The Bible, the Talmud, and the New Testament. Elijah Zvi Soloveitchik

       15 They remained there until the death of Hordos, fulfilling the word of YHWH through the prophet, saying, “Out of Mitzrayim I called my son.”

      Out of Mitzrayim I called my son—this verse comes from Hosea 11:1: I loved Israel when he was a child, and out of Egypt I called my son. The plain meaning of the verse refers to Israel as a whole. This is the meaning: when the people of Israel were still children in Egypt—in other words, when they were still immature regarding the commandments—I called my son, as it is written, Israel is my firstborn son (Exodus 4:22). Thus, many contest and ask why Mattai took this verse out of its plain interpretation. See what I wrote in verse 23, and you will be able to understand.³⁰

       16 When Hordos saw that the magi had tricked him, he was extremely angry, so he sent orders and killed all the children in Beit-Leḥem and all the surrounding area, from two years old and under, based on the time he had determined from the magi.

      And all the surrounding area—the villages belonging to Bethlehem, for he did not know if he was born in Bethlehem or in its surrounding areas.

       17 Then were fulfilled the words spoken by Yirmeyah the Prophet that say,

       18 “A voice is heard in Ramah, wailing and bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be consoled for her children, for he is gone.”

      A voice is heard in Ramah—this verse comes from Jeremiah 31:15. This verse speaks of the people of Israel, and this is clear throughout the whole chapter. Why, then, did Mattai take this verse out of its original context? I will explain in verse 23.

       19 After the death of Hordos, an angel of YHWH appeared to Yosef in a dream in the land of Mitzrayim.

       20 He said to him, “Get up! Take the child and his mother and go back to the land of Yisra’el, because those who sought the child’s life are dead.”

       21 So he got up, took the child and his mother, and came to the land of Yisra’el.

       22 But when he heard that Archelos reigned in Yehudah in place of his father Hordos, he was afraid to go there, so he was instructed in a dream and set off to the lands of the Galil.

       23 He came and settled in the town called Netzeret, fulfilling the word spoken by the prophets, that he will be called a Noṣri.

      He will be called a Noṣri—this seems to be an allusion to Jeremiah 31:6: “For there is a day when the watchmen [Noṣrim] will proclaim on the mountain of Efrayim: ‘Come, let us go up to Zion, to YHWH our God!’” A prominent Christian sage asked me: “Does not Noṣrim mean ‘watchmen’ and ‘guardians’? Then why does the author take it out of its simple meaning when he writes, ‘fulfilling the word spoken by the prophets, that he will be called a Noṣri,’ as if it were plainly written in the prophets that he would live in the town of Nazareth in order that he would be called a Noṣri?”

      I answered him: “Were not most, or all, of the New Testament writers Jews? And most of them were from the sect of the Pharisees, thus being students of the Talmud.³¹ Even Paul the shaliaḥ said: ‘I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee’ (Acts 23:6), and ‘I grew up at the feet of Gamliel’ (ibid., 23:3).³² Even those from the Essene sect held to the same Torah, the Torah of Moses, and only differed with the Pharisees on certain matters.” I will explain this in greater detail later. This partial controversy between the two sects did not prevent the Essenes from using the Pharisaic interpretation method.³³ They did so out of necessity, for the Torah and its interpretation both came from one source. We have already seen this from the question posed by Yakov of Kefar Seḥanya, the disciple of Yeshua of Nazareth, and also his response to Rabbi Eliezer, which can be found above in verse 1.

      Honored reader, I will now explain the interpretation methods of the Talmud, and you will see that the writers of the New Testament were Talmudists.

      When Moses our teacher received the Torah from the mouth of the Almighty, he received every single commandment and its interpretation. The commandment is called “written Torah,” and its interpretation is called “oral Torah,” for Moses was not permitted to write down the oral laws, nor was he permitted to merely speak the written Torah, as we find in BT Giṭṭin 60b: “You are not permitted to transmit the written commands orally, nor are you permitted to transmit the oral commands through writing.” And the oral Torah is the Talmud.

      The Talmud is called the “oral Torah” because it contains interpretations of commandments that were passed on from generation to generation, beginning with Moses our teacher, peace be upon him. There are also things in the Talmud whose origin have been forgotten. Every sage of the Talmud interpreted a command according to his own opinion, but every one of them strengthened his opinion with words from the written Torah.