Mishnah, but they differ from and are sometimes older than the Mishnic material, with which they sometimes conflict (so in particular as regards the rejected decisions of the school of Shammai). They usually begin: “our Masters taught,” “it is taught,” or “he taught,” the verb tĕnā (cf. Tannā’īm, “teachers”) being employed (see further Jew. Ency., ii. 513 seq.). Parallel to the Mishnah is the Tōsephtā, an independent compilation associated with R. Nehemiah (a contemporary of Meir and Simeon b. Yoḥai), Ḥiyya b. Abba and others; it is arranged according to the Mishnic orders and tractates, but lacks IV. 9 and V. 9–11. The halakoth are fuller and sometimes older than the corresponding decisions in the Mishnah, and the treatment is generally more haggadic.[1] The method of making the discussions part of an interpretation of the Old Testament (halakic Midrash), as exemplified in the Tōsephtā, is apparently older than the abstract and independent decisions of the Mishnah—which presuppose an acquaintance with the Pentateuchal basis—and, like the employment of narrative or historical Midrash (e.g. in the Pentateuch, Chronicles and Jubilees), was more suitable for popular exposition than for the academies. For other halakic literature which goes back to the period of the Tannā’īm, see the Mekiltā, Siphrā and Siphrē, art. Midrash, § 5, 1–3.
The Palestinian Talmud, although used by the Qaraites in their controversies, fell into neglect, and the Babylonian recension became, what it has since been, the authoritative guide. With the Gĕōnīm, the heads of Sura and Pumbeditha (about 589–1038), we enter upon another stage. The “canonical” Mishnah and Gemara were now the objects of study, and the scattered Jews appealed to the central bodies of Judaism in Babylonia for information and guidance. The Geonim in their “Responses” or “Questions and Answers” supplied authoritative interpretations of the Old Testament or of the Talmud, and regulated the application of the teaching of the past to the changed conditions under which their brethren now lived. The legal, religious and other decisions formulated in the pontifical communications of one generation usually became the venerated teaching of the next, and a new class of literature thus sprang into existence. (See Gaon.) Meanwhile, as the Babylonian schools decayed, Talmudic learning was assiduously pursued outside its oriental home, and some Babylonian Talmudists apparently reached the West. However, the fortunes of the Talmud in a hostile world now become part of the history of the Jews, and the many interesting vicissitudes cannot be recapitulated here. (See Jews, §§ 44 sqq.) To the use of the Pal. Talmud by the Qaraites in their controversies with the Rabbis we owe the preservation of this recension, incomplete though it is. To the intolerance of Christians are no doubt due the rarity of old MSS., and the impure state of the text of both Talmuds. At the same time, the polemics had useful results since the literary controversy in the 16th century (when Johann Reuchlin took the part of the Jews) led to the editio princeps of the Babylonian Talmud (Vienna, 1520–23). A change shows itself in the second edition (Basel, 1578–81), when the ‘Abōdāh Zārāh (above, § 1. IV. 8) was omitted, and passages which offended the Christians were cancelled or modified.[2]
Owing to the nature of its contents the Talmud stood sorely in need of aids and guides, and a vast amount of labour (of varying value) has been devoted to it by Jewish scholars. Of the many commentaries the first place must be given to that of R. Solomon Izhaki of Troyes (see Rashi); his knowledge of contemporary tradition and his valuable notes make it a new starting point in the interpretation of the Talmud. To Rashi's disciples are due the Tōsāphōth “additions,” which, with the commentary of “the Commentator,” as he was styled, are often reproduced in printed editions of the Talmud. This school (France and Germany, 12th to 13th century) developed a casuistical and over-ingenious interpretation—in contrast to the Spanish Talmudists who aimed at simplification and codification—and it drew upon it the saying of Naḥmanides (13th cent.): “They try to force an elephant through the eye of a needle.” Important also are the introduction to and commentary upon the Mishnah by Maimonides (q.v.), and the commentary of Rabbenu Obadiah di Bertinoro (died 1510). Both have often been printed; they were translated by Surenhusius (Amsterdam, 1698–1703). See Jew. Ency., xii. 27–30.
Systematic abstracts of the legal parts of the Talmud were made by Isaac Alfazi (or “Riph,” 1013–1103), and by Maimonides (Mishneh Torah, otherwise called Sepher ha-Yād or Yād ha-Ḥăzākāh). The latter prepared a great summary of all Jewish religious and civil law, the standard work upon which Christian theologians from the 16th century onwards based their studies—and also their criticisms—of early Rabbinism. Jacob b. Asher b. Yeḥiel in his Ṭūrīm (“rows”) presented a well-arranged collection of those laws which had not become obsolete together with the addition of new ones. Most important of all, however, is Joseph Caro's Shulḥān ‘Ārūk (“prepared table”), which came in the age of printing (1565), leapt into popularity, and has been, in its turn, the subject of many commentaries and hand-books. This great work systematized Talmudic law in all its developments, ancient and modern, written and oral (I. Abrahams, Jew. Lit., London, 1906, p. 147 seq.; see also Jew. Ency., iii., 584 sqq.). The lengthy history of the written and oral law thus reached its last stage in a work which grew out of the Talmud but had its roots in a more distant past. It was at the dawn of a period when the ancient codes which had been continuously reinterpreted or readjusted were to be re-examined under the influence of newer ideas and methods of study.[3]
The haggadic portions of the Talmud were collected: (a) from the Bab. recension, in the Haggadoth ha-Talmud (Constantinople, 1511) and in Jacob ibn Ḥabib's ‘En (eye, well of) Jacob (Salonika, 1516); and (b) from the Pal., by Samuel Yapheh (Venice, 1589), and in the Yalkūt Shimeoni (see Midrash, § 5, 9). These are superseded by the recent translations made by A. Wünsche (Jer. T., Zürich, 1880; Bab. T., Leipzig, 1886–9).
The standard lexicon was the ‘Ārūk(h) of Nathan b. Yeḥiel of Rome (c. 1100) which underlies all subsequent works, notably the great Aruch Completum of A. Kohut (Vienna, 1878–1892; supplement, New York, 1892); see further Jew. Ency., iv. 580 seq. Modern dictionaries of the older Rabbinical writings have been made by J. Levy (Leipzig, 1876), M. Jastrow (London and New York, 1886), G. Dalman (Frankfort-on-Main, 1901). More technical is W. Bacher's Exeget. Terminologie d. jüd. Traditions-lit. (Leipzig, 1905).
The grammatical aids are modern. For Mishnic Hebrew, see A. Geiger (Breslau, 1845), Strack and Siegfried (Leipzig, 1884), and M. H. Segal's essay on the relation between Mishnic and Biblical Hebrew (Jew. Quart. Rev., xx. 647–737); for Western Aramaic, especially G. Dalman, Jüd. Pal. Aram. (Leipzig, 1905); for Eastern Aram., S. D. Luzzatto (Eng. trans, by Goldammer, 1877), C. Levias (Cincinnati, 1900), M. L. Margolis (Munich, 1910), and also T. Nöldeke's Mandäische Gramm. (Halle, 1875).
The text of the Talmud has been badly preserved; much useful critical work has been done by R. Rabbinovicz, Variae Lectiones (Munich, 1876–86) for the Bab. T., and by B. Ratner, Ahavath Zion (in Heb., Wilna, 1901–2) for the Jer. T. As regards translations (a subject critically handled by E. Bischoff, Frankfort-on-Main, 1899) and texts, few are satisfactory; some have already been mentioned in § 1 ; for a full list see Strack's Einleitung, pp. 144–155. One may, however, mention the translations in English by D. A. de Sola and M. J. Raphall (18 Mishnic tractates; London 1843); J. Barclay (also a selection of 18; London, 1878), and the (abbreviated) edition of the Bab. Talm. with text and translation by M. L. Rodkinson (New York, 1869 sqq.). The Bab. text with a German translation has been edited by L. Goldschmidt (Berlin, 1897 sqq.). The Palest. Talm. has been translated into French by M. Schwab (Paris, 1871 sqq.).
5. Features of Interest and Value.—Although the Midrashim do not hold the authoritative position which the Talmud enjoys, the two groups cannot be kept apart in any consideration of the interesting or valuable features of the old Rabbinical writings. Viewed as a whole they have the characteristics of other Palestinian literature, the merits and defects of other oriental works. As regards the Talmud, neither the Mishnah nor the subsequent Gemara aimed at presenting a digested corpus of law. It is really a large collection of opinions and views, a remarkably heterogeneous mixture of contents, for which the history of its growth is no doubt largely responsible. It appals the reader with its irregularity of treatment, its variations of style, and its abrupt transitions from the spiritual to the crude and trivial, and from superstition to the purest insight. Like the Koran it is often concise to obscurity and cannot be translated literally;
- ↑ Lat. transl. of Orders I.— III., V., by Ugolinus, Thes., xvii.-xx., recent ed. by M. S. Zuckermandel (Pasewalk, 1880); see Jew. Ency., xii. 207 sqq.
- ↑ On the censorship and burning of the Talmud, see Jew. Ency., iii. 642 sqq., xii. 22; Strack, 71 seq., 78 sqq.
- ↑ It is interesting to compare the development of Jewish law with that of the Mahommedan, Roman and English systems, the points of resemblance and difference being extremely suggestive for other studies. On the Jewish codifiers generally, see S. Daiches in L. Simon's Aspects of Heb. Genius (London, 1910), pp. 87 sqq.
