tyolilums wrote:
Doesn't Matthew 15:1-9 answer this? A specific example is provided.
I'm glad you brought up Matthew 15:1-9 This is a great example, but not of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, but of the ignorance of the Jew haters who wrote it.

Whoever wrote the GT was either (a) not Jewish or (b) an uneducated Jew (meaning they were born a Jew, but knew nothing about the religion. Just read Matthew 15 where the Pharisees supposedly abrade J-sus and company for not washing their hands.

Matthew 15:1-3 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to J-sus from Jerusalem and asked, "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!" J-sus replied, "And why do you break the command of G-d for the sake of your tradition?

There is just one problem here - the Pharisees never would have said this to J-sus. Why? Because at the time the story supposedly took place there was NO SUCH tradition to wash the hands.

During the Temple periods (the first and second Temples) the priests were required to wash before they ate. The laws are found in (Exodus 30:18-21, Deuteronomy 21:6 and Leviticus 15:11). An entire tractate of the Mishnah (Yadayim) is devoted to impurity of the hands.

J-sus and his followers supposedly lived in the Second Temple period - they weren't priests so they were not required to wash. It wasn't until the Second Temple was destroyed (70 CE, or 40 years after J-sus death) that the Rabbis decreed that without a Temple the laws for washing should extend to all Jews. (Rambam Yad HaChazake Trumos 11 & 12).

See what I mean? Whoever wrote Matthew didn't know Jewish law. They must have written this after the second Temple had been destroyed and all Jews were required to wash per rabbinic decree. In other words: the story was made up after the fact.

Let's re-read Matthew:

Matthew 15:1-3 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to J-sus from Jerusalem and asked, "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!" J-sus replied, "And why do you break the command of G-d for the sake of your tradition?

And let's add in Mark for good measure:

Mark 7:3 "For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders."

Jsus doesn't deny that he or his followers broke the law (now we know there was no such decree at the time, but the GT authors thought there was so what is the point of the story? To make the Jews look bad over something that seems "small."

But notice something else that the GT has J-sus doing over and over again: It has J-sus shifting the focus away from what he did wrong by changing the subject (something modern missionaries do to this very day).

What does J-sus's comment "you break the commandment of G-d" have to do with the fact that J-sus broke one? And note that Matthew 15 doesn't say WHICH commandment (if any) the Pharisees broke.

The J-sus of the GT constantly breaks Torah laws, doesn't deny it - and then tries to change the subject! More on the stoning example you gave in my next post. Still waiting for an example of Pharisee hypocrisy. This one is just a good example of making up a story to have the Jews look like villains. Total fiction.


סופי

And everything that Sarah tells you, listen to her voice. Bereshit (Genesis) 21:12