The Mishnah - Important Background Reading for Judianity

What Does the Bible say About the Mishnah?

What does the Bible say about the oral torah traditions of the Rabbis / Phariseess which became the Mishnah ?

Introduction to The Mishnah

The Mishnah was written "possibly during the earlier half of the second entury BC and ending with the close of the second century AD" (Danby) to codify the oral pharisaic rabbinic "traditions of the elders", also known as the “Oral Torah”; which it was feared would be lost following the destruction of the Temple in AD 70. The Jerusalem & Babylonian Talmuds are later rabbinic commentaries on the Mishnah.

According to "Back to the Sources - Reading the Classic Jewish Texts" edited by Barry W Holtz

"...ancient rabbis taught that the revelation granted to Moses had been delivered in two forms, a smaller revelation in writing and the larger one kept oral. This "Oral Torah" had been transmitted faithfully by the leaders of each generation to their successors, by Moses to Joshua, and then to the elders, then to the prophets, to the men of the Great Assembly, to the leaders of the Pharisees and finally to the earliest rabbis"...."Rabbi Akiba, the great martyr-hero of the early second century, is described as the first compiler of the "Oral Torah."....Akiba is credited with initiating a process in which numerous miscellaneous fragments of transmitted lore were organised and collected under subject headings of various kinds. This earliest codification of rabbinic teaching began, it is said, early in the second century; although this part of the tradition cannot be verified, it is certain that by the turn of the third century the Mishnah ("Recitation," "Recapitulation," that is , of the Oral Torah) was complete"..."The Mishnah is the core document of the Talmudic tradition.

The following is quoted from "An Introduction to the History and Sources of Jewish Law" published by Oxford University Press; Chapter 2: "Jewish Law During the Second Temple Period", by Daniela Piattelli and Bernard S. Jackson.

"The Pharisees were a "religious and political party or sect during the second temple period...They sought to bring ritual practices, on analogies from the ritual of the Temple, into the home...They held that God had given an oral tradition to Moses, which was handed down along with the written law; this was denied by the Sadducees."

"When the tannaitic rabbis came to write the history of Jewish law in accordance with their conception of the Oral Law they put it thus:"

"Moses received the Law from Sinai and committed it to Joshua, and joshua to the Elders, and the Elders to the Prophets; the Prophets committed it to the men of the Great Synagogue ...Simeon the Just was the remnants of the Great Synagogue...Antigonus of Sokho received [the Law] from Simeon the Just (M.Av. 1:1-3)"

"From there, five 'pairs' of authorities are said to have 'received the law' from their predecessors, thus linking the Great Synagogue (viewed as the Elders who came back from exile with Ezra, thus representing the end of the Biblical period) with the rabbinic schools whose disputes dominate tannaitic literature. The five pairs are: (1) Yose b. Yoezer and Yose b. Yohanan (who lived during the religious persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes, 174-64 B.C.E.); (2) Joshua b. Perahiah and Nitti the Arbelite; (3) Judah b. Tabbai and Shimon b. Shetah (during the period of Alexander Jannaeus and Salome Alexandra); (4)Semaiah and Avtalyon (period of Herod the Great); and (5) Hillel and Shammai. Rabbinic tradition holds the 'pairs' to have mirrored their own organisations; the first member of the pair was the Nasi (head of the Sanhedrin) while the second was the Av Bet Din (deputy). It is difficult to gauge the historical reliability of rabbinic statements about the Pharisees."

See the article on our sister site, Galatians, Paul, The Torah Law and Legalism for additional information about the background of the oral torah-law.

A quick, but hopefully not an unreasonable way to explain Mishnah's significance is this:

Given that Judaism and Christianity claim to be based upon the Tanakh (or so called "Old Testament"), the Mishnah to Judaism, is (almost) what the New Testament is to Christianity.

Danby, who translated the Mishnah into English says:

"It was simply, a compilation of the Oral Law as it was taught in the many rabbinical schools..."

..."the Mishnah does no more than supplement with practical detail or give coherence to a range of topics found already in the Written Law, in the Pentateuch, where as subjects of legislation, they are dealt with either in general terms only or unsystematically or fragmentarily".

"What we find is that the Mishnah devotes most of its space to problems arising out of special cases, while general principles are ether tacitly assumed or set forth incidentally, often with greater regard to secondary than to primary principles.

In certain cases the Mishnah overtly legislates even further than the the written Torah, in order to be a protective "hedge" around the law (See note 2 at the bottom of page 53).

Wikipedia's article about the Mishnah gives a more comprehensive explaination.

It's a fascinating book, especially if you're from a Christian background. Arguably if more people (particularly Christians) read it, there would be a far greater understanding of what first century Jewish law was really like and a lot less confusion about what Paul's epistle to the Galatians really means.

What's The Mishnah Like ?

On this site, we have an example of the Mishnah Tractate: Shabbath (Sabbath) and also a short section from the Mishnah tractate: Pesahim (Passover), as it relates to our article on the so called "New Testament Passover". There are also extracts from the Mishnah on our sister site: the Tithe Debate in relation to the First Tithe (Maaseroth) and the Second Tithe (Maaser Sheni) and Produce not Certainly Tithed (Demai). Danby's Introduction (pages xiii-xxxii) is particuarly helpful and like other pages from the Mishnah can be viewed on line thanks to Google Books.

The Relative Size of the Mishnah / Oral Torah to the Written Torah

The Danby translation is about 789 pages long. Broadly speaking there's not a hugely disproportionate number of words on the pages of the Danby Mishnah compared say, to the written Torah (between Genesis and Deuteronomy) in an Oxford KJV. It's probably safe to say then, that the Mishnah is at least roughly twice as big as the written Torah law. So the written Torah-law which we have in our Bibles, was probably only about a third of the Jewish Torah-law (both written and oral Torah-law combined) during the times recorded in the apostolic scriptures (more usually referred to as the New Testament).

Buying a Copy of the Mishnah

If you haven't got a copy, we'd recommend you give some serious thought to buying one. The Danby translation of the Mishnah is said to be the best English version. However, even decades old second hand copies are still surpirsingly expensive. Once you've got one though, we think you'll probably treasure it as one of the best value books you've ever bought, because (read alongside your Bible), it gives invaluable insights into Pharisaic Judaism during the first coming of the Messiah. As such, it offers significant background clarity to students of the Bible who aren't familiar with the complexities of these traditions.

Cross References Between the Mishnah and Greek Scriptures

Charles R. Gianotti's book "The New Testament and the Mishnah" provides cross references between the Mishnah tractates and the Greek Scriptures in the Bible (New Testament) and visa versa. Extracts are provided by way of example.

Go back to the start of Judianity - A "Third Way" Between Judaism or Christianity ?

The agreement not to circumcise proselytes in Acts caused turmoil for the primarily Jewish church. Why wasn't the same amount of fuss recorded if the rest of the law was "done away"? Does Galatians mean the law is "done away"? Many christian theologians believe Paul kept Nazirite vows & offered sacrifices at the temple after the crucifixion ?