now desire to believe and profess the true religion, revealed by God to their forefathers, they must renounce their present Talmudic system, and return to the law and the prophets. But the oral law is a human invention. It has been proved, on the authority of the Jewish Prayer-book, that it abounds with the most absurd fables, which cannot be the Word of God, but are evidently and obviously the invention of man. It appears, therefore, that the Jewish nation has been for centuries deluded by the traditions of the Scribes and Pharisees—that they have been utterly mistaken in their faith, taking the fictions of men for the truth of God—and have thereby sunk from the honourable position, in which God placed them as depositories of the truth, to the unenviable situation of the credulous and superstitious. Such is the result of an inquiry into the contents of prayers of the synagogue. An examination of the traditional commandments will show in like manner, that the oral law is every where inseparably mingled with fables, which throw discredit upon the whole. One of the most important parts of the oral law is that which relates to the constitution of the great tribunal the Sanhedrin, for, as is asserted, that council fixed the authority of all traditions, and even examined into the claims, and decided upon the divine mission of the prophets. If it appear, therefore, that the oral law teaches what is manifestly fabulous with respect to that tribunal, the main pillar of tradition is taken away. Now without entering into the whole subject at present, the following specimen will show what degree of credit can be given to the traditional accounts respecting it:—
(
Hebrew characters)
"Rabbi Johannan says, none were allowed to sit in the
Sanhedrin, who were not men of stature, men of wisdom, men
of good appearance, aged, skilled in magic, and acquainted with
the seventy languages, so that the Sanhedrin might not be
obliged to hear through an interpreter." (Sanhedrin, fol. 17,
col. 1.) In this short extract there are several fables—first,
that all the members of the Sanhedrin should be skilled in
magic, or magicians, is plainly contrary to the express command
of God, who says, "There shall not be found among you any
one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the
fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an
enchanter, or a witch (Hebrew characters)—for all that do these things are
an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations
the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee."
