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## THE TALMUD — THE MAN-MADE BOOK THAT REPLACED YHWH’S VOICE
The Talmud is not Scripture. It is a man-made collection of rabbinic teachings, rulings, and debates written hundreds of years after the prophets were silent. It consists of two parts: the Mishnah, compiled around 200 AD, which claims to record the “oral law” passed down from Moses; and the Gemara, completed around 500 AD, which is a record of rabbinic commentary and arguments about the Mishnah. Together they form the Babylonian Talmud, which is the core of modern rabbinic Judaism.
This book replaces the authority of Yhwh’s written Torah. Instead of submitting to Yhwh’s clear commandments, the Talmud promotes the idea that the rulings of rabbis—even when they disagree with Scripture—are binding. It teaches that majority opinion among men can override divine instruction. In one Talmudic passage (Bava Metzia 59b), a heavenly voice is ignored because the rabbis insist, “It is not in heaven,” claiming the authority to decide for themselves.
This tradition did not begin with the Talmud but can be traced back to Ezra’s time after the Babylonian exile. Ezra began explaining the Torah to the people and “gave the sense,” as recorded in Nehemiah 8:8. This was the beginning of rabbinic interpretation. By 160 BC, the Pharisees expanded these oral traditions, adding laws that Yeshua later condemned for nullifying the commandments of Yhwh. Eventually, after the destruction of the Temple, the oral tradition was written down as the Mishnah, and over the next three centuries, the full Babylonian Talmud took shape.
The Torah is direct, from the mouth of Yhwh to Moses. It requires no additions. Deuteronomy 4:2 commands us not to add to or take away from His word. The Talmud does both. It is filled with human reasoning, contradictions, and man-made fences around the law. It replaces the voice of Yhwh with the voices of men who rejected the prophets and set themselves up as interpreters and judges over His word.
Yhwh never commanded the Talmud. Yeshua openly rebuked the Pharisees for upholding tradition over obedience. The authority of the Torah comes from Yhwh alone—not from councils of rabbis centuries later.
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