Jesus' callout here was on their callout; the story of Jesus in the Bible if you subscribe to Jesus was that he was the real deal and sent to close the previous covenant between god and humans, and preach the new word of god.

in the context of the book of mark, Jesus had been busy for awhile pointing out the fallacies of the current religious authoritarians and debating classic scripture with them quite successfully. the intent of the story would more accurately be that the Pharisees were the ones doing the random ad hom callout after getting bested by Jesus during debate, and he responded with a prophesy from Isaiah that is relevant.

I mean I get your point, but you need to understand that the entirety of the Bible read through a modern lens is really just a holy version of social media drama, but with a literal deity involved. the reason Jesus' response is supposed to be so big here is because his entire point up to, during, and after this is that the old laws are not relevant because humans cannot ever atone for their sins or stop sinning, so Jesus is there to solve that, and set some new rules.

and keep in mind, this is just how _I_ was taught growing up in my sect; other christian sects don't take the same interpretation of this...in other words, don't focus too much on the specifics, it's very much so open to interpretation and the Bible has so many conflicting authors and ideologies that it self-supports so many interpretations

I'm sure there will be people who instead of just sharing their interpretation will try to prove that mine is wrong :) and I'm pretty sure we could argue for days if we wanted to, and the Bible and the history of theological study would probably produce troves of thoughts and evidence to support all the interpretations and more, and we might even start a new sect accidentally while arguing :)

That was not necessarily the case in the most literal way at the time the bible was written (or rather it was a bit more complex that that). Orthodox Catholicism especially became increasingly more polytheistic over the years as it presumably tried to maximize its appeal to the masses e.g. worshipping saints and holy relics (I’m sorry… “venerating”.. lol). The exact nature of Christ remained a massive controversy for hundreds of years.

The sect I was a part of did not honor Saints, it instead focused on the JC boy.

[x] = Pharisees and the scribes = "hypocrites", right?

Help me understand what I'm missing.

1. The handwashing rule was invented by the Pharisees, and was not a part of Jewish law.

2. It was also not a tradition for sanitation, but was created to serve a ritualistic role to show they were ritually purified.

3. Because it was just a made up rule God did not give, and it was meant for the ritualistic appearance of purity, it is obviously hypocritical if the priest has no concern about their internal state (sin and whatnot).

4. In which case, it would be much less hypocritical if they either said it was for sanitation; or that it was a symbol while still admitting their unworthiness before God.

5. This is why Jesus elsewhere calls them “whitewashed graves.”

I'll note that you're agreeing with me in this subthread that Jesus wasn't calling his disciples hypocrites, but the Pharisees.

Some might and do argue that various religious taboos not that rarely served very practical purposes (at least at the time they were established). Also I wouldn’t be that eager to claim that ancient people could’ve that easily made the distinction between religious/ritual and physical purity/cleanliness like we do.

One important aspect of Christianity compared to some other religious which did survive for thousands of years to some degree was the prioritization of the spiritual world over the physical. Personal grooming, focus on one’s look or hygiene was viewed as somewhat sinful.

It’s an internal ad hominem if you don’t. Which goes to show an ad hominem is not a hard-and-fast rule.