Babylonian exile is an important period in human history, especially for Israel. During this period, the Israelites found themselves. Not only has the Torah been rediscovered and taken as the criterion of life, but it has also influenced new religious systems, such as synagogues, that is, church worship without priests or ceremonies has emerged-this is one of the most profound spiritual achievements in the history of all religions.
2. Oral law
In 444 BC, Sofer Ezra, a Jewish jurist during the reconstruction of the Jewish Republic, first put forward the domestic law and religious law of the new Republic. He incorporated all the oral laws about exile into it and dealt with the confrontation between synagogue and society in the same spirit. His successors continued his work. They were called Soferim, also known as "great assemblers". Their teachings and rules have been tested by mass practice and are regarded as halachah, which literally means: the road you have taken clearly guides how Israelis should live. After the death of Ezra and his successors, the ancient Jewish Supreme Council and Supreme Court in Jerusalem took their place. These generations love God's law and think about it day and night. The interpretation of biblical sentences is called Midrasi Midrash, and the interpretation of various commandments is called Mishnah. There is a legal tradition that systematically cultivates this new knowledge and collects ancient oral Torah. This in-depth study of Torah's work is not easy. Sadducees, a Sadducee Sect composed of nobles and officials, insist that it is dangerous for the law not to be specifically written in Torah and should be tampered with by this condemnation. Later, the Pharisees of the Pharisees tried to promote the spread of dictation. What they pursue is the complete and infinite revelation created by God. They firmly believe that the knowledge of revelation can be found in the original manuscript of the Five Books of Moses. The real revelation of Torah is the meaning of the Five Books of Moses, which reveals God's thoughts, just like teachers and their successors constantly enrich and refine, and its content is far richer than the words themselves. Herford said: Besides direct prayer and communication, studying the Torah is also a way to get close to God. It can be called the Pharisaic style vision of happiness. As Kepler said, studying the Torah is imitating God's thoughts.
3. Misina
The positive achievements of Pharisaic College risk being clumsily forgotten. Because these teachings are all oral and not written down. Hillel organized oral law into a system for the first time in 1 century BC. He is the most famous of all rabbis. He once said a famous saying: If you hate what you do, please don't let your partner do it. This is Torah, and the rest is a comment on this sentence. He is the embodiment of gentleness and kindness. "Love peace, strive for peace, love your compatriots and bring them close to Torah" is also his famous saying. He popularized seven principles to explain the Torah-such as the principles of inference and analogy-the inherent meaning of the Bible is superior to the derived meaning; He divided dictation into six volumes before his death, which was later adopted by his successors.
4. The author's life
Tanner TanNaeem, the instructor's body is flat. They are called architects of spiritual architecture. The complete book they finished is called Mishna. Besides Hillelp, it is necessary to mention three people. They are Jochanan bin Zakay, Rabbi Akiba and Prince Rabbi Judas. Jochanan bin Zakay is the youngest disciple of hillel. In 70 AD, he saved Judaism from the destruction of the Jewish state by Rome at Jabneh College. Jabneh College has become the battlefield of Jewish learning and the center of spiritual life. Almost like other rabbis, he is self-reliant. He firmly believes that Judaism is more important than its political system. Replace the sacrificial ceremony with kindness. He declared that the most important thing in life is kindness.
In the next generation, Akiba is the actual author of Misina. He separated it from oral law and compiled it. He is the greatest rabbi of our time. Legend has it that Moses would be jealous for a while if he saw his achievements. His keen insight enabled him to find a basis for every oral law in the Bible. His early life was full of legends and mysteries. He died for God and Israel in A.D. 132. On the day of Akib's death, Rabbi Prince Judas was born, referred to as Rabbi for short-he was the seventh generation grandson of hillel. He has extraordinary ability, profound knowledge and high morality. As the spiritual leader of his generation. His goal is to unify religious ceremonies with his authoritative instructions. Therefore, he re-investigated all the instruction sets accumulated for centuries, deleted and supplemented them, and sorted out their contents. He often collects the opinions of early mentors, so Misina is not put in a single mold, it is a composite work. Perhaps because of this, it replaced all other oral legal collections and soon became an authoritative work.
break up
We don't know in what year the rabbi finished his work. In the later period, around AD 220, he adopted the complete version of Messina, including six volumes:
1. There are 1 1 agricultural laws. The first one is about prayer.
2. There are 12 articles about festivals and fasting.
3. Women and family life, 7 articles.
4. Civil criminal law.
5. Sanctuary Food Law, 1 1.
6. Cleanliness and impurities, 12.
***63 articles, each article (massechta) is divided into chapters (perakim), and * * * 523 chapters.
6. Time to write a book.
In the past nine centuries, many different opinions prevailed among famous Jewish authorities about the exact time when Misina wrote this book. Sheri Ragaon, Rashi, Luzzatto, Rapoport and Graetz insisted that the rabbi was organized according to his own ideas, without pens and parchment, and then taught in his college, with the same form and content as today. So he dictated it to his disciples, who passed it on to the next generation. So Misina was preserved by accurate dictation until the importance of the college declined. During this period, the tutor felt it necessary to write it down and save it. This period is between the 8th and 9th centuries. Several equally famous authorities yehuda Halliwei, Maimonide and Abarbanel; Weiss, Geiger and frankl hold opposite views. They think the rabbi wrote the whole Messina himself.
7. Language
Messina's language is new Hebrew, which is the natural development of Hebrew Bible. Life conversation and informal language (such as medieval Latin) have been used by some people. Its vocabulary and idioms have a popular brand. It is a record of oral discussion or discussion about various life behaviors. A mixture of Aramaic, Greek and Latin.
8. Version
The oldest Messina manuscript was written in13rd century in the northern Italian city of Palma, Cambridge, new york. The first printed version, 1492, appeared in Naples (a port city in southwest Italy) with the annotation of Maimonide. The annotation of the current edition is15th century Obadiah di Bertinoro. There are many translations of Misina, and the latest version is the English version translated by Canon Danby. But the review of Messina's version is a future task. 1. Notes
Misina's annotation produced a second and more parts, called gemara, which means teaching, and was used to explain Misina's terms and main contents. Find the difficulties in clarification and coordinate the differences in the statement; Refer to the decision of unknown author in Misina; It lists the compilation of Tanner, who is contemporary with Messina on the same theme, and their recognition. Finally, the whole process of the debate on these topics in Palestinian or Babylonian colleges is stated.
But gemara is more than just a comment. It is a tireless collection, and there is no mention of contact with Messina. No matter what opinions come from the mouth of the master, they have been recorded for centuries. No matter what traditions are related to them, they have kept them. As long as it is related to religion, life and behavior, it is directly or indirectly included. In addition, therefore, all aspects of the law discuss and formulate Jewish obligations, whether ceremonial, civil or moral, including moral preaching of the Bible. Moral maxims, popular proverbs, prayers, fables, myths, stories, custom explanations, Jews and non-Jews; Facts and scientific imagination, Jewish and pagan folklore, wisdom and ignorance. A large number of complex materials run through Gemala, such as the author's name, occasional quotations from the Bible, and other unexpected events arising from the association of certain ideas in thoughts or styles.
2. Halacha and Hagada
Talmud is divided into Halacha and Hagada according to its content. Emmanuel deutsch described that one of them came from the brain and the other from the heart; One is prose and the other is poetry. One is the mental ability to debate, research, compare and develop, and the other is the ability to imagine, feel and be humorous;
Beautiful old story,
The myth of angels, the legend of elves,
Mysterious and silent history,
Festival songs and wisdom quotations;
It's exaggerated and interesting,
More powerful and passionate.
Faith-how they flash, glow and twinkle.
As Heine described.
Halachah, as we already know, means a way out, rules of life, and religious guidance. It belongs to all the laws and regulations that bear the Jewish industry. Including etiquette, civil, criminal and moral laws. Everything else is contained in Haggada; ; Literally, it means discussing, telling stories and preaching. He can also divide these into multiple groups again. We have a doctrine, Haggada, which focuses on the nature and will of God, creating, enlightening and saving the time and future of the world. Haggadah, related to history, brings traditions and legends related to heroes and major events into national or world history. From Adam to King Alexander of Macedonia, Roman emperors Titus and Hadrian. This is a simple legend, the purpose of which is to describe the historical facts related to the makers of justice and injustice. In legend, honor and shame are used to decorate morality. There are pagan folklore in Haggada, which is partly described or asserted with authority, which is different from the western style of distinguishing right from wrong. Schechter said: Criticizing the following sentence is that they don't understand the wise rules that Dr. Johnson told boswell on specific occasions. Everybody be serious, because those people are fools. Unfortunately, these fools are all Jewish critics or Christian critics. They think that it is serious to just translate on impulse, or to describe Sonik's personal views, or to treat it as a humorous fragment irrelevant to the theme in order to arouse the audience's interest. Although Haggada contains infinite beauty and famous sayings with eternal value, don't forget that it only represents personal views, and it can't generalize or kidnap authority. 1. Palestinian Gimalag
There are two kinds of gemara, one is made in Babylonian College, and the other is made in Palestine. Strictly speaking, it is incorrect for me to call the latter Talmud in Jerusalem now, because there was no college in Jerusalem after the temple was destroyed, and Tiberias was the most important place for Jewish studies until the Palestinian college was closed. Rabbis Johanan and Abbahu, Palestinian Talmud, are now known as Amoraim's main mentors.
Yochanan became a disciple of the Jewish rabbi prince in his early years. He regards his Tiberian College as the most important place to study Judaism. For a long time, he was mistaken for the editor of gemara in Palestine. The following sentence is the most classic sentence of this tutor: When the Egyptians drowned in the Red Sea, the angels planned to celebrate, and God used this sentence to calm them down: My work is being destroyed, but you want to celebrate!
Abahu, dean of Julius Caesar's Academy, was a rich and systematically educated man, influenced by the Roman authorities. He is good at stopping attacks from Christians. "I would rather be a victim than a persecutor" is his motto. He put forward the bold idea of continuous innovation-this idea was absorbed by Jewish mysticism beyond the real existence in the future. They believe that there is an invisible world that comes from real existence, just like flickering cremation while the iron is hot.
In 425 AD, under the suppression of the first Christian emperor, the position of bishop and college were banned, and the discussion about college was no longer officially edited. At first, Palestinian gemara was all over Mishnah, but due to the hostile environment during this period, most of its contents were irretrievably lost.
Its halachik part does not have the dialectical and shrewd characteristics of Babylonian Talmud, but its speech is peaceful; Its Haggada part is also simpler and more rational, but it is less attractive and poetic than Babylonian Talmud. Palestine's Talmud was written in the Syrian dialect of ancient Syria, which was unfamiliar to later generations and almost forgotten by Jews centuries later. From the standpoint of Babylonian Talmud, the legal decision of Palestinian Talmud is not considered as legal. It was first printed in a.d. 1523. A.D. 1859 J.Fraenkel's classic Introduction to the Talmud Sutra of Jerusalem appeared. There is a French version of the Palestinian Talmud 1 translated by M.Schwab. Babylonian Talmud
When we mention the Babylonian Gimalag, we want to ask when it was said and written. It was born in Babylon, a Jewish autonomous region, and Jews have been in this area for a longer time than other places, from 586 BC to 1040-about 1626; From the decline of Ju Lushi to the conquest of Mongols.
2. Language
For a long time, the Talmud language in Babila has been regarded as having no grammatical format. This view now seems biased. Excellent grammarians have discovered its laws and can determine the position of configuration in semi-verbal language. Its linguistics is considered to be that Levi, kohut and Jastrow were written in Talmud Vocabulary (Aruqi) nearly10,000 years ago in the last century. Babila Talmud's style is mostly implicit and concise, which is not easy to read. Elliptic expressions often appear repeatedly, and a sentence is represented by one word. Discussions, questions and answers are closely intertwined and lack a clear division of labor.
3. Style
In order to understand these discussions and contexts, we need to think hard and pay close attention to the guidance and detailed explanation of experienced scholars. Grammar and vocabulary alone cannot really be understood. Even a student who is proficient in Hebrew and Aramaic will find that he can't even translate a page when he starts reading the Talmud without the guidance of traditional Jews! A great linguist and Talmud composer once declared: If the study of Talmud is suddenly stopped within a generation, once the tradition is lost, it is almost impossible to recover.
4. Authority
More than 1000 Amoraim names were mentioned, and we chose Rab and Samuel, Rabbi Ashi and Rabina. Rab and Samuel, they were born in Babylon. They went to the holy land, sat beside the prince of Judah, and brought Messina, the authoritative code of oral law, back to the motherland. In AD 2 16, Rab established a college in Sura, which flourished for eight centuries. Torah's commandment is to purify people's lives. This is one of his famous sayings. He taught that the future life is not only passive, because the power of justice will not stop. Justice will become stronger and stronger in this world and in the future, and it will last forever. In the future, just people will rejoice in the glory of God. He claimed: Because of exile, God Shekina mourned, and God prayed: May my kindness be greater than my justice when treating my children. The most solemn part of the New Year ceremony is also attributed to Rab.
Samuel of Nihad was a doctor, astronomer and an epoch-making figure in Judaism. He gave up the principles taught by the prophet Jeremiah, so that Jews could live and provide services in non-Jewish countries. Dina d'malchutha dina is his rule, which means that all the criminal laws of Babylon in this place are God's laws, which is to make Jews respect the criminal laws of non-Jewish countries.
For the other two names, Ashi, who died in 427 AD and served as the dean of Sura College for 42 years, combined with the memories of a large number of scholars, his mental order was extraordinary, which enabled him to systematize the chaotic part of Talmud and prepare for its compilation. Rabine completed the compilation of the Talmud in Babylon. He died in 499 AD. It was he who made the following passage a Jewish ceremony: the tongue is innocent and the mouth is not cunning; Otherwise, let my soul become dust, silent. It seems that many chapters were written by many people in amorim before the time of Ashi and Rabbi. Just like Misina's case, it is still inconclusive whether Jamala in Babylon was written by Ashi and Rabina or just orally compiled. The latter is the view of Rashi and modern Luzzato; Both of them put Gemara's book two centuries later. However, some scholars believe that it is absolutely impossible to write such a huge document in such a short time. The other point is that it is full of complicated arguments and needs two centuries of oral sorting, confirmation and accurate dissemination.
5. Width
Babylonian Talmud is about the size of four Palestinians. It has 5894 pages, usually divided into 12 volumes, and each edition has the same number of pages. In Talmud, only 63 articles of 36 meters Sina are annotations. But the theme of most neglected chapters is dealt with in other chapters of gemara.
6. Version
A large book like Talmud Gemara has been written by many copywriters, so it is inevitable that there will be no mistakes different from the original. 50 years ago, Rabbinowicz collected several versions at that time. According to the manuscripts, these manuscripts, especially Munich manuscripts, were examined. It was made in A.D. 1334 and contains all the contents of the Talmud. Alas, this is the only complete Talmud manuscript left. Due to the stubbornness of the Pope in the Middle Ages, the whole truck of Talmud manuscripts was often thrown into the fire. After the invention of printing, ignorant and overzealous censors not only deleted a few paragraphs related to the founder of Christ, but also ignorantly deleted a lot of other contents that they thought were implicitly attacking their religion. Only one version of Talmud escaped the censor's destruction and was printed as a book in Holland. 1. History of Talmud
Now let's talk about the history of Talmud. From the Five Classics of Moses written by Tanner to Missina, from Missy written by Amorim to Gimalag, and then to the arrival of the completion period of Talmud. Sahulan's opinion provider in the 6th century, the deans of GeonimSura and Pumbedita colleges and the spiritual leaders of the Jewish community in the Middle Ages added some contents. Because there are more and more contents, people naturally feel the need to simplify the interpretation of the Talmud. Most importantly, Talmud will be classified according to the law of 6 13, and Harachik and Haggada will be printed separately. Later, the explanation part was written into a long paragraph.
2. Among Jews
The greatest of all these attempts, which is absolutely indispensable for understanding the Talmud today, is the annotation of Rabbi Solomon Izhaki. His surname is Rashi, and he was born in Trouvat in 1040. His notes are famous for their simplicity and accuracy. "He gave the greatest and most precious gift to the person who explained the Talmud; Be able to grasp the key points of explanation and express the author's meaning with the least words. " (Moore said)
The French Rashi in12nd century and13rd century continued to classify the Talmud through their annotations (called Tosafoth), which were compiled into all the real Talmud. At the same time, Maimonide, a genius, wrote Mishna's annotation in Arabic, which is called Mishna's Tora Tora Transcript of Natola or the powerful book of Adha Chazaka. He also wrote a "guide to solving puzzles" for the Talmud. 1567, Rabbi Joseph Carroll wrote Shulchan Aruch, which is a religious and civil law classified by theme in Jewish life so far. 157 1 year The rabbi in Krakow commented on this book, which is the most authoritative compilation in Harachach in recent years, and attracted many better annotations in Call It Up.
3. Outside the Jews
In all these centuries, the attitude of non-Jews towards Talmud was irreconcilable. Emanuel Deutsch said: Since the Talmud existed, it was treated as a human being almost before it existed in an obvious form. It was banned, imprisoned and burned more than 100 times. The king and emperor, Bai Xin and opponents cursed each other and issued decrees to confiscate and destroy this unfortunate work on a large scale. But there is an obvious exception in the declaration of Babel. Just before someone left this book, Clement V of 1307 wanted to know about it, but no one told him. Therefore, he suggested that lectures should be given in Hebrew, Chaldean and Arabic, which are closest to Talmud, in several universities in Paris, Salamanca, Bologna and Oxford. Finally, one of these universities can translate this mysterious work. Needless to say, this is just a fantasy, and the faster destruction happened not only in Italy and France, but also in the holy Roman Empire.
John Richlin, the greatest humanist, was the first person to defend him. Even if the Talmud contains something attacking Christianity, we should respond to it in the best way. He said: Burning is the cruelest explanation. Saving Jewish books from the destruction of hysterical blind believers has become the battle cry of religious liberals. The publication of Babylonian Talmud was no accident. In the same year (1520), Luther burned the Pope's instructions in wittenberg. Then in the next two centuries, the fanatical activities of Christian priests to become Talmud knowledge masters are not necessarily pure love of learning. Only in our time, non-Jewish scholars such as George Ford Moore in the United States, travers Herford in Britain, Winscher and strack in the former Nazi Germany fell in love with the study of Talmud Classics, and realized that the education of basic issues was an indispensable part of their religious world. The full translation of Talmud Sutra of Babylon edited by L. Goldschmidt in 1897 and the Venetian version in 1520 are now basically completed.
3. Religion in Talmud.
The unique theory of religious life is described in detail in Talmud's abstract. Talmud religion tries to penetrate the whole human life with law and just reason. In their eyes, nothing in human beings is insignificant, and everything is controlled by religion and sanctified. Religious rules and obligations accompany a person from childhood to death, even beyond death. They guide people's wishes and every move. Eating and sleeping, civic duty, family life-everything is under the legal order and people can accept it freely and happily.
Although every religion tries this rule, the Talmud system is the representative of Judaism's pursuit of perfection. Arstne Darmsteter said: "In our view, this is the greatest title given out of respect and reward for these thinkers. In Judaism, we have such a complete and perfect explanation of religious thought. " Later, Israel.Zangwill described Judaism as a code that allowed wisdom and emotion to think and doubt without restraint, resulting in philosophy and poetry, and restrained the spirit from putting it above love and dedication without restraint. So that even the Philistines who have no feelings for religion can at least maintain a sound, powerful and mechanical morality, which is the source of their happiness and the education for future generations. If religion is compared to music, if they can't give us their own sonatas and symphonies, they shouldn't play the wrong notes and harsh chords.
4. Conclusion
Needless to say, the Talmud is not an ordinary literary work. It has nothing in common with any literary works, but it conceives a world judged by its laws. The ancient Hebrews compared it to the Talmud Sea, which helps us to understand its origin. The Talmud is indeed as vast and unfathomable as the sea, and it has a feeling as vast and moving as the ocean. Its vast surface is sometimes calm, and sometimes noisy because of the tide of argument. Like the sea, it is full of various life forms, and it is hard to say whether it is right or wrong. Anyone who wants to sail safely on the Talmud Sea (get these valuable knowledge and inspiration written on its indestructible page) must be familiar with the compass and rudder (that is, the language and way of thinking of Talmud), plus the guidance of experienced masters.
We are not talking about Talmud's influence here. In the persecution and darkness of the last century, Talmud saved the Israelis and avoided intellectual and moral degradation. My purpose is only to briefly introduce the Talmud. So I want to conclude with the words of Abraham Israel. Abraham. He said: "The Talmud is one of the masterpieces in the world. Rabbi education is the follow-up of the Bible. Like all the successors, Talmud and the Bible are not the same, but Talmud inherited the greatness of the Bible. All Jewish works are the follow-up of this Talmud. They all have a unified principle: the most realistic literary works include life, wisdom is the maid of morality, and the best book is to teach people how to live. Righteousness saves people from death. The theme of immortal literary works is the same, that is justice.
5.SONCINO version: NEZIKIN damage article
For a long time, many scholars hope to have a credible and complete English version of Babylonian Talmud. This expectation began with the publication of the Soncino edition of Damage.
This translation is based on the original text of Wilna Talmud, with necessary modifications according to several manuscripts and other printed versions. All the checked paragraphs are reproduced in the original text or comments. These notes lead to the essence of classical explanations, clarify arguments, explain professional expressions, and point out the significance of quoting biblical verses. Wherever, the place names and descriptions mentioned in history and archaeology have been confirmed in modern countries.
This extraordinary achievement is due to the erudition of Mr. I. Epstein, the editor, and the way of his translation scholars. It can be seen from the editor's preface that his work is arduous. In addition to planning the scope and characteristics of the work, determining the manuscript and controlling the scale of translation and interpretation, editors also have quotations and glossaries of many parts, and provide more important "cultural" comments.
The publishing house also helps out of conscience and efficiency. There is only this English version of Soncino Babylonian Talmud, which used to help learners before damaging articles appeared.