text have, as a rule, been adhered to in citations, while any discrepancies between them and those of the Authorized Version have been duly noted
In thus keeping abroad of the times in Biblical matters, The Jewish Encyclopedia aims to acquaint the student with the results of modern research in many fields that are altogether new and bristling with interesting discoveries. This feature of the work extends over the fields of Assyriology, Egyptology, and archeological investigation in Palestine, the inexhaustible treasures of which are now constantly casting unexpected light on every branch of Biblical history and archeology. The soil of Africa has within the last thirty years enriched our knowledge of the life of the Jews of Egypt, and many apocryphal works unearthed there form a valuable link in connecting the Old Testament with the New, and the Biblical with the Rabbinical literature. The nineteenth century witnessed a great advance in the investigation of Hellenistic literature. The forms and syntactical constructions of the Hellenistic dialect have been set forth in dictionaries and grammars, so as greatly to facilitate the study of the documents. Valuable critical and Hellenistic
Literature. exegetical works have shed light upon such topics as the texts of the Septuagint, of Aquila, and of Theodotion. Two new editions of Josephus have appeared, and the sources of his history have been investigated. The dates and origins of the apocryphal and pseudepigraphic books have been approximately determined. Around Philo of Alexandria, a whole literature has grown up, and the true nature of his thought has been fairly well established. The result has been to determine with some definiteness the relation of the Hellenistic literature to the Jewish and Greek thought of the period, and its position in the general intellectual development of the age which produced Christianity. In these investigations Jewish scholars have taken a distinguished part. It has been the aim of The Jewish Encyclopedia to present in the most thorough manner the results achieved by critical investigations in the domain of Hellenistic literature. Of all Hellenistic productions of Jewish interest critical accounts and critical discussions are given, and the necessity of apprehending the ideas contained in them as products of their times, and of tracing their origin and development and their influence on contemporary and on later life, has constantly been kept in view. The New Testament, as representing the rise of a new religion, stands in a separate category of its own; yet from one point of view it may be regarded as a Hellenistic work—some of its authors having been Jews who wrote in Greek and more or less under the influence of Greek thought—and therefore its literature properly finds a place in the Encyclopedia.
The Talmud is a world of its own, awaiting the attention of the modern reader. In its encyclopedic compass it comprises all the variety of thought and opinions, of doctrine Talmud. and science, accumulated by the Jewish people in the course of than seven centuries, and formulated for the most part by their teachers. Full of the loftiest spiritual truth and of fantastic imagery, of close and learned legal disquisition and of extravagant exegesis, of earnest doctrine and of minute casuistry, of accurate knowledge and of popular conception, it invites the world of to-day to a closer acquaintance with its voluminous contents. The Jewish Encyclopedia has allotted to the subject of the Talmud an amount of space commensurate with its importance. Besides the rabbinical treatment of Biblical topics referred to, the Talmudic department includes these two great divisions known as the Halakah and the Haggadah, the one representing the development of the law, civil, criminal, and ceremonial; the other, the growth, progressive and reactionary, of the ethical principles of the Torah. The legal topics are treated from a strictly objective point of view, irrespective of their application, or even applicability, to our own days and conditions, but with incidental comparisons with Greek and Roman or with modern law, such as may be of interest to
