THE TALMUD AND MODERN CRITICISM.
By W. S. Butterbaugh
A BRIEF and concise answer to the question, What is the Talmud? may be given by saying that it is a compilation of the writings and decisions of the “higher critics” of the Jewish age of the church. It may also be said to be a newspaper of Judaistical interpretation and comment, edited during a period of no less than a thousand years, its editors and collaborators belonging to all classes of men. This being the case, there can be found in it almost everything, presenting, in some cases, the most striking contradictions. Politics, pedagogy, history, mathematics, jurisprudence, medicine, philosophy, astronomy, theology, astrology, demonology, magic, and a multitude of bonmots of uncertain mixture, are discussed, both pro and con. Starting with religion, the collaborators of the Talmud discussed almost everything in the daily affairs of life from the cradle to the grave. Strictly speaking, it is not, as many suppose, the science or religion of Judaism, but rather the “higher criticism” of the Bible by Jewish rabbis and worldly wise critics of those days. Of a truth it could be said: “In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” It was the library of the Jews when no other existed outside of a few cloisters and palaces; and to-day we stand with awe before that memorable monument, which was erected upon the grave of Israel’s national life. As such, this monument contains a repository of thought and an index of reference that help to unfold the spirit that animated Jewish customs. The word “Thalmud,” or Talmud, signifies something that is to be committed to memory, in contradistinction to the law of Moses, which could be read. A prominent Jewish writer is authority for the statement that it was by dire necessity, on account of the increasing disasters during the dispersion, that special methods of preserving and expanding the law were established. This method, he says, turned out disastrously for Judaism, on account of the sophistry and idle argumentation that necessarily had to be applied in order to impress the mind with the substituted interpretations of the law, as well as the perversion of the plain words of the Pentateuch, and to thus find in them what the original writers never intended. This formalism, these minutiae, this anxiety to explain and scrutinize every iota by all sorts of interpretations, became painful and ridiculous in the extreme, and what is worst of all, hostile to free research by the ordinary person. It is a noticeable fact, as compared with present-day theological tendencies, that when a “Thus saith the Lord” is regarded objectionable to the prevailing custom of the majority, our “higher critics” find some means of declaring the same to be null and void. The same was true of the Talmudical critics. In proof of the foregoing I herewith submit the following evidence: In the days of Samuel cows were sacrificed, which was against the law. Lev. 1: 3–10. However, the Talmud approves of it, considering the circumstances. See Abodah Sarah 24 c. “The rabbis have a right to abolish even the law of Moses.”—Jebamoth 90 c. “God never came down from heaven to earth. Moses and Elijah never ascended to heaven.”—Sukkah 5. In the middle of the third century, Simon ben Lakish, the great Talmud teacher, decided that Job never actually existed, but was a deeply poetical creation, and, furthermore, that the names of the angels were borrowed from a foreign people (Babylonians and Persians) by the Jews during the exile. Gaon Ladiah, who flourished in the ninth century, explained away many of the miracles; namely, the speaking of the serpent in paradise, and the speaking of Balaam’s ass, etc. His contemporary, Chivi of Balk, explains the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites, with “ebb and flood” (evidently meaning ebb and flow of the tide). The manna he says was a sort of “resin emitted by the sweating of certain trees.” The radiance of the face of Moses was the result of “too much fasting,” etc.; and he plainly denies supernatural revelation. “Israel has no longer to expect a personal Messiah; for all prophecies concerning the Messiah have been fulfilled by the King Hezkiah.”—Sanhedrin 99. “In every country and land where Israel has not to suffer persecution, there is their Messiah.”—Berachot 34. “Better desecrate one Sabbath in order to keep this day holy in future days.”—Joma 87. More evidence might be introduced; but the foregoing is sufficient to show that there existed in the days of the Talmud a class of critics similar to those of the present day, whose criticism and interpretation was nothing other than infidelity in disguise. Thus it is apparent to every candid Bible student that while in many cases they professed outward compliance with the law, and strenuously laid upon others its obligation; yet whenever any point touched themselves, they did not hesitate to declare it void. Thus they bound heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and laid them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves would not touch them with one of their fingers. Therefore, inasmuch as “this method turned out disastrously” “on account of the sophistry and idle argumentation” that characterized it, how much more shall it be true that the present-day interpretation by the higher critics will turn out DISASTROUSLY to all concerned in this, on account of its SOPHISTRY and IDLE ARGUMENTATION!