Language Studies

Aramaic Thoughts

Aramaic Literature - Part 1 - The Talmud

The Torah (first five books of the Old Testament) is, in a sense, the heart of the Midrash, because the Midrash expounds on, expands on, and explains issues and questions arising from the Torah. In a similar sense, the Mishnah is the heart of the Talmud. The entire Talmud is made up of two parts, the Mishnah, and the Gemara. The Gemara is a collection of rabbinic commentary and diiscussion on the content of the Mishnah, hence the Gemara bears a relationship to the Mishnah similar to that which the Mishnah bears to the Torah. Also, as the Mishnah is much more extensive than the Torah, so the Gemara is much more extensive than the Mishnah. Danby’s edition of the Mishnah runs close to 900 pages, as compared to roughly 200 pages for the Torah in an average Bible. The Soncino Press edition of the Babylonian Talmud was published in 1952 in a 35-volume set. It was republished in 1961 in 18 volumes.

The name “Talmud” comes from the verb lamad, which means to learn or study. Thus the word talmud means “learning” or “teaching” or perhaps even “instruction.” In this, it reflects the purpose of the work—instruction, and learning, in the substance of Judaism. It should be noted at this point that the term talmud is used in a variety of ways, though in this discussion we will limit our use of the term to the two bodies of literature most commonly identified as “Talmud.” The two are the Jerusalem Talmud (Talmud Yerushalmi) and the Babylonian Talmud (Talmud Babli). The Jerusalem Talmud is also referred to as the Palestinian or Western Talmud. The first printed edition of this Talmud was published in Venice in the years 1523 and following. This edition has served as the basis for all subsequent editions of the Jerusalem Talmud. In this Talmud, each section begins with the chapter from the Mishnah in numbered paragraphs, followed by commentary on those paragraphs. (This commentary is what constitutes the Gemara.) The Mishnah text is in what is usually called Mishnaic Hebrew. This is a form of Hebrew very close to Biblical Hebrew but with a wider, and somewhat different vocabulary. Grammatically it is very close to Biblical Hebrew, as opposed to Modern Hebrew. The talmudic commentary on the other hand is in Aramaic.

The Babylonian Talmud was first printed in Venice in the years 1520-23. Like the Jerusalem Talmud it follows the Mishnah tractates with the Gemara commentary. However, it also contains the commentary of Rashi (a medieval Jewish scholar) amd of the tosafot, which are other medieval commentaries on the Talmud. Thus the baylonian Talmud contains commentary upon commentary upon commentary. One curiosity about the Babylonian Talmud is that the first printed edition contained pagination that has been followed in all subsequent editions, so that regardless of the edition one has, it is possible to find any citation by page number. As a modern comparison, all Cambridge editions of the NRSV Bible are paginated identically. (A sample page of the Baylonian Talmud can be viwed at http://www.artscroll.com/HebTalmudSpread.html).

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