The Talmud is constituted by theMishnah (a writtencompendium of theOral Torah), and theGemara (גמרא), a commentary on the Mishnah and relatedTannaitic writings. Sometimes, the word "Talmud" may only refer to the Gemara. This text is made up of 63tractates, each covering one subject area. The language of the Talmud isJewish Babylonian Aramaic. Talmudic tradition emerged and was compiled between the destruction of theSecond Temple in 70 CE and theArab conquest in the early seventh century.[7] Traditionally, it is thought that the Talmud itself was compiled byRav Ashi andRavina II around 500 CE, although it is more likely that this happened in the middle of the sixth century.[8]
The word Talmud commonly refers to theBabylonian Talmud (Talmud Bavli) and not the earlierJerusalem Talmud (Talmud Yerushalmi).[9]
Talmud translates as "instruction, learning", from theSemitic rootlmd, meaning "teach, study".[10]
The Two Talmuds
In antiquity, the two major centres of Jewish scholarship were located inGalilee andBabylonia. A Talmud was compiled in each of these regional centres. The earlier of the two compilations took place in Galilee, either in the late fourth or early fifth century, and it came to be known as theJerusalem Talmud (orTalmud Yerushalmi). Later on, and likely some time in the sixth century, the Babylonian Talmud was compiled (Talmud Bavli). This later Talmud is usually what is being referred to when the word "Talmud" is used without qualification.[11] Traditions of the Jerusalem Talmud and its sages had a significant influence on the milieu out of which the Babylonian Talmud arose.[12][13]
A page of a medieval Jerusalem Talmud manuscript, from theCairo Geniza
The Jerusalem Talmud (Talmud Yerushalmi) is known by several other names, including the Palestinian Talmud[14] (which is more accurate, as it was not compiled in Jerusalem), or theTalmuda de-Eretz Yisrael ("Talmud of the Land of Israel").[15] The Jerusalem Talmud was a written codification of oral tradition that had been circulating for centuries[16] and represents a compilation of scholastic teachings and analyses on theMishnah (especially those concerning agricultural laws) found across regional centres of theLand of Israel now known as theAcademies in Galilee (principally those ofTiberias,Sepphoris, andCaesarea). It is written largely inJewish Palestinian Aramaic, aWestern Aramaic language that differs fromits Babylonian counterpart.[17][18] The compilation was likely made between the late fourth to the first half of the fifth century.[19][20]
Despite its incomplete state, the Jerusalem Talmud remains an indispensable source of knowledge of the development of the Jewish Law in the Holy Land. It was also an important primary source for the study of the Babylonian Talmud by theKairouan school ofChananel ben Chushiel andNissim ben Jacob, with the result that opinions ultimately based on the Jerusalem Talmud found their way into both theTosafot and theMishneh Torah ofMaimonides. Ethical maxims contained in the Jerusalem Talmud are scattered and interspersed in the legal discussions throughout the several treatises, many of which differ from those in the Babylonian Talmud.[21]
The Babylonian Talmud comprises theMishnah and the Babylonian Gemara, the latter representing the culmination of centuries of analysis and dialectic surrounding the Mishnah in the Talmudic Academies in Babylonia. According to tradition, the foundations of this process of analysis were laid byAbba Arika (175–247), a disciple ofJudah ha-Nasi. Tradition ascribes the compilation of the Babylonian Talmud in its present form to two Babylonian sages,Rav Ashi andRavina II.[24] Rav Ashi was president of the Sura Academy from 375 to 427. In this time, he began the creation of the written Talmud, a written project passed onto and completed by Ravina, the finalAmoraic expounder. Accordingly, the latest traditional date for the Talmud is often placed at 475, the year Ravina died. However, even on traditional views, a final redaction is still thought to have been made by theSavoraim ("reasoners", "considerers") in the sixth century.[25][26]
Comparison
Unlike the Western Aramaic dialect of the Jerusalem Talmud, the Babylonian Talmud has a Babylonian Aramaic dialect. The Jerusalem is also more fragmentary (and difficult to read) due to a less completeredactional process.[27] Discussions in the Babylonian Talmud are more discursive, rambling, rely more on anecdote and argumentation by syllogism andinduction, whereas those in the Jerusalem Talmud are more factual and apply argumentation through logicaldeduction. The Babylonian Talmud is much longer, with about 2.5 million words in total. Proportionally, more Babylonian material is non-legal (aggadah), constituting a third of its material, compared to a sixth of the Jerusalem.[28] The Babylonian Talmud has received significantly more interest and coverage from commentators.[29]
Maimonides drew influence from both Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, although he favored the latter over the former when principles between them conflicted.[30] As the Palestinian Jewish community declined in influence and the Babylonian community became the intellectual center of the Diaspora, the Babylonian Talmud became the more widely accepted and popular version.[28] Whereas the Jerusalem Talmud only includes the opinions of Israelite rabbis (theMa'arava), the Babylonian Talmud also includes Babylonian authorities, in addition to later authorities because of its later date. As such, it is regarded as more comprehensive.[31][32]
Neither covers the entire Mishnah. For example, the Babylonian commentary only covers 37 of 63 Mishnaic tractates. In particular:
The Jerusalem Talmud covers all the tractates ofZeraim, while the Babylonian Talmud covers only tractateBerachot. This might be because the agricultural concerns of Zeraim were not as notable in Babylonia.[33] As the Jerusalem Talmud was produced in the Land of Israel, it consequently has a greater interest in Israelite geography.
Unlike the Babylonian Talmud, the Jerusalem Talmud does not cover the MishnaicKodashim, which deals with sacrificial rites and laws pertaining to theTemple. A good explanation for this is not available, although there is some evidence that a now-lost commentary on this text once existed in the Jerusalem Talmud.
In both Talmuds, only one tractate ofTohorot (ritual purity laws) is examined, that of the menstrual laws (Niddah).
Structure
The structure of the Talmud follows that of the Mishnah, divided into Six Orders (known as theShisha Sedarim, orShas) of general subject matter are divided into 63 tractates (masekhtot; singular:masekhet) of more focused subject compilations, though not all tractates have Gemara. Each tractate is divided into chapters (perakim; singular:perek), 517 in total, that are both numbered according to theHebrew alphabet and given names, usually using the first one or two words in the first Mishnah. Aperek may continue over several (up to tens of)pages. Eachperek will contain severalmishnayot.[34]
TheMishnah is a compilation of legal opinions and debates. Statements in the Mishnah are typically terse, recording brief opinions of the rabbis debating a subject; or recording only an unattributed ruling, apparently representing a consensus view. The rabbis recorded in the Mishnah are known as theTannaim (literally, "repeaters", or "teachers"). These tannaim—rabbis of the second century CE—"who produced the Mishnah and other tannaic works, must be distinguished from the rabbis of the third to fifth centuries, known as amoraim (literally, "speakers"), who produced the two Talmudim and other amoraic works".[35]
Since it sequences its laws by subject matter instead of by biblical context, the Mishnah discusses individual subjects more thoroughly than theMidrash, and it includes a much broader selection of halakhic subjects than the Midrash. The Mishnah's topical organization thus became the framework of the Talmud as a whole. But not every tractate in the Mishnah has a corresponding Gemara. Also, the order of the tractates in the Talmud differs in some cases from that in theMishnah.
The Gemara constitutes the commentary portion of the Talmud. The Mishnah, and its commentary (the Gemara), together constitute the Talmud. This commentary arises from a longstanding tradition of rabbis analyzing, debating, and discussing the Mishnah ever since it had been published. The rabbis who participated in the process that produced this commentarial tradition are known as theAmoraim.[36] Each discussion is presented in a self-contained, edited passage known as asugya.[37]
Much of the Gemara is legal in nature. Each analysis begins with a Mishnaic legal statement. With each sugya, the statement may be analyzed and compared with other statements. This process can be framed as an exchange between two (often anonymous, possibly metaphorical) disputants, termed themakshan (questioner) andtartzan (answerer). Gemara also commonly tries to find the correct biblical basis for a given law in the Mishnah as well as the logical process that connects the biblical to the Mishnaic tradition. This process was known astalmud, long before the "Talmud" itself became a text.[38]
In addition, the Gemara contains a wide range of narratives, homiletical or exegetical passages, sayings, and other non-legal content, termedaggadah. A story told in a sugya of the Babylonian Talmud may draw upon the Mishnah, the Jerusalem Talmud, midrash, and other sources.[39]
The traditions that the Gemara comments on are not limited to what is found in the Mishnah, but the Baraita as well (a term that broadly designatesOral Torah traditions that did not end up in the Mishnah). Thebaraitot cited in the Gemara are often quotations from theTosefta (a tannaitic compendium of halakha parallel to the Mishnah) and theMidrash halakha (specificallyMekhilta, Sifra and Sifre). Somebaraitot, however, are known only through traditions cited in the Gemara, and are not part of any other collection.[40]
In addition to the Six Orders, the Talmud contains a series of short treatises of a later date, usually printed at the end of Seder Nezikin. These are not divided into Mishnah and Gemara.
Language
The work is largely inJewish Babylonian Aramaic, although quotations in theGemara of the Mishnah, theBaraitas andTanakh appear in Mishnaic or Biblical Hebrew.[41] Some other dialects of Aramaic occur in quotations of other older works, like theMegillat Taanit. The reason why earlier texts occur in Hebrew, and later texts in Aramaic, is because of the adoption of the latter (which was the spoken vernacular) by rabbinic circles during the period of theAmoraim (rabbis cited in the Gemara) beginning around the year 200.[42] A second Aramaic dialect is used inNedarim,Nazir,Temurah,Keritot, andMe'ilah; the second is closer in style to theTargum.[43]
The Talmud itself (BM 86a) incorporates a statement that "Ravina andRav Ashi were the end of instruction". Likewise,Sherira ben Hanina writes that "instruction ended" with the death ofRavina II in 811SE (500 CE), and "the Talmud stopped with the end of instruction in the days ofRabbah Jose (fl. 476-514)".[24]Seder Olam Zutta records that "in 811 SE (500 CE) Ravina the End of Instruction died, and the Talmud was stopped", and the same text is found in Codex Gaster 83.[49] Another medieval chronicle records that "On Wednesday, 13Kislev, 811 SE (500 CE), Ravina the End of Instruction son of Rav Huna died, and the Talmud stopped."[49]Abraham ibn Daud gives 821 SE (510 CE) for the same event, andJoseph ibn Tzaddik writes that "Mareimar andMar bar Rav Assi et al. completed the Babylonian Talmud . . . in 4265AM (505 CE)".[49]Nachmanides dated the Talmud's compilation to "400 years after theDestruction", which is 470 CE if taken as exact.[50] According toMoses da Rieti, "Ravina and Rav Ashi compiled the Talmud but they did not complete it, and Mar bar Rav Ashi and Mareimar et al. sealed it in the days of Rabbah Jose . . . he headed the academy for 38 years after succeeding Ravina, until 4274 AM (514 CE), and in his days the Babylonian Talmud was sealed, which was begun and largely redacted in the days of Rav Ashi and Ravina".[51]
TheWikkuah, a description of the 1240Disputation of Paris, records thatYechiel of Paris claimed that "the Talmud is 1,500 years old", which would put it in the 3rd century BCE. Pietro Capelli suggests that it must have been traditional among medieval Ashkenazic Jews to date the Talmud from its beginning instead of its completion. Later manuscripts of theWikkuah adopt the usual system of dating it to the time of Ravina II.Nicholas Donin, by contrast, claimed that the Talmud was only composeed "400 years" before, i.e. around 840 CE.[50]
Modern estimates
A wide range of dates have been proposed for the Babylonian Talmud by historians.[52][53] The text was most likely completed, however, in the 6th century, or prior to theearly Muslim conquests in the mid-7th century at the latest,[54] on the basis that the Talmud lacks loanwords or syntax deriving fromArabic.[55]
Recently, it has been extensively argued that Talmud is an expression and product ofSasanian culture,[56][57][58] as well as otherGreek-Roman,Middle Persian, andSyriac sources up to the same period of time.[59] The contents of the text likely trace to this time regardless of the date of the final redaction/compilation.[60]
From the time of its completion, the Talmud became integral to Jewish scholarship. A maxim inPirkei Avot advocates its study from the age of 15.[63] This section outlines some of the major areas of Talmudic study.
Legal interpretation
One area of Talmudic scholarship developed out of the need to ascertain theHalakha (Jewish rabbinical law). Early commentators such asIsaac Alfasi (North Africa, 1013–1103) attempted to extract and determine the binding legal opinions from the vast corpus of the Talmud. Alfasi's work was highly influential, attracted several commentaries in its own right and later served as a basis for the creation of halakhic codes. Another influential medieval Halakhic work following the order of the Babylonian Talmud, and to some extent modelled on Alfasi, was "theMordechai", a compilation byMordechai ben Hillel (c. 1250–1298). A third such work was that ofAsher ben Yechiel (d. 1327). All these works and their commentaries are printed in the Vilna and many subsequent editions of the Talmud.
A 15th-century Spanish rabbi,Jacob ibn Habib (d. 1516), compiled theEin Yaakov, which extracts nearly all theAggadic material from the Talmud. It was intended to familiarize the public with the ethical parts of the Talmud and to dispute many of the accusations surrounding its contents.
Geonic-era (6th-11th centuries) commentaries have largely been lost, but are known to exist from partial quotations in later medieval and early modern texts. Because of this, it is known that now-lost commentaries on the Talmud were written by Paltoi Gaon,Sherira,Hai Gaon, and Saadya (though in this case, Saadiya is not likely to be the true author).[64] Of these, the commentary ofPaltoi ben Abaye (c. 840) is the earliest. His son,Zemah ben Paltoi paraphrased and explained the passages which he quoted; and he composed, as an aid to the study of the Talmud, a lexicon whichAbraham Zacuto consulted in the fifteenth century.Saadia Gaon is said to have composed commentaries on the Talmud, aside from his Arabic commentaries on the Mishnah.[65]
The first surviving commentary on the entire Talmud is that ofChananel ben Chushiel. Many medieval authors also composed commentaries focusing on the content of specific tractates, includingNissim ben Jacob andGershom ben Judah.[66] The commentary ofRashi, covering most of the Talmud, has become a classic. Sections in the commentary covering a few tractates (Pes, BB and Mak) were completed by his students, especiallyJudah ben Nathan, and a sections dealing with specific tractates (Ned, Naz, Hor and MQ) of the commentary that appear in some print editions of Rashi's commentary today were not composed by him. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a genre of rabbinic literature emerged surrounding Rashi's commentary, with the purpose of supplementing it and addressing internal contradictions via the technique ofpilpul. This genre of commentary is known as theTosafot and focuses on specific passages instead of a running continuous commentary across the entire Talmud.[67]
Many Talmudic passages are difficult to understand, sometimes owing to the use of Greek or Persian loanwords whose meaning had become obscure. A major area of Talmudic scholarship developed to explain these passages and words. Some early commentators such as RabbenuGershom of Mainz (10th century) andRabbenu Ḥananel (early 11th century) produced running commentaries to various tractates. These commentaries could be read with the text of the Talmud and would help explain the meaning of the text. Another important work is theSefer ha-Mafteaḥ (Book of the Key) byNissim Gaon, which contains a preface explaining the different forms of Talmudic argumentation and then explains abbreviated passages in the Talmud by cross-referring to parallel passages where the same thought is expressed in full. Commentaries (ḥiddushim) byJoseph ibn Migash on two tractates, Bava Batra and Shevuot, based on Ḥananel and Alfasi, also survive, as does a compilation byZechariah Aghmati calledSefer ha-Ner.[68]
TheTosafot are collected commentaries by various medieval Ashkenazic rabbis on the Talmud (known asTosafists orBa'alei Tosafot). One of the main goals of theTosafot is to explain and interpret contradictory statements in the Talmud. Unlike Rashi, theTosafot is not a running commentary, but rather comments on selected matters. Often the explanations ofTosafot differ from those of Rashi.[65]
Among the founders of the Tosafist school wereRabbeinu Tam, who was a grandson of Rashi, and, Rabbenu Tam's nephew,Isaac ben Samuel. The Tosafot commentaries were collected in different editions in the various schools. The benchmark collection of Tosafot for Northern France was that ofEliezer of Touques. The standard collection for Spain wasRabbenu Asher'sTosefot haRosh. The Tosafot that are printed in the standard Vilna edition of the Talmud are an edited version compiled from the various medieval collections, predominantly that of Touques.[69]
A recent project,Halacha Brura, founded byAbraham Isaac Kook, presents the Talmud and a summary of the halachic codes side by side, so as to enable the "collation" of Talmud with resultant Halacha.[70]
Pilpul
During the 15th and 16th centuries, a new intensive form of Talmud study arose. Complicated logical arguments were used to explain minor points of contradiction within the Talmud. The termpilpul was applied to this type of study. Usage ofpilpul in this sense (that of "sharp analysis") harks back to the Talmudic era and refers to the intellectual sharpness this method demanded.
Pilpul practitioners posited that the Talmud could contain no redundancy or contradiction whatsoever. New categories and distinctions (hillukim) were therefore created, resolving seeming contradictions within the Talmud by novel logical means.
In theAshkenazi world the founders ofpilpul are generally considered to beJacob Pollak (1460–1541) andShalom Shachna. This kind of study reached its height in the 16th and 17th centuries when expertise in pilpulistic analysis was considered an art form and became a goal in and of itself within the yeshivot of Poland and Lithuania. But the popular new method of Talmud study was not without critics; already in the 15th century, the ethical tractOrhot Zaddikim ("Paths of the Righteous" in Hebrew) criticized pilpul for an overemphasis on intellectual acuity. Many 16th- and 17th-century rabbis were also critical of pilpul. Among them areJudah Loew ben Bezalel (theMaharal of Prague),Isaiah Horowitz, andYair Bacharach.
By the 18th century, pilpul study waned. Other styles of learning such as that of the school of Elijah b. Solomon, theVilna Gaon, became popular. The term "pilpul" was increasingly applied derogatorily to novellae deemed casuistic and hairsplitting. Authors referred to their own commentaries as "al derekh ha-peshat" (by the simple method)[71] to contrast them with pilpul.[72]
Sephardic approaches
AmongSephardi andItalian Jews from the 15th century on, some authorities sought to apply the methods ofAristotelian logic, as reformulated byAverroes.[73] This method was first recorded, though without explicit reference to Aristotle, byIsaac Campanton (d. Spain, 1463) in hisDarkhei ha-Talmud ("The Ways of the Talmud"),[74] and is also found in the works ofMoses Chaim Luzzatto.[75]
According to the present-day Sephardi scholarJosé Faur, traditional Sephardic Talmud study could take place on any of three levels.[76]
The most basic level consists of literary analysis of the text without the help of commentaries, designed to bring out thetzurata di-shema'ta, i.e. the logical and narrative structure of the passage.[77]
The intermediate level,iyyun (concentration), consists of study with the help of commentaries such asRashi and theTosafot, similar to that practiced among theAshkenazim.[78] Historically Sephardim studied theTosefot ha-Rosh and the commentaries of Nahmanides in preference to the printed Tosafot.[79] A method based on the study of Tosafot, and of Ashkenazi authorities such asMaharsha (Samuel Edels) andMaharshal (Solomon Luria), was introduced in late seventeenth centuryTunisia by rabbis Abraham Hakohen (d. 1715) and Tsemaḥ Tsarfati (d. 1717) and perpetuated by rabbiIsaac Lumbroso[80] and is sometimes referred to as 'Iyyun Tunisa'i.[81]
The highest level,halachah (Jewish law), consists of collating the opinions set out in the Talmud with those of the halachic codes such as theMishneh Torah and theShulchan Aruch, so as to study the Talmud as a source of law; the equivalent Ashkenazi approach is sometimes referred to as being "aliba dehilchasa".
Brisker method
In the late 19th century another trend in Talmud study arose.Hayyim Soloveitchik (1853–1918) of Brisk (Brest-Litovsk) developed and refined this style of study.Brisker method involves areductionistic analysis of rabbinic arguments within the Talmud or among theRishonim, explaining the differing opinions by placing them within a categorical structure. The Brisker method is highly analytical and is often criticized as being a modern-day version ofpilpul. Nevertheless, the influence of the Brisker method is great. Most modern-day Yeshivot study the Talmud using the Brisker method in some form. One feature of this method is the use ofMaimonides'Mishneh Torah as a guide to Talmudic interpretation, as distinct from its use as a source of practicalhalakha.
The text of the Talmud has been subject to some level of critical scrutiny throughout its history. Rabbinic tradition holds that the people cited in both Talmuds did not have a hand in its writings; rather, their teachings were edited into a rough form around 450 CE (Talmud Yerushalmi) and 550 CE (Talmud Bavli.) The text of the Bavli especially was not firmly fixed at that time.
Gaonic responsa literature addresses this issue. Teshuvot Geonim Kadmonim, section 78, deals with mistaken biblical readings in the Talmud. This Gaonic responsum states:
... But you must examine carefully in every case when you feel uncertainty [as to the credibility of the text] – what is its source? Whether a scribal error? Or the superficiality of a second rate student who was not well versed?....after the manner of many mistakes found among those superficial second-rate students, and certainly among those rural memorizers who were not familiar with the biblical text. And since they erred in the first place... [they compounded the error.]
— Teshuvot Geonim Kadmonim, Ed. Cassel, Berlin 1858, Photographic reprint Tel Aviv 1964, 23b.
In the early medieval era, Rashi already concluded that some statements in the extant text of the Talmud were insertions from later editors. On Shevuot 3b Rashi writes "A mistaken student wrote this in the margin of the Talmud, and copyists [subsequently] put it into the Gemara."[a]
Early modern era
The emendations ofYoel Sirkis and the Vilna Gaon are included in all standard editions of the Talmud, in the form of marginal glosses entitledHagahot ha-Bach andHagahot ha-Gra respectively; further emendations bySolomon Luria are set out in commentary form at the back of each tractate. The Vilna Gaon's emendations were often based on his quest for internal consistency in the text rather than on manuscript evidence;[83] nevertheless many of the Gaon's emendations were later verified by textual critics, such asSolomon Schechter, who hadCairo Genizah texts with which to compare our standard editions.[84]
Contemporary scholarship
In the 19th century,Raphael Nathan Nota Rabinovicz published a multi-volume work entitledDikdukei Soferim, showing textual variants from the Munich and other early manuscripts of the Talmud, and further variants are recorded in the Complete Israeli Talmud andGemara Shelemah editions (seeCritical editions, above).
Today many more manuscripts have become available, in particular from theCairo Geniza. TheAcademy of the Hebrew Language has prepared a text on CD-ROM for lexicographical purposes, containing the text of each tractate according to the manuscript it considers most reliable,[85] and images of some of the older manuscripts may be found on the website of theNational Library of Israel (formerly the Jewish National and University Library).[86] The NLI, the Lieberman Institute (associated with theJewish Theological Seminary of America), the Institute for the Complete Israeli Talmud (part of Yad Harav Herzog) and the Friedberg Jewish Manuscript Society all maintain searchable websites on which the viewer can request variant manuscript readings of a given passage.[87]
Some trends within contemporary Talmud scholarship are listed below.
Orthodox Judaism maintains that theoral Torah was revealed, in some form, together with the written Torah. As such, some adherents, most notablySamson Raphael Hirsch and his followers, resisted any effort to apply historical methods that imputed specific motives to the authors of the Talmud. Other major figures in Orthodoxy, however, took issue with Hirsch on this matter, most prominentlyDavid Tzvi Hoffmann.[88]
Some scholars hold that there has been extensive editorial reshaping of the stories and statements within the Talmud. Lacking outside confirming texts, they hold that we cannot confirm the origin or date of most statements and laws, and that we can say little for certain about their authorship. In this view, the questions above are impossible to answer. See, for example, the works ofLouis Jacobs andShaye J.D. Cohen.
Some scholars hold that the Talmud has been extensively shaped by later editorial redaction, but that it contains sources we can identify and describe with some level of reliability. In this view, sources can be identified by tracing the history and analyzing the geographical regions of origin. See, for example, the works ofLee I. Levine and David Kraemer.
Some scholars hold that many or most of the statements and events described in the Talmud usually occurred more or less as described, and that they can be used as serious sources of historical study. In this view, historians do their best to tease out later editorial additions (itself a very difficult task) and skeptically view accounts of miracles, leaving behind a reliable historical text. See, for example, the works ofSaul Lieberman,David Weiss Halivni, andAvraham Goldberg.
Modern academic study attempts to separate the different "strata" within the text, to try to interpret each level on its own, and to identify the correlations between parallel versions of the same tradition. In recent years, the works ofDavid Weiss Halivni and Shamma Friedman have suggested a paradigm shift in the understanding of the Talmud (Encyclopaedia Judaica 2nd ed. entry "Talmud, Babylonian"). The traditional understanding was to view the Talmud as a unified homogeneous work. While other scholars had also treated the Talmud as a multi-layered work, Halivni's innovation (primarily in the second volume of hisMekorot u-Mesorot) was to differentiate between the Amoraic statements, which are generally brief Halachic decisions or inquiries, and the writings of the later "Stammaitic" (or Saboraic) authors, which are characterised by a much longer analysis that often consists of lengthy dialectic discussion. The Jerusalem Talmud is very similar to the Babylonian Talmud minus Stammaitic activity (Encyclopaedia Judaica (2nd ed.), entry "Jerusalem Talmud"). Shamma Y. Friedman'sTalmud Aruch on the sixth chapter of Bava Metzia (1996) is the first example of a complete analysis of a Talmudic text using this method. S. Wald has followed with works on Pesachim ch. 3 (2000) and Shabbat ch. 7 (2006). Further commentaries in this sense are being published by Friedman's "Society for the Interpretation of the Talmud".[89]
Some scholars are indeed using outside sources to help give historical and contextual understanding of certain areas of the Babylonian Talmud. See for example the works of Yaakov Elman[90] and of his student Shai Secunda,[91] which seek to place the Talmud in its Iranian context, for example by comparing it with contemporaryZoroastrian texts.
There are six contemporary translations of the Talmud into English:
Steinsaltz
Adin Steinsaltz began his translation of the Babylonian Talmud into modern Hebrew (the original is mostly Aramaic with some Mishnaic Hebrew) in 1969 and completed it in 2010. (He also translated some tractates of the Jerusalem Talmud.) The Hebrew edition is printed in two formats: the original one in a new layout and the later one in the format of the traditional Vilna Talmud page; both are available in several sizes. The first attempt to translate the Steinsaltz edition into English wasThe Talmud: The Steinsaltz Edition (Random House), which contains the original Hebrew-Aramaic text with punctuation and an English translation based on Steinsaltz' completeHebrew language translation of and commentary on the entire Talmud. This edition began to be released in 1989 but was never completed; only four tractates were printed in 21 volumes, with a matching Reference Guide translated from a separate work of Steinsaltz. Portions of the Steinsaltz Talmud have also been translated into French, Russian, and other languages.
The Noé Edition of theKoren Talmud Bavli, published byKoren Publishers Jerusalem was launched in 2012. It has a new, modern English translation and the commentary ofAdin Steinsaltz, and was praised for its "beautiful page" with "clean type".[92] From the right side cover (the front side of Hebrew and Aramaic books),the Steinsaltz Talmud edition has the traditional Vilna page with vowels and punctuation in the original Aramaic text. TheRashi commentary appears inRashi script with vowels and punctuation. From the left side cover the edition features bilingual text with side-by-side English/Aramaic translation. The margins include color maps, illustrations and notes based onAdin Steinsaltz'sHebrew language translation and commentary of the Talmud.Tzvi Hersh Weinreb serves as the Editor-in-Chief. The entire set was completed in 42 volumes.
In February 2017, theWilliam Davidson Talmud was released toSefaria.[93] This translation is a version of the Noé Steinsaltz edition above, which was released undercreative commons license.[94]
Artscroll
The Schottenstein Babylonian Talmud in a synagogue inRaanana, Israel
TheSchottenstein Edition of the Talmud (Artscroll/Mesorah Publications), is 73 volumes,[95] in an English translation edition[96] and a Hebrew translation edition.[97] In the translated editions, each English or Hebrew page faces the Aramaic/Hebrew page it translates. Each Aramaic/Hebrew page of Talmud typically requires three to six English or Hebrew pages of translation and notes. The Aramaic/Hebrew pages are printed in the traditional Vilna format, with a gray bar added that shows the section translated on the facing page. The facing pages provide an expanded paraphrase in English or Hebrew, with translation of the text shown in bold and explanations interspersed in normal type, along with extensive footnotes. Pages are numbered in the traditional way but with a superscript added, e.g. 12b4 is the fourth page translating the Vilna page 12b. Larger tractates require multiple volumes. The first volume was published in 1990, and the series was completed in 2004.
Soncino
The Soncino Talmud (34 volumes, 1935–1948, with an additional index volume published in 1952 and a two-volume translation of the Minor Tractates later),[98][99]Isidore Epstein, Soncino Press. An 18 volume edition was published in 1961. Notes on each page provide additional background material. This translation:Soncino Babylonian Talmud is published both in English and in a parallel text edition, in which each English page faces the Aramaic/Hebrew page. It is also available on CD-ROM. Complete.
In addition, a 7x5in travel or pocket edition[100] was published in 1959. This edition opens from the left for English and the notes, and from the right for the Aramaic, which, unlike the other editions, does not use standard Vilna Talmud page; instead, another older edition is used, in which each standard Talmud page is divided in two.[101]
Other English translations
The Talmud of Babylonia. An American Translation,Jacob Neusner, Tzvee Zahavy, others. Atlanta: 1984–1995: Scholars Press for Brown Judaic Studies. Complete.
Rodkinson: Portions[102] of the Babylonian Talmud were translated byMichael L. Rodkinson (1903). It has been linked to online, for copyright reasons (initially it was the only freely available translation on the web), but this has been wholly superseded by the Soncino translation. (see below, underFull text resources).
The Babylonian Talmud: A Translation and Commentary, edited by Jacob Neusner[103] and translated by Jacob Neusner, Tzvee Zahavy, Alan Avery-Peck, B. Barry Levy, Martin S. Jaffe, and Peter Haas, Hendrickson Pub; 22-Volume Set Ed., 2011. It is a revision of "The Talmud of Babylonia: An Academic Commentary," published by the University of South Florida Academic Commentary Series (1994–1999). Neusner gives commentary on transition in use langes from Biblical Aramaic to Biblical Hebrew. Neusner also gives references to Mishnah, Torah, and other classical works in Orthodox Judaism.
Translations into other languages
TheExtractiones de Talmud, aLatin translation of some 1,922 passages from the Talmud, was made in Paris in 1244–1245. It survives in two recensions. There is acritical edition of the sequential recension:
Cecini, Ulisse; Cruz Palma, Óscar Luis de la, eds. (2018).Extractiones de Talmud per ordinem sequentialem. Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 291. Brepols.
The Talmud was translated byShimon Moyal into Arabic in 1909.[106] There is one translation of the Talmud into Arabic, published in 2012 in Jordan by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. The translation was carried out by a group of 90 Muslim and Christian scholars.[107] The introduction was characterized by Raquel Ukeles, Curator of the Israel National Library's Arabic collection, as "racist", but she considers the translation itself as "not bad".[108]
In 2018 Muslim-majorityAlbania co-hosted an event at the United Nations with Catholic-majority Italy and Jewish-majority Israel celebrating the translation of the Talmud into Italian for the first time.[109] Albanian UN AmbassadorBesiana Kadare opined: "Projects like the Babylonian Talmud Translation open a new lane in intercultural and interfaith dialogue, bringing hope and understanding among people, the right tools to counter prejudice, stereotypical thinking and discrimination. By doing so, we think that we strengthen our social traditions, peace, stability — and we also counter violent extremist tendencies."[110]
In 2012, a first volume of the Talmud Bavli was published in Spanish by Tashema. It was translated in Jerusalem under the yeshiva directed by Rav Yaakov Benaim. It includes the translation and explanation of theMishnah andGemara, and the commentaries byRashi andTosafot. By 2023, 19 volumes have been published.[111][112]
Index
"A widely accepted and accessible index"[113] was the goal driving several such projects.:
Mafteah haTalmud (1910-1930). Breslau: D. Rotenberg. The individual work ofMichael Guttmann [he]. Only four volumes were released before the remainder was lost in manuscript duringThe Holocaust.[114]
The first complete edition of the Babylonian Talmud was printed in Venice byDaniel Bomberg 1520–23[118][119][120][121] with the support ofPope Leo X.[122][123][124][125] In addition to theMishnah andGemara, Bomberg's edition contained the commentaries ofRashi andTosafot. Almost all printings since Bomberg have followed the same pagination. Bomberg's edition was considered relatively free of censorship.[126]
Froben Talmud 1578
Ambrosius Frobenius collaborated with the scholar Israel Ben Daniel Sifroni from Italy. His most extensive work was a Talmud edition published, with great difficulty, in 1578–81.[127]
Benveniste Talmud 1645
FollowingAmbrosius Frobenius's publication of most of the Talmud in installments in Basel,Immanuel Benveniste published the whole Talmud in installments in Amsterdam 1644–1648,[128] Although according to Raphael Rabbinovicz the Benveniste Talmud may have been based on theLublin Talmud and included many of the censors' errors.[129] "It is noteworthy due to the inclusion ofAvodah Zarah, omitted due to Church censorship from several previous editions, and when printed, often lacking a title page.[130]
Slavita Talmud 1795 and Vilna Talmud 1835
The edition of the Talmud published by the Szapira brothers inSlavita[131] was published in 1817,[132] and it is particularly prized by manyrebbes ofHasidic Judaism. In 1835, after a religious community copyright[133][134] was nearly over,[135] and following an acrimonious dispute with the Szapira family, a new edition of the Talmud was printed by Menachem Romm ofVilna.
Known as theVilna Edition Shas, this edition (and later ones printed by his widow and sons, theRomm publishing house) has been used in the production of more recent editions of Talmud Bavli.
A page number in the Vilna Talmud refers to a double-sided page, known as adaf, or folio in English; each daf has twoamudim labeledא andב, sides A and B (recto and verso). The convention of referencing bydaf is relatively recent and dates from the early Talmud printings of the 17th century, though the actual pagination goes back to the Bomberg edition. Earlierrabbinic literature generally refers to the tractate or chapters within a tractate (e.g. Berachot Chapter 1,ברכות פרק א׳). It sometimes also refers to the specific Mishnah in that chapter, where "Mishnah" is replaced with "Halakha", here meaning route, to "direct" the reader to the entry in the Gemara corresponding to that Mishna (e.g. Berachot Chapter 1 Halakha 1,ברכות פרק א׳ הלכה א׳, would refer to the first Mishnah of the first chapter in Tractate Berachot, and its corresponding entry in the Gemara). However, this form is nowadays more commonly (though not exclusively) used when referring to the Jerusalem Talmud. Nowadays, reference is usually made in format [Tractate daf a/b] (e.g. Berachot 23b,ברכות כג ב׳). Increasingly, the symbols "." and ":" are used to indicate Recto and Verso, respectively (thus, e.g. Berachot 23:,:ברכות כג). These references always refer to the pagination of the Vilna Talmud.
The text of the Vilna editions is considered by scholars not to be uniformly reliable, and there have been a number of attempts to collate textual variants.
In the late 19th century, Nathan Rabinowitz published a series of volumes calledDikduke Soferim showing textual variants from early manuscripts and printings.
In 1960, work started on a new edition under the name ofGemara Shelemah (complete Gemara) under the editorship ofMenachem Mendel Kasher: only the volume on the first part of tractate Pesachim appeared before the project was interrupted by his death. This edition contained a comprehensive set of textual variants and a few selected commentaries.
Some thirteen volumes have been published by the Institute for the Complete Israeli Talmud (a division of Yad Harav Herzog), on lines similar to Rabinowitz, containing the text and a comprehensive set of textual variants (from manuscripts, early prints and citations in secondary literature) but no commentaries.[136]
There have been critical editions of particular tractates (e.g.Henry Malter's edition ofTa'anit), but there is no modern critical edition of the whole Talmud. Modern editions such as those of the Oz ve-Hadar Institute correct misprints and restore passages that in earlier editions were modified or excised by censorship but do not attempt a comprehensive account of textual variants. One edition, by Yosef Amar,[137] represents the Yemenite tradition, and takes the form of a photostatic reproduction of a Vilna-based print to which Yemenite vocalization and textual variants have been added by hand, together with printed introductory material. Collations of the Yemenite manuscripts of some tractates have been published by Columbia University.[138]
Editions for a wider audience
A number of editions have been aimed at bringing the Talmud to a wider audience. Aside from the Steinsaltz and Artscroll/Schottenstein sets there are:
The Metivta edition, published by the Oz ve-Hadar Institute. This contains the full text in the same format as the Vilna-based editions,[139] with a full explanation in modern Hebrew on facing pages as well as an improved version of the traditional commentaries.[140]
A previous project of the same kind, calledTalmud El Am, "Talmud to the people", was published in Israel in the 1960s–80s. It contains Hebrew text, English translation and commentary byArnost Zvi Ehrman, with short 'realia', marginal notes, often illustrated, written by experts in the field for the whole of Tractate Berakhot, 2 chapters of Bava Mezia and the halachic section of Qiddushin, chapter 1.
Tuvia'sGemara Menukad:[139] includes vowels and punctuation (Nekudot), including for Rashi and Tosafot.[139] It also includes "all the abbreviations of thatamud on the side of each page."[141]
Incomplete sets from prior centuries
Amsterdam (1714,Proops Talmud andMarches/de Palasios Talmud): Two sets were begun in Amsterdam in 1714, a year in which "acrimonious disputes between publishers within and between cities" regarding reprint rights also began. The latter ran 1714–1717. Neither set was completed, although a third set was printed 1752–1765.[133]
Other notable editions
Lazarus Goldschmidt published an edition from the "uncensored text" of the Babylonian Talmud with a German translation in 9 volumes (commenced Leipzig, 1897–1909, edition completed, following emigration to England in 1933, by 1936).[142]
Twelve volumes of the Babylonian Talmud were published by Mir Yeshiva refugees during the years 1942 thru 1946 while they were inShanghai.[143] The major tractates, one per volume, were: "Shabbat, Eruvin, Pesachim, Gittin, Kiddushin, Nazir, Sotah, Bava Kama, Sanhedrin, Makot, Shevuot, Avodah Zara"[144] (with some volumes having, in addition, "Minor Tractates").[145]
ASurvivors' Talmud was published, encouraged by President Truman's "responsibility toward these victims of persecution" statement. The U.S. Army (despite "the acute shortage of paper in Germany") agreed to print "fifty copies of the Talmud, packaged into 16-volume sets" during 1947–1950.[146] The plan was extended: 3,000 copies, in 19-volume sets.
In visual arts
In Carl Schleicher's paintings
Rabbis and Talmudists studying and debating Talmud abound in the art of Austrian painterCarl Schleicher (1825–1903); active in Vienna, especiallyc. 1859–1871.
Solomon's Haggadoth, bronze relief from the Knesset Menorah, Jerusalem, by Benno Elkan, 1956
Hilel's Teachings, bronze relief from the Knesset Menorah
Jewish Mysticism: Jochanan ben Sakkai, bronze relief from the Knesset Menorah
Yemenite Jews studying Torah in Sana'a
Reception outside of Judaism
Christianity
The study of Talmud is not restricted to those of the Jewish religion and has attracted interest in other cultures. Christian scholars have long expressed an interest in the study of Talmud, which has helped illuminate their own scriptures. Talmud contains biblical exegesis and commentary onTanakh that will often clarify elliptical and esoteric passages. The Talmud contains possible references toJesus and his disciples, while theChristian canon makes mention of Talmudic figures and contains teachings that can be paralleled within the Talmud andMidrash. The Talmud provides cultural and historical context to theGospel and the writings of theApostles.[148]
South Korea
South Koreans reportedly hope to emulate Jews' high academic standards by studying Jewish literature. Almost every household has a translated copy of a book they call "Talmud", which parents read to their children, and the book is part of the primary-school curriculum.[149][150] The "Talmud" in this case is usually one of several possible volumes, the earliest translated into Korean from the Japanese. The original Japanese books were created through the collaboration of Japanese writerHideaki Kase andMarvin Tokayer, an Orthodox American rabbi serving in Japan in the 1960s and 70s. The first collaborative book was5,000 Years of Jewish Wisdom: Secrets of the Talmud Scriptures, created over a three-day period in 1968 and published in 1971. The book contains actual stories from the Talmud, proverbs, ethics, Jewish legal material, biographies of Talmudic rabbis, and personal stories about Tokayer and his family. Tokayer and Kase published a number of other books on Jewish themes together in Japanese.[151]
The first South Korean publication of5,000 Years of Jewish Wisdom was in 1974, by Tae Zang publishing house. Many different editions followed in both Korea and China, often by black-market publishers. Between 2007 and 2009, Yong-soo Hyun of the Shema Yisrael Educational Institute published a 6-volume edition of the Korean Talmud, bringing together material from a variety of Tokayer's earlier books. He worked with Tokayer to correct errors and Tokayer is listed as the author. Tutoring centers based on this and other works called "Talmud" for both adults and children are popular in Korea and "Talmud" books (all based on Tokayer's works and not the original Talmud) are widely read and known.[151]
Defenders of the Talmud point out that many of these criticisms, particularly those in antisemitic sources, are based on quotations that are taken out of context, and thus misrepresent the meaning of the Talmud's text and its basic character as a detailed record of discussions that preserved statements by a variety of sages, and from which statements and opinions that were rejected were never edited out.
Sometimes the misrepresentation is deliberate, and other times simply due to an inability to grasp the subtle and sometimes confusing and multi-faceted narratives in the Talmud. Some quotations provided by critics deliberately omit passages in order to generate quotes that appear to be offensive or insulting.[173][174]
Middle Ages
At the very time that theBabyloniansavoraim put the finishing touches to the redaction of the Talmud, theemperorJustinian issued his edict againstdeuterosis (doubling, repetition) of theHebrew Bible.[175] It is disputed whether, in this context,deuterosis means "Mishnah" or "Targum": inpatristic literature, the word is used in both senses.
Full-scale attacks on the Talmud took place in the 13th century in France, where Talmudic study was then flourishing. In the 1230sNicholas Donin, a Jewish convert to Christianity, pressed 35 charges against the Talmud toPope Gregory IX by translating a series of allegedly blasphemous passages aboutJesus,Mary or Christianity. There is a quoted Talmudic passage, for example, where a person named Yeshu who some people have claimed isJesus of Nazareth is sent to Gehenna to beboiled in excrement for eternity. Donin also selected an injunction of the Talmud that permits Jews to kill non-Jews. This led to theDisputation of Paris, which took place in 1240 at the court ofLouis IX of France, where four rabbis, includingYechiel of Paris andMoses ben Jacob of Coucy, defended the Talmud against the accusations of Nicholas Donin. The translation of the Talmud from Aramaic to non-Jewish languages stripped Jewish discourse from its covering, something that was resented by Jews as a profound violation.[176] The Disputation of Paris led to the condemnation and the first burning of copies of the Talmud in Paris in 1242.[177][178][b] The burning of copies of the Talmud continued.[179]
The Talmud was likewise the subject of theDisputation of Barcelona in 1263 betweenNahmanides and Christian converts in which they argued if Jesus was the messiah prophesized in Judaism,Pablo Christiani. This same Pablo Christiani made an attack on the Talmud that resulted in apapal bull against the Talmud and in the first censorship, which was undertaken at Barcelona by a commission ofDominicans, who ordered the cancellation of passages deemed objectionable from a Christian perspective (1264).[180][181]
At theDisputation of Tortosa in 1413, Geronimo de Santa Fé brought forward a number of accusations, including the fateful assertion that the condemnations of "pagans", "heathens", and "apostates" found in the Talmud were, in reality, veiled references to Christians. These assertions were denied by the Jewish community and its scholars, who contended that Judaic thought made a sharp distinction between those classified as heathen or pagan, being polytheistic, and those who acknowledge one true God (such as the Christians) even while worshipping the true monotheistic God incorrectly. Thus, Jews viewed Christians as misguided and in error, but not among the "heathens" or "pagans" discussed in the Talmud.[181]
Both Pablo Christiani and Geronimo de Santa Fé, in addition to criticizing the Talmud, also regarded it as a source of authentic traditions, some of which could be used as arguments in favor of Christianity. Examples of such traditions were statements that the Messiah was born around the time of the destruction of the Temple and that the Messiah sat at the right hand of God.[182]
In 1415,Antipope Benedict XIII, who had convened the Tortosa disputation, issued apapal bull (which was destined, however, to remain inoperative) forbidding the Jews to read the Talmud, and ordering the destruction of all copies of it. Far more important were the charges made in the early part of the 16th century by the convertJohannes Pfefferkorn, the agent of the Dominicans. The result of these accusations was a struggle in which the emperor and the pope acted as judges, the advocate of the Jews beingJohann Reuchlin, who was opposed by the obscurantists; and this controversy, which was carried on for the most part by means of pamphlets, became in the eyes of some a precursor of theReformation.[181][183]
An unexpected result of this affair was the complete printed edition of the Babylonian Talmud issued in 1520 byDaniel Bomberg atVenice, under the protection of a papal privilege.[184] Three years later, in 1523, Bomberg published the first edition of the Jerusalem Talmud. After thirty years the Vatican, which had first permitted the Talmud to appear in print, undertook a campaign of destruction against it. On the New Year, Rosh Hashanah (September 9, 1553) the copies of the Talmud confiscated in compliance with a decree of theInquisition were burned atRome, in Campo dei Fiori (auto de fé). Other burnings took place in other Italian cities, such as the one instigated byJoshua dei Cantori atCremona in 1559. Censorship of the Talmud and other Hebrew works was introduced by a papal bull issued in 1554; five years later the Talmud was included in the firstIndex Expurgatorius; andPope Pius IV commanded, in 1565, that the Talmud be deprived of its very name. The convention of referring to the work as "Shas" (shishah sidre Mishnah) instead of "Talmud" dates from this time.[185]
The first edition of the expurgated Talmud, on which most subsequent editions were based, appeared atBasel (1578–1581) with the omission of the entire treatise of 'Abodah Zarah and of passages considered inimical to Christianity, together with modifications of certain phrases. A fresh attack on the Talmud was decreed byPope Gregory XIII (1575–85), and in 1593Clement VIII renewed the old interdiction against reading or owning it.[citation needed] The increasing study of the Talmud in Poland led to the issue of a complete edition (Kraków, 1602–05), with a restoration of the original text; an edition containing, so far as known, only two treatises had previously been published atLublin (1559–76). After an attack on the Talmud took place in Poland (in what is now Ukrainian territory) in 1757, whenBishop Dembowski, at the instigation of theFrankists, convened a public disputation atKamieniec Podolski, and ordered all copies of the work found in his bishopric to be confiscated and burned.[186] A "1735 edition of Moed Katan, printed in Frankfurt am Oder" is among those that survived from that era.[143] "Situated on the Oder River, Three separate editions of the Talmud were printed there between 1697 and 1739."
The external history of the Talmud includes also the literary attacks made upon it by some Christian theologians after the Reformation since these onslaughts on Judaism were directed primarily against that work, the leading example beingEisenmenger'sEntdecktes Judenthum (Judaism Unmasked) (1700).[187][188][189] In contrast, the Talmud was a subject of rather more sympathetic study by many Christian theologians, jurists and Orientalists from theRenaissance on, includingJohann Reuchlin,John Selden,Petrus Cunaeus,John Lightfoot andJohannes Buxtorf father andson.[190]
19th century and after
TheVilna edition of the Talmud was subject to Russian government censorship, or self-censorship to meet government expectations, though this was less severe than some previous attempts: the title "Talmud" was retained and the tractate Avodah Zarah was included. Most modern editions are either copies of or closely based on the Vilna edition, and therefore still omit most of the disputed passages. Although they were not available for many generations, the removed sections of the Talmud, Rashi, Tosafot and Maharsha were preserved through rare printings of lists oferrata, known asChesronos Hashas ("Omissions of the Talmud").[191] Many of these censored portions were recovered from uncensored manuscripts in theVatican Library. Some modern editions of the Talmud contain some or all of this material, either at the back of the book, in the margin, or in its original location in the text.[192]
In 1830, during a debate in theFrench Chamber of Peers regarding state recognition of the Jewish faith, AdmiralVerhuell declared himself unable to forgive the Jews whom he had met during his travels throughout the world either for their refusal to recognizeJesus as theMessiah or for their possession of the Talmud.[193] In the same year theAbbé Chiarini published a voluminous work entitledThéorie du Judaïsme, in which he announced a translation of the Talmud, advocating for the first time a version that would make the work generally accessible, and thus serve for attacks on Judaism: only two out of the projected six volumes of this translation appeared.[194] In a like spirit 19th-century antisemitic agitators often urged that a translation be made; and this demand was even brought before legislative bodies, as inVienna. The Talmud and the "Talmud Jew" thus became objects of antisemitic attacks, for example inAugust Rohling'sDer Talmudjude (1871), although, on the other hand, they were defended by many Christian students of the Talmud, notablyHermann Strack.[195]
HistoriansWill andAriel Durant noted a lack of consistency between the many authors of the Talmud, with some tractates in the wrong order, or subjects dropped and resumed without reason. According to the Durants, the Talmud "is not the product of deliberation, it is the deliberation itself."[199]
Contemporary accusations
The Internet is another source of criticism of the Talmud.[198] TheAnti-Defamation League's report on this topic states that antisemitic critics of the Talmud frequently use erroneous translations or selective quotations in order to distort the meaning of the Talmud's text, and sometimes fabricate passages. In addition, the critics rarely provide the full context of the quotations and fail to provide contextual information about the culture that the Talmud was composed in, nearly 2,000 years ago.[200]
One such example concerns the line: "If a Jew be called upon to explain any part of the rabbinic books, he ought to give only a false explanation. One who transgresses this commandment will be put to death." This is alleged to be a quote from a book titledLibbre David (alternativelyLivore David ). No such book exists in the Talmud or elsewhere.[201] The title is assumed to be a corruption ofDibre David, a work published in 1671.[202] Reference to the quote is found in an earlyHolocaust denial book,The Six Million Reconsidered by William Grimstad.[203]
Gil Student, Book Editor of the Orthodox Union'sJewish Action magazine, states that many attacks on the Talmud are merely recycling discredited material that originated in the 13th-century disputations, particularly fromRaymond Marti andNicholas Donin, and that the criticisms are based on quotations taken out of context and are sometimes entirely fabricated.[204]
^As Yonah Fraenkel shows in his bookDarko Shel Rashi be-Ferusho la-Talmud ha-Bavli, one of Rashi's major accomplishments was textual emendation. Rabbenu Tam, Rashi's grandson and one of the central figures in the Tosafist academies, polemicizes against textual emendation in his less studied workSefer ha-Yashar. However, the Tosafists, too, emended the Talmudic text (See e.g.Baba Kamma 83bs.v.af haka'ah ha'amurah orGittin 32as.v. mevutelet) as did many other medieval commentators (see e.g. R. Shlomo ben Aderet,Hiddushei ha-Rashb"a al ha-Sha"s toBaba Kamma 83b, or Rabbenu Nissim's commentary to Alfasi onGittin 32a).
^For a Hebrew account of the Paris Disputation, see Jehiel of Paris, "The Disputation of Jehiel of Paris" (Hebrew), inCollected Polemics and Disputations, ed. J.D. Eisenstein, Hebrew Publishing Company, 1922; Translated and reprinted by Hyam Maccoby inJudaism on Trial: Jewish-Christian Disputations in the Middle Ages, 1982
^Safrai, S. (1969). "The Era of the Mishnah and Talmud (70–640)". In Ben-Sasson, H.H. (ed.).A History of the Jewish People. Translated by Weidenfeld, George. Harvard University Press (published 1976). p. 379.ISBN9780674397316.The influence of the Babylonian geonim ... also weighted the scales in favour of the Talmud of their land, which they introduced and taught in all the Diaspora communities of the Middle Ages, as well as in the Land of Israel. Thus the Babylonian Talmud gained primary influence on Jewish history throughout the ages. It became the basic - and in many places almost the exclusive ~ asset of Jewish tradition, the foundation of all Jewish thought and aspirations and the guide for the daily life of the Jew. Other components of national culture were made known only in so far as they were embedded in the Talmud. In almost every period and community until the modern age, the Talmud was the main object of Jewish study and education; all the external conditions and events of life seemed to be but passing incidents, and the only true, permanent reality was that of the Talmud.
^Goldberg, Abraham (1987). "The Palestinian Talmud". In Safrai, Shmuel (ed.).The Literature of the Jewish People in the Period of the Second Temple and the Talmud, Volume 3 The Literature of the Sages. Brill. pp. 303–322.doi:10.1163/9789004275133_008.ISBN9789004275133.
^Cohen, Barak S. (2017).For Out of Babylonia Shall Come Torah and the Word of the Lord from Nehar Peqod: The Quest for Babylonian Tannaitic Traditions. Brill.ISBN978-90-04-34702-1.
^Schiffman, Lawrence (1991).From Text to Tradition: A History of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism. Ktav Publishing House. p. 227.ISBN978-0-88125-372-6.
^Reynold Nicholson (2011).A Literary History of the Arabs. Project Gutenberg, with Fritz Ohrenschall, Turgut Dincer, Sania Ali Mirza. RetrievedMay 20, 2021.
^Amsler, Monika (2023).The Babylonian Talmud and late antique book culture. Cambridge: Cambridge university press. p. 127.ISBN978-1-009-29733-2.
^Joseph Telushkin (26 April 1991),Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People and Its History, HarperCollins,ISBN0-68808-506-7
^Strack, Hermann L.; Stemberger, Günter; Bockmuehl, Markus N. A.; Strack, Hermann L. (1996).Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash (2. Fortress Press ed., with amendations and updates ed.). Minneapolis, Minn: Fortress Press.ISBN978-0-8006-2524-5.
^e.g.Pirkei Avot 5.21: "five for the Torah, ten for Mishnah, thirteen for the commandments, fifteen fortalmud".
^Rubenstein, Jeffrey L. (1999).Talmudic stories: narrative art, composition, and culture. Baltimore, MD London: Johns Hopkins University Press.ISBN978-0-8018-6146-8.
^David Halivni,Midrash, Mishnah, and Gemara: The Jewish Predilection for Justified Law (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 93–101.ISBN9780674038158
^Sáenz-Badillos, Ángel and John Elwolde. 1996. A history of the Hebrew language. pp. 170–171: "There is general agreement that two main periods of RH (Rabbinical Hebrew) can be distinguished. The first, which lasted until the close of the Tannaitic era (around 200 CE), is characterized by RH as a spoken language gradually developing into a literary medium in which the Mishnah, Tosefta,baraitot, and Tannaiticmidrashim would be composed. The second stage begins with theAmoraim, and sees RH being replaced by Aramaic as the spoken vernacular, surviving only as a literary language. Then it continued to be used in later rabbinic writings until the 10th century in, for example, the Hebrew portions of the two Talmuds and in midrashic and haggadic literature."
^abcdefghAmsler, Monika (2023).The Babylonian Talmud and late antique book culture. Cambridge: Cambridge university press. pp. 219–220.ISBN978-1-009-29733-2.
^Strauch Schick, Shana (2021).Intention in Talmudic law: between thought and deed. The Brill Reference Library of Judaism. Leiden Boston (Mass.): Brill. p. 10.ISBN978-90-04-43303-8.
^abStemberger, Günter; Cordoni, Constanza; Langer, Gerhard (2016).Let the wise listen and add to their learning (Prov. 1:5): festschrift for Günter Stemberger on the occasion of his 75th birthday. Studia Judaica. Berlin Boston (Mass.): De Gruyter. pp. 606–609.ISBN978-3-11-044103-1.
^of Rieti, Moses ben Isaac (1851).מקדש מעט (in Hebrew). דפוס אלמנת י"פ זולינגער. pp. 93r –93v.
^The New Testament and rabbinic literature. Supplements to the journal for the study of Judaism. Leiden: Brill. 2010. p. 82.ISBN978-90-04-17588-4.
^Amsler, Monika (2023).The Babylonian Talmud and late antique book culture. Cambridge: Cambridge university press. pp. 122–123.ISBN978-1-009-29733-2.
^abAmsler, Monika (2023).The Babylonian Talmud and late antique book culture. Cambridge: Cambridge university press. p. 123.ISBN978-1-009-29733-2.
^Kiel, Yishai (2016).Sexuality in the Babylonian Talmud: Christian and Sasanian contexts in late antiquity. New York (N.Y.): Cambridge university press. p. 9.ISBN978-1-107-15551-0.
^Secunda, Shai (2014).The Iranian Talmud: reading the Bavli in its Sasanian context. Divinations: rereading late ancient religion. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.ISBN978-0-8122-4570-7.
^Amsler, Monika (2023).The Babylonian Talmud and late antique book culture. Cambridge: Cambridge university press. p. 128.ISBN978-1-009-29733-2. On the precise date of Pirkoi's letter cf. I. Gafni, 'How Babylonia Became Zion: Shifting Identities in Late Antiquity', in: L.I. Levine and D.R. Schwartz (eds),Jewish Identities in Antiquity: Studies in Memory of Menahem Stern (Tübingen, 2009), p. 333 n. 2.
^Amsler, Monika (2023).The Babylonian Talmud and late antique book culture. Cambridge: Cambridge university press. pp. 127–131.ISBN978-1-009-29733-2.
^As Pirkei Avot is a tractate of the Mishnah, and reached its final form centuries before the compilation of either Talmud, this refers totalmud as an activity rather than to any written compilation.
^Al means on.Derekh mean path. PaShoot, the Hebrew root inha-peshat, meanssimple. The prefix "ha-" meansthe."691 Kapah". Archived fromthe original on 2019-10-03. Retrieved2019-10-03.According to the plain sense (ve-al derekh ha-peshat)
^SeePilpul,Mordechai Breuer, inEncyclopaedia Judaica, Vol. 16, 2nd Ed (2007), Macmillan Reference and H.H. Ben Sasson,A History of the Jewish People, pp. 627, 717.
^Kol Melechet Higgayon, the Hebrew translation of Averroes' epitome of Aristotle's logical works, was widely studied in northern Italy, particularlyPadua.
^Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin.The Censor, the Editor, and the Text: The Catholic Church and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon in the Sixteenth Century. Trans. Jackie Feldman. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. viii + 314ISBN978-0-8122-4011-5. p. 104
^Battegay, Lubrich, Caspar, Naomi (2018).Jewish Switzerland: 50 Objects Tell Their Stories (in German and English). Basel: Christoph Merian. pp. 54–57.ISBN978-3-85616-847-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Christiane Berkvens-StevelinckLe Magasin De L'Univers – The Dutch Republic As the Centre of the European Book Trade (Brill's Studies in Intellectual History)
^Printing the Talmud: a history of the individual treatises p. 239, Marvin J. Heller (1999) "The Benveniste Talmud, according to Rabbinovicz, was based on the Lublin Talmud which included many of the censors' errors"
^MJ Heller (2018).Amsterdam: Benveniste Talmud in: Printing the Talmud.
^"embroiled leading rabbis in Europe .. rival editions of the Talmud"
^the wording was that the sets printed could be sold. All full sets were sold, although individual volumes remained. The systems of dealers did not facilitate knowing exactly how many individual volumes were still in dealer hands.
^Friedman, "Variant Readings in the Babylonian Talmud – A Methodological Study Marking the Appearance of 13 Volumes of the Institute for the Complete Israeli Talmud's Edition," Tarbiz 68 (1998).
^The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia. Isaac Landman (1941) "His greatest work was the translation of the entire Babylonian Talmud into German, which, as it was made from the uncensored text and was the only complete translation in a European language, was of great value for students."[ISBN missing]
^Gittin. Rest of inside coverpage Hebrew, but bottom has (in English) Jewish Bookstore, J. Geseng, Shanghai, 1942:Sh.B. Eliezer (October 29, 1999). "More on Holocaust Auctions on the Internet".The Jewish Press. p. 89.
^The Talmud: The Steinsaltz Edition, pp. 103–104Heller, Marvin J. (1999).Printing the Talmud: a history of the individual treatises printed from 1700 to 1750. Basel: Brill Publishers. pp. 17, 166.
^"The Talmud in Anti-Semitic Polemics"(PDF) (Press release).Anti-Defamation League. February 2003. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on August 5, 2010. RetrievedSeptember 16, 2010.By selectively citing various passages from the Talmud andMidrash, polemicists have sought to demonstrate that Judaism espouses hatred for non-Jews (and specifically for Christians), and promotes obscenity, sexual perversion, and other immoral behavior. To make these passages serve their purposes, these polemicists frequently mistranslate them or cite them out of context (wholesale fabrication of passages is not unknown)....In distorting the normative meanings of rabbinic texts, anti-Talmud writers frequently remove passages from their textual and historical contexts. Even when they present their citations accurately, they judge the passages based on contemporary moral standards, ignoring the fact that the majority of these passages were composed close to two thousand years ago by people living in cultures radically different from our own. They are thus able to ignore Judaism's long history of social progress and paint it instead as a primitive and parochial religion. Those who attack the Talmud frequently cite ancient rabbinic sources without noting subsequent developments in Jewish thought, and without making a good-faith effort to consult with contemporary Jewish authorities who can explain the role of these sources in normative Jewish thought and practice.
^The Six Million Reconsidered: A Special Report by the Committee for Truth in History, p. 16Historical Review Press, 1979
^Student, Gil (2000)."The Real Truth About The Talmud". RetrievedSeptember 16, 2010.Anti-Talmud accusations have a long history dating back to the 13th century when the associates of the Inquisition attempted to defame Jews and their religion [see Yitzchak Baer,A History of Jews in Christian Spain, vol. I pp. 150–185]. The early material compiled by hateful preachers like Raymond Martini and Nicholas Donin remain the basis of all subsequent accusations against the Talmud. Some are true, most are false and based on quotations taken out of context, and some are total fabrications [see Baer, ch. 4 f. 54, 82 that it has been proven that Raymond Martini forged quotations]. On the Internet today we can find many of these old accusations being rehashed...
Nathan T. Lopes CardozoThe Infinite Chain: Torah, Masorah, and Man (Philipp Feldheim, 1989).ISBN0-944070-15-9
Aryeh Carmell (December 1986).Aiding Talmud study. Feldheim Publishers.ISBN978-0-87306-428-6. Retrieved29 August 2011. (includes Samuel ha-Nagid'sMevo ha-Talmud, see next section)
Levy, Richard S.,Antisemitism: a historical encyclopedia of prejudice and persecution, Volume 2, ABC-CLIO, 2005. See articles: "Talmud Trials", "Entdecktes Judenthum", "The Talmud Jew", "David Duke", "August Rohling", and "Johannes Pfefferkorn".
Daniel Boyarin,Sephardi Speculation: A Study in Methods of Talmudic Interpretation (Hebrew), Machon Ben Zvi: Jerusalem, 1989
Yaakov Elman, "Order, Sequence, and Selection: The Mishnah’s Anthological Choices,” inDavid Stern, ed.The Anthology in Jewish Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) 53–80
Y.N. Epstein,Mevo-ot le-Sifrut haTalmudim
Uziel Fuchs,Talmudam shel Geonim: yaḥasam shel geone Bavel lenosaḥ ha-Talmud ha-Bavli (The Geonic Talmud: the Attitude of Babylonian Geonim to the Text of the Babylonian Talmud): Jerusalem 2017
David Weiss Halivni,Mekorot u-Mesorot (Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1982 on)
Louis Jacobs, "How Much of the Babylonian Talmud is Pseudepigraphic?" Journal of Jewish Studies 28, No. 1 (1977), pp. 46–59
Saul Lieberman,Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1950)
![A Controversy Whatsoever on Talmud[147]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aCarl_Schleicher_Eine_Streitfrage_aus_dem_Talmud.jpg)
