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Responding to one of the stupidest objections to Michael L Brown's article: "Unequal Weights and Measures"
In an attempt to refute the present article (which was written in 1991), countermissionary rabbi Moshe Shlulman wrote an article in 1993 entitled "Just Weights and Measures," in which he sought to justify the use of different weights and measures by claiming that: 1) "a simple reading of history shows that Christianity appeared later than Judaism. Even Rabbinic Judaism has been shown to predate Christianity thanks to the research of scholars on the Dead Sea Scrolls"; and 2)"much more importantly the theory behind Christian Scriptural interpretation is different than that of Judaism." Aside from the rather astonishing claim that it is right to use different weights and measures when comparing the Messianic Jewish faith and the Rabbinic Jewish faith, Rabbi Shulman's arguments are easily refuted.
With regard to the alleged greater antiquity of Rabbinic Judaism to "Christianity." it can be stated in response that 1) The vast majority of what today is called Rabbinic Judaism postdates the New Testament writings by centuries; 2) what Rabbi Shulman refers to as "Christianity" contains many ancient, Jewish apocalyptic elements that predate the time of Jesus and were not incorporated into Rabbinic Judaism; and 3) even if elements of Rabbinic Judaism are more ancient than the elements of the Messianic Jewish faith, that does not mean that both are not to be judged by the same historical-critical methodology--in other words, equal weights and measures are required for evaluating both.
With regard to his second claim, namely, that "Christianity" relies on the principle of sola scriptura--that is , the principle of using the Bible alone for faith and life (this applies, of course, only to Protestant Christianity)--whereas Rabbinic Judaism relies on the rabbinic traditions, it can be said in response that 1) The claim to having a chain of tradition does not exempt one from having to prove the validity of that tradition (note that much of Volume 5 of Answering Jewish Objections has been devoted to refuting the alleged Mosaic antiquity of that oral tradition); 2) the authors of the New Testament writings were, with only one exception, Jews who interpreted the Tanakh in keeping with Jewish hermeneutical principles of the day, and so their interpretations should, in fact, be compared and contrasted with Rabbinic Jewish interpretations of the Tanakh; and 3) the Tanakh itself does not allow its plain meaning to be ignored or twisted, and so the Jewish Scriptures themselves call for equal weights and measures when evaluating varied interpretations of the text. I should also point out for the record that Rabbi Shulman's understanding of sola scritpura is so caricatured as to be unrecognizable, actually claiming that "Again the problem for Dr. Brown is to explain according to scripture alone. Judaism has traditions that answer these questions, but he can't use it." To the contrary, the principle of sola scriptura simply means that the Bible alone is sufficient for the foundations of faith and doctrine, not that sources external to the Bible--such as archaeological or linguistic discoveries or Jewish or Christian traditions or societal customs--cannot be used to interpret the text. That being said, just because Rabbi Shulman provides a traditional Jewish interpretation that allegedly answers a textual problem does not mean that tradition is accurate and true. To the contrary, it could well expose that tradition as a later creation invented for the sole purpose of providing a solution to a problem.
Rabbi Shulman claims that "Dr. Brown's whole method here [meaning in this present article] is to delegitimize any questioning of Christian, by ad hominem assaults on those raising questions that are serious and deserving of serious answers." The fact that I have now provided more than fifteen hundred pages of serious answers to serious Jewish questions, not to mention holding numerous debates with rabbis on almost every conceivably relevant subject, makes Rabbi Shulman's statement utterly ludicrous, not to mention laughable. What is true, however, is that the arguments of the countermissionaries, when subjected to the same scrutiny that they apply to the Messianic Jewish faith, impolode on themselves. Suffice it to say tha when someone writes an article defending the use of unequal weights and measures, they have already shot themselves in the foot.
-from Michael L. Brown (Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus Vol 5, p. 314)
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