In the infamous passages of Matthew 15:1-11 and Mark 7:1-22, Jesus condemns the Pharisees for teaching "traditions of men," which Protestants claim rules out "Catholic oral tradition". The Catholic response to this Protestant accusation is understandable, but also unfortunately surface level. When texts are misunderstood in the first place but never corrected, then what typically happens is that these texts turn into 'surface level apologetic' passages that never get studied at all. In this specific situation, Protestants would allege that the Pharisees randomly began taking on all sorts of random teachings and inventing a new religion, instead of simply following the Bible alone for their theology. Such a shallow reading of the text would warrant us to take a step back and see what was really being said here.
Before looking at the verses itself, the first surface level rookie mistake Protestants make is to think that Jesus was
teaching that any doctrine not written on paper is automatically not
from God and cannot carry any authority. That Protestant claim is
obviously wrong by the simple fact Jesus never wrote anything down and
that Jesus taught 'orally' throughout His ministry. Many periods of
Salvation History involved teaching being passed down orally, such as
the command to circumcise given to Abraham and not written down for
hundreds of years later until Moses. With that out of the way, we can now approach the passage with a different mindset.
Here is St Mark's account of the situation, which I trim down for brevity:
1 When the Pharisees gathered to him 2 they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders, 4 and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.) 5 And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,
7 'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;
in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men. 9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’ 11 But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban” (that is, given to God) - 12 then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, 13 thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”
Now I will lay out what I think is the big picture here. I think the key interpretive lens to read this passage is by understanding why the Pharisees are mentioned here. The Pharisees do not go back to the time of Moses. The Pharisees (and Sadducees) arose after the Second Temple was built in 516BC, following the end of the Babylonian exile. Throughout the Old Testament, the "Israelites" are portrayed as constantly blatantly violating God's commandments, such as blatantly breaking the Sabbath, blatantly committing idolatry, etc. After the Babylonian exile in 516BC, most of the Israelites were wiped out or intermarried within the pagans and vanished as a distinct people. What emerged from the Babylonian exile was basically one faithful tribe, the Tribe of Judah, hence why the New Testament only speaks of "Jews" (not Israelites) as being the only group still around. Notice that the Pharisees are never accused of blatantly breaking the Sabbath, never blatantly committing idolatry, etc. In fact, it's the opposite, the Pharisees are portrayed as "legalistic" who are overly careful to keep God's commandments.
Before the Babylonian exile, the Promise Land was ruled by Israelite kings, where they were free to practice the Mosaic Law but instead turned to bad behavior. After the Babylonian exile, the Promise Land was now ruled by pagan Greeks and pagan Romans, with the devoted Jews frustrated that they were not fully able to practice the Mosaic Law. And to make things more difficult, the faithful Jews were frustrated of being heavily culturally influenced by pagan religion imposed on the region. The result of these Second Temple circumstances is that the faithful Jews now had to be extra careful to not get caught up in pagan practices and this meant Jewish leadership had to institute certain safeguards to add extra layers of protection. This became well known in Judaism as "building a fence around the Torah," which is basically making laws to help avoid the near occasion of sin. A good analogy would be to think about how our society has become more and more secularized such that even if you want to raise your children to be Christian, the secular society and secular public schools are constantly teaching your kids to live like pagans. Eventually many conservative parents set up "home-schooling" as a safeguard for their children to not be exposed to public schools. Some conservative parents will add to these safeguards, such as banning cellphones, ban television, ban internet, ban spending the night, helicopter parenting, etc, to add extra layers of isolation from the outside world.
Thus the term Pharisee, which literally means "separatist," (i.e., living separate from corrupting influences), and they were living this way building up their safeguards for a few hundred years until Jesus arrived. Thus, the "traditions of the elders" Jesus is speaking against were a cultural code that had developed over centuries - and had led to a new set of problems. The Pharisees did not claim here that the "traditions of the elders" were "traditions from God" or "traditions from Moses," at least not as divine revelation. Instead, the "traditions of the elders" was seen more akin to how the Old Testament "judges" were to decide disputed legal matters (Deut 25:1), and these rulings had to guide the Jews as they remained subject to Greek/Roman political authority. Hence why these Jews were eagerly looking forward to a Messiah who would remove the pagan Greeks and pagan Romans from the Promise Land.
Meanwhile, on the "other side" of the Jewish socio-economic spectrum were the Sadducee Jews who were from a priestly class centered around the Temple and thus lived more luxurious Aristocratic life, even more comfortable with the high society Greek/Roman politicians. This was in contrast to the Pharisees who were not priests nor rich and so more of the "common man" sect who weren't privileged like the Sadducees. This difference led to different ways Judaism was lived out in their lives. The Sadducees were not as focused about developing of theology since the Temple rituals were their focus (which were pretty fixed), while the Pharisees who weren't priests were more able to study Scripture and develop their theology, and especially see how to encourage their fellow 'commoners' to become more devoted in their faith. Thus we see why the Sadducees resisted being dogmatic about the resurrection (Acts 23:8), while the Pharisees were more eager to have resurrection theology develop and take more prominence during the Second Temple era. This is primarily why the Sadducees did not get along with the Pharisees, because there was a serious divided almost along Aristocratic vs Commoner lines. I think a good analogy is the Sadducees are like "high church" Protestants (e.g. Anglicans) who are more focused on refined liturgical life and generally more wealthy and known in high society, whereas the Pharisees are like the "low church" Evangelical Protestants who like to emphasize studying the Bible, hearing new theological takes (e.g. Dispensationalism, Rapture), and live the "working man" lifestyle and getting the common man involved in devotional life. The Sadducees were more geographically fixed at the Temple in Jerusalem, while the Pharisees had more flexibility to live anywhere since they were centered on the Synagogue. (See my series HERE on the difference between Temple and Synagogue)
With that in mind, we can see what the root problem was with the Pharisee leadership at the time of Jesus. They were so overly fixated on safeguarding the purity and survival of their small tribe for so long that they weren't able to adapt to the 'radical' changes that Jesus was going to bring about. They were susceptible to pride because they were conditioned to see themselves as superior to the Gentiles and this was enforced each day by doing rituals to clean themselves from Gentile interactions. They were susceptible to contradicting the Torah because too many rules can cause you to miss what's important. And if you were a Jew who couldn't keep up with all the rituals, you were seen as lower tier Jew. I guess a good but not accurate analogy would be Catholics who insist you can only pray the Rosary in Latin, even if you don't know what you're actually praying.
And now we can see how this mentality and Pharisee/Sadducee dichotomy sets the stage for the next crisis and paradigm shift within Jewish history, which was the rejection of Jesus and the destruction of the Temple in 70AD. Once the Temple was destroyed and Jerusalem destroyed in 70AD meant the Sadducees were no longer the upper rich priestly class of society, because there was no temple nor society for them to be part of. And without these they really lost their core reason to exist, and thus they became extinct within a century. The loss of Temple and Promise Land also hurt the Pharisees, but since they had a different set up they had more flexibility to shift their theology and "traditions of the elders" to meet or cope with the new more extreme exile living demands. This new and more extreme "home-schooling" was what brought about the Mishna ("Oral Law written down") in 200AD and the Talmud ("Mishna plus Rabbinic commentary") in 600AD. This is kind of ironic and self refuting, because for 2,500 years the Jews did not need to write down the Oral Law, yet suddenly when they felt they were truly going to lose it all in 200AD they wrote it down. Either your religion is permanent and secure or it isn't. To have to keep shifting this significantly would suggest you're no longer the religion you once were, since you are now saying living without a Temple or Promise Land is just fine. Sounds a lot like Mormons in Utah (see HERE). Without a Jewish priesthood and no Temple after 70AD, the only thing left was to study the Torah, hence the emergence of the Rabbi ("Teachers") as the main leader of the community, and thus the Pharisaic Judaism was then replaced with the 'modern' form we know of today, which is Rabbinic Judaism.
In conclusion, we see how fascinating and deep these "traditions of the elders" passages are and how we aren't ever able to realize this because such passages are improperly seized and neutralized by poor quality apologetics. We begin to now have respect and honor for the Pharisees in the New Testament, especially since most of them were good and many were open to Christianity. For those tempted to make fun of the Pharisees in Mark 7, we don't realize how much all of us are deeply conditioned by our "customs of the elders" in our lives. How many of us continue to blindly vote Republican just because our parents were Republican, even if the Republicans are completely bankrupt morally? How many blindly support democracy because the "elders" tell us to, even though it is leading society to ruin by allowing sin to be legalized as long as it is "popular"? How many "conservative Baptists" out there freak out about alcohol because their "elders" had taught the dangers of alcohol can only be prevented by banning it? How many "conservative Protestants" out there would insist that the Eucharist is optional since their "elders" don't want to get too focused on Sacraments? How many "conservative Protestants" would never dare read the Deutercanonical Books because their "elders" two hundred years ago stopped printing them in their Bible? How many "conservative Protestants" would condemn the Sign of the Cross because their "elders" were afraid it would seem too Catholic? How many "conservative Protestants" would refuse to take a fresh look at this Mark 7 passage or even the "new perspective on Paul" for fear of losing their favorite proof texts? Clearly, there are many examples of "traditions of the elders" within Protestantism that set aside God's teachings, even if these traditions had good intentions all along.
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