PAGE 49 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST(THE BAD FIG TREE)

"Adam and Eve made an apron of fig leaves for themselves." Genesis 3:17.  


The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is rooted in religious Judaism of today. This religious Judaism is called modern rabbinic Judaism.


When the Jewish people were taken into captivity in Babylon, they learned the doctrines of the occult or  "Mystery Babylon." Since they had no Temple, they gave the authority of the High Priest to the Rabbis or teachers and replaced the importance of the Temple with synagogues.  The religious leaders in Babylon invented a whole system of man made traditions while they were there and then falsely proclaimed that these laws and traditions had been  orally  transmitted by God to Moses. These religious leaders evolved into the sect of the Scribes and the Pharisees.  The Scribes and the Pharisees instituted the practice of complicated rituals which made them have the outward appearance of pious religiosity while simultaneously cultivating new secret doctrine and conducting pagan rites in secret. By the time of Jesus', Yeshua's, visitation to Israel, the Pharisees were in control of Jerusalem. The Pharisees had the written Word of God, which are the books of the Bible from Genesis to Malachi (the Torah, wisdom literature and the Prophets),  but then they added to it all of their made up traditions they had learned while in Babylon. The Pharisees called these traditions the oral torah and they said that these new laws and traditions were as authoritative as the books of the Bible. At the time of Yeshua, Jesus,  the oral torah had not been put in written form.


With the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, the Sadducees had disappeared; the Pharisees became fully in charge of the regulation of all Jewish affairs. They then put their oral torah and traditions into written form in a book called the Talmud from about 200AD to 500AD.  The Talmud consists of the Mishnah or Halacha and the Gemara.  The Gemara is commentary on the Mishnah. The secret pagan teachings the Pharisees had learned in Babylon were eventually written down in a book called the Zohar in the 13th century and is the basis for Kabala or Jewish mysticism.  The Rabbis of modern Judaism consider Kabala the hidden portion of the oral torah. The Holy Bible (books of Genesis to Malachi) plus the Talmud and Zohar, which were made up and added by the Pharisees, are the foundation of modern Rabbinic Judaism. The Talmud is considered as legally binding as the Holy Bible and they believe that religious authority was passed from Moses to Joshua to various generations of elders and then to the Rabbis.


Modern Rabbinic Judaism bears very little resemblance to the faith of the Israelites written down in the books of the Holy Bible. Satan was successful in turning the very thing that was supposed to be the Tree of Life, into the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He destroyed the pure Word of God and thus eliminated the need for the life giving Messiah and Spirit and replaced it with the self righteousness of Man.


The Talmud states that the Rabbis put a fence around the Torah.  They think this is a good thing but Yahweh God did not want a fence to be put around his Torah.  They reinvented the basics of the Torah by the belief that:


1. Adam and Eve did not corrupt their flesh and all mankind after them by their sin.  The Rabbis state that a soul at birth is pure and holy and though we have an inclination towards both good and evil, that we are essentially good. We can become righteous by making the right choices or doing what the Rabbis say. 


2. Adam and Eve were not separated from God by their sin and hence there is no need of a mediator.  The Word of God or the Holy Bible teaches that because of man's sin, mankind has been separated from God and that the Levitical Priests were to be the mediators between Man and God. The Bible teaches that Yahweh is so Holy that Man cannot approach him without bringing an animal sacrifice to the Priest in the Temple. Moses as a foreshadowing of the Messiah Yeshua had the role of mediator between Yahweh and the Israelites.  Modern Judaism teaches that the need for a mediator is unbearable: a quote from a writing says "Between God and Man stands no one.  Nothing between potter and vessel, so nothing separates Man from God." They revised the role of Moses as mediator between the people and God to Moses the Rabbi. They eliminated the need for Priests and replaced them with Rabbis, who were just teachers of the writings of the Talmud. The Rabbis have elevated Man to the level of Yahweh and without any need for help from God by an intermediary.


3.  Satan's words in the Garden were actually true: that if you eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, "...that you will surely not die." Modern Judaism believes that death is no longer required for the atonement of sin. They state that animal sacrifices and Temple rituals are to be replaced by prayer and good deeds.  They state that repentance alone atones for all transgressions.




 Just as Adam and Eve, the Rabbis have reached for the leaves, the self righteous works of Man, off Satan's Tree to cover their sin. The deceptive Tree that leads only to death and enslavement. Just like Adam and Eve, these Rabbis have rejected the Tree of Life, the pure Word of God and his Messiah, which bring the fruit of the Spirit and life everlasting.