Karaite Judaism (Pro) vs. Rabbinical Judaism (Con):

RESPONSES TO OBJECTIONS1. Nobody ever claimed that the Sages are a part of the Tanakh... You cannot understand the Biblical law without the explanation that Moses taught to Joshua, who taught to the Elders and Judges, who taught to the Prophets, who taught to Ezra's court, who taught to the tannaim, who taught to the amoraim.2. We did not add to G-d's words. There is a clear distinction between rabbinic ordinances and explicit commandments in the Torah. As you yourself said, "You are never to add or subtract from the Tanakh". We have never added or subtracted even one word to or from the Tanakh. Also, here we have an example of subjective interpretation. "this goes in general" says who? You need to understand the difference between a rabbinic ordinance and a mitzvah de'oraita. Because according to your interpretation, all of the prophets were criminals for writing their books. 3. Of course the Tanakh is perfect and flawless, but why does that mean that it can stand on its own? Where is the connection? What does one thing have to do with another? Just because the Tanakh is perfect, that does not take from its ambiguity. You have a perfect new car, but you don't know how to drive. "The car can drive on its own" - utterly ridiculous. 4. First of all, 6,000,000 Jews? Where are you getting these numbers from? Learn your history. There were no more than 2,000,000 people around Mt. Sinai. Secondly, everything which you are about to say is a complete blob of hypotheses according to YOU, but with no evidence provided. Your arguments would only be valid, if, well... I was not claiming the exact opposite? We know what you believe. We know what I believe. It's our job to prove our points (which I have been doing, but you have done a terrible job doing so far). Simply stating our beliefs is a meaningless way of debating. Moses DID receive an oral law, and he DID pass it down to the Sages. And we have never given worshipped the Sages as G-d... You need to understand that the Oral Law was not invented over night. It came with Moses, who gave it on to the Sages, who simply expounded it. They ARE teaching G-d's word, just verbally and not through letters. And also, I'm not sure what you mean by rabbinic commentaries... Are you referring to Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Ramban, and so on? If so, you have no claim. While we respect them, their views, and their words, and many of us adhere to their pshat; we certainly do not worship them or compare their words to the words of the Tanakh. The Torah is not black and white. The commentators help understand the gray areas, unless you consider them your personal rabbi, then you go by their pshat. The mysteries of the Torah are innumerable.REBUTTING REBUTTALS1. Joshua taught the Oral Law to the 70 Elders, who in turn taught it to their students. When you have hundreds of rabbis who are all teaching the same thing, you can be sure that it has not been corrupted. Besides for this, we have a literal verse in the Tanakh which promises that the Oral Law will not be forgotten. See Isaiah 59, in the last verse, which reads: And as for Me, this is My covenant with unto them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and My words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LORD, from and for ever Henceforth. 2. You just flabberghasted right there, didn't you.. By the way, did you know that the Tanakh as we know it today was canonized by the Sages? You only read from it because A. THEY canonized it and B. THEY made it possible to read. Obviously, when Moses wrote the Torah, there was no way for anyone to read it. However, thankfully, MOSES TAUGHT THEM ORALLY HOW TO READ IT. This is a simple proof for the oral law. Therefore we know that the Sages hold the rest of the oral laws, and thus have the authority. So yes, they do, of all people, hold the highest authority in the land. Not only for this, but also because a verse in the Torah literally gives them authority. See Deuteronomy 17:10-11, which reads: And thou shalt do according to the tenor of the sentence, which they shall declare unto thee from that place which the LORD shall choose (Jerusalem); and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they shall teach thee. According to the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do; thou shalt not turn aside from the sentence which they shall declare unto thee, to the right hand, nor to the left. Thus you can conclude that the Sages hold the authority not just with logic, but also because it is a literal G-d-given right.3. You argued that G-d would prefer a living uncircumcised baby, and that the definition of work on Shabbat is anything that you are paid to do, and that you "assume" that it was referring to Egyptian months, and that Solomon was commanded to build the temple, but not with any specific design, because it is common sense and makes sense according to human logic. - These are all SUBJECTIVE INTERPRETATIONS. It does not say that G-d prefers a living uncircumcised baby. It does not say that work is something that you are paid to do, nor does it say that we go by Egyptian months. - No where in the Torah are we commanded to interpret according to our logic and common sense. If we were to go by our logic and common sense, then perhaps we shouldn't fulfill any of the commandments at all? Most of them don't make sense to us. Not so, for it is written: For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your Ways My Ways, saith the LORD. For as the Heavens are higher than the earth, so are My Ways higher than your Ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9) The creation does not have to understand the creator, he just has to do what He says, whether it makes sense to him or not.- I'd like to stress one last time that this is entirely subjective interpretation. I can interpret it in the other direction. - G-d commanded Abraham, an elderly man, to perform circumcision on himself. There was a risk of death due to his old age, yet He still commanded him to do it. From this we learn that we must circumcise even if there is a risk of death. - Since it is very difficult to build a house, but very easy to sit and supervise the house be built while receiving money for doing so, you are forbidden from building a house on Shabbat, even if you don't receive wages, but are permitted to supervise the house, even if you do receive wages. - Since the Egyptians we were leaving Egypt and going into Canaan, we should use Canaanite months. Egyptian months are now irrelevant to us.You can see very clearly how ridiculous it is to make psak on your own from verses. You need an objective interpretation from the giver of the Torah himself (Moses) in order to know these things. Otherwise, however you interpret it, your friend can interpret it the exact opposite. There are an infinite amount of negatives, and thus an infinite amount of interpretations for each verse of the Torah.4. I addressed this above, but let's argue on this once more. First, you just interpreted a whole bunch of things above, and even used the word "assume" when interpreting one of the things. That shows that it is ambiguous and you do not know. So please, if you want to be a hypocrite, the least you can do is have your hypocrisy a few lines a part. But right next to each other? Wow. And besides, you're wrong anyways about the Torah not being ambiguous. The first verse of the Torah, bereshit bara elokim et hashamayim ve'et haaretz can be translated either as "In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth" OR "In the beginning of G-d's creating the heavens and the earth." The first translation would imply half introduction and half creation, and perhaps even a summary of creation. The second one would imply complete introduction and nothing more. There are ambiguities. That does not take away from the Torah's perfection though, as I explained above.5. Yes... By wisdom, I meant knowledge in fields of science, which were unaccessible to the Sages in those days because they did not have the tools necessary to discover certain things, which proves that they knew this only because of their supreme exegetical abilities and the tradition received from Moses.- You completely missed the point... It has nothing to do with killing babies. The fact here is that a fetus is not considered a person until 40 days, which was unknown to everyone back in the day except for the Jewish sages.- No, this was not from a prophet, this was from a sage named Resh Lakish. See Berakhot 32- And no... The Egyptians did not have this knowledge at all... There was no way to know this. And it was certainly not referring to water in or on top of the atmosphere. The Sages say explicitly: "Had the Torah said: 'Let there be a division between the waters on the firmament' we would have understood that the waters are located on top of the firmament. But the Torah actually says 'the waters which are above the firmament.' This means that the upper waters are dependent upon [G-d's] spoken word. (i.e floating free in space as commanded by the Creator) Before we conclude, I'd like to stress the fact one last time that NO civilization ever made claims like the Jewish sages did. Nobody said that there is water in space, or that there are trillions of stars, or that a fetus is a person at day 40. The Sages turned out to be right about these three things, but other civilizations' hypotheses turned out to have failed miserably. And one last thing, I would like to point out your SHEER HYPOCRISY.You said that the Oral Law does not stem from Sinai nor do they have any connection to Moses in Egypt. Yet, you argued TWICE that the Jewish sages may have learned these things from the ancient Egyptians! Such a fail! Flabberghasted to the moon! If the Sages have mesora from Egypt, why can't they also have mesora from Moses?