What is the Talmud?

The great repository of Jewish opinion is the Talmud, to which we have already referred. It is a very complex congeries of ceremonial ordinances, moral tales, poetry, philosophy, grounded upon tradition. It forms the text-book of the Rabbinical Jews, and is divided into two parts, the Mishna (repetition, cf. Deuteronomy) or Text, written in a corrupted form of Hebrew, belonging to the second or third century A.C., and the Gemara (completion) or Commentary, written in Aramaic of a developed type, which is referred to the fourth and fifth centuries. The Jews commonly mean by 'Talmud' the Commentary alone, for this is in most esteem: an illustration of the strange but common fact that Commentaries in time override the authority of the Text they profess merely to explain. We may compare amongst the Hindoos the Mitakshara superseding the Institutes of Manu, in Islam the Hedaya being looked to rather than the Koran. So powerfully did the study of the Mishna operate upon the relations between Jews and Christians, that the Emperor Justinian thought fit to issue an edict (Novel 146) in which he enjoined the Jews to use the Scriptures in Greek or other languages, the better to understand them, and to discontinue their employment of the Mishna δευτέρωσις (deuterosis), which he described as 'an invention of men speaking from the earth alone and possessed of nothing divine.' This was in the year 553.

The Jewish Commentary again divides into the Palestinian, dating from the fourth, and the Babylonian, dating, if Deutsch were right, from the fifth century, representing the traditions respectively most in favour among the Jews of Palestine and of Babylonia.

We spoke, in our last article, of the division of Jews into two great classes:— the Hebrews, who spoke or used Aramaic; and the Grecians who spoke and used Greek. The latter seem to have disappeared soon after the publication of christianity. Those who were not absorbed into the church, gave up all their differences with other Jews, and were in no way distinguished from them. There were two centres about which they chiefly congregated. The one was at Tiberias in Galilee, within the Roman Empire; the other at Babylon, without it. At each of these places, schools of theology and literature flourished for many generations. From Tiberias there issued the Mishna, or second law; being in fact those very traditions, reduced to writing, against which our Lord had inveighed. This Mishna being regarded as itself a book to be reverenced; the doctors of Tiberias by degrees collected many notes and comments upon it, which form what is called the Gemara, i.e., supplement. And the Mishna and this gemara together, make up the first talmud (or doctrine) called the Jerusalem talmud, which was completed about the year A.D. 300.

About this time the school at Tiberias was losing its importance, and in its place rose up that of Babylon, where other and far more voluminous comments, making another gemara, were added to the mishna of Tiberias. And these make up the second or Babylon talmud — always meant, when the talmud only is mentioned — which was finished about the year A.D. 500.

Now in both these talmuds, written in Aramaic, there are a vast number of quotations from the Bible, which learned men have, with great labour, collected and compared with the Bible itself. They find the discrepancies quite unimportant.

We are aware that the two questions, the one by the Pharisees and the other, the Lord's counter question in the beginning of the fifteenth chapter, are not fully grasped by many readers of the Word. The Jews believed and still believe (at least, the orthodox) in a written law and in an oral law. This they founded upon Exodus 34:27 and taught that while Moses wrote down a law another oral law was given to him and that this oral law was handed down from generation to generation. It is believed by them that Moses received both the written and the oral law on Mount Sinai. They placed the oral law above the written law. (The words of the scribes are lovely above the words of the law; for the words of the law are light and weighty, but the words of the scribes are all weighty. -- Beracoth.) Circumstances, however, forced them to commit the oral law to writing, which was done in the Talmud (meaning doctrine), from which we can learn all the ridiculous paraphrases and wicked additions to the law the ancients had made under the plea that it was given by God. To illustrate what interpretation they put upon certain statements of the law we select Exodus 34:26: "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk." The oral law has expounded this to mean that it is a sin to eat meat and drink milk at the same time, and the elders have gone so far as to declare, if a pot of milk boils over and some of the milk drops into a pot of meat, the meat is unclean and must be thrown away. Butter, coming from milk, is likewise not to be eaten with meat, etc.

At any rate, the post-captivity state of the Jews might be more truly called poverty-stricken than Puritan; and it was during this dearth, when the house was "empty" and "swept" that it had the "garnishing" of tradition — the ground-work of the Mishna, which is supposed to have been copied by R. Jehuda about the end of the second or the beginning of the third century. This in its turn gave rise to its "complement," or comment, the Gemara, of which two remain: that formed by the school of Tiberias, called the Jerusalem Talmud (one vol. folio), as the larger compilation founded by the school of Babylon is published as the Babylonian Talmud (12 vols. folio). It is hard to see why so great a mountain should be constructed out of matters so commonly known by all who take interest in the sons of Israel and their history. Dr. Edersheim has given a popular yet sufficiently exact compendium of all that most persons will care to know of the subject in his "History of the Jewish nation since the destruction of Jerusalem under Titus" (Edinburgh: Constable; London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co., 1856). The reader will find information both abundant and trustworthy in his pleasantly written book (already recommended in these pages) which sacrifices neither the glory of Christ, nor the truth of the Bible, but blends them with real love to the Jews.

"Then Jesus spoke to the multitude and to His disciples, saying: The scribes and the Pharisees have set themselves down in Moses' seat; all things therefore, whatever they may tell you, do keep. But do not after their works, for they say and do not, but bind burdens heavy and hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of men, but will not move them with their finger. And all their works they do to be seen of men: for they make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments, and love the chief place in feasts, and the first seats in the synagogue, and salutations in the market places, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. But ye, be ye not called Rabbi; for one is your instructor, and all ye are brethren. And call not any one your father upon earth; for one is your Father, He who is in the heavens. Neither be called leaders, for one is your leader, the Christ. But the greatest of you shall be your servant. And whoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled, and whoever shall humble himself shall be exalted" (verses 1-12). These are indeed cutting words. Out of His mouth goes a two-edged sword. Well may these words be placed in connection with the church message to Pergamos, in which the glorified Christ saith, "These things says He that has the sharp two-edged sword." Pergamos shows prophetically that period of the church when Ritualism, Nicolaitanism (Clericalism) came in like a flood and a certain class of men assumed the place of authority in the church, as leaders, priests, and began to dictate and teach the traditions of men. And ever since that time and through that into which Pergamos developed, Thyatira (Roman Catholicism), the leaven of the Pharisees, has worked on in Christendom and is still working. The Lord speaks first of all of the place which the scribes and Pharisees had chosen. They had placed themselves in Moses' seat. This no doubt He spoke in reference to legislation and not in regard to doctrine.

They had occupied the legislative seat, and when their sect started it was with a zeal for the law, which God had given through Moses. Soon, however, they became corrupt. In that part of the Talmud which is called the Mishnah* it is stated that they were to be regarded as if put into that place by Moses himself, taking their places in his seat, and were to be obeyed, so far as outward observations were concerned. (The Talmud is composed of two parts, the Gemara and the Mishna. Mishna means "repetition," and was a repetition of the written law.)

As far as the God given law was concerned and its observances, they were to do and to keep what the Pharisees said. What a wise exhortation this is! He, the King, fully recognized the position they had taken; if He had spoken otherwise, they might have accused Him of inciting the multitudes to riot against their authority. Romans 13:1-7 contains a similar wise exhortation by the Spirit of God for this present age. Against which the Lord warns is their works. There were two great schools among these Pharisees as we stated before; the school of Hillel and the school of Shammai. These were occupied with interpretations of the law. What strange interpretations were given, what tedious burdens were bound upon the people, which God never meant, could easily be illustrated and demonstrated by quotations from that tremendous literary work, the Talmud. "The burdens became intolerable. The blame rested equally on both the great rabbinic schools. For although the school of Hillel was supposed in general to make the yoke lighter, and that of Shammai heavier, yet not only did they agree on many points, but the school of Hillel was not unfrequently even more strict than that of his rival. In truth their differences seem too often only prompted by a spirit of opposition, so that the serious business of religion became in their hands one of rival authority and mere wrangling" (Edersheim). But while they put these burdens upon the people and domineered over them they neither kept them nor did they move a finger to remove them. In connection with this external show of religion, for which the Pharisees stood, the Phylacteries are mentioned. The general Christian reader has little information about the meaning of this word. The word "phylacteries" means "observatories" to keep the remembrance of the Law alive. In different parts of the Pentateuch we read these words, "And thou shalt bind these words for a sign on thy hand, and they shall be for frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and upon thy gates" (Exod. 13:9-16; Deut. 6:9, etc.). The last named injunction, "Write them upon the posts of thy house," is literally practised by orthodox Jews, by writing these words upon a piece of parchment, inclosing them in a tin box, and this box is nailed on the door posts. From the same words the phylacteries, or tephillin, were instituted. These are two strips of leather to each of which is attached a small box; in these boxes there are likewise pieces of parchment upon which the Hebrew text of Deut. 6:4-8 is written. The one leather strip with this box is wound around the forehead, the box resting in the middle of the forehead, while the second strip is wound around the arm, the left arm, which is nearest to the heart. The ends of this one is made to form the Hebrew letter "shin," which stands for Shaddai, the Almighty. Strange and curious laws are connected with the preparation of the phylacteries, the wearing of them; the rabbinical writings contain much on the phylacteries which is superstitious. Thus the talmudical tract Berachoth declares, "It is necessary to wear the phylacteries nights in the home as they drive away the demons." Orthodox Jews use them as their fathers did, and there is no doubt that the wearing of phylacteries in the twentieth century by strictly orthodox Jews and their belief in them is the same as in the days when our Lord spake these words. It is seen that the phylacteries sprung from a literal interpretation of the above passages in the Pentateuch, an outward religious observance for which there was no foundation whatever in the law. The Lord, however, does not attack this, we believe, ancient custom, but He attacks the habits of the Pharisees to wear the phylacteries and the enlarged borders of their garments (Num. 15:38), so as to be seen of men. They did it all for show; selfishness controlled them and they had no heart for the things of God. They loved the first places, the honor and praise of men; flatterers, they enjoyed and loved to receive honoring salutations from the side of men in market places. "Rabbi, Rabbi," which means teacher or instructor, they loved to be addressed as well as "Abba," which is "father." All these titles simply sprang from their self-seeking. The Lord now gives teaching, telling his hearers that which concerns of course disciples alone, that they are brethren and that they have but one teacher, the Christ Himself; that they should not call man father, but one is their Father, God Himself. The greatest of His own is the One, who is a servant of all. This reaches over into the new dispensation. The instructor, the guide, is the Lord and the Holy Spirit. Alas! how the enemy has succeeded in producing and fostering this distinctive mark of Pharisaism in Christendom, with its man-made institutions, titles, honors, offices and leaderships.

The Talmud, which is a book of Jewish traditional teaching, means “instruction.” Right in the centre of the word Talmud you can see two of the consonants of Lamed. The numerical value of Lamed is thirty. This letter has therefore the significance of “teaching us to go on to maturity.”

Into THIS LOVELY scene intruded scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem with their complaint and question as to the non-compliance of the disciples with the tradition of the elders as to the washing of hands. Just imagine the scene. The Son of God dispensing healing on every hand in the fulness of Divine grace, and these men, utterly blind to all that was happening, breaking in with their point of order. Blinded by legal technicalities, they could not perceive Divine grace working in power. Such a frame of mind might seem incredible did we not see the same feature displayed today by the Pharisaic mind, which still occupies itself with points of this kind, based upon tradition and common usage and not on the plain and definite word of God.

The Lord's reply to these men emphasizes the difference between "the commandment of God," and "your tradition" (v. 3). These traditions of the elders were explanations, amplifications and inferences drawn from the law by venerated teachers of old time. They dominated the minds of the Pharisees and quite beclouded the law of God; so much so that they transgressed the law to keep their tradition. The Lord charged them with this, and gave an illustration of it as regards the fifth commandment. Their tradition as regards gifts, professedly devoted to God, completely nullified that commandment. The "pious" and "orthodox" Jew of today has his mind filled with the Talmud, which is built up from these traditions, and it is like a veil, shrouding from his mind the true word of God.

The reviewer next sketches the growth of the vast mass of discussion and exegesis, which followed the collection of the Mishnah, and much of which afterwards entered the Talmud, as the Gemara or commentary on that text: and this in a double form — the Palestinian in East Aramaean toward the end of the fourth century, the Babylonian in West Aramaean which was not closed till about the beginning of the sixth century. But it is natural to tradition to add interminably; and so the Talmud in its turn led to new comments.

Two elements enter here (p. 451) into the apology: first, an apparent measure of shame with the desire to save the Jews from being absolutely tied to the Talmud; secondly, an effort to account by an extraneous cause for the plain fact that nothing else can compete with its authority as regulating the Jews in law and religion. "Only this much we will add, that the Talmud, as such, was never formally accepted by the nation by either General or Special Council. Its legal decisions, as derived from the highest authorities, certainly formed the basis of the religious law, the norm of all future decisions; as undoubtedly the Talmud is the most trustworthy canon of Jewish tradition. But its popularity is much more due to an extraneous cause. During the persecutions against the Jews in the Persian empire, under Jesdegerd II., Firuz, and Kobad, the schools were closed for about eighty years. The living development of the law being stopped, the book obtained a supreme authority, such as had probably never been dreamt of by its author."

Their national character must be taken into account; for though this is a small thing where the grace of the Spirit is in question, it becomes a serious handle to the enemy of souls, who turns the various workings of flesh to his purpose of opposition to the glory of Christ. Their slippery turn of mind would expose them to receive Jewish fables, as these would to misuse the law in general. This was the twofold mischief of which I wish to say a few words. Not merely does the law generate habits of tradition of slavish adherence to human prescription in the things of God, which so soon are apt to rise up to the destruction of practical faith, but along with this goes what might not at first be suspected — imaginativeness; Jewish fables, as he says. And it is remarkable how the famous repository of Rabbinisrn to this day wears this twofold character: on the one hand, the most servile adherence to the letter, without the least insight into the spirit of Holy Scripture; and, on the other hand, the wildest fictions to feed the fancies of women and children. How contrasted is the word of God, that affords the most healthy exercise for heart and conscience, according to the faith of God's elect!

We spoke, in our last article, of the division of Jews into two great classes:— the Hebrews, who spoke or used Aramaic; and the Grecians who spoke and used Greek. The latter seem to have disappeared soon after the publication of christianity. Those who were not absorbed into the church, gave up all their differences with other Jews, and were in no way distinguished from them. There were two centres about which they chiefly congregated. The one was at Tiberias in Galilee, within the Roman Empire; the other at Babylon, without it. At each of these places, schools of theology and literature flourished for many generations. From Tiberias there issued the Mishna, or second law; being in fact those very traditions, reduced to writing, against which our Lord had inveighed. This Mishna being regarded as itself a book to be reverenced; the doctors of Tiberias by degrees collected many notes and comments upon it, which form what is called the Gemara, i.e., supplement. And the Mishna and this gemara together, make up the first talmud (or doctrine) called the Jerusalem talmud, which was completed about the year A.D., 300.

About this time the school at Tiberias was losing its importance, and in its place rose up that of Babylon, where other and far more voluminous comments, making another gemara, were added to the mishna of Tiberias. And these make up the second or Babylon talmud — always meant, when the talmud only is mentioned — which was finished about the year A.D. 500.