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The unwritten customs, beliefs, practices, rituals, and rules promulgated by the Pharisees as oral law based upon the Pharisaical reasoning and thought of previous generations. See halakah. Jesus, according to the gospels of Matthew and Mark, openly rejected these additions of the Pharisees as the opinions of men. The gospel of Matthew illustrates this with an exchange between Jesus and some Pharisees from Jerusalem who had asked him, "Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread." His answer to them according to Matthew was, "Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?" (Matthew 15:2-3 NKJV). The custom of ceremonial washing, or ritual purification, was pervasive in Jesus’ day. Since Jesus’ disciples had not ceremonially washed their hands, the Pharisees saw them as "spiritually defiled". Mark’s gospel records that Jesus taught that it is not eating with dirty hands that defiles. Rather, it is what a person puts in his or her heart that defiles (Mark 7:20-23). In this Mark 7 discussion of spiritual defilement, not biological uncleanness, or the edibility of meats, the context relates to Jewish ritual purity (Mark 7:15). Moreover, which animal flesh was edible or inedible in Jewish culture was not in issue, only whether or not the ritual washing of one's hands, pursuant to the Pharisee oral rabbinic interpretations, was mandatory before a Jew could eat. In verse 19 the passage contains a reference to the digestive process not edible (clean) and inedible (unclean) meats. The later teaching that Christians may freely eat unclean meats (Leviticus 11), although the thought of eating some of them is repulsive to most Christians, led to an intentional distortion of the meaning of the text in translation, a prime example of eisegesis, that "He declared all foods clean." In this exchange with the Pharisees he did not declare meat, vegetables, or anything else clean, thereby edible as food, but rather held that under the Mosaic Code it was permissible for ordinary people in their everyday life setting to eat with ritually unwashed hands. A less ambiguous translation is "thus purging all foods" in reference to the digestive process. The exegesis of Scriptures always requires great care in the analysis of context. In the context of the Mosaic Code Jesus of Nazareth was an observant Jew. During his lifetime the Mosaic Covenant, with its prohibition of the human consumption of unclean meat (Leviticus 11), was in effect. For him to openly teach contrary to the Law of Moses is inconsistent with his obligations as a Jew under the Torah. Moreover, it would have lowered his credibility and undermined his ministry by providing his enemies and detractors with the means of accusing him of heresy with hard evidence as proof. Jesus taught that he came to fulfill the Torah and the Prophets, that is to live by the Hebrew Scriptures, not to destroy them (Matthew 5:17). He lived by the tenets, terms and conditions of the Hebrew Scriptures. More importantly, for Jesus to teach others to willfully transgress the Law of Moses would have been sin and kept him from being the Savior of the world. His assertion concerned Pharisaical halakah, the so-called oral law, not the Law of Moses and the written Torah. The status of the Torah did not arise until well-after his Crucifixion and the Resurrection. The first indication in Scripture of a challenge to the Law of Moses arose in the early Church in the matter of the baptism of the Gentile Cornelius (Acts 10:1-11:18). Quite early, probably ca. CE 40, the apostles came to understand that the Law of Moses ceased at Jesus death and opened their community of saints to Gentiles. The issue was finally put to rest at the so-called Council of Jerusalem CE 49/50 (Acts 15:4-21).
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