The Project Gutenberg eBook, Hebraic Literature; Translations from the
Talmud, Midrashim and Kabbala, by Various, et al, Edited by Maurice Henry
Harris

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and
Kabbala

Author: Various

Release Date: December 16, 2004 [eBook #14368]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HEBRAIC LITERATURE; TRANSLATIONS
FROM THE TALMUD, MIDRASHIM AND KABBALA***

E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, David King, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

HEBRAIC LITERATURE; TRANSLATIONS FROM THE TALMUD, MIDRASHIM AND KABBALA

Tudor Publishing Co.
New York
1943

SPECIAL INTRODUCTION

Among the absurd notions as to what the Talmud was, given credence in
the Middle Ages, one was that it was a man! The mediaeval priest or
peasant was perhaps wiser than he knew. Almost, might we say, the Talmud
was Man, for it is a record of the doings, the beliefs, the usages, the
hopes, the sufferings, the patience, the humor, the mentality, and the
morality of the Jewish people for half a millennium.

What is the Talmud? There is more than one answer. Ostensibly it is the
_corpus juris_ of the Jews from about the first century before the
Christian era to about the fourth after it. But we shall see as we
proceed that the Talmud was much more than this. The very word "Law" in
Hebrew--"Torah"--means more than its translation would imply. The Jew
interpreted his whole religion in terms of law. It is his name in fact
for the Bible's first five books--the Pentateuch. To explain what the
Talmud is we must first explain the theory of its growth more remarkable
perhaps than the work itself. What was that theory? The Divine Law was
revealed to Moses, not only through the Commands that were found written
in the Bible, but also through all the later rules and regulations of
post-exilic days. These additional laws it was presumed were handed down
orally from Moses to Joshua, thence to the Prophets, and later still
transmitted to the Scribes, and eventually to the Rabbis. The reason why
the Rabbis ascribed to Moses the laws