Comments on: About Karaite Judaism

By: Hebrew Student

Hebrew Student — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:09:41 +0000

Thanks for this extremely interesting post. The Karaite Jews are small in number, but they have been highly instrumental in preserving the text of the Hebrew Bible, and their dedication to the Tanakh. There is evidence that the Massoretes were Karaite Jews, making sure that the Hebrew Tanakh was preserved carefulyl down through the centuries. They are an amazing group.

By: Sithuraj Ponraj

Sithuraj Ponraj — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:26:06 +0000

Shalom from Singapore! We are a group of people studying Hebrew and the Hebrew scriptures from the perspective of the language and culture of Israel. Your website is very interesting. Would love to have articles from you in our new blog http://www.hebrew-ways.blogspot.com. Please feel free to send some, maybe with a picture.

Sithu

By: Dowidh

Dowidh — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:09:05 +0000

Qaraite Judaism is the true observance according to the peshat meanings commanded at Sinai. Unfortunately, the rabbis have created another religion then the one given to us over 3500 years ago. We follow the Torah according to the plain meaning of the text, striving to put ourselves in the shoes of the ancient Israelite shepherd or farmers, interpreting each verse as the ancients did when hearing the Torah read aloud to them every seven years. The Torah does not need an Oral Torah
to define things which were part of every day life in ancient Israel.
This can sometimes be confusing to us thousands of years later but
when the Torah was given it was easily understood by simple Israelite
shepherds and farmers. When the Torah used words like “right” and
“left” every ancient Israelite understood what these words meant
because they were native speakers of Biblical Hebrew. In the same way
they knew what a Sukkah was (remember, they had dwelt in them before
the commandment), what a foreskin was, and what it meant to slaughter
an animal. It is amazing that anyone could accept the rabbinical claim that an
Oral Torah was revealed to Moses during his 40 days and 40 nights on
Mount Sinai. You would think that if YHWH revealed an Oral Torah to
Moses, which is supposedly indispensable to understanding the written
Torah, this fact would be mentioned somewhere in the Tanakh, at least
once. Yet in over 1000 pages of prophetic writings there is not a
single reference to the Oral Torah.