I think Furry is saying that the "oral law," or "oral tradition," is just the common interpretation of the text.

It seems you're both correct. From the wikipedia page "Oral Torah":

The Oral Torah comprises the legal and interpretative traditions that, according to tradition, were transmitted orally from Mount Sinai, and were not written in the Torah. According to Rabbinic Judaism, the oral Torah, oral Law, or oral tradition was given by God orally to Moses in conjunction with the written Torah, after which it was passed down orally through the ages. Later to be codified and written in the Talmud. While other cultures and Jewish groups maintained oral traditions, only the Rabbis gave ideological significance to the fact that they transmitted their tradition orally.

Rabbis of the Talmudic era conceived of the Oral Law in two distinct ways. First, Rabbinic tradition conceived of the Oral law as an unbroken chain of transmission. The distinctive feature of this view was that Oral Law was "conveyed by word of mouth and memorized." Second, the Rabbis also conceived of the Oral law as an interpretive tradition, and not merely as memorized traditions. In this view, the written Torah was seen as containing many levels of interpretation. It was left to later generations, who were steeped in the oral tradition of interpretation to discover those interpretations not revealed by Moses.

The last sentence of the first paragraph is what makes me think both of you are correct. Furry's right in that Jewish groups passed down a common tradition of understanding the Torah. And you're right in that only Rabbinic Jews considered this "oral tradition" something distinct from, and beyond, the "written Torah".

By the way, I wasn't aware there was such a thing as non-Rabbinic Judaism, seems I have a lot more learning to do...

Her example was of slaughtering an animal while playing a shepherd role playing game without a scroll but just happening to have a rabbi passing by to give instruction. Please. You are no longer a child.

If you are familiar with Christian sects I can explain it very simply.

Catholics and Orthodox Jews both require belief in Scripture and tradition, written and oral law. In the former there are no priests in scripture and in the latter there are no rabbis in scripture.They are mirrors of each other. In fact they are the same with or without an arrived Messiah.

There are as many Christian sects as there are Reform and Conservative Synagogues. Catholics and Orthodox Jews do not consider non-Catholics or non-Orthodox to be real Christians or real Jews respectively.

There is nothing she could mean but rabbis. Should you read haaretz.com you will be amazed to learn the Orthodox (real) Jews tend to hold their rabbis in higher regard than Catholics do their popes.

The trick with the OT is to think through the implications of the religious tradition of its origin, that it is the creation of the priests.

Thus a rational person would expect a similar collection by the priests of Baal to say much the same things while condemning the child sacrificing Yahweh priests.

The religion of the priests is not the religion of the people.

I find it amazing. The Rabbis literally tell the government and the Supreme Court to fuck off. The criminal squatters in occupied territory do the same and they are lead by "god gave us this land" rabbis. Think Jerry Falwell on steriods.

I do know they did not write it. But I suggested IF the religious tradition is correct then the religious tradition of the priests of Baal would say roughly the same thing. What I can say is the folks who were supported by the Ptoemeys, the Maccabes, created the mythology. The point remains the Ptolemeys would have created a mythology supporting whichever side it chose to support. That is why the old testament first appears in Greek in the mid 2nd c. BC with only a forgery claiming it is a translation.

In many ways Israel is indistinguishable from a theocracy. The gov pays the salaries of the rabbis and for religious schools and builds housing segregated by religion as the most obvious examples.

Careful with how it is written. Oldest copy and oldest mention are very different things but oldest mention is good enough for its existence. While the Septuagint is the oldest mentioned the oldest copy is presumed in the Vatican and the second oldest is the Codex Sinaiticus or some spelling like that. It is an unevidenced assumption to suggest the canonical collection in the bibles is the same as was meant in the 1st c. BC. The thing is the idea of canonical is from the 3rd c. AD and authentic is late 2nd c. Promulgating an official list was somewhat later and the Roman Catholic proclamation is sufficiently weasel-worded that it might not be an official list.

Beyond just the collection of which books their exact contents is essentially unknown prior to the surviving oldest copies. The Septuagint versions of the books is the longest, the Dead Sea Scroll versions are abbreviated and the currently used Jewish (Masoretic) version the shortest. Abbreviated means verses are deleted. Further nothing is found in either the DSS or the Masoretic which is not in the Septuagint. This shows there was no source other than the Septuagint for later content. The case is closed.

The Judeans have always claimed the Septuagint is the copy rather than vice versa as the facts indicate. That leads to the modern claim, based upon the Masoretic, that the Septuagint is also an incorrect translation. The problem is the only ancient sources mentioning the Septuagint from the forged Letter of Aristeas, through Josephus, the Mishna and the Talmud all speak of it amazing accuracy. Clearly someone screwed up the Masoretic.

For the NT, I once came across a description of the oldest fragment as being the size of a postage stamp. That suggests so few words that identification of what it is has to be no more than tradition.