In Our Time - The Talmud

Episode Date: May 29, 2014

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history and contents of the Talmud, one of the most important texts of Judaism. The Talmud was probably written down over a period of several hundred years, beginning in the 2nd century. It contains the authoritative text of the traditional Jewish oral law, and also an account of early Rabbinic discussion of, and commentary on, these laws. In later centuries scholars wrote important commentaries on these texts, which remain central to most strands of modern Judaism.With:Philip Alexander Emeritus Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of ManchesterRabbi Norman Solomon Former Lecturer at the Oxford Centre for Jewish and Hebrew StudiesLaliv Clenman Lecturer in Rabbinic Literature at Leo Baeck College and a Visiting Lecturer at the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King's College LondonProducer: Thomas Morris.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Thank you for downloading this episode of In Our Time. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com. UK slash Radio 4. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello, the Talmud is one of the most important texts of Judaism. It's an exhaustive account of ancient Jewish teaching relating to the law, together with discussions of thousands of early scholars about how it should be interpreted.

It was first written down over a period of several. several centuries beginning around 1900 years ago. The Talmud is a vast and fascinating work, which in its English translation runs to 73 volumes. It deals with a wide variety of subject matter, including religious festivals, dietary laws, marriage and divorce, and even agriculture. It presents its scholarship not as a sequence of edicts,

but as an ongoing discussion, sometimes offering a range of opinion on a single question. With me to discuss the Talmud are, Philip Alexander, Emeritus Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Manchester Rabbi Norman Solomon, former lecturer at the Oxford Centre for Jewish and Hebrew Studies

and Aleve Klenman, lecturer in rabbinic literature at Leo Beck College and a visiting lecturer at KCL. Philip Alexander, the number of texts which are fundamentally in Judaism, would you explain these and how the Talmud fits into that body of writing?

Yes, the fundamental text in Judaism is the Torah of Moses, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. And in theology, that is the absolute central text. But the second after that, I would say, is the Talmud, the text we are discussing this morning. And in some ways, it's even functionally more important than the Torah of Moses, the written Torah, because it tells you how to understand the Torah.

and it has been absolutely fundamental to the development of Jewish thought and the development of Jewish ideas. All the major forms of Judaism, as we know today, acknowledge in some shape or form the authority of the Talmud, except for one, historically there was one group called the Carriites who rejected it. So it is absolutely central. I mean, other central texts would be the prayer book. as a historian of Judaism I would say the Zohar the great medieval

mystical interpretation of the Torah are very important but apart from the Torah itself there's nothing really quite matches in influence and authority the Talmud and the Talmud takes as its starting point the books of Genesis to Leviticus to Deuteronomy the first five books there no it doesn't actually one of the odd things about it is that it's actually not a direct commentary on the Torah.

It actually consists of two parts. A part called the Mishnah, which was an early law code, edited about 210, and then a commentary on that. And one of the things that's very important in the history of the Talmud is it's actual relationship to the biblical text,

which is oblique. It's not direct. So it quotes a lot of Bible, but it's not a direct commentary on the Bible. So can you tell us how much is known about Jewish law, how it was decided and circulated before it was written down for the first time? It's really very difficult to trace the history of Jewish law before the Talmud, before the Mishnah, that central text in it. Which begins about 19 centuries ago, something like that.

Yes, I mean the Talmud, it's. contains lots of different rulings and opinions of the various scholars, running from about the beginning of the first century of the current era, down to about 200. But if you go before that, then it's not very easy to trace the history of Jewish law. We have some Dead Sea Scrolls, for example, that are legal. And comparing what they say on legal issues, like, for example, the observance of Shabbat, with what said in the Talmud is very interesting. But it's not very easy to actually trace the prehistory of the Talmud.

How long do you think the oral tradition went on then? Well, the oral tradition, according to the tradition, goes back to Moses himself. Modern scholarship would question that very much, the idea that the oral tradition of which the Talmud is a major element, a major crystallization, that is said to go back to Moses, who when he gave the written Torah in the five books of Moses, also passed on an oral commentary, if you like, on it.

And that was passed down through a secure line of tradents till the time of the Talmud and it's all then written down. But in fact, modern scholarship would question that. That's a kind of polemical construct. It's a way of saying we have the right interpretation of this text against all other interpretations. And if we've got it to win that with the rest of the programme. So it's sometime back then. Yes.

But you're not going to reveal when you think. Because it would take over the entire 45 minutes. Okay. Norman Solomon. The Talmud consists of two major components, as has been alluded to, the Mishner and the Gammara. Can you talk about the Mishner first? And when it was written down and by whom? Yes, well, when it was written down and by whom is one of the big issues in contemporary scholarship,

and it becomes quite exciting. But simply to describe it first, it is set and presumably was produced in early third century Palestine, but drawing on the teaching of people who'd lived for a few generations before that. and it is a systematic approach to Jewish law. The problem being that if you read through the books of the Bible, you find lots of laws or you find lots of contradictions between different legal texts as well, and altogether you get into a bit of a muddle.

So early in the third century, at least, it was decided that this should be brought into order and all this material presented. in a much more systematic form. Therefore, the mission was produced in Hebrew of the time in six clearly demarc sections, each one of which is subdivided into tractates organized on a thematic basis.

So you'll have a tractate on Shabbat on the Sabbath. You'll have one on divorce. You'll have one on conditions of marriage and so on, right across the board, anything from prayer to ritual of sacrifice in the temple. Does it go into what we were called criminal law as well? And definitely including civil and criminal law and the constitution of courts. All this is set out.

How much of it is historical? In other words, if you have something on the constitution of courts, does this describe how courts actually were? Or is it an ideal portrayal of what? the rabbi's thought was, should be in place and therefore projected back into the past. Those things we don't know.

But do you know, you say third century somewhere in Palestine, I've read from what in one set of notes, Tiberius is a contender for this. But do you know more about that? Was there a particular group of rabbis, the scholars there? Is there anything more known for certain? We're in an area where scholarship is thin and speculative some of the time.

Yes, a lot of this is speculative. Traditionally, the authorship or the compilation is attributed to Yehuda Hanasi or Judah the Patriarch, who we know was an influential and very Romanized and wealthy Jew, who seems to have taken control. My suspicion is that this all happened very much in the wake of the grant of citizens, to all free males in the Roman Empire, which meant the Jews had access to the Roman courts, should they so wish. And it must have been felt by Judah or his contemporaries

that they had to set up something of their own, which would establish the law, the Torah, as the law of the people. And as Roman law itself was being brought into order at that time, quite nearby, in fact in Beirut, Baraitas, which was a principal school of Jewish of Roman law. Much the same thing happened in Jewish circles, and mission was set up. Was it set up as a rival, or can you tell us why you think they wanted it?

It's a fascinating notion, isn't it, that they're running alongside each other? I think they perceived that there would be an assimilation of Jews simply into the ordinary Roman way of life. and they wanted to establish a clear Jewish identity, and this needed the jurisdiction of their own as well. And to some extent, subject to limitations imposed by the Romans, they were able to do this, certainly in all religious matters,

and to some extent also in civil and commercial affairs. And Alive, how was this information presented to readers, and how is it, how are the other? authority is brought to bear. I think it's safe to say that it's called a sea of Talmud for a reason. It's not necessarily something that you can pin down in any singular way and say information X is presented in this particular model. And I think that's why so many people find the Talmud both so tantalizing and engaging

and on the other hand, so challenging and remarkably foreign. So essentially what you will have is you will have a given, Mishna with a section of Gamara, which together formed Talmud, following it. That's right, exactly. The Gmira in the moment, yeah. Exactly. And so the way the information is presented within the Gamara is perhaps most simply deemed a commentary, but really I think what we have is best described as perhaps a series of sedimentary layers

of rock, each built upon the other and together joining to form one entity, or a delta of tributaries that forms a sea. In this sense, we have so many different languages, biblical Hebrew, the Middle Hebrew of the Mishnah, Western Aramaic, Eastern Aramaic, linguistic coexistence. We also have traditions from Babylon as well as from Israel and antiquity, from Palestine. And what you find is also the incorporation of tradition of traditions. of a range of different sages from different time periods. So all of this information is presented in quite a complex manner. So we have them, just for clarity for our listeners,

you have the Talmud consists of broadly speaking two parts, the Mishner, which Norman Solomon has described and the Gamara. Can you just tell us a little more about the Gamara and how these two, if they do, well together? Absolutely. In some regards, the Gamara is something. of a commentary on the Mishina. And we have to keep in mind that just as there's a gap in time

and perhaps legal and social historical culture between Bible and Mishnah, we also find a gap between Mishna and Ghamara and between the various layers. We could have hundreds of years, for example. So the Ghamara could be trying to explain the Mishina. It could be trying for itself. The later sages could be trying to understand

what the Mishina intended. And in some cases, it's fairly clear that the later sages are trying to reinterpret the Mishnah and make it, shall we say, valuable and relevant to their own times. I think we should get out the ferocity of the arguments and the complication, which I've been reading some of the example, which are terrific reading. These were fierce arguments that very scholarly men, as all men at that time were having with each other,

about details that almost beyond, well, beyond understanding. One of my favorite stories about that because I think it's true that sometimes it can seem, you know, one can go through this kind of point by point back and forth and very detailed patterns of argumentation, use of logic, often perhaps under Greco-Roman influence, this very detailed back-and-forth legal discussion can seem so obscure. and one can think really what is the,

what on earth is the earthly or heavenly purpose of this? And my favorite story is two of our greatest sages, Rabbi Ohanan and Reisch Lakish, were in a study pair of this nature. And they were debating, when can weapons contract ritual impurity, which is certainly an issue that we all face every day. No doubt they did too.

And a weapon naturally will, is able to contract ritual impurity when it is finished. Now, the debate centered on when is a weapon finished, Rabbi Ochanan said when it comes out of the fire. And Reisch Lakish said, nonsense. No one can use a weapon when it's white-hot. You need to temper it in the water first.

And they entered into such an argument that Rabbi Ochanan refused to speak to Reish-Lakish. Now, in the absence of that incredible debate, that vitality, that life, those minutiae, Reisch Rakesh dies. Rabbi Ochanan, without that intellectual life, without that engagement with revelation, loses his mind. And he says, he says,

this is how we understand revelation. This is how we understand Torah, which is arguing with each other on the tiniest points, and thereby we understand the breadth of our inheritance. We'd better be careful than on this program. It's true. Rabiochanan, of course, also passes away, sadly. Philip Alexander, we've learned about two rabbis here. How much do we know about the sages who drew up the Talmud?

Who contributed, I suppose, as a better way to put it, to the Talmud. Well, on the face of it, we seem to know a lot, because if you open any page of Talmud, you'll find all sorts of names of rabbis, historical figures, scattered all over it. You know, Rabbi X said this. Rabbi Y said that. Rabbi Z said something else. And there's also quite a lot of stories told about these people

because one of the principles of Jewish law was that a sage in his actions revealed what he understood to be the way you applied the law. There's also stories, you know, telling funny stories about the sages that probably circulated among their students. You know, students telling funny stories. stories about teacher. So on the face of there's an awful lot apparently of history. But one of the big debates in an academic study of the Talmud is just how historical this all is. And Norman has sort of alluded to this already. And there is one school of thought, academic school of thought,

that is really emphasizing that it's all a big literary construct that was probably produced in the early middle ages and that it's very difficult to read straight history of any of this information. I should also perhaps emphasize that there's actually two Talmuds and LaLeve has alluded to this. One produced in Babylonia, Iraq and one produced in Israel. And it's the Babylonian Talmud that has been historically the more important of the two. Can I go to you now, Norman Solomon, to take up that point, but you wanted to make a point of your own while Philip was talking? Yes, because I think that the scholarly debates,

which Philip was alluded to, about the historical validity of statements, is also very much bound up with another scholarly debate as to how and when the time that was actually committed to writing. And as I probably take one of the extreme views on this, I shall take advice. of the situation and put that one forward, which is I happen to think that the Talmud, or parts of it,

certainly were reduced to writing quite early on. The problem is we don't have manuscripts, or even fragments of manuscripts, earlier than about the 8th or 9th century, and complete ones considerably later than that. Somebody, in fact, in 1974, dug up an ancient synagogue in Israel and found, written in the mosaic on the floor and repeated in the plaster on a column,

a passage which does seem to come out of the missionary. And this can be dated at least to the 7th century, although we still await a final report of this archaeological discovery 40 years ago. But on the evidence of the Talmud itself, it seems to me that things must have been written down at an early stage. What do you mean by early stage, may I ask? Third century, not later. There is a discussion, a well-known discussion,

saying that those matters which are in writing, namely the books of the Torah, must be written. But other matters should be handed on only orally, in other words, not committed to writing. But the very rabbis, one of whom was mentioned, Rachel Akish, who come out with the biblical interpretation justifying this, were noticed sitting on a Sabbath afternoon, according to a report in the Talmud,

reading the Agadah. And the question was asked, how can they do this? They had a justification from another biblical verse, but clearly it is assumed the stuff was written down, and I have other evidence of that kind to suggest that at least notes were made, although in the schools traditions were passed on orally. The student didn't come armed with the book

but sat in front of a teacher who repeated missionary to him. And I emphasize him because only men were involved in this at that stage. So I am inclined to think that there is some historical value in a lot of the reports that we have, and we can get at least vague pictures of some of the main teachers. but as I say, I take a somewhat extreme view on this and others go to the other extreme. Lalif, you alluded to, or I think it was,

Philip who alluded to a Jerusalem Talmud and a Babylonian Talmud. Can you tell us more about those two versions? Maybe versions are just too strong of it, but away you go. The Palestinian Talmud, as it's usually called, in scholarly circles is more traditionally known as the Yerushalmi, that is the Jerusalem Talmud. Most scholars think that's at least partly a misnomer, in other words, is not necessarily from Jerusalem. But it is certainly, you know, from the area of antique Palestine.

And then we have another Talmud. I'll put it on a second rank for perhaps the only time, is the Babylonian Talmud. Now, why do we have to? because we had two major communities that were remarkably creative in terms of their literary legal productions. In one sense, they are engaging with each other. We know if we believe these as historical or pseudo-historical accounts,

the Talmos themselves described sages going back and forth, especially Babylonian sages going back to what they would have called Israel to bring back the Israeli Torah, by which they mean Israeli teachings. So the Babylonian is later? Well, they're developing at around the same time, actually, but the Palestinian Talmud is probably redacted and finishes developing around 425, whereas the Babylonian Talmud, most consensus has it edited

for another 200 years, perhaps. Now, if any of us had an essay, or a work for 200 extra years, you can imagine how verbose it could become. And that's part, I think, of the style difference. Some people argue that the Palestinian Talmud is unfinished, if you will, not quite edited properly. But more recently, and I'm in agreement with this position,

it's come to be appreciated on its own terms. It's much briefer. It has a feeling of Mishnah about it. The statements are much shorter. When the Palestinian Talmud tells a story, it tells it in one line. The Babylonian Talmud might have that same story core, quite a close parallel,

but it will go on for one page. So it really has its unique style and it's quite powerful. Rashi, one of the most important commentators on the Bible as well as the Babylonian Talmud said that if you move from the study of the Babylonian Talmud to the Palestinian, you will be disappointed

because the Palestinian Talmud where Yerushalmi is in fact deeper. Philip Alexander, we're talking about different influences, and I'll even mention many languages involved from the beginning. If we were to open up, and there's the 1880 edition. Yes, the Vilna. The Vilna, yeah. If we were to open that, one of the 73 volumes,

what all we see on the page, would that reflect the different languages? It would. I mean, it's a wonder to behold if you open this big folio Talmud. because it has a whole range of texts set out on it. Basically, all you need to have to hand to study the Talmud. So right in the middle of the text, in bigger print, would be the Mishnah and the Gimara. And then surround... In what? In Hebrew?

Well, the Mishnah is in Hebrew. The Gimara is largely an Aramaic, but there are Hebrew bits in it. And then round it, there are various aids to study. So on the inner margin of each page, the margin next to the binding, is the commentary on the Talmud by the great medieval French scholar Rashi, whom La L'Leve has just mentioned. And he's really where you start if you're trying to understand the Talmud. And in fact, it's absolutely amazing.

I mean, you read a bit of Talmud and you can't understand a word of it. You look at Rashi and suddenly all becomes clear. Then on the opposite margin, there is a collection of, glosses on the Talmud by members of the school of Rashi. They're called Tossa Fott. So they argue with each other. They argue with Rashi. And then there's also a range of other aids to study.

So this arrangement is found in some medieval manuscripts, but it really goes back to the early printed editions, particularly the big edition done in Venice in the 16th century, by the printer Daniel Bomberg. Can I come back to you Norman Solomon or some of you hinted at or just made a brief introduction to the ordering

six orders that are laid out and just give us a more detailed idea of that because those seem to be, am I right, are they very important? Yes, this is very important but if I just go quickly through the six orders of the missionary and what are they setting out to do

these six orders? They're setting out to present the full range of halakha, that is of law, as ultimately based in the five books of the Torah, but expanded by the rabbis in some ways. So the first volume consists of a tract which is on prayer and sets out the various parameters, how many daily prayers, and how they should be said and who should recite them and this sort of thing.

Most of the order, though, is devoted to agricultural matters, laws of the land, those concerning things like tithing, the sabbatical and jubilee years. These are all covered in individual tracts in this first order. The second order covers festivals, the Sabbath and all the festivals of the year. The third order, headed Nashim, women, discusses marriage, divorce, and also for convenience, presumably, there are two tracts which are devoted to aspects of vows. The fourth volume, Nizikin, or Torts, deals with the constitution of courts and with civil and criminal. criminal law and contains some other tracts of interest. One of them called Avot, Fathers,

which is mainly devoted to ethical sayings of the different rabbis. And another one, Edo Yot, which are testimonies which were given about the law and traditions. The fifth volume is on the sacrifices and also includes one tractate on the dietary laws. The final volume is on ritual purity. I often find people are a bit surprised

that if you have a volume of law that you include matters on sacrifices and so on. They seem to overlook very conveniently the fact that all ancient writers did this. If you read Plato's laws, for instance, he deals with temples and sacrifices. And even if you read the Theodotian Cone, which

is produced in the 5th century. This has sections dealing with sacrifices because these were a vital part of everyday life in the ancient world, as they are now in countries like India. I think the interesting thing there, though, is Norman that, of course, the temple was no longer functioning. So, you know, it had been destroyed in 70 and here is this big discussion of how the temple works.

And that's the difference. sacrifice, pagans did sacrifice, but Jews didn't. And yet they're spending so much time discussing this matter. But Jews envied the pagans. And I know the feeling. You wander around and you see these beautiful temples everywhere and we haven't got one and you feel it very strongly. And when the Messiah comes, one has one, we've got to be ready for it.

Lalif, can I come to... When did the Talmud come to be... recognized outside the group of people who contributed to it as a source of major authority. Are we talking about Russia? Are we talking about the early Middle Ages? It's again a very difficult question to answer without a time machine as so many of our questions.

I'd like to go back in time a little bit, if I may, on that, and say there's an enormous scholarly debate about whether or not the rabbis of both Talmuds had any particular influence or authority in their own time periods. In general, it looks like perhaps less influence in Palestine and more in Babylonia. Now, whether the degree to which they did or did not have is widely debated, but clearly the Babylonian Talmud, not the Palestinian, which is rather understudied and under, sort of engaged with much less,

it probably becomes authoritative, we would say, after what we call the Gaonic period, which is the post-Talmudic period. In that period, you still see individuals writing to rabbis for advice on a given situation where they may or may not consult the Talmud and other sources in giving their personal authoritative response. But is it not,

is there not some truth in the idea fidgeting around for evidence, really, that Rashi, the French Jewish writer and winemaker, as I think in the 11th century, did very authoritative commentaries and perhaps put it in a different phase in its influence. Did that not happen? I'm not sure that the authority was well before Rashi.

And why did the authority extend to? Did that mean that all intelligent Jews or all Jews took notice of this and lived by it and so on? What are we talking about? It spread from Babylonia. It spread all the way to Spain. It spread up into France. We're talking about the soon afterwards, eight, nine,

well, this is sort of ninth, tenth century. The Muslim conquest of Spain in the eighth century linked politically the big Jewish communities in Spain with Baghdad, with Iraq, and that led to a spread of Talmudic learning into Spain. And then it spread out. up into France and into Italy. So it was really very authoritative.

But there was one group, as I mentioned earlier, I think I mentioned earlier, the Carriites who actually rejected rabbinic authority. So it wasn't absolutely universal. There was one group who rejected it. For the last time, as we are for the last time asking, is there any point you're talking about Russia, about whom one or two of you in your notes noted great lengths

that this man did something that he was, a man who you say, can't say, did exist. Oh, yes. So he existed, right. And he's commentary, as you said, when you described the page of the book, you said, and on the left-hand side,

there'll be the commentary of Rashi. Yes, yes. He was regarded as an extraordinary rabbi. Yes. So can you just take us to the Middle Ages, please, Norman? That would be a real help. Well, I'd love to do that,

and I think we have to see Rashi in context. Rashi, 1040 to 11.5. I can always remember that because it's roughly the time of the Norman conquest, and William didn't bring him over. And he lived in Champagne, and he was a very clever man, but didn't succeed in inventing champagne.

That didn't happen for a couple of hundred years. But Rashi was a great philologist, a great teacher, a great succinct writer, and he lived at a time, which we sometimes refer to as the early Renaissance, when people in Europe were beginning to discover or rediscover ancient texts. And this is the context in which I see Rashi.

Rashi is rescuing an ancient text which he knows about. But of course, a Jewish text, the Jewish text, namely the Talmud. And he makes sense of it. Bear in mind, we have a text which has been unreliably transcribed in which there are no vowels and no punctuation, and you have to make sense of it. But we have to have a man on the job. We have to have a man on the job.

Rashi wasn't the first here. Others on whose foundations he built and who had received the Babylonian traditions and brought them across, and he's conscious of this. So he sort of reconstituted it, and it is he and his school who are very likely responsible

for making the talent, Talmud into an authoritative code. This is not quite what it had been before. It was certainly a point of reference. But they were asking questions like, this is how we've been doing something. We've been trading, for instance, in wine with our non-Jewish neighbours.

The Talmud seems to say this is wrong. What should we do about it? So they're bringing everything into order. They're referring to the Talmud as a source of law. So it is probably at this time that it fully becomes the authoritative code rather than a resource to which you might refer in you and you have to interpret. Where did Maimonides fit into that, if he did?

Get in quickly, for... I would say, in a sense, what Maimonides did is responded to what you're describing as a frustration with the complexity, obscurity, and... You were pointing to Philip then, appointed to Norman then, not to me, yeah. and an exclusivity of the study of the Gomara. And rather than saying, okay, each time you have a problem, you need a sage to engage with this

and then write some kind of response. Perhaps instead we could have what I might, perhaps a bit, extremely term an anti-Talmud, which is simply a list of laws. And in his Mishnet Torah, that is really what he created. My ammoniities were still. That's right. We're still talking about Maimonides.

And therein grew a tradition of legal codes, perhaps in a way culminating in the most accessible, the Kitsur Shulhan Arouh, the shortened Shulhan Arouh, which is another legal code, where one can look in the index and see what can I do about X on Shabbat and open the page, and there it might tell me. So as opposed to the Gamara, which will have a very complex discussions where it will bring in challenging narratives, challenge itself, a range of teachings from 100 to 600, you will have one statement that's brought in in the legal code. Philip Alexander.

I think one of the things you've got to bear in mind also is that in making the halakha, the religious law cut and dried, Maimonides was severely criticized by his contemporaries because what he did was in effect they claimed he froze the law. Can you just, can we just date my amenities and give his location? He lived, well, he lived mainly in Cairo in... 1238 to 1138. To 12.5.

5, 12.05. Thank you, Norman. He was the head of the community in Cairo in that period, the Nagu. And he was also a great scientist. He was a great doctor. He made his living as a doctor. but the big criticism was that he was sort of freezing the law in having this cut and dried code. So if circumstances changed and you needed to adapt the law, what you really needed to do was go back to the discussions

and then develop it to meet the new circumstances. I just want to say on my monodies, it's sort of setting him a little bit cheap to say that he simply summarised the law. He's interpreting the law as well very much and constantly gives a rationale for laws, mainly setting them up on an ethical basis, which is an extraordinary thing to do.

And the more we look at Maimonides' Code and compare it with his sources, the more we discover exactly how he is interpreting, which is one of the reasons that Maimonides' Code is still very much studied to this day. Can we take on from, the Middle Ages onwards. What is happening?

We've got, actually got Maimonides. The body of knowledge is there. It's written down. People are contributing to it, interpreting. What happens next? Do you want to go there?

Aline? No, you're pointing. Right. Norman, it seems to be up to you. It seems to be looking at me. No, I'm happy to. What we have is two periods. Anyway,

after Maimonides, in most of the Jewish communities we know are, other than the Karaite communities who followed their own rules, the Talmud has become dominant. But, of course, it has to be the Talmud as interpreted because any text has to be read and has to be interpreted in order to be applied

in particular circumstances. So we have the growth of a Hellacic legal literature and often in the form of comments on earlier codes, the definitive code is produced by Joseph Caro, 1488 to 1575, and this came out at a time when printing had become common. It was actually printed three times in his own lifetime, and this may be one of the reasons that it became authoritative, and the base for subsequent commentary.

And, of course, all these matters are constantly explored. So we can say then that from this time on as the Talmud has become the dominant feature in mainstream Jewish life. Lalif. I think part of what happens there, I would argue, is something slightly different, which is because of the development of these codes, often the later commentators begin to look back to the codes

and engage with various principles. generations of legal decisers in their tradition, rather than going back to the literature of antiquity. And that's one of the most interesting areas, I think, in scholarship today, is comparing these later legal developments, postcode, if you will, which operate, in a sense, within their own bracket to the diversity of the antique tradition that preceded them. How would you say, Philippe, how would you say that the text is studied and used to day? Well, the text is the Talmud is the major textbook in the yeshivas and there are yeshivas all over the schools. These are rabbinical schools and that is the major text. So if you

go into one of these yeshivas you'll see pairs of students with the Talmud open arguing about it. Why do they do it in pairs? It's fascinating. You've mentioned that two or three times before. It's traditional I think. There's no there's no sort of commandment to do it but it's a very good way to study because it's a very dialectic text and you know your companion can take the opposite point of view just for the you know for the devilment of it and argue with you and in that way you begin to begin to see into you know the dialectic of the text yeah I mean I fully endorse that and I think what we have to realize is that we're talking about Talmud as a book it isn't a book it's an activity which gets recorded in the form of a book

and it's this activity which continues and is greatly valued. To me, one of the extraordinary developments leading over my lifetime is the spread of Talmud to Jewish circles where it was not studied before. Non-Orthodox Jews who are now picking it up. And a very welcome development is the involvement of women. 50 years ago, we would never have drenched of women

Talmudic scholars. Now they are amongst our leading. Talmudic scholars. And there is a daily study. A lot of people follow the programme, which is called Daphyomi, of studying a page of Talmud each day. They get through the Babylonian Talmud in about seven years

and throw a big party. So these are some of the recent developments. Well, I'm afraid you have to come to an end. So thank you very much indeed, Norman Solomon, Philip Alexander, and Alie Klanman. And next week we'll be talking about blue stockings, influential group of intellectual women in 18th century England. Thank you for listening.

And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests. I think one of the interesting things is that, which didn't come out, was that the Babylonian Talmud was produced under really Iranian Persian political, Zoroastrian political hegemony, whereas the Palestinian Talmud was produced under Christian. And I think some of the differences between the two are related to cultural differences between, you know, Persian, Iraq and Christian. I wonder, Philip, I often wanted to ask you this. This is a good opportunity.

Why did the Palestinian Talmud stop? We can never say it was completing. It just stopped. in early 5th century and the other went on later and it seems to me that what happened in the land of Israel is that people got

a little bit fed up with this approach and devoted themselves to midrash and the like because this is where we get great midrashic text produced and to liturgy and eventually into philology and grammar and so on and therefore

developed along rather different lines. Not contrary lines, but simply along different lines from the Babylonians. When you insisted towards the end quite rightly, I'm sure, and very good to have it in there, and that it was an activity.

I keep talking about it as a book with such. It's also a book, though, isn't it? You go back to the book and you continue the activity. People try to capture it and put it in a book. Yes. But so are you saying that these 73 volumes are not a book? I can give you an example when I was giving a talk on Talmud

to primarily early Christian scholars and so I had a few selections of course in my handout and it was undertaking an analysis and afterwards someone came up to me and said this is fantastic now I really am going to go read the Talmud it's a meaningless thing to say really and so in that sense

certainly it's a physical gargantuan book, but really what it is is an opportunity to engage in dialogue with the sages. I think trying to read it as a book is too difficult. Rather puzzled why are denying that it's a book. I mean, if I can open it and say, it doesn't matter what page, I'm 173, and read something that one of the sages says and see somebody disagreeing with him and disagree with him myself and so on. Isn't that reading a book?

Look, it's very different. So take Augustine's confessions produced in the same period. It's a book. You have an author who's sat down his thoughts and put them down in an orderly fashion, and he expects you to read the book and expects you to agree with it, of course. The Talmud doesn't do that. It isn't the work of an author. It's a series of notes about discussions that took. There are different sorts of books, sure. I can't tell them. The books that are co-authored and multi-authored. Is it got to be one author to make it a book?

Look, I've co-authored books. They want, you six. We do have a strong... We have a very strong redactorial influence. So probably the most powerful influence in both Talmuds is the editor, which is anonymous and invisible, as it were. It's invisible. This powerful mind.

Which is fantastic. As I understand it from your notes, the scholarship is coming to the conclusion that it was, there was one or two, there were one or two powerful minds. As it were, Norman, I'm going to have to... I'm not going to win this. I'm not trying to win it. I've got 73 volumes in front of me. Why it isn't called a book?

But if an editor is editorialising it, then that's a beginning. If I were ever on a desert island and had to take a book with me, one of the ones I would seriously consider is the Talmud, because that would keep me amused and keep me instructed, you know, till I was rescued until I died. You wouldn't ever be bored. It is so rich. So you'd take that book with you, would you?

What'd your book be? You know, all the folio volumes. It would sink the ship. It would sink the rowing boat. You can get a single volume. Oh, you can. My eyesight won't read it. Anyway, when you read it now,

when you, the three of you say, well, I disagree with that remarks or ends. So I will add to it. I will put another side of the argument or a different argument to it. Is that then included in future, what can I call it, compilations, presentations of the Talmud?

People are writing commentaries all the time. It goes on. And some of it is lost into the ether. We can have a very heated debate about something that's a proper oral tradition and none of it gets written down. I remember a typical yeshiva discussion. Some bright student comes out with some very clever remarks.

And another one says, oh, Mahashah says that. He was a 16th century commentator. Never mind. And the teacher always says, and I admire the one who was discovered that the argument was there already in this obscure commentator.

So it's very difficult to think of things which are really new, but we try. I think it's possible. Especially in Agada. Absolutely. Because in a new ways of reading Agadha. Tom Morris has entered with all sorts of goodies. There are many more Radio 4

arts and discussion programs to download for free. Find these on the website at BBC.com.ukuk slash radio four.