THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
B. Strassburger, Geschichte der Erziehung und des UnterrichU von dem talmud. Zeit bis auf die Gegenwart,
Strasburg, 1885. On various scientific matters: E. Griinebaum, Die Sittenlehre des Judenthums, Strasburg, 1878; M. Jacobson, Versuch einer Psychologie des Talmud, Hamburg, 1878; A. Wunsche, Neue Beitrage zur Erlauterung der Evangelien aus Talmud und Midrasch, Gottingen, 1878; J. Bergel, Studien iiber die naturwissenschaftliehen Kenntnisse der Talmudisten, Leipsic, 1880; A. Hahn, The Rabbinical Dialectics, Cincinnati, 1881; F. Weber, Jiidische Theologie auf Grund des Talmud und verwandter Schriften, Leipsic, 1897; W. Bacher, Die exegetische Terminologie der judischen Traditionslitteratur, 2 vols., Leipsic, 1899-1905; B. Zuckermann, Materialien zur Entwicklung der altjudischen Zeitrechnung, Breslau, 1862; idem, Das jiidische Maasssystem, ib. 1867; idem, Das Mathematische im Talmud, ib. 1878; P. Rieger, Technologic und Terminologie der Handwerke in der Misnah, vol. i., Berlin, 1894; H. Vogelstein, Die Landwirtschaft in Palastina zur Zeit der Mvfnah, vol. i., ib. 1894; J. Krengel, Das Hausgerat in der Misnah, vol. i., Frankfort, 1899; R. J. Wunderbar, Biblisch-talmudische Medizin, 2 vols., Leipsic, 1850-60; J. M. Rabbinowicz, Einleitung in die Gesetzgebung und die Medizin des Thalmuds, Leipsic, 1883; W Ebstein, Die Medizin im Neuen Testament und im Talmud, Stuttgart, 1903. Illustrative of Christianity: R. T. Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash, London, 1903; G. Aicher, Das A. T. in der Mischna, Freiburg, 1906; A. Marmorstein, Talmud und Neues Testament, Vincovci, 1908; Miss A. Lucas, Talmudic Legends, Hymns, and Paraphrases, London, 1908; A. Marmorstein, Die Bezeichnungen fiir Christen und Gnostiker im Talmud und Midras, Skatschau, 1910; W. Knight, The Golden Wisdom, of the Apocrypha . . and an Appendix Containing some of the Proverbial Wisdom of the Talmud, London, 1910; S. Rapaport, Tales and Maxims from the Talmud, ib. 1910.
TAMMUZ-ADONIS.
Tammuz in the Old Testament (§ 1). Name; Mention in Early Inscriptions (§ 2). In Adapa and Gilgamesh Epics (§ 3). The " Descent of Ishtar " (§ 4). Unimportance in Babylonia (§5). Tammuz in Other Literature (§ 6). Byblus and Nahr Ibrahim (§ 7). Tammuz and Adonis (§8). The Name Adonis (§ 9). Distribution of the Cult (§ 10). Forms of the Myth (§ 11). Identification with Other Deities (§ 12). The Rites (§ 13). Date of the Festival (§ 14). Significance of the Deity (§ 15). Sumerian Origin of Tammuz (§ 16). Influence of the Tammuz Myth (§ 17).
In Ezek. viii. 14, in a chapter in which the prophet relates the idolatries of the Jews as seen by him in a vision, it is stated that before the north door of the Temple women sat weeping for Tammuz. This statement opens up the history of a i. Tammuz cult which, in the light of a certain in the Old identification presently to be estab- Testament. lished, persisted through several millennia, arising among the Sumerian inhabitants of pre-Semitic Babylonia, passing into the worship of their Semitic conquerors, and proceeding by way of Cyprus to become the possession of Aryan peoples — the Greeks and the Romans. The story of Tammuz- Adonis is thus in more than one sense one of the romances in the history of religion. Other references to the cult than the one cited above which this scholar or that has seen in the Old Testament are, with two exceptions (Dan. xi. 37 and Isa. xvii. 10-11), not to be allowed, the explanations which bring them into connection with Tammuz being forced rather than natural.
Amos viii. 10 can hardly be related with the mourning for this deity; Jer. vi. 26 is no more germane, while the passage Zech. xii. 10 has already been explained as giving another meaning (see Hadadeimmon). It is very likely that the phrase " the desire of women," in Dan. xi. 37 has reference to Tammuz-Adonis, for the sense requires some deity honored by women, and this cult was especially feminine. The apocryphal Epistle of Jeremiah may possibly have in mind the Adonis cult, though it is noticeable that in this case it is the priests and not the women who mourn and shave their heads and beards. For Isa. xvii. 10-11 see below, § 13.
The name Tammuz represents the Sumerian Dumuzi (variant forms Tauuzu, Ta'uzu, Da'uzu, Duzu; full form Dumuzi-abzu; the form Tammuz, with doubled m, seems to have originated in the Hebrew, perhaps on account of the 2. Name; short vowel in the first syllable), the Mention in meaning of which is still under discus- Early In- sion. Zimmern (latest in J. Hastings, scriptions. Encyclopcedia of Religion and Ethics, ii. 313, New York, 1910; cf. Schrader, KAT, p. 397) renders the full form " real child of the water depths "; Prof. J. D. Prince (in a private communication) gives as the rendering " young life "; the usual translation has been " son of life." In Babylonian (Sumerian) literature Tammuz makes his appearance as early as Urukagina, Gudea, and Siniddina (see Babylonia, VI., 3, §§ 3, 5), and if the identification of Tammuz and Adonis be regarded as made out (see below, § 8), the final traces of his cult do not disappear till late in the Christian era, indeed, it seems not to have received its coup de grace until the Mohammedan conquest of the Aramean region. Tammuz appears in the inscriptions and documents of the pre-Semitic period in a variety of ways. Testimony to his early existence in the pantheon is given by tablets from Telloh which bear names in which his name form one element (H. Zimmern, Abhandlungen of the Saxon Academy, xxvii. 721-722, Leipsic, 1909). Witness to him comes from Shirpurla and Kish in the times of the kings named above and of Eannatum, and from Larsa under Siniddina, when mention is made of " the month of the celebration of the god Tamuz." Consequently, he rightly claims a place among the oldest of the well-attested deities of the Sumerian pantheon, though in those times there seems not to exist any hint of his relations with the Sumerian Ishtar. After the Semites gained control he drops out of sight, except for the name of his month, in official records, and that in the quite numerous hymns and in the epics he still has mention, also that he appears among the very minor deities who seem to have stalls in some Assyrian temples.
He figures in the Babylonian myths named after Adapa and Gilgamesh, and in the " descent of Ishtar " (these are most easily accessible to the English reader in Assyrian and Babylonian Literature, Selected Translations, by R. F. Harper, pp.
314 sqq., New York, 1901; for mention of Tammuz cf. pages 316-317, 338, 413). In all this Babylonian literature the story is by no means complete as judged by the myth as it appears from Greek sources; the references are quite obscure, though