FREE INTRODUCTION TO THE TALMUD AND MIDRASH PDF Hermann L Strack,GГјnter Stemberger,Professor of Biblical and Early Christian Studies Markus Bockmuehl,Stemberger,Professor of Religion Jacob Neusner | 472 pages | 01 Jan 2009 | Augsburg Fortress | 9780800625245 | English | Minneapolis, United States The Midrash: Introduction AMONG the thousand odds and ends of wisdom and fantasy stored up for us within the Midrash is the statement that all of the Jewish law would have been written out for the people, as was the Torah, or Five Bible Books of Moses, only "God saw that the Torah would eventually be translated into Greek, and published as though it were the law entrusted to Greeks," meaning Gentiles. Hence Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash Talmud and Midrash, "the oral law, the key to and interpreter of the written law, being entrusted to Israelites only, the Jews alone have the whole of God's word with the interpretation in full. This will make clear, at least from the Hebrew viewpoint, the value of the Midrash. It is the last and final word given as "explanation" of the Holy Scriptures. Some Midrashim, or explanations of the Bible, have of Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash always existed among the Hebrews. The Talmud, as pointed out in the preceding volume, consists of such early explanations as were accepted as authoritative and incorporated in the Jewish faith before A. During the Middle Ages a large number of such Midrashim were written. Most of these deal with some particular book of the Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash. A studious rabbi would resolve to write a Midrash upon Genesis or upon Exodus and would collect all he had learned upon the theme from earlier teachers. Some studious successor would copy this book and enlarge it, adding a Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash points culled from another Midrash. Sometimes the new work became known by the reviser's name, sometimes it retained that of the earlier writer. In that way we have often several very different forms of a Midrash, all going under the same name. The present Midrash, therefore, is a loose collection of commentaries, said to be founded on traditions as old as the Bible and Talmud. Some of its books are reputed to have originated with noted rabbis of the third and fourth centuries. But we can not trace any of its known books of to-day back to such a high antiquity, and where one still retains some antique writer's name we can be sure that it has been changed and changed and changed again, until very little of the reputed author's work remains. Perhaps the oldest of the surviving Midrashim is that known as the Mekilta; but the Mekilta is almost wholly a textual commentary. That is, it confines itself to explaining Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash exact shades of grammar and meaning in the Bible text. As Christian scholars wholly reject these elaborate textual commentaries, modern readers will find far more interest in the oldest Midrash, which, going beyond mere definition of the text, illustrates its points with examples and thus recalls some vision of the past. This still vivid and living Midrash is the Tanhuma. It is so called because its origin is attributed to a learned Palestinian rabbi, Tanhuma, who lived in the fourth century; but our present Midrash Tanhuma can not have been composed before the seventh century. It is still, of course, chiefly concerned with grammar and text, so that only the essence of its more living spirit is given here. After this we print, in the same concentrated form, the living items or bits of still interesting information gleaned from the most celebrated of the later Midrashim. These are the "Rabba," or a collection of commentaries on ten of the most sacred of the Biblical books, more especially on the five books of Moses. Among these the Genesis Rabba, which is known as the Bereshith, is regarded as particularly venerable, and sacred. No part of the Rabba, however, seems likely to have been written before the ninth century, and most of it is of about the twelfth century. Only, when we speak of such comparatively. In illustration of what is still being done by modern Hebrew scholars with the mass of the Midrash, we close our section on its books with the story of the king of demons, Ashmedai. This has been put together by a modern rabbi, who, going carefully through the Midrash, collected all its references to Ashmedai and so built up the life-story of the demon-king. Talmud and Midrash | Judaism | Britannica The term "Talmud" normally refers to the collection of writings named specifically the Babylonian Talmud Talmud Bavlialthough Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash is also an earlier collection known as the Jerusalem Talmud Talmud Yerushalmi. The term "Talmud" may refer to either the Gemara alone, or the Mishnah and Gemara together. The entire Talmud consists of 63 tractatesand in the standard print, called the Vilna Shasit is 2, double-sided folios. The Talmud is the basis for all codes of Jewish law and is widely quoted in rabbinic literature. Talmud translates as "instruction, learning", from the Semitic root LMDmeaning "teach, study". Originally, Jewish scholarship was oral and transferred from one Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash to the next. Rabbis expounded and debated the Torah the written Torah expressed Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash the Hebrew Bible and discussed the Tanakh without the benefit of written works other than the Biblical books themselvesthough some may have made private notes megillot setarimfor example, of court decisions. This situation changed drastically, mainly as the result of the destruction of the Jewish Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash and the Second Temple in the year 70 and the consequent upheaval of Jewish social and legal norms. As the rabbis were required to face a new reality—mainly Judaism without a Temple to serve as the center Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash teaching and study and Judeathe Roman province, without at least partial autonomy—there was a flurry of legal discourse and the old system of oral scholarship could not be maintained. It is during this period that rabbinic discourse began to be recorded in writing. The oldest full manuscript of the Talmud, known as the Munich Talmud Codex Hebraicus 95dates from and is available online. The process of "Gemara" proceeded in what were then the two major centers of Jewish scholarship, Galilee and Babylonia. Correspondingly, two bodies of analysis developed, and two works of Talmud were created. The older compilation is called the Jerusalem Talmud or the Talmud Yerushalmi. It was compiled in the 4th century in Galilee. The Babylonian Talmud was compiled about the yearalthough it continued to be edited later. The word "Talmud", when used without qualification, usually refers to the Babylonian Talmud. While the editors of Jerusalem Talmud and Babylonian Talmud each mention the other community, most scholars believe these documents were written independently; Louis Jacobs writes, "If the editors of either had had access to an actual text of the other, it is inconceivable that they would not have mentioned this. Here the argument from silence is very convincing. The Jerusalem Talmudalso Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash as the Palestinian Talmud, or Talmuda de-Eretz Yisrael Talmud of the Land of Israelwas one of the two compilations of Jewish religious teachings and commentary that was transmitted orally for centuries prior to its compilation by Jewish scholars in the Land of Israel. It is written largely in Jewish Palestinian Aramaica Western Aramaic language that differs from its Babylonian counterpart. This Talmud is a synopsis of the analysis of the Mishnah that was developed over the course of nearly years by the Academies in Galilee principally those of Tiberias and Caesarea. Because of their location, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash sages of these Academies devoted considerable attention to the analysis of the agricultural laws of the Land of Israel. It is traditionally known as the Talmud Yerushalmi "Jerusalem Talmud"but the name is a misnomer, as it was not prepared in Jerusalem. It has more accurately been called "The Talmud of the Land of Israel". Its final redaction probably belongs to the end of the 4th century, but the individual scholars who brought it to its present form cannot be fixed with assurance. By this time Christianity had become the state religion of the Roman Empire and Jerusalem the holy city of Christendom. In Constantine the Greatthe first Christian emperor, said "let us then have nothing in common with the Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash Jewish crowd. The compilers of the Jerusalem Talmud consequently lacked the time to produce a work of the quality they had intended. The text is evidently incomplete and is not easy to follow. The apparent cessation of work on the Jerusalem Talmud in the 5th century has been associated with the Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash of Theodosius II in to suppress the Patriarchate and put an end to the practice of semikhahformal scholarly ordination. Some modern scholars have questioned this connection. 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 resource in the study of the Babylonian Talmud by the Kairouan school of Chananel ben Chushiel and Nissim ben Jacobwith the result that opinions ultimately based on the Jerusalem Talmud found their way into both the Tosafot and the Mishneh Torah of Maimonides. Following the formation of the modern state of Israel there is some interest in restoring Eretz Yisrael traditions.