3 CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II The secondary meanings of words often become the generally accepted meanings of words formerly having entirely different meanings. The generally accepted secondary meaning of the word Jew today with practically no exceptions is made up of four almost universally-believed theories. These four theories are that a so-called Jew is: (1) A person who today professes the form of religious worship known as Judaism. (2) A person who claims to belong to a racial group associated with the ancient Semites. (3) A person directly the descendant of an ancient nation which thrived in Palestine in Bible history. (4) A person blessed by Divine intentional design with certain superior cultural characteristics denied to other racial, religious or national groups. That Jesus was a Jew in the sense that during His life time Jesus professed and practiced the form of religious worship known and practiced under the modern name of “Judaism” is false and blasphemous. Jesus abhorred and denounced the form of religious worship practiced in Judea in his lifetime and which is known and practiced today under its new name Judaism. That religious belief was known as Pharisaism in Jesus’ day. The eminent Rabbi Louis Finkelstein, the head of The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, often referred to as "The Vatican of Judaism", in his Foreword to his First Edition of "The Pharisees, the Sociological Background of Their Faith", on page XXI states: "... Judaism... Pharisaism became Talmudism, Talmudism became Medieval Rabbinism, the Medieval Rabbinism became Modern Rabbinism. But throughout these changes in name... the spirit of the ancient Pharisees survives, unaltered..."
Rabbi Louis Finkelstein in his classic quoted from above traces the origin of the form of religious worship practiced today under the present name "Judaism" to its origin as "Pharisaism" in Judea in the time of Jesus. Rabbi Finkelstein confirms what Rabbi Adolph Moses stated in "Yahvism, and other Discourses," in collaboration with Rabbi H.G. Enelow, published in 1903 by the Louisville Section of the Council of Jewish Women, in which Rabbi Adolph Moses, on page 1 states:
"Among the innumerable misfortunes which have befallen in its consequences is the name of Judaism… Worse still, the Jews themselves, who have gradually come to call their religion Judaism... Yet, neither in biblical nor post-biblical, neither in talmudic, nor in much later times, is the term Judaism ever heard... IT WAS FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, WRITING FOR THE INSTRUCTIONS OF GREEKS AND ROMANS, WHO COINED THE TERM JUDAISM, in order to pit it against Hellenism...By Hellenism was understood the civilization, comprising language, poetry, religion, art, science, manners, customs, institutions, which had spread from Greece, its original home, over vast regions of Europe, Asia and Africa... The Christians eagerly seized upon the name… The Jews themselves, who intensely detested the traitor Josephus, refrained from reading his works... HENCE THE TERM JUDAISM COINED BY JOSEPHUS REMAINED ABSOLUTELY UNKNOWN TO THEM... IT WAS ONLY IN COMPARATIVELY RECENT TIMES, AFTER THE JEWS BECAME FAMILIAR WITH MODERN CHRISTIAN LITERATURE, THAT THEY BEGAN TO NAME THEIR RELIGION JUDAISM." (emphasis supplied) The form of religious worship known as Pharisaism in Judea in the time of Jesus was a religious practice based exclusively upon the Talmud. The Talmud in the time of Jesus was the Magna Charta, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, all rolled into one, for those who practiced Pharisaism.
Rabbi Morris N. Kertzer stated:
"The Talmud consists of 63 books of legal, ethical and historical writings of the ancient rabbis. It was edited five centuries after the birth of Jesus. It is a compendium of law and lore. IT IS THE LEGAL CODE WHICH FORMS THE BASIS OF JEWISH RELIGIOUS LAW AND IT IS THE TEXTBOOK USED IN THE TRAINING OF RABBIS."(emphasis supplied)