And the man that will act willfully, not listen to the priest who stands there to sever God, or to the judge, that man shall die, and you shall destroy the evil from among Israel. (Duet. 17:12)
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After the temple is destroyed and the court in Jerusalem is abandoned, the early rabbis read this passage and saw nothing of their world within it. Forced to abandon temple Judaism, they begin the incredible task of creating a Judaism that walks off the Torah scroll and finds shelter in the Talmud's folio. For this new Judaism to work, the everyday litigant and the highest court in Jerusalem are replaced with rabbinic scholars and the study halls of Yavneh, the first city of rabbinic Judaism. The litigant who does not obey the court is transformed into the rebellious elder, who does not obey the rabbinic majority.
However, unlike the insubordinate litigant, the rebellious elder is not killed. In the Babylonian Talmud, his dissent is tolerated, assuming his argument is good . . . The Talmudic construction of the rebellious elder is incongruous with the original intent in Devarim (Deuteronomy). While in Devarim, the law demands obedience at the cost of death; the Talmud's version expressly justifies intellectual dissent. The Talmud establishes an anti-authoritarian ontology under the guise of establishing authority.
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