Page 12 - Attractive Deception - The False Hope of the Hebrew Roots Movement

Oral Law does as well. We can determine from this that both Christ, and Isaiah’s references were
to the Oral Torah. These inventions of men were subverting and overturning the commandments of
Yahweh, as they continue to do unto this very day. Yahshua added “and you do many things such
as that.” The Oral Torah is rife with man-made additions and interpretations of the Law of God that
lead the student of the Oral Torah away from divine truth.

Reverend I. B. Pranaitis, in his scholarly book The Talmud Unmasked (published 1892), shares a
concise history of the Talmud. Following is an excerpt from his book.

The Talmud gets its name from the word Lamud - taught, and means The Teaching... it is taken to
mean the book which contains the Teaching, which is called Talmud, that is, the doctrinal book
which alone fully expounds and explains all the knowledge and teaching of the Jewish people...

In the second century after Christ, Rabbi Jehuda who, because of the sanctity of his life, was called
The Saint, and The Prince, realizing that the learning of the Jews was diminishing, that their oral
law was being lost, and that the Jewish people were being dispersed, was the first to consider ways
and means of restoring and preserving their oral law. He collected all the lists and charts and from
them he made a book which was called the Sepher Mischnaioth, or Mischnah - a Deuterosis, or
secondary law. He divided it into six parts, each of which was divided into many chapters...

The Mischnah is the foundation and the principal part of the whole Talmud. This book was accepted
by the Jews everywhere and was recognized as their authentic code of law. It was expounded in their
Academies in Babylon - at Sura, Iumbaditha and Nehardea - and in their Academies in Palestine
- at Tiberias, Iamnia and Lydda.

As their interpretations increased with the passing of time, the disputations and decisions of the
doctors of the law concerning the Mischnah were written down, and these writings constituted
another part of the Talmud called the Gemarah.

These two parts are so disposed throughout the whole Talmud that the Mischnah serves first as a
kind of text of the law, and is followed by the Gemarah as an analysis of its various opinions leading
to definite decisions...

In interpreting the Mischnah of Rabbi Jehuda, the schools of Palestine and Babylon followed each
their own method, and by thus following their own way gave rise to a twofold Gemarah - the
Jerusalem and the Babylonian versions. The author of the Jerusalem version was Rabbi Jochanan,
who was head of the synagogue in Jerusalem for eighty years. He wrote thirty-nine chapters of
commentaries on the Mischnah which he compiled in the year 230 A.D.

The Babylonian Gemarah, however, was not compiled by any one person, nor at any one time. Rabbi
Aschi began it in 327 A.D and labored over it for sixty years. He was followed by Rabbi Maremar
about the year 427 A.D., and it was completed by Rabbi Abina about the year 500 A.D. The
Babylonian Gemarah has thirty-six chapters of interpretations.

This twofold Gemarah, added to the Mischnah, makes also a twofold Talmud: The Jerusalem