Why is the recently announced Talmud pre-pub so exciting and important?

Prompted by Hendrik-Jan van der Wal's post on another thread, I decided to do for the Talmud what I did for the Catena Aurea. Maybe this post will end up edited and on the Logos blog, too.

Perhaps the people at Logos (or someone else...) could write about the Talmud on the Logos blog.

Well, I'm not very knowledgeable about it myself, but I do know how to do a bit of research. And I don't have access to the Logos blog to post to it, but I can write here.

Logos recently announced the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud Collection (50 vols) in pre-pub. I think this is an unfortunate choice of name since it looks like some vast scholarly collection of monographs about the Talmud. But it isn't. This is the Talmud! Many of you have probably heard of it and vaguely know it's important to Jews, but have no idea really what it is. So here's an explanation.

Compilation from several Wikipedia articles: "The Talmud (Hebrew: תַּלְמוּד talmūd "instruction, learning", from a root lmd "teach, study") is a central text of mainstream Judaism, in the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history. The Talmud has two components: the Mishnah (c. 200 [AD]), the first written compendium of Judaism's Oral Law; and the Gemara (c. 500 [AD]), a discussion of the Mishnah and related Tannaitic writings that often ventures onto other subjects and expounds broadly on the Tanakh."  "The Mishnah...is the first major written redaction of the Jewish oral traditions called the "Oral Torah" and the first major work of Rabbinic Judaism." Tannaitic refers to the Tannaim, "the Rabbinic sages whose views are recorded in the Mishnah." "The Tanakh...is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra."

"The process of 'Gemara' proceeded in the two major centers of Jewish scholarship, the Land of Israel and Babylonia. Correspondingly, two bodies of analysis developed, and two works of Talmud were created. The older compilation is called the Jerusalem Talmud or the Talmud Yerushalmi. It was compiled in the fourth century in Israel. The Babylonian Talmud was compiled about the year 500 C.E., although it continued to be edited later. The word 'Talmud', when used without qualification, usually refers to the Babylonian Talmud."

From Internet Sacred Text Archive: "The Talmud is a vast collection of Jewish laws and traditions. Despite the dry subject matter the Talmud makes interesting reading because it is infused with vigorous intellectual debate, humor and deep wisdom. As the saying goes, 'you don't have to be Jewish' to appreciate this text. If you put in the hard work required to read the Talmud, your mind will get a world-class workout."

Some quotations from the Talmud:

Beware of too much laughter, for it deadens the mind and produces oblivion.
Customs are more powerful than laws.
For the sake of peace one may lie, but peace itself should never be a lie.
God said: you must teach, as I taught, without a fee.
He that gives should never remember, he that receives should never forget.
Hold no man responsible for what he says in his grief.
Humor the sons of the poor, for they give science its splendor.
Learning is achieved only in company.
Live well. It is the greatest revenge.
Never expose yourself unnecessarily to danger; a miracle may not save you...and if it does, it will be deducted from your share of luck or merit.
Until a child is one year old it is incapable of sin.
Who can protest and does not, is an accomplice in the act.
Whoever destroys a single life is as guilty as though he had destroyed the entire world; and whoever rescues a single life earns as much merit as though he had rescued the entire world.

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"Talmud" is part of the Logos Controlled Vocabulary, so a Basic search for Talmud in your Entire Library will produce a Topic section at the beginning, with links to all your resources that have a main entry for Talmud. Worth reading a couple of these to get a better idea of what the Talmud is and what its value is to Christian study of the Bible and Judeo-Christian history.

The Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible entry has this helpful section:

"Present Significance of the Talmud.

"The Talmud across the centuries occupied an important place in Jewish education and was the principal text of study. Jewish academies and schools studied the completed Talmud. At an early age, Jewish youth began study, and this emphasis continued in the more advanced program of instruction in the Yeshivot (seminary equivalents). This distinctive feature of study, spanning the Middle Ages to the modern period, reached the point where the knowledge of the Talmud was considered better than that of the Scriptures. However, the Jewish humanist Enlightenment movement in the 1800s, no doubt resulting from attacks on the validity of the OT by critical scholars in the continental church in Europe, appealed to great numbers of Jewish people who could find little help in the Talmud for the secular world view of the 19th century. At the same time however, the Talmud was the mainstay of the religiously oriented Jew who sought by Halakah to meet the new demands of a modern world.

"With the rise of the State of Israel there appeared a greater interest in the Talmud, even where it had been previously neglected. More and more Jewish schools outside of Israel and the schools in Israel include it as a course of study. In Israel in particular, many laws which had become obsolete with the fall of Israel in a.d. 70 are now beginning to find application, for example, in agriculture, and the Talmud is providing more light and guidance. Even in situations where the laws of the Talmud would not directly apply the Talmud provides applicable guidelines, for example, in observance of Jewish festivals, marriage laws, virtues of compassion and benevolence, and hatred for injustice in society, that reflect biblical and Jewish values.

"The Christian can also benefit from the Talmud since it provides insights into life, beliefs, and religious practices of the 1st century a.d. The Gospel accounts find parallels in the Talmud. Not unexpectedly, the Gospels reflect a Jewish world and culture, and therefore the Talmud provides an indispensible background. The Mishna in particular provides a great deal of knowledge as to temple life and practices. There is also an opportunity to observe ancient Jewish insights into scriptural exegesis and practice."

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Here's an example of one of the multitude of places where Logos resources refer to the Talmud that could be enhanced by having the Talmud to link to. This is from the first International Critical Commentary volume on Matthew, discussing the "voice from heaven" in Matt 3:17:

"It is natural to link the voice from the heavens with the rabbinic bat qôl (‘daughter of a voice’) because this vehicle of revelation sometimes quoted Scripture (e.g. b. Soṭa 21a; b. Sanh. 104b), often came to declare God’s favourable estimation of a righteous individual or to settle disputes (e.g. t. Soṭa 13:3–4; b. Soṭa 48b; b. Sanh. 11a; b. B. Meṣ. 59b; b. Ta˓an. 24b), was often spoken of as being from the heavens (e.g. b. Ḥag. 14b; b. Sanh. 11 a;—but note also Deut 4:36; Dan 4:31), and could be thought of as the voice of God himself (e.g. b. Meg. 3a; b. Sanh. 94a). Caution is nevertheless required. The distance between the rabbis and the evangelists can be seen in this, that while for the former—perhaps in response to Christianity?—the bat qôl is generally an inferior substitute for the Holy Spirit (t. Soṭa 13:2; b. Yoma 9b), for the latter the voice accompanies a new coming of God’s Spirit, and it is no ‘echo’: in the gospels God speaks directly, without intermediary, to his Son. Hence specifically rabbinic conceptions of the bat qôl offer as much of a contrast as a comparison with regard to Mt 3:16, and we cannot claim that the voice at the Jordan is just the Christian equivalent of the rabbinic ‘daughter of a voice’."

All of those obscure references beginning with the abbreviation "b." would be links to the Babylonian Talmud in your Logos Library if you had it.

That's why this is such a monumental announcement from Logos that they are going to produce this resource. We are so blessed! (And this is from someone who didn't know that much about the Talmud before I started writing this post. Doesn't take long to find out how valuable it is.)

Yes, $159.95 sounds like a lot of money for a single Judaic resource, but it is after all 50 volumes worth of content. Think of it as more comparable to a 50-volume commentary set than a collection of miscellaneous books about some topic. Would you think $159.95 is a good deal for the former? Probably. Now go raid the penny jar and put $5 away this week, and again next week, and before you know it you'll have $160 saved up...long before Logos will be able to finish getting this resource produced.