Referenced Messianic Jewish Review Blog

The official blog of the Referenced Messianic Jewish Review. The Referenced Messianic Jewish Review studies the history, composition and theology of the Messianic Jewish movement.

Friday, August 07, 2009

Like Karaites

Karaites are a small Jewish group that generally reject the Oral Law (e.g. Talmud and Mishnah) and take a more literalistic understanding of the Bible than the rest of Judaism. There are a number of proofs from the Bible that the Oral Law is real (which is likely why the Karaites have never been the majority among the Jewish people) but for the sake of keeping this blogpost on one topic I will not go through the proofs today. However, I have had a number of Messianics tell and e-mail me that they are similar to the Karaites. The Messianics believe that they take a literalistic approach to the Bible just like the Karaites and that the Jews are making errors through the Oral Law. But is it true? Is Messianic "Judaism" and the rest of Christianity really reading the Bible on a literal level? What do the Karaites say?

Interestingly, the Karaites completely reject Messianic "Judaism" (and all the other branches of Christianity) for the same reasons as the rest of Judaism. Here is a link to an English translation of a famous Karaite countermissionary text. It is clear that they reject the Messianics claims, pointing out the same errors as other Jewish countermissionaries, such as Rabbi Tovia Singer of Outreach Judaism or Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz of Jews for Judaism.

http://faithstrengthened.org/FS_TOC.html

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