiah had — indeed — advocated the approval of eating anything one wanted, they would have had the authority right then and there to arrest Him and carry Him off to be stoned. And since He would have been “adding to” or “taking away” from the Word of Torah, He would have been in sin, thus meaning He could not have been the perfect Passover Lamb. He would have just been some sinner that got himself hung up by the Romans as a lesson to not claim to be the king of the Jews.
Do you see that?
Advocating a change to (modification of) the Torah IS A SIN!
No SINNER can be the atonement for mankind. He is the Savior BECAUSE He was perfect in Torah, not because He changed even a single yod or adjusted one of the font serifs (tittles).
The doctrine that the MANY subscribe to and hang their religious hat on, depends on the added words in Mark, “Thus He declared all foods clean.” (verse 19b) Which is redundant, combined with NO CONTEXTUAL understanding of what is happening in the passage. It is obvious that He would have stated all FOOD was clean, because to Him and to His Hebrew crowd, only clean meats are FOOD and unclean meats ARE NOT FOOD. I declare the sun is a giant ball of hyper-compressed hydrogen burning at close to 12,000° F. Did I change science or just restate it? Thus, He declared all the things that are already considered food to be food — because they are already clean. It is redundant, unnecessary, and…
These words were added to later manuscripts and do not appear in the majority of quality manuscript fragments of Mark — and are not quoted by any of the early church writers. The verse rarely appears in most versions anymore, at least not without extensive notes that the verse is not part of most manuscripts and were most likely man-added, then placed inside brackets and italicized. So, don’t hang your dogmatic hat on that. It’s going to fall. Whoops! It already has.
I am challenged with some regularity by the MANY (see if this has a familiar ring):
Why aren’t you celebrating Christmas (Easter) like the church? It’s tradition.
“Well did Yeshayahu prophecy of you (the MANY).” You teach as if it were the Word of Elohim the traditions of men passed down through the generations (from pagan rooted origins) and exclude the actual Word of Elohim as troublesome, burdensome, and abolished.
It’s all connected. It all matters. It all counts.
Postscript to this lesson:
I considered adding this as a separate post, but it is loosely connected to this lesson, so I put it here. I promise in my belief statement to “state so” when presenting material of a non-Scripturally backed nature, this qualifies in that category, but I find it fascinating in what it could mean to believers:
I recently looked into epigenetics. Does this sound like something you’ve heard of? This is a science that is gradually finding more and more support scientifically that memories and psychological traits are — in fact — inherited, or at least inheritable. The research I have read has looked at PTSD and other traumas, family behavioral patterns, and other (non-Scriptural-like) issues. They are finding that characteristics in the genomes (the DNA) can actually affect emotional state, carry memory, and even change one’s physical appearance against the original genetic coding. (Why are most people afraid of the dark as children? Or snakes? Or spiders?)
It caught my attention for this reason:
Hypothesis:
When Adam and Eve sinned, their genetic code was modified through epigenetics and subsequently passed down through their genetic code to all men something like a “sin gene.”
Sounds interesting, right?
How does this apply here?
Messiah specifically addresses how the Pharisees had created a religious system that was passed down, perhaps even in the genetic code? Could this explain why Kefa struggled so much in escaping it? Encoding that ended up transmogrifying in new believers as a psychological need to accept man-made traditions as part of a new religious practice (Christmas, Easter, sacraments, et. al.)
Whoa… Wait…
Yep, maybe the reason the MANY are unable to let go of their ritual traditions is because they have been encoded into their DNA and passed down to them from far back in the line.
How does that explain someone like me?
Genetic anomaly, or traumatic experiences, or family heritage? Something else?
Something…supernatural, maybe?
Sha’ul talks about the transforming of our minds. He wrote (in Romans) about how much he desired to be obedient to Torah and follow Messiah perfectly, but his sinful nature kept corrupting his attempts — describes it as a part of himself. Conversely, he also talks about how the Father “gives over to their carnal minds” those who don’t want to be transformed — as if it is already inside of them. I wonder just how much knowledge Sha’ul really received in his visit from Messiah. If you saw (with your eyes a vision of) genetics, physics, chemistry, modern warfare and transportation, and technologies like touchscreen computers you could hold in your hand (with no understanding of what a computer was), and you lived 2000 years ago, how might your body react?
A psychological transformation that affected his genetic coding, perhaps? Combined with the incredible knowledge and understanding he was given, perhaps this explains why he became the most prolific of the Apostolic Writers (that we have record of).
If there is enough interest in this topic (just say that in the comments), I’ll gather more information for a “discussion” type post where we can all discuss it in the comments. I’ll toss in some hypothetical questions and discussion points, and we can walk through it together, just for practice in going beyond the surface topic. (I am a teacher, after all, it’s what I do.) With my China time-zone, chat rooms just don’t really work well for me.
