Is Arika In the Bible? Is Arika a person or a place?
Arika
is not in the Bible but is, in a sense associated with the Hebrew
writings that make up the Old Testament. Arika, along with his
teacher, Juda I who was known simply as Rabbi began the Talmudic age.
He lived in Babylon in the third century. His family
claimed kinship with King David tracing their line back to Shimei the
brother of David.
From the Jewish world we learn this about the Talmud:
The Talmud is a huge collection of doctrines and laws
compiled and written before the 8th Century, A.D., by ancient Jewish
teachers. The Talmud, which often cites the Old Testament, is the basic
book of Jewish law.
Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds
There are two editions of the Talmud; one was composed by
Babylonian Jews and one by Jews who lived in ancient Jerusalem.
Generally a citation from the Talmud refers to the Babylonian version,
which is considered authoritative. The Jerusalem Talmud is not
generally taught in even the most Orthodox Jewish schools today, though
advanced Talmud scholars sometimes study it. Rabbi
Michael Rodkinson who wrote the New Edition of the Babylonian Talmud
tells us the Talmud is based on the teachings of the Pharisees and is a
core teaching of modern rabbinical training.
Christ said of the Pharisees "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will
do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth,
because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh
of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." John 8:44
And
yet Arika was a man respected by both Gentile and Jew in his time.
He taught that a man who had no compassion on another was no son
of Abraham, and that a father should not love one child above
another considering the example set by Jacob and the evil that befell
Joseph.
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