In this episode Trent sits down with fellow apologist Suan Sonna as they discuss five pieces of evidence in the Old Testament that point towards Christ’s desire to establish a hierarchical teaching authority for believers, or the Church.
Welcome to the Counsel of Trent Podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent Horn:
Everyone, welcome to the Counsel of Trent Podcast. I’m your host. Catholic Answers’ apologist and speaker, Trent Horn. Super excited for today’s guest. His name is Suan Sonna. He is currently an undergrad and majoring in philosophy at Kansas State University. He also hosts his own YouTube channel, Intellectual Conservativism, great videos. He often hosts debates on there.
Trent Horn:
He had a great debate hosted between Ben Watkins and Chris Kaczor on abortion. Suan’s channel high level stuff. I mean, the name speaks for itself, Intellectual Conservatism. Then he also hosted the debate that I had recently with Jay Dyer on Natural Theology. He’s coming on the show today to talk about five pieces of evidence, in particular five pieces of Jewish evidence, the Jewish roots of the Magisterium, if you will, because a lot of people who are Protestant might, they understand the Bible, they want to believe in Jesus.
Trent Horn:
But they think the idea of an authoritative church is just something that was imposed on scripture. Maybe in Constantine, Middle Ages, what have you. But rather I think what Suan is going to show us is that the idea of a Magisterium, a church with authoritative teaching office is the natural unfurling, if you will, of God’s saving plan that goes all the way back to the Old Testament. Suan, welcome of the Counsel of Trent.
Suan Sonna:
Hey, Trent, Thank you for having me.
Trent Horn:
Before we get in those evidences, what prompted you to research and go into this subject? I should also let our listeners know, Suan has done several debates on the Magisterium, on scripture versus scripture and tradition, and the church, has done very well. Yeah. What prompted you to look into this?
Suan Sonna:
Yeah. Well, I would probably say it began with my conversion from being Baptist to being Catholic. I was interested in these kinds of questions, and I knew dialectically speaking, there were Protestants who accepted the real presence. I could be a Protestant and accept the real presence. Some Protestants have a high view of Mary.
Suan Sonna:
I was like, “Okay, well, I could have a high Mariology to some extent, and be a Protestant.” But it really came down to this question of authority, scripture and tradition, especially the Roman Pontiff, the papacy, and then also … I mean, did Christ establish this successional institution that could be historically and objectively identified, and it would be unique and having the ability to make the final call on doctrines of faith and morals.
Suan Sonna:
Over the course of my conversion, this is a subject that I studied intensely. But let me mention this, too, Trent, growing up as a Baptist kid, but even when I was … a Wednesday night teacher for the youth, you hear questions from kids all the time, like, “Why are there so many churches? Shouldn’t there only be one?”
Trent Horn:
Right.
Suan Sonna:
I remember once, too, there was this one girl I was teaching and she said, “Suan, God wants us to have a mother and a father, right?” I said, “Yes.” She said, “God’s our father, right?” I said, “Yes.” She said, “Suan, then who’s our mother?” You see, the questions from children, those kept on appearing in my head, and I started thinking about like, “Man, maybe they’re picking up on an intuition that we as adults have shoved down, which is wouldn’t God have found a way to visibly secure the oneness of his church?”
Suan Sonna:
That seems to at least make sense, at least, starting off. But later, it’s like other arguments that convinced us out of that. But my arguments today are saying that, “Hey, we shouldn’t have dropped that intuition. It’s actually tracking onto something.”
Trent Horn:
Right. I think this is helpful, because a lot of Protestants will say, “Well, of course, we believe in the church.” I mean, you really can’t deny that there’s an enduring church because Jesus mentions it. I will found my church. I’ll be with you always. He speaks of the church. He speaks of church, not a particular set of scriptures, for example, as an authority.
Trent Horn:
What’s interesting is I feel they agree, yeah … Well, yeah, we all agree in the church. But I feel for many Protestants, the church is just the loose, invisible collection of all Christians of all baptized Christians. But to me, I think that lacks a key element. That would be authority. I mean, why should I care that you have this opinion, or you have this opinion.
Trent Horn:
If the church is just this invisible collection, it doesn’t have authority. I think that’s a big thing we’re going to talk about today, why we should believe in a church that has a particularly teaching authority, which is what we mean by Magisterium.
Suan Sonna:
Yeah. I mean, a lot of people will say, “Well, hey, the church is visibly united in terms of everybody confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord.” That might be what we mean by a visible unity. But I think the more common intuition that some people have is that, “Well, no, there should also be this universal uniformity on some basic matters, or at least we could settle those basic matters definitively for all time.”
Suan Sonna:
Some people also don’t believe that the minimum is just believing that Jesus Christ is Lord. But believing that he is hypothetically divine and human, or thinking about God being triune. I don’t know how minimalist you want to go. But even the road to minimalism seems to go too far.
Trent Horn:
Well, if you think about it, there are Protestants who disagree with each other about whether Catholics are Christians.
Suan Sonna:
Yeah.
Trent Horn:
Protestant, that’s one thing, I think, is a really big problem. Protestants will say, “Oh, well, we all agree on the basics. We agree on the main things. Okay, well, who is Christian and who isn’t?” That seems the most basic thing you could have. They don’t agree, because there’s Protestants who will say, Catholics are Christians, others who say they aren’t. It’s a big deal. Let’s jump into it. What would be the first piece of evidence you want to share?
Suan Sonna:
The most important piece of evidence, I think, to start off this whole inquiry, is the fact that Jesus is the new Moses. All the arguments that I give for the papacy, the magisterium, they go back to some truth about Jesus Christ himself. That’s where I think all good doctrine should at least begin from, a truth about Jesus Christ himself. I mean, when you think about Moses, we often think about Moses delivering Israel from Egypt.
Suan Sonna:
We think about Passover. We think about the fact that Moses was a shepherd and a prophet. We think about all these things, the 10 commandments, Moses on Sinai. But another important thing that happens in the Old Testament, in Exodus 18:26, and Deuteronomy 17:8 to 13, is that Moses instituted the legal structure, or the courts of Israel.
Suan Sonna:
The task of these courts was to interpret and apply the Torah, to define the boundaries of what it means to follow the Torah, to understand how it’s to be followed, and to understand like what it means to be in the covenant. This was the responsibility of these courts. When you look back at what’s mentioned in, for instance, Deuteronomy 18:15, Moses says, I’m quoting here, the Lord your God, will raise up for you a prophet like me, from among you, from your countrymen, that is Israel to him you shall listen.
Suan Sonna:
The expectation already planted in the Old Testament and clearly fulfilled in the New Testament. I mean, there are plenty of examples on ways in which Jesus acted like Moses. Things that Moses said or did are attributed to Christ in the New Testament. Even the book of Hebrews, you have a direct comparison between Moses and Jesus.
Suan Sonna:
Peter, in Acts, chapter three very clearly declares that Jesus was the prophet that Moses spoke of. There was already this expectation that Jesus would do the things that Moses had done. Even the rabbi’s, they have the saying. The saying is this, “As it was with the first Redeemer,” that is Moses, “so it will be with the last Redeemer,” that is the Messiah.
Suan Sonna:
All right. One of the hallmark things that Moses had done in the Old Testament was not only redeemed Israel, was not only be a prophet and a shepherd and received the law, the word of God, but also he instituted an interpretive body to protect and put a fence around the Torah. That’s something that I want to emphasize. Because in Deuteronomy 17, I think it’s verse nine or verse eight. Moses mentions that this Court is intended to endure.
Suan Sonna:
He says, “Go to the priest who is in operation at that time,” at that time being whatever time you find yourself in. Moses intended for this court system, not to die with him in the first generation, but to continue on in the history of Israel. That’s clearly what we see in the literature of the beliefs the Mishna and the claims of even the Rabbi’s, or the sages during the time of Jesus.
Trent Horn:
That’s interesting that you have Moses giving an instruction. If you have a dispute amongst yourselves, go to the priests, go to this individual to resolve it. Don’t just find the scroll and the tabernacle and read it and come to your own conclusion that he gives an instruction. That parallels in the Gospel of Matthew, which, of course, is the most obvious place that portrays Jesus as the new Moses.
Trent Horn:
That’s one of Matthew’s signature goals, is to say, “Well, Jesus says, What do you do if your brother sins against you? Go to your brother, go to two or three others, and then go to the church,” not a church. He speaks of a body that has juridical capacity, because it can resolve these disputes that arise amongst people. That’s interesting to see the comparison there between Moses pointing forward and Jesus pointing forward in ways for the community of believers to resolve disputes.
Suan Sonna:
Right. We have pastors like Matthew 23:2 to 3, where Jesus at least seems to recognize the validity of the Sanhedrin of his time. That is the scribes and the Pharisees, which is Matthew shorthand to describe all the Jewish authorities, which would include the Sadducees as well. Then you also have, I think, in Matthew …
Trent Horn:
Well, he says there, just for our listeners, Matthew 23:2 to 3, do what the Pharisees say, but don’t do what they do. They’re hypocrites. But do what they say because they sit on the seat of Moses, which is something that we actually do not read about in the Old Testament. That would be a tradition carried on outside of scripture. But go ahead.
Suan Sonna:
Yeah. I’d also mentioned, I think it’s in Matthew chapter 5, where Jesus says, “Whoever hates his brother and says, Raka.” He says, “He is liable to the Sanhedrin.” You’d expect that if Jesus was totally abrogating the authority, or had no intention to continue it or somehow invested in his church, then you just say, “Hey, go to God, or you’re liable to God.” But here, he’s referring back to an institution.
Suan Sonna:
This isn’t surprising, given the fact that Jesus is the new Moses, and as I’ll later argue, as we go on that the new Sanhedrin is the apostolic college.
Trent Horn:
Well, let’s talk about that. What would be your second piece of evidence?
Suan Sonna:
The second piece of evidence is what I call the promise of restoration. In the book of Isaiah, chapter 1:26 to 27, God makes a promise to Israel, that he will actually restore, not destroy, not abolish their judges and counselors. Here I’ll read verse 25 to 27 so you get some context. God says this, “I will also turn my hand against you,” that is Israel, “and smelt away your impurities as with lie, and I will remove all your slag.”
Suan Sonna:
Verse 26, “Then I will restore your judges as at first and your counselors as at the beginning.” All right. Who instituted the judges and the counselors in the beginning? Is he talking about creation? No. He’s talking about in with Moses’s day. After that, you will be called the city of righteousness of faithful city. Zion will be redeemed with justice and her repentant ones with righteousness.
Suan Sonna:
The reason why I mentioned this verse is because we also have evidence from just the reception of the Jewish people that they understood this to be a messianic prophecy given by God. That is to say that either before the Messiah would come, or maybe through the Messiah, the court system would be redeemed somehow. It would be restored back to its place of prominence and justice.
Suan Sonna:
To quote from Aryeh Kaplan’s book, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan’s book, The Handbook of Jewish Thought, he writes this quote, “He the Messiah will reestablish the Sanhedrin, the religious Supreme Court and legislature of the Jewish people. This is a necessary condition for the rebuilding of the Third Temple, as it is written, I will restore your judges as at first and your counselors as in the beginning. Afterward, you’ll be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed to justice and those who returned to her with righteousness.”
Suan Sonna:
There is this idea that at least the Sanhedrin, or at least, the court system, it doesn’t have to be the Sanhedrin in particular, the 70-man court, the 23-man lower court, and then the three-man lower civil court, it didn’t have to exactly be redeemed in that way. But it just had to be the case that the justice system would somehow be restored by the Messiah by God Himself.
Suan Sonna:
Now, we have at least before Aryeh Kaplan, my manatees in his commentary on mission attract …
Trent Horn:
The medieval Jewish. Our listeners, the medieval Jewish philosopher, Maimonides, contemporary around Aquinas, at least in the Middle Ages.
Suan Sonna:
Right. At least Maimonides is also mentions this expectation. Now, one might argue, “Well, okay, this expectation comes so late, you can’t retroactively impose it into the first century, or at least even earlier.” What I’d argue is this. I’d argue that the prophecy is already stated in the book of Isaiah. What I’m merely doing is showing that in the minds of the Jewish people, this prophecy or this expectation did remain.
Suan Sonna:
The other thing I’d point out, too, is that scholars have used traditions, at least even 1,000 years later, from the original events to understand something that goes on the first century. You just have to establish a line of continuity somehow. I’d argue that Isaiah chapter 1:26 to 27, already give us a portrayal that God is making a promise, and we’re over. It’s an unconditional covenant.
Suan Sonna:
That is to say that it’s not contingent upon Israel being good, or fulfilling some conditions for the covenant or promise to happen. No. God says, “You’re going to be impure and perfect. You’re going to have all these problems.” He says that, at least if you begin with verse 21 in chapter one of Isaiah. But nonetheless, the promise is still there. I’m going to restore your judges and your counselors as at the beginning.
Suan Sonna:
What better would it be? What better time would it be, than when the Messiah the new Moses, Jesus Christ was already present?
Trent Horn:
I think it’s important when we look at Messianic prophecies, like a lot of people can read into them. This is only talking about one individual and what one individual will do. But there really is. What you’re saying is more of a corporate aspect to them, that God’s kingdom on earth, the kingdom of God breaking into the world. It’s spiritual, but it’s not merely spiritual. It’ll have these hierarchical features that will fully realize what was already revealed in limited fashion tab.
Suan Sonna:
What they do is they forget that Moses had instituted this legal structure to protect the Torah, and they read the rest of the Old Testament. They look at David and the prophets, and they think like, “Oh, yeah. Whatever that was that disappeared, and all of a sudden, the New Testament was Sanhedrin. Where’d that come from?” But no, it’s a part of a continuing chain of tradition that’s there in the Old Testament, and it appears in the New.
Trent Horn:
All right, let’s talk about evidence number three then, Jewish evidence for the Magisterium.
Suan Sonna:
All right. The third piece of evidence is when Jesus talks about binding and loosing in Matthew 16:19 and 18:18, the first time to Peter, the second time to the apostles and possibly the Matthean church in general. Here’s what Jesus says, “Whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, wherever you loose on earth shall been loosed in heaven.”
Suan Sonna:
Okay. Some people might say, “What is this supposed to mean? Is this supposed to be compelling somehow?” I remember when I was a Protestant, I’d read this passage, and I just turned the next page. I wouldn’t really think twice about what binding and loosing means. The earliest extra biblical citation that we have for this phrase is in Josephus. Josephus in the war of the Jews, chapter five verse two, he mentions the following.
Suan Sonna:
He says, “But these Pharisees artfully insinuated themselves into her favor, that is Salaam Alexandra, Queen Alexandra, by little by little, and became themselves the real administrators of the Public Affairs. They banished and reduced whom they pleased. They bound and loose men at their pleasure.” He’s describing an event that happened about 141 to 67 BC, during the time of Queen Alexandra.
Suan Sonna:
But the point here is that Josephus is writing in the first century. He’s recounting the history of the Jewish people. He uses binding and loosing to refer to this kind of public administrative power of the Pharisees. They gain the favor of the queen, and they begin to banish, presumably the Sadducees, their opponents, and they begin to gain prominence in determining the public affairs of the people.
Suan Sonna:
Now, the interesting thing is that when you look at later Jewish literature, this phrase binding and loosing in Hebrew, it’s [foreign language 00:17:10]. It’s used constantly by the rabbis to mean a Halakhic ruling or decision. What is a Halakhic ruling or decision? What is a Halakhic ruling or what is Halakah? In Judaism, there are two modes of interpretation.
Suan Sonna:
There’s the aggadah, which is more like theological interpretation. It deals more with like traditions of the Jewish people. If you imagine a pastoral commentary, that’s the closest analog I could give. Whereas Halakah is with the intent of governing the beliefs, the ethics, and theology of the everyday Jewish person. Halakah is more normative, I’d say or normative by intention.
Suan Sonna:
It’s determining the way that one ought to live and one ought to believe. For instance, in Alfred Edersheim’s book, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, he writes this, “Binding and loosing,” “Are the literal translation of the Hebrew equivalent asar, which means to bind in the sense of prohibiting, and hittir, which means to loose in the sense of permitting. Let me just give you some examples.
Suan Sonna:
In the Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah, seven A, it says this, “If one sage declared something as bound, he should not ask another sage who might declare it loose. If two stages are both present, and one rule something unclean, and the other rules it clean, if one binds and the other looses, then if one of them is superior to the other, and learning and number of disciples follow his ruling, otherwise follow the stricter view.”
Suan Sonna:
Notice that the binding and loosing power is used to determine the faith and morals of the people. What do you have to believe in order to remain in the covenant, to remain in good standing with God? How do you should you practice the faith? I mean, they would use binding and loosing to declare feast days or what you should do on the Passover. To use an earlier source, the Babylonian Talmud comes 500 years after the events.
Suan Sonna:
The earliest collection of rabbinic writings as the mission and the second century, all of the mission of clearly has material from the first century. Here’s what Mishnah Pesachim 4:5 says, this is concerning the Passover. In what concerns the night between the 13th and 14th of Nisan, the school of Shammai forbid or bound any work, while the School of Hillel permitted or lucid until sunrise.
Suan Sonna:
Notice once again that this use of binding and loosing is used to convey the teaching authority of the rabbis to determine the ways of the people. Then even initial Sanhedrin 10, you have the rabbis issuing anathemas for people who reject the divine inspiration, the Torah, who reject the resurrection of the dead at the end of the world to practice witchcraft. If you look at sources like the old Jewish Encyclopedia, it mentions the fact that binding and loosing would be used for excommunicate.
Suan Sonna:
It will be used to identify heretic. It would be used to issue anathemas. For instance, when you read the New Testament, you see Paul issuing anathemas in his writings. In the book of Galatians, if anyone preaches a different gospel than what we preach, let him be anathema. He’s not inventing the practice of issuing anathemas. That was something that was already being done in the Jewish system of the time of the first century.
Suan Sonna:
Paul’s a Pharisee, or at least given his background is simply continuing that practice into the church itself. The argument here is that binding and loosing, this rabbinic power or authority is given to is transferred from the rabbis’ through Jesus, to the church itself. Let me read this quote really quick.
Trent Horn:
Sure.
Suan Sonna:
This is by the scholar [Matthew Goulder 00:20:49], in his chapter on the Gospel of Matthew, in the larger volume, A Vision for the Church: Studies Early Christian Ecclesiology. Here’s what it says. There was, however, a second and greater source of divine law since Jesus came, and he had not only laid down many prescriptions for the church himself, but had also set up a Christian Sanhedrin, the apostolic college to interpret his rulings.
Suan Sonna:
By the way, I should mention mentioned that Goulder is an Anglican, from what I could discern. He’s not a Catholic … Roman Catholic, that’s how they want me to say it. Binding and loosing were regular Jewish terms for the authority of the sages to enforce rules or make exceptions. Peter’s being given the same authority in the church. Any enforcement’s or exceptions he makes, Jesus will ratify exactly the same words are used in the plural to the 12 at 18:18.
Suan Sonna:
Matthew sees the apostolic college as a Christian equivalent to the Sanhedrin. Now, Goulder doesn’t accept Petrine supremacy. He’ll argue that Peter’s first among equals. But the point is still there that at least this scholar and many others, they recognize that binding and loosing ought to be understood in the rabbinic way.
Suan Sonna:
Secondarily, that Jesus is clearly establishing a kind of new institutional authority and new Sanhedrin here in the New Testament.
Trent Horn:
I think this is helpful because a lot of people only think of the Sanhedrin as the bad guys. They did get the verdict wrong with Jesus. But they served, by as the Jewish courts existed, an important role that would ultimately be perfected in the New Covenant. Because I think a lot of people think, “Oh, Old Covenant, you add sacrifices, Jesus is the new sacrifice, don’t need anymore.”
Trent Horn:
Well, it’s not that we don’t need anymore. It’s right. It’s one sacrifice, re-presented as the Eucharist. That perfected thing of the Old Covenant continually endures in the representation of the Eucharist. Same I would say with the Sanhedrin, like, okay, they might say, “Oh, you had these legal bodies, the Old Testament, but Jesus is our high priests now, and we don’t anything more?”
Trent Horn:
Well, no, because even in the book of Acts, in Acts 15, you have the apostles acting in this way, in this juridical way to understand how is the new covenant going to be applied to people. I remember quoting here a quote from a Lutheran professor, Tord Fornberg, in my bookcase for Catholicism. I love what he says about this.
Trent Horn:
He says that “When you look at the binding and loosing language,” he says, “Peter stands out as a chief rabbi who binds and loses in the sense of declaring something to be forbidden or permitted. Peter is looked upon as a counterpart to the high priest. He is the highest representative for the people of God.” Before we go to your next piece of evidence, everything you’re talking about, about saying … I love when you said, “Well, Paul, when he’s talking anathemas” or saying these other things he’s drawing from this Jewish history.
Trent Horn:
A good book, I’d recommend it’s intermediate to advanced level study, but indispensable is a 2019 book called Paul, a New Covenant Jew: Rethinking Pauline Theology. That is authored by Brant Pitre, Michael Barber, John Kincaid, Paul, a New Covenant Jew. Obviously, these are Catholic authors. I’m not saying Paul is not Christian.
Trent Horn:
But they’re saying he is a Jew faithfully living out the new covenant in Christ. If you miss the Jewish roots, as Brant Pitre would say, or as you would say, Suan, you’re going to miss up the new covenant’s all about.
Suan Sonna:
Right. I think that a lot of the arguments I’m giving today, they’re calling upon Protestants or even Catholics who have assumed that, okay, we can just ignore Judaism or the Old Testament bashes, we can leave all of it back in the old like, “No.” I think more carried over than we originally realize, especially since Jesus was very much a Jewish man living in Palestine 2,000 years ago.
Trent Horn:
Let’s talk about evidence four.
Suan Sonna:
Evidence number four concerns the idea of succession. Here, I’m going to quote Alfred Edersheim again, and I’ll just back up his quote. Here’s what Edersheim says. The judges of all these courts, that is the Great Sanhedrin and lower tribunals were equally set apart by ordination; originally, that a laying on of hands, ordination was conferred by three of whom one, at least, must have been himself ordained and able to trace up his ordination, through Joshua and to Moses.
Suan Sonna:
Notice that already, we have this idea that if you’re going to actually have a say in the Sanhedrin, you’re actually going to have a formal vote in the final decision, you need to have some authorization. The means of authorization is that of the three men who are ordaining you, at least one of them, or at least the greatest among them, the senior has to himself enable to trace his ordination through Joshua and to Moses.
Suan Sonna:
Let me just defend piece-by-piece without what Edersheim is saying here. First, the idea of a conferral by three, I mean, that comes from the Tosefta Sanhedrin 1:1. The Tosefta is the supplement to the Mishnah, the earliest compilation of rabbinic texts that we have. But more importantly scholars like Hugo Mantel, they’ll argue that, yeah, this practice of ordination with three rabbis or three stages, this can be traced to the first century, this isn’t a later rabbinic invention.
Suan Sonna:
Then this idea of at least one of the men having this authorization or authority that comes from at least my monitees’ commentary on mission Sanhedrin 1:3, but also if you look at the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 14-A, it describes a situation that occurred in the second century, when the Romans began persecuting the Jews even worse after the destruction of the temple. The Romans, what they tried to do was they tried to outlaw Seneca so they could break the validity of the Jewish authorities, even among the Jewish people.
Suan Sonna:
The reason why is because they believed that having historic succession from Moses gave you the authorization to sit on the Sanhedrin and have a vote on the future of Israel. Here’s what the Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 14-A says. Once again, this is describing a situation in the second century. This is because at one time, the wicked kingdom of Rome issued decrees of religious persecution against the Jewish people with the aim of abolishing the chain of ordination and the authority of the sages.
Suan Sonna:
I should also emphasize that in texts like Mishnah 1:1, the rabbi’s were ready to defend the claim that they had unbroken succession from Moses. Even in Aryeh Kaplan’s book, he lists out, we actually have the succession lists that they claim to have for Moses. Notice there’s a parallel here between the claims of succession of unbroken succession, the Catholic Church, even among the Orthodox, and what we see in Judaism. But let me continue.
Suan Sonna:
They said that anyone who ordained judges will be killed, and anyone who is ordained will be killed, and the city in which they ordained, the judges will be destroyed, and the signs identifying the boundaries of the city in which the ordained judges will be uprooted.
Trent Horn:
Just a quick jump in here. You’re saying is that when the enemies of Judaism would attack it, this anti-Semitism and persecute it, it’s not just trying to remove the Torah or destroy manuscripts. You’re trying to actually destroy the living elements of a chain of succession, so that the religion cannot continue, because this is a vital element to it just as much as the Torah.
Suan Sonna:
Right. They recognize that if you break the authority structure, that is if you broke the ordination, unbroken ordination from Moses to the sages of their time to the rabbi’s later, then you could break the authority structure. Eventually, the Jewish people recognize, I think, after the time of the Babylonian Talmud, that Seneca has ended to some extent, or at least the Babylonian Talmud is that last revelation for.
Trent Horn:
By the time of the early Middle Ages, 500 or 600 years after Christ, because obviously, after the temple was destroyed in the first century, this is no longer a to … I’ll use a $64 word here for everybody, sacerdotal, which means sacrifice-oriented. It’s not oriented around sacrifice in the temple. That’s why for people who are listening, you might read about Jewish priests in the Bible. There are no Jewish priests today, because there is no temple to offer sacrifices.
Trent Horn:
Judaism as a religion were the successors of the Pharisees, the rabbis, the scholars of the law, the teachers of the law should say, that’s the informal authority structure. But they saw it very … You’re saying then, that’d be recognized early, but you’re saying at least by the early middle ages, 500, 600 years after Christ, they recognize this chain of succession that was finally been broken?
Suan Sonna:
Right. It finally ended there. I mean, there have been attempts among contemporary Jews to bring back semikhah to some extent. Others have argued like I think Rabbi [Moses Wieselmann 00:29:52] if I got his name right. That look, if you have a consensus among the fathers of the Talmud, then it’s basically infallible. I mean, you’re having these really large authority claims being attributed to the sages and to the rabbis, precisely because of some type of unbroken authority.
Trent Horn:
Good luck finding that unanimity in the Talmud. Half my family is Jewish. I’m allowed to make this joke. If you get two Jews in a room, you’ll get three opinions. When you read the Talmud, the diversity of opinion is stark, obviously, there are going to be major threads running through it. But there’s certainly a difference between what you have in 2,000 years of Jewish oral and ritual and religious history.
Trent Horn:
Two thousand years, approximately since the fall of the destruction of the temple, versus in that same time period, the development of the church’s Magisterium is very, very different how it approaches issues.
Suan Sonna:
Yeah. Just to get the rabbi’s name, right, it’s Rabbi Moshe Meiselman. I almost got his name right.
Trent Horn:
Ah, Meiselman.
Suan Sonna:
Yeah, there we go.
Trent Horn:
Meiselman. Well, let’s … I think we’re up to now number five. We have to conclude our list.
Suan Sonna:
Yeah. Okay. Let me just close out number four, by also just getting just one last piece of evidence. Some people say, okay, Suan, you’re citing the Mishnah, the Talmud, but what about scripture? Well, let’s go back to Matthew 23:2 to 3. To just quote it, I think verbatim, if I remember it, it’s Jesus says, Obey the scribes and Pharisees, for they are seated upon the seat of Moses, but do not do as they do for they preach but do not practice.
Suan Sonna:
Now, what’s interesting here is D.A. Carson, in his expositors Bible Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, He says this, “These leaders sit in Moses’ seat, to sit on excess seat often means to succeed X.” He cites Exodus 11:5, 12:29, First Kings 1:35, 46, to 2:12, 16:11, Second Kings 15:12. He cites Josephus is Antiquities of the Jews. Then he says this, “This would imply that the teachers of the law are Moses’ legal successors, possessing all his authority of view, describes themselves held.” He cites the Mishnah and various other texts.
Suan Sonna:
Now, the point to draw from this is that one thing to point out is that in this chapter when Jesus says, “Obey the scribes and Pharisees, and observe whatever they teach you.” Jesus is referencing Deuteronomy 17:11, when Moses gives the same instruction, do and observe whatever they tell you, when the judge when the Levite, Priest, whomever issues the judgment.
Suan Sonna:
Notice that … This is in my point. This was made by Noel S. Rabinowitz in his paper on Matthew 23:2 to 4. Jesus is citing scripture to defend the authority of the Sanhedrin. But then Jesus is obviously pointing out there are some flaws with their moral life, the way they’re living out the various statutes they’re laying down. I’m probably going to work on a paper to explain all the nuances of that.
Suan Sonna:
But the point I’m making here is that when Jesus says they sit on the seat of Moses, to sit in someone’s seat means to be their successor, to be validly in the place to deliver judgments to live out their original mission. I mean, you see in texts, for instance, the assumption of Moses, which was written during the first century, Moses sitting Joshua on his seat or his cathedra, and giving him authority over Israel.
Suan Sonna:
Clearly, Jesus seems to be alluding that, okay, now they have a valid succession. They are in the seat of Moses, and you have to obey them, almost as if it’s precisely because of that reason or something close to it. But the thing that I’m making, or the point I’m emphasizing is that Jesus is saying, or implying, at least strongly, look, the succession hasn’t been broken. They still have the authority. They sit in Moses’ chair.
Trent Horn:
This is something. At that point, when he was teaching people, the New Covenant had not been inaugurated yet through the resurrection through Pentecost, and through these other events. For his audience at that moment, listening to him, yeah, this is the authority that exists. It’s certainly far from perfect, but it’s there. What you all said about succession, that’s important for our listeners to understand that we see this in scripture, First Timothy 5:22 says, “Do not lay hands hastily on a man.”
Trent Horn:
Paul is giving advice to Timothy, who is they’re going out and they’re anointing priests in different areas. The way you do that is the laying on of hands, which we still do today. Hopefully, unless you had anything else, definitely gritty here what number five is.
Suan Sonna:
Yeah. I think I can move to number five now. Sure. Oh, so number five just refers to the relationship between heaven and earth, and even including the Holy Spirit. Remember that Jesus says, “Whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” Jesus makes this reference back to heaven every single time. What’s interesting to point out is that even among the sages and the scribes … the sages and the rabbis, they would also refer back to heaven whenever they made a decision.
Suan Sonna:
This heaven, earth discourse or phraseology is very much rooted in Jewish thought. I just want to point out, when Jesus says in John 16:13, “But when he the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own, but whatever He hears, He will speak, and He will disclose to you what is to come.” Many Protestants will interpret this passage as maybe a Sensus fidelium, or just, in general, everybody is going to be guided by the Holy Spirit.
Suan Sonna:
Even the average lay person, this is egalitarian, nonhierarchical depiction of the gift of the Holy Spirit. But when we look at, for instance, in the book of Numbers, when Moses lays his hands on Joshua, authorizing him to be his successor, the Holy Spirit also appears in the Old Testament.
Suan Sonna:
Here’s what Numbers 11:16 to 17 says, “The Lord therefore said to Moses, gather for me 70 men from the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and their officers, and bring them to the tent of meeting, and have them take their stand there with you, then I will come down and speak with you there. I will take some of the Spirit who is upon you, and put him upon them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you will not bear it by yourself.”
Suan Sonna:
Now, what’s interesting is that when you look at the literature of the Rabbi’s, they also refer to how the Holy Spirit help them gain knowledge about certain cases, or the Holy Spirit would somehow confirm their judgment on a particular matter. Going to the Palestinian Talmud, which is the earliest revision or redaction of the Mishnah, which eventually gets turned into the Talmud, Babylonian Talmud, here’s what it says in the second order Mo’ed.
Suan Sonna:
Here’s Sotah Chapter 9, Halakha 17, Rebbi Jacob bar Idi, in the name of Rabbi, Joshua ben Levi, it happened that elders came together in the upper floor of the House of Gadya in Jericho, when a disembodied voice came and said to them, they’re among you two, who would be worthy that the Holy spiritual rests on them. One of them is Hillel, the elder.
Suan Sonna:
They all looked at Samuel Minor. Again, it happened that elders came together in a second floor Jabne, when a disembodied voice came and said to them, “They’re among you two who would be worthy that the Holy Spirit should rest on them.” One of them is Samuel Minor. They all looked at Rebbi Eliezer ben Hyrkanos and we’re happy that their opinion coincided with that of the omnipresent.
Suan Sonna:
Notice the Holy Spirit would disclose to the leaders of the Jewish people. Which of their opinions were correct, or if they did have the correct opinion, about some matter, or even in Avodah Zarah Chapter One Halakha 9, it says this, “It happened that Rabban Gamliel was walking on the road and saw a loaf of bread thrown on the road. He said to his slave Tabi, “Pick up this loaf.”
Suan Sonna:
He saw a Gentile coming towards him and said to him, Mabgai or mob guy, take this loaf. Rebbi Illai ran after him and asked him “What is your name to the stranger?” He told him Mabgai. From where are you? He told him from the guard tower villages. Then he asked Rabban Gamliel ever come to know you? He told him no. Rabban Gamliel headed right by the Holy Spirit. This particular rabbi had been revealed by the Holy Spirit, the name of this particular individual whom he had never met before.
Suan Sonna:
The point that I’m making here is that when you look at the literature about how the Holy Spirit had worked with the Jewish people, or had worked throughout history, it was with the leadership in helping them figure out certain things about the Torah, helping them come to correct opinions about which rabbi had the correct theological stance, or even knowledge about somebody’s name.
Suan Sonna:
Think about, for instance, in Acts chapter five, when Peter despite not anyone telling him about the sin of Ananias and Sapphira, being able to pick up on what they had done. These types of things are very much rooted in the Jewish tradition.
Trent Horn:
As Peter told Ananias and Sapphira for their deception and withholding contribution of the apostles. You didn’t lie to men, you lied to the Holy Spirit to see the work of the Holy Spirit, not just in the lives of lay believers, which currently certainly does work in, but specifically within those who have a ministerial capacity, a leadership capacity within the covenants.
Suan Sonna:
Right. Then just to bring up heaven and earth once again.
Trent Horn:
Sure.
Suan Sonna:
In the Babylonian Talmud, Makkot 11B, it says the following, three rulings were made by the earthly court and the court on high, that is the Heavenly Court, concurred with what they had done. If you look throughout the Talmud, I think even in the Palestinian Talmud, what you’re going to see are references to the celestial court on high or God’s court. The idea to quote Craig Keener in his IVP Bible Background Commentary on the New Testament, “May Jewish people felt that the Jewish High Court” that is the Sanhedrin “acted on the authority of God’s tribunal in heaven in a sense ratifying its decrees.”
Suan Sonna:
Already, there’s this idea that whenever the core on Earth makes a ruling, somehow Heaven will ratify it, or confirm it or show it to be true. When Jesus is mentioning this, this already shows that … Okay, this was already there in the first century [crosstalk 00:40:34]
Trent Horn:
… time on earth shall have been bound in heaven.
Suan Sonna:
Right. I mean, this is the talk that the sages and the rabbis would have been saying. The fact that Jesus mentions it, I would say it not only strongly implies that he’s continuing that system, but with the apostles now. But secondarily, this has to be fleshed out more, but it could imply a kind of infallibility if you have the confirmation or binding of heaven.
Suan Sonna:
Let me just close with this quote by [inaudible 00:41:03] was in his Matthew 8 to 20 commentary, he writes this, “Then to bind into loose correspond to put in fetters or to acquit. Furthermore, it is the rabbinic conviction that God or the heavenly court recognizes the Halakhic decisions and the judgments of the rabbinical courts. Thus, not only the concepts binding and loosing, but the entire saying is rooted in Jewish thought.”
Trent Horn:
Well, I have one last question for you before we end. Once again, I definitely recommend people check out Suan’s channel and some of the resources that we’ve mentioned. Would you say, though, that the case that you’re making, it does not rely on an overly literal reading, because you’re trying to understand Jewish thought, what are the sources we have to understand Jewish thought?
Trent Horn:
It’s either at the time of Jesus, it would basically be either the New Testament, or Jewish apocryphal literature roughly, or the writings of Josephus and Philo and you have some the Deuterocanonical literature before or Deuterocanonical, then after you would have this Talmudic literature of Jewish legal interpretation, some legendary material hagiography because some people might say, what if not everything in the Talmud is embellished, or there’s legendary material here, that your case is not necessarily relying on an overly literal reading, but that all of this is indicative of Jewish thought in these particular times.
Suan Sonna:
Right. Yeah. You don’t have to buy the Talmud wholesale to accept this argument, or even the Mishnah, which is even earlier, or even the Jewish Apocrypha literature, the Intertestamental Literature. All you have to do is use historical methodology that any other scholar would use to almost assemble a minimal facts argument with five pieces of datum or data on this particular question.
Suan Sonna:
But yeah, and then obviously, there’s a lot of questions about, “Oh, well, you need to be careful when you cite later literature,” which is true. But then there’s other work that’s been shown that like the Mishnah clearly has material from the first century, scholars, like David [inaudible 00:43:17] have been doing incredible work in this area. Or even in my conversation with the New Testament scholar and consider the world leading expert on the Canon, Lee Martin McDonald.
Suan Sonna:
He acknowledged that, yeah, you can cite the Talmud. You just have to be careful. But you don’t have to rule it out immediately, just because it’s 500 years later.
Trent Horn:
Very good. All right. Well, definitely, I’m going to commend our listeners to go to your YouTube channel, Intellectual Conservativism. Definitely check out some of your debates you’ve hosted and debates you’ve been a part of. Definitely looking forward to more of your research and work on this subject. Suan, thank you so much for being with us today.
Suan Sonna:
Yeah. No problem, Trent. Thank you for having me.
Trent Horn:
Great. Well, I have you back again. Everyone else, thank you so much for listening. Be sure to like this. Leave a comment below. Subscribe to us, either an iTunes Google Play, or at our YouTube channel. Definitely if you like the work that we’re doing here at Counsel of Trent, consider supporting us at trenthornpodcast.com. Thank you all so much, and I hope you have a very blessed day.
If you like today’s episode, become a premium subscriber at our Patreon page and get access to member only content. For more information visit trenthornpodcast.com.