Babylonian Talmud

Rodkinson 1918 — source 20, scan section 33

does not say like C, B, and A , etc. After then when the reason is given why A does not say like B, and B like C, it is again asked why should A not adopt the reason of B, etc., etc. We then give only the questions and answers of the first category, viz., why does not A agree with B and C, and B and C with A. We omit, however, the second category of the questions and answers for not adopting the reasons, which in many places occupy a whole column and after reading it, we do not find anything new or important, but simply repetitions after repeti- tions which confuse the mind of the reader without doing any good. (7) Questions which remain undecided and many of them are not at all practical but only imaginary, and very peculiar too,* we omit. Many of such questions were ascribed to the Amora Jeremiah, of whom Rabha said that, "When he was in Babylonia he never understood what the Rabbis said." * £.^., in02U^ypni JJnpi'QJ, the translation of which we do not care to give. 7 98 THE HISTORY OF THE TALMUD. When he (Jeremiah) came to Palestine he expressed himself concerning the Babylonian scholars thus: "The Babylonians who are dwelling in a dark land are proclaiming dark Hala- khath." It is the same to us if Jeremiah questioned the above- mentioned questions at the time he did not understand the Rabbis, or, as I. H. Weiss said, that he intended with such questions to ridicule the Rabbis, for at any rate such questions must not be placed in our edition. We have good reason to say that all such questions were inserted in the name of Jeremiah or other Amoraim, by the dislikers of the Talmud, who were to be found from its very beginning, for the purpose of ridiculing it. We cannot agree with Weiss that Jeremiah himself put such questions, as for a similar question : " If it happened that one has put one foot into the Sabbath limit, and the other foot was still out of it, may he enter or not?" he was immediately driven out from the college. Hence, since the other questions ascribed to him are much worse in every respect than the one just mentioned, is it possible that he would be listened to and such inserted as undecided questions ? We would also state that the above statement of the dark Halakhath by the Babylonian sages was also put in his mouth by the same people, as we cannot believe that such a great Amora like Jeremiah should throw stones in the valley from which he drank his water. Finally, we will give one example concerning Hagadas, in Tract Zebachin, pp. 1 13a, in the discussion whether the flood was in Palestine or not, basing their statements upon Ecclesiastes, "there is no new thing under the sun," i.e., no new creatures were created after the seven days of creation, and as there are to be found some creatures which, according to their size, could not enter into the ark of Noah, and we see their existence, it must be concluded that the flood which had destroyed all the crea- tures did not take place in Palestine, in which such creatures are to be found. The opponents of this say that the flood was in Palestine also, and of all kinds of the existing creatures, there were some in the ark. And when the last were objected to by the existence of r'em (wild-ox), which, according to Rabba b. b. Hannah, the size of its offspring of one day was equal to forty miles, hence it could not in any way be entered in the ark, the answer comes that its snout only was in the ark, and the rest of the body was swimming in the water. OUR METHOD. 99 Now we would ask any reader if it is possible that such a thing should be said by any sage of the Talmud, and especially by Resh Lakish, who was one of the greatest Amoraim of Pales- tine. As this Hagada was discussed in connection with a Halakha it must not by any means be taken as allegorical. It is therefore more than certain that one who desired to make the Talmud ridiculous put in the mouths of Jochanan and Resh Lakish the discussion about the r'em with such a ridicu- lous answer. Hence in our translation it must be omitted. There is another one which was put as a question: "May the high priest marry a pregnant virgin ? ' ' and to the question ' ' how can a virgin be pregnant? " the answer comes that " perhaps she became pregnant in a bath where preceding her was a man who had left there his seed." * We do not believe that any one with common sense, and without partiality, can be foiind who would deny that such things were inserted by the Talmud haters only for the purpose of ridiculing the Talmud. It is self-evident then that in our edition such and numerous similar legends do not find place. Concerning the translation itself, we translate almost literally but not slavishly. In those places where the text of the Gemara can be understood only with the aid of Rashi's commentary, we reproduce the sense without marking " Rashi." However, in those places where Rashi adds something to make the text better understood, we put Rashi's commen- tary in parentheses. See fifth remark on the copyrighting; but passages inserted from the Gemara itself we put in brackets. Those passages, however, which are not explained by Rashi or which we found the explanation more detailed in other commentaries, we translate according to the latter 's, stating in the respective foot-note that it is according to so and so. Our only desire was to enable the English student, even laymen, to imderstand the sense without difficulty, in which, according to I. M. Wise in his review of Volume VIII., we have succeeded. We may state also that, though we have strictly followed our method, yet we were compelled in some places to deviate from the same. It was also impossible for us to arrange our new edition in accordance with the old edi- * It seems to us that such were inserted by one against the belief that the Virgin Mary had borne Jesus. loo THE HISTORY OF THE TALMUD. tion; based upon the decision of Sherira Gaon that it is im- material in what order the tracts should be brought, as the Gemara itself states that the consecutive order of the Mishna is not always to be taken seriously. However, each tract is numbered from page i, so that if the reader prefers binding the tracts according to the former order he may do so. There are, however, many more points concerning our method which we omit for lack of space and time, especially since the method is fully traced in its main features. CD jj'cio c«* u'i inn Tin •:ns5 n^ ID'S ''D Ci*r O'^U^I cm? DDT i''1 Jjft ?D^D niS». l>3-)ft ra jnni r^i mo'ln -jnfti ?ii> '57 o'i fin') ^h /* "•» fr nv) pcD3 rrri n: o.i» TDS?i ?5n d'At J'm 9 "'' wftn 'T iu pp")!: nfin 't HTM JW) (' ' 1') pi'M fiP'ft7? inft Sy nSyn oi* ^n1^e jnK cm ny ifoy n'ni D'C )'30'D2 IsS 'NOT irx IK Kin 'SI3T DK