Horizon Information Portal

e-branch

Home

My Account/Renew Loans

Find Magazine Articles & more

The Talmud : a biography : banned, censored and burned : the book they couldn't suppress / Harry Freedman.

by Freedman, H. (Harry)

View full image

Bloomsbury, 2014.

Talmud -- History.

Rabbinical literature -- History and criticism.

Judaism -- History.

9781472905949 (hc.)

1472905946 (hc.)

x, 243 pages ; 24 cm.

"A Continuum book"--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [219]-232) and index.

The Talmud in its world. In the beginning ; The origins of the Talmud ; Returning to Babylon ; The compilation of the Talmud ; The flowering of Babylon ; From your father's house ; Coming of age ; The age of the giants -- The Talmud in the world. Banned, censored and burned : the thirteenth century ; Printers and polemics ; A royal Talmud, a Protestant rabbi ; The wisdom of the Greeks ; The challenge of the Enlightenment ; The problem with emancipation ; A new world in the making.

The Talmud is a central text of Rabbinic Judaism. It was first written in Tannaitic Hebrew and Jewish Babylonian Aramaic and contains the teachings and opinions of thousands of rabbis, dating from before the Common Era through the fifth century CE. Containing nearly two million words in 37 volumes, the entire Talmud in standard print is over 6,200 pages long. It deals with topics as diverse as law, faith, medicine, magic, ethics, sex, humour and prayer. It is a highly complex, profoundly logical and frequently impenetrable work with a history like no other. In its 1500 year history the Talmud has been banned, censored and burned, dissected by scholars and rabbis, probed by philosophers, poets, republicans and kings. The Talmud is an important and yet in many ways neglected part of world culture. It is as ancient as many of the world's classics, lengthier than possibly any other, complex in its composition, frequently profound in its content and it has had a far more tumultuous story than most -- a story which is not contained in the words on its pages. It is this story, or at least a good part of it, which Jewish scholar Harry Freedman tells -- the story of an ancient classic, the legal and mystical pillar of Judaism and recounts the story of a book which, in many ways, parallels the history of the Jewish people. From its origins as a record of discussions amongst scholars in towns and villages close to modern-day Baghdad, Freedman traces the spiraling paths of the Jewish diaspora and explores the story of the Talmuds early origins in Babylon, its role during the Enlightenment and its influence over traditional Judaism. A fusion of law, storytelling and spirituality, this is a fascinating insight into the history of Judaism.

Horizon Information Portal 3.24_8902M

© 2001-2013 SirsiDynix All rights reserved.

Horizon Information Portal