talmi

[Etym. doubtful.] (See compound.) talmi-gold, s. [ABYSS IN I AN-GOLD.] Tăl-mud, s . [Heb. Talmudh = instruction, doctrine; lamadh to chastise, to train, to teach; cf. talmidh a scholar. (1 Chron . xxv. 8.)] Hebrew Literature : A work in which was com; mitted to writing that "tradition of the elders" which in the time of Jesus was chiefly or exclusively oral (Matt. xv. 2-3; Mark vii. 5, 9, 13; viii. 9). The early spiritual leaders of the Jewish people, accept ing the Old Testament as divine, naturally made it the object of much thought, and attempted to furnish explanations of the more obscure pa ages, these explanations, if felicitous, being handed down from generation to generation, till they gradually acquired the authority due to inspiration. The Mosaic law contained a multitude of regulations moral, ceremonial, civil, and criminal-which priests, prophets, lawyers, and other high authorities interpreted. These were from the first regarded with the veneration with which the decisions of law courts on the meaning of certain statutes are received among modern nations, till at length they were deemed incontrovertible, and attributed to Divine inspiration, and were finally committed to writing, the ultimate product being the Talmud. 3996 When it appeared it became a second rule or standard of faith and practice, the first being the Old Testament, and no Jew was required to believe any doctrine or follow any religious, moral, or ceremonial precepts except those recorded in one or the other of the two standards. The Talmud had two constituent parts, the text, or Mishna, and the commentary, or Gemara. The midrashim, or explaining and amplifying Old Testament teaching, began previous to the writing of the books of Chronicles, which allude to their existence. (2 Chron. xiii. 22; xxiv. 27.) They continued till the second century A. D., and were of two kinds-halacha (the rule) and hagada (what is said), but only the first was binding. The germ of the present Mishna proceeded from R. Jehuda Hanasi, A. D. 219, but was preserved only in the memory of schol. ars, till the destruction of the academies of Pales tine in the fourth century and those of Babylonia in the fifth, showed the nece ity of committing it to writing. Hence in the end of the fourth century the Jerusalem, and in the fifth the Baby. lonian, Talmud was sent forth. The latter was compiled by R. Ashe, who died A. D. 427, and his immediate succe ors, and is about four times as long as the Jerusalem Talmud. The Talmud consists of six sedharim, or orders, containing sixty-three ma ictoth, or treatises, and 525 perakim, or chapters. The Mishna is in Hebrew, the Gemara is Aramean. The contents of the work are miscellaneous. In addition to religion and ethics, there are philosophy, history, . Rabbinical Jews set the Talmud on a higher level than the Old Testament. Christians long depreciated it, believing it a ma of exaggeration, puerility, and absurdity. Now, though, it is admitted that the charges are true in many pa ages, the book as a whole is known to be a storehouse of information regarding Judaism in its later developments.