Talmud, The (Barclay Translation)

One of the most insidious and distasteful show of ignorance is a Christian preacher or Patriot-Conspiracy nut-jobs preaching against the Talmud, when they have never read it, studied it, or even taken the simple step of asking a Rabbi about it. Christian preachers feel they have to preach 'against' something, which is exactly the opposite of what their god told them to do. If they cannot do simple research about a set of writings, easily available, with tons of information about them in libraries across the world... why should anyone believe any of their other lies.

BUT occasionally a Christian actually does his homework, as Mr. Barclay did in preparing this work for you. He spent 10 years with the Rabbis doing his study into the Talmud. Even though he has drawn from his Christian beliefs, and some of his work is tainted from that belief, we can appreciate that he tried to be objective in his approach to this subject. Instead of denigrating these volumes of ancient work, Barclay appreciated the Talmud. One cannot take a passage or two out of context, or out of the historical times in which that passage was written, as most Christian preachers and teachers do and they condemn these sacred words as the work of Satan.

We hope you appreciate Mr. Barclay's 'serious' and studious research in the Talmud.

Excerpt

THE Talmud (teaching) comprises the Mishna and the Gemara. The Mishna ("learning" or "second law") was, according to Jewish tradition, delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai. "Rabbi Levi, the son of Chama, says, Rabbi Simon, the son of Lakish, says, what is that which is written, 'I will give thee tables of stone, and a law and commandments which I have written, that thou mayest teach them'?

The Tables are the ten commandments; the Law is the written law; and the commandment is the Mishna; 'which I have written' means the prophets and sacred writings; 'that thou mayest teach them' means the Gemara. It teaches us that they were all given to Moses from Mount Sinai." From Moses the Mishna was transmitted by oral tradition through forty "Receivers," until the time of Rabbi Judah the Holy. These Receivers were qualified by ordination to hand it on from generation to generation. Abarbanel and Maimonides disagree as to the names of these Receivers. While the temple still stood as a centre of unity to the nation, it was considered unlawful to reduce these traditions to writing. But when the Temple was burned, and the Jews were dispersed amongst other peoples, it was considered politic to form them into a written code, which should serve as a bond of union, and keep alive the spirit of patriotism.

The Jewish leaders saw the effect of Constitutions and Pandects in consolidating nations-the advantage of written laws over arbitrary decisions. Numberless precedents of case law, answering to our common law, were already recorded: and the teachings of the Hebrew jurisconsults, or "Responsa prudentium," which were held to be binding on the people, had been preserved from former ages.

All these traditions Rabbi Judah the Holy undertook to reduce into one digest. And this laborious work he completed about A.D. 190, or more than a century after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. Rabbi Judah was born on the day that Rabbi Akibah died. Solomon is said to have foretold the event: "One sun ariseth, and one sun goeth down." Akibah was the setting and Judah the rising sun. The Mishna of Rabbi Judah, afterwards revised by Abba Areka in Sura, is the text of the Babylon Talmud.

The commentaries written on this text by various Rabbis in the neighbourhood of Babylon, until the close of the fifth century, are called the Gemara (completion); and are published in twelve folio volumes, called the Babylon Talmud-the Talmud most esteemed by the Jews.

The Jerusalem Talmud contains commentaries written partly by Rabbis in Jamnia and partly in Tiberias, where they were completed by Rabbi Jochanan in the beginning of the fourth century. As now published it has only four out of the six orders or books of the Mishna, with the treatise Niddah from the sixth. In the time of Maimonides it contained five orders. On twenty-six treatises it has no Gemara, though in the treatise on shekels the Gemara of Jerusalem is used for the Babylon Talmud.