The Reform are trying to get back with Rabbinical Oral Torah? ...Did "Reconstructionism" change its "Reconstruction" to be more Rabbinical these days? ...If Judaism = Rabbinicism, then you have to apply the same standard to Reform and Conservative UNTIL they are officially in line with Rabbinical standards.
First of all, you seem to be under the impression that Rabbinic Judaism equals a very specific theology. It does not. It does represent a certain set of theological parameters, but it allows considerable flexibility within those parameters. The problems in Reform Judaism, and even to a great degree in Reconstructionism, are not theological, they are educational and pragmatic, in that many members of those movements are not, in fact, being educated in Jewish text and tradition as their movements direct should be done, nor are they observing enough traditional mitzvot, as their movements direct should be done.
You should read some actual Reform and Reconstructionist theology and halachah. I recommend Jacob Petuchowski and Moshe Zemer for Reform thought, and Arthur Green for Reconstructionist.
Second of all, the issue is not with a conception of God, since both those movements acknowledge that there is one indivisible God, and He doesn't reproduce with human women or take human form; nor is the issue with their followers' lack of observance, since the tradition is clear that there is room for flexibility in the existence of
machloket l'shem shamayim (dispute for the sake of Heaven, that is, toleration of alternate halachic and midrashic interpretations) in every matter except for
avodah zarah (proscribed worship),
arayot (proscribed sexual relations) and murder. And there is no problem in either Reform or Reconstructionist dealings with
avodah zarah or murder, and the one aspect of
arayot that could be called into question can be resolved halachically.
So let's be clear that bringing in Reform or Reconstructionist Judaism is a red herring to this discussion. If there is any parallel between Messianics or Jews for Jesus or anything of the sort with other groups of Jews, it would be tiny lunatic fringes, like JeWiccans or HinJews or certain kinds of JuBus-- syncretizers from other religions, rejecters of Rabbinic limitations on Jewish borrowing from faiths not our own.
Please quote the exact verse here or give the verse number where it says Akiva abandoned Bar Kokhba as Moshiach, note that this is apparently written 5 centuries after the fact, and you are saying something about "authentic sources"? A link would be great like the one I presented.
So I did a double-check, and it turns out that the correct reference is actually Yerushalmi Ta'anit 4:5, a
sugiya in which the
stama d'g'mara (narrative authorship) is Rabbi Akiva and his chief students. I don't have a Yerushalmi Gemara to hand in order to copy out verses, but they attribute the denial of Bar Kokhba's
meshichut (anointed leadership) to a Heavenly Voice, in the moment after he kills Rabbi Elazar ha-Moda'i, which seems fairly clear.
We don't know when this part of Ta'anit was set down, though it is generally considered one of the earliest tractates. But since the Bar Kokhba revolt took place in 135, and the Yerushalmi Gemara was completed around 350 (if not even earlier), it was clearly not written 500 years after the fact. It could not have been written later than around 200 years after the fact, and most likely, far, far less than that, considering that this section of Yerushalmi is heavily Tannaitic in sourcing.
I'm afraid I can't produce a link, because this is a matter that requires actual text and scholarship, and the Talmud Yerushalmi has not yet been translated-- certainly not online, and I think not anywhere. Perhaps you might consult a library for the text.
And what exactly were the reasons that it was proscribed? How do they match up in comparison to what he actually taught?....The issue of Pauline Christianity and his Epistles is a well discussed one on this forum, which we can get into here if you like. So I ask again, with consideration to the Jewish Christian writings, how do we know the records we have of his words are NOT authentic? Why can't it be scribed/translated/written in Greek?
We don't know what he actually taught. You can dismiss the troublesome bits in the Christian Bible as Pauline interpolation, but the truth is that the whole thing was redacted by Paulines, even if not entirely written by them. There is simply no way to know what Jesus actually did and said in his life. The best extant guess anyone seems to have is in the Christian scriptures, and those are incompatible with Judaism.
And whatever the so-called NT texts were written in, it is deeply unlikely that the ultimate original notes or texts or transcriptions of what Jesus said, or if he actually wrote anything, would have been in Greek. That was not a language that the Jews in the Land of Israel used for either daily use amongst themselves, or for learning and teaching Torah. Even the most heretical sectarian materials found in the Land of Israel from anywhere close to that part of antiquity are written in either Hebrew or Aramaic. It was only in Alexandria and Elefantini, and later, in Rome, that Jews chiefly spoke Greek, or learned or taught their versions of Torah in that language. In Israel, Aram (Syria), and Babylonia, even in other parts of Egypt, they used Hebrew and Aramaic for both daily converse, ritual, and Torah study.
We don't even have Aramaic and Hebrew writings about pretty much anything in the Jewish world in that time period. Do we?
Actually, we do. There are various portions of scrolls, talismans, inscriptions, etc. from the first centuries surrounding the beginning of the Common Era, both in Israel and elsewhere in the diaspora Jewish communities of the time. Some are fascinatingly sectarian, such as the later Qumrani texts, or the talismans found in the various synagogues and houses of the time, analyzed by J. Naveh and S. Shaked in their books. Some are deeply heretical, like
Sefer ha-Razim, from the Alexandrian and Elefantini communities. Many reflect a Jewish world instantly familiar to readers of the Talmud, like the Babata documents. And so forth, not even mentioning the mishnayot, which appear to have been already in the process of collection at the turn of the second century CE.
Oh really? Says who? The Dead Sea Scrolls say otherwise, but as you said the Essenes were "heretics".
The midrash created by the Qumranis is heretical. The practices of their community were sectarian. But the majority of their documents are neither their midrash nor the rules of their community: they are Tanakh. While there are some spelling differences between the Qumran Tanakh (as much of it as is extant, anyhow) and the same portions of the Masoretic text, fundamentally, the content is identical. It is quite clear that while their
interpretations were sectarian and heretical, the actual canon of Tanakh that they had (insofar as has been discovered) was the same as the Rabbis.
But the Talmud also calls Sirach "Scripture". What now?
There was a movement amongst the Rabbis to put Ben Sirach into the canon. As such, it was referred to by some Rabbis on occasion as
kra ("a text," a common euphemism for sacred text), but not as
mikra ("sacred scripture") and never as Tanakh. In any case, it never made it into the canon, and the Rabbis-- even those who supported it-- do not seem to have rebelled at that fact. But in any case, Ben Sirach is not heretical. It teaches nothing incompatible with orthodox Rabbinic teaching.
As for pretensions to Divinity, that's another story which involves differing interpretations of John. Nowhere in the Synoptics however are these pretensions. Only in the disputed book of John, which is heavily interpolated to begin with.
Please. Matthew 1:18-20. Even I know that one.
You're not just arguing with me, you're posting publicly. If you don't want to back up your claims or take the time to post what you need to validate your claims, that's your problem, not mine.
I don't necessarily need to waste my time backing up claims that the vast majority of the Jewish People have considered settled matters for two millennia. Nor do I need to chase down translations and explanations of every bit of text I cite, when they are all common texts. It seems like remedying the lack of scholarship of those attempting to seriously analyze Jewish text and teaching really is not, actually, my problem.
That's your opinion, and I presume the common Rabbinical opinion. However, the "Oral Torah" is up to debate, even the Rabbis in the Talmud don't agree with each other.
The fact of the Oral Torah is not up to debate. And as I've said before, the Rabbis disagreed with one another about matters of halachah. They didn't disagree about the fundamental existence of the Oral Torah, and the right of the Rabbis to be the arbiters of the halachic system.
