The Albany register. [volume] (Albany, Or.) 1868-18??, 1869-01-23
Taimud Papers.

The work of reducing the Ta!u,ud to
form. and preparing it for the scrlte or
writer, was first undertaken by Hlllei
First, who was President Of the Sanhed-
rim about thirty years before Christ.
After his death, hundred years passed
before mother appeared to take up the
work. Akiba then entered diligently
upon his duties. and ut his death the
work was pushed forward by Rabbi Jc-
huda, s.the Saint" about two hundred
years after the birthsof Christ, when the
whole unwrittcn law was reduced to
code. Then Mishnah was divided into
six sections. The first treated of seeds;
the second Of feasts the third Of women;
the fourth, damages; the fifth, sacred
things; the sixth, publications.
The Mishnah being formed into
code, became in time what the Scrip
turos had been, a book Of texts /; and
new traditions were thrown n, and new
commentaries Of the learEd ensued and
the Gcrmara grew up. OF the Germara,
there were two; one oi'thcn expressing the
sentiment of the teachers in Palestine,
written at the Iibcrias in the fourth cen
tury, and called the Jerusalem Talmud
the other was produced at Syria, in Bah
ylon, in the fifth century, and is about
four times the size Of the former, and
about eleven times the size of. the Mish-
nah.
As to the character Of its teachings,
specimens o. It's lessons my furnish the
best idea.
Mr. Badarride, a learned jew, says of
it: "Any one would lie embarrassed
who hAl to prove that the Talmud teach
es anything but the practice Of all virtue;
although We find in the work an inhnity
of things which an enlightened man and
the man Of good sense cannot avow ; but
it must be remarked that the Talmud
is collection of the opinions Of a multi
tude of Rabbis and in what country
shall We find a multitude Of men of whom
some do not reason wrongly =
People are i'll the habit OF repeating that
the Christian religion has invented a
| new yirtue-the love OF our neighbor.
| This is an old error. The laws of Moses
and the Talmud teach that We ought to
love our neighbor as ourselves. No dis
tinction is made between him that is a
Jew and him that is not one. 4 pagan
asked of Rabbi Hillel in what the Jewish
religion consisted. Hillel answered ::
DO not unto thy neighbor what thou
wouldst MT one should do to thee. Be-
hold = said he, the whole OF religion !;
the rest is but the consequence
Lightfoot gives the same more litter
ally: GA certain Gentle went to Sham
mai, and said: Make me a proselytc.
that 1 may learn the whole law while I
stand on one foot Shammai thrust him
away with his staff which was in his
| Il !
him proselyte, and said: Thou shalt
not do to thy neighbor what is hateful to
thyself.'"
In Kitto's BiJztcaz Cyzopodia there is
much written on the Talmud by DIR. S.
Davidson. In it are many most ridicu-
lous stories from the Talmud Alba
Saul said "When L was an interrer of
the dead, [ had once to pursue after a
gazelle. | entered into the hollow of a
| hip bone Of dead man, and ran after it
three miles, and yet I reached neither
| the gazelle nor the end of the hip bone.
When | returned back, they told me this
bone belonged to Og, King Of Basham y
and Abba Saul said Once upon a
time, when I had been interring the
dead, cave opened under me, and l found
! myself standing up to my nostrils in the
socket of dead mans eye. When /
returned, ts-ey told me it was the eye of
Absalom. Perhaps thou wouldst say
| Abba Saul was short man ! Abba
Saul was the taliest man of his genera
tlon''
These cxtravagant stories will discover
how much the Talmud may be relied
upon by the student of natural history.
The Talmud declares that when A dam as
created, he at first reached from one end
of the world to the other; but after he
fell into sin, God reduced his m agnitude
And an old sailor saw "a fish which
threw down sixty villages, when the sea
cast it ashore sixty other villages ate of
it, and sixty other villages salted part of
it, and the fat of one of its eyes filled
three hundred barrels and at the end
of three months they saw the people col
lecting the bones to build again with
them the towns which had been thrown
down" He saw another fish, "upon the
back of which the sand had accumulated
and rushes had grown. We thought it
was dry ground" he says, ssand landed
and cooked provisions, and sat down on
it; but when it felt the fire, it dived
down." Rabbi Saphra tells of fish
(which streatched out its head
above water, and had horns, upon
which was written, I am the smallest
creature in the sea, and am three hund
red leagues in length, and go in the
throat of the leviathan'"
One tells of that wonderful lion that
Caesar wanted to see. AT the SUMMONS
of Rabbi, the lion set out, but, when
| four hundred leaoues axvav roarad :,