RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Talbot, Edward Stuart Talmud, The
1870); Abominations of Modern Society (New York, 1872); Sermons (4 vols., 1872-75); One Thousand Gems (1873); Around the Tea Table (Philadelphia, 1874) ; Masque Torn Off (Chicago, 1879) ; Brooklyn Tabernacle Sermons (New York, 1884); New Tabernacle Sermons (1886); Marriage Ring; Discourses (1886); From Manger to Throne; a New Life of Jesus, and a History of Palestine (Philadelphia, 1891) ; From the Pyramids to the Acropolis:
Sacred Places seen through Biblical Spectacles (1892) ; besides many other volumes of sermons, the contents of most of which were first disseminated by the daily and weekly press.
Bibliography: C. F. Adama, Jr., Life and Sermons of T. DeW. Talmage, Chicago, 1902; C. E. Banks, Life and Works of T. DeW. Talmage, New York, 1902; L. A. Banks and Others, T. DeWitt Talmage, his Life and Work, Philadelphia, 1902; W. C. Wilkinson, Modern Masters ol Pulpit Discourse, pp. 33-54, New York, 1905.
, History. Situation Created by the Exile (§1). Beginnings of Oral Law (§ 2). The Mishna; Origin and Growth
(§3) The Material Described (§4).
TALMUD, THE.
II. Divisions. III. Contents of the Sixty-three Mishna
Tracts. IV The Palestinian Talmud. V. The Babylonian Talmud.
Origin; Celebrated Authorities (§ 1).
Censorship; Consequent Changes (§2).
VI. Evaluation of the Talmud. Halacha and Haggada (§1).
VII. Explanation and Translation of
the Page from the Talmud.
I. History: The Babylonian exile was for the history of the Jews a turning-point of moment. The subjects of the kingdom of Judah had lost not only their political independence and their home, but also, through the destruction of the Temple, their one legitimate place of sacrifice, i. Situation the center of the whole worship of Yah-
Created weh. But the hope of restoration was by the still strong; they had for it a support Exile. in the words of Yahweh communicated through Jeremiah that the Chaldean sway should last but seventy years, after which God would be again found of his people, who were to return into their own land (Jer. xxv. 11, xxix. 10 sqq.; Dan. ix. 2). The one condition to all this was that the people seek their God with their whole heart (Jer. xxix. 13). This could not then be done by sacrifice nor through the ordinary ordinances of worship; the only way was by keeping of the sabbath and by honoring God's word — that which was written as well as that which was spoken during the exile — especially by regarding the will of God as laid down in the Pentateuch. Special devotion to the law was suggested by the result of the search after the cause of the calamity to the people chosen by God, by the hope of restoration of the cultus and of independence, and by the resolution not to sink again into the past course of iniquity. Consequently there arose in the exile the class of men learned in the law to which Ezekiel belonged (V Ryssel, in TSK, 1887, pp. 149-182). This development was favored by the vanishing of prophecy and the gradual disuse of the Hebrew language, the vehicle of the law and of the revelation of God in the past. Ezra was already described as " a ready scribe in the law of Moses " (Ezra vii. 6, 11), who had " prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord and to teach it " (Ezra vii. 10), and took
with him to Jerusalem " men of understanding " (i.e., teachers; Ezra viii. 16), while the Levites were instructors of the people (Neh. viii. 4 sqq.).
The written Pentateuchal law was closed at least from the time of Ezra, and could not submit to addition or other change. Nevertheless, new relations in life called ever for new pronouncements ; so from Ezra's period there must have been some organized power to preserve the law and apply it to practical life. From this fact and in view of Neh. viii.-x.
sprang up the theory of the Great Synagogue (q.v.).
Decisions, rules, and Halakoth were delivered as
the times and special cases required,
2. Begin- and thus grew up an oral common law nings of (cf . the works of Briick and Bloch in
Oral Law. the bibliography) . The immediate origin of these deliverances being forgotten, they came to be regarded as early, indeed as given to Moses at Sinai (cf. Pirke Abhoth, i. 1). Later men resorted to explanations or interpretations of the written law, which served as an extension of the latter, and this oral method came to be acknowledged as authoritative. It came to be the ordinary belief of the faithful Jew that an oral law transmitted by tradition had existed alongside of that which was written in the Pentateuch. But this receives, of course, no historical support and is negatived by lack of mention in Scripture, by the lack of even traditional support, and by the false chronology used to support it. How feeble the support for this is may be illustrated by the fact that the whole system of rules for ritual slaughter is made to depend on the words "as I have commanded thee " in Deut. xii. 21. All this constantly increasing material of additions to the Torah (the Law) was for a long time transmitted orally. Philo, in a fragment preserved in Eusebius (Prwparatio Evangelica, VIII., vii. 6; Eng. transl., ii. 388, Oxford, 1903), speaks of " countless unwritten customs and
usages "; while Josephus (Ant., XIII. , x. 6) declares that " the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the law of Moses; wherefore the Sadducees reject them and declare that those observances are obligatory which are in the written word, but not those which are derived from tradition." Many other such references there are, but none of the early period suggest fixation of this body in writing. The first reduction of this matter to writing took place in the first half of the second century of our era, and was arranged both topically and according to the order of the passages explained. It may be assumed that the existence of the canon of the New Testament had some influence.
The two forms which this new collection took were, then, the topical or Mishna form and the exegetical or Midrash (q.v.). Mishna (from shanah,
Talmud, The