Daily Archives: 06/08/2025

Until I saw this video on the Hebrew Matthew’s gospel yesterday, I had no idea that there is a branch of Judaism, the Karaites, who reject the authority of the Talmud (which codified the “oral torah” of the Rabbis, the heirs of the Pharisees of Jesus’s time) in favour of the sole divine authority of the tanach, the Hebrew Bible. They separated in the 8th century, when the Talmud originated, refusing like Jesus to accept the rabbis’ claim to have solely maintained an oral tradition interpreting the torah correctly since the time of Moses. Sadly, numbering only 35,000, they are today vastly outnumbered by Rabbinic Jews (who are outnumbered by … Continue reading →