of the teaching, whether halakic or haggadic, rests upon its intrinsic worth, and not upon the exegetical principles which were the tools common to the age. Moreover, it was also considered necessary that teaching should be authenticated, as it were, by its association with older authority whose standing guaranteed its genuineness. For this reason anonymous writings were attributed to famous names, and traditions were judged (as in Islam), not so much upon their merits, as by the chain of authorities which traced them back to their sources.
To supplement what has already been pointed out in the article Midrash, it may be noticed that the familiar penalty of the “forty stripes save one” (2 Cor. xi. 24; Josephus, Ant., iv. 8, 23) is discussed in the Mishnah (Makkoth, iv. 5), and is subsequently explained by an extremely artificial interpretation of Deut. xxv. 2-3 (as though “to the number 40”). But the penalty is obviously older than, and entirely independent of, the arbitrary explanation by which it is supported. Again, the rending of clothes on the occasion of a charge of blasphemy (Matt. xxvi. 65) is actually connected with Joseph b. Qorha of the 2nd century A.D. (Sanhed., vii. 5), although elsewhere this halakah is anonymous. Here the effort was made to substantiate a practice, but the tradition was not unanimous; and it often happens that the Talmud preserves different traditions regarding the same teaching, different versions of it, or it is ascribed to different authorities (see Jew. Ency., xii. p. 15, col. 2). The fact that certain teaching is associated with a name may have no real significance for its antiquity, even as a law ascribed to the age of Moses—the recognized law-giver—may prove to be of much earlier or of much later inception. This feature naturally complicates all questions affecting origin and originality, and cannot be ignored in any study of the Talmud in its bearing upon the New Testament.[1] Similar or related forms of interpretation and teaching are found in the Talmud, in Hellenistic Judaism, in the New Testament, in early Church Fathers and in Syriac writers. As regards the New Testament itself, the points of similarity are many and often important. It has been asserted that “the writings of recent Jewish critics have tended on the whole to confirm the Gospel picture of external Jewish life, and where there is discrepancy these critics tend to prove that the blame lies not with the New Testament originals, but with their interpreters.” The Talmud also makes “credible details which many Christian expositors have been rather inclined to dispute. Most remarkable of all has been the cumulative strength of the arguments adduced by Jewish writers favourable to the authenticity of the discourses in the Fourth Gospel . . .”[2] The points of contact between the phraseology in the Gospel of John and the early Midrashim are especially interesting.[3] The popularity of the parable as a form of didactic teaching finds many examples in the Rabbinical writings, and some have noteworthy parallels in the New testament.[4] It is known that there were theological controversies between Jews and Christians, and in the Midrash Bereshith Rabbah (Midrash, § 5, 5) is a passage (translated in Jew. Ency., viii. 558) directed against the Christian view which found support for the doctrine of the Trinity in Gen. i. 26. But it is uncertain how far the doctrines of Judaism were influenced by Christianity, and it is even disputed whether the Talmud and Midrashim may be used to estimate Jewish thought of the 1st or 2nd century A.D. Much valuable work has been done by modern Jewish scholars on the “higher criticism” of these writings, which, it must be remembered, range over several centuries, but it still remains difficult to date their contents. Moreover, in endeavouring to sketch the theology of early Judaism it has been easy to find in the heterogeneous and conflicting ideas a system which agreed with preconceived views, and to reject as late or exceptional whatever told against them. In considering the evidence it is a delicate task to avoid confusing its meaning for its age with that which has appeared the only natural or appropriate one to subsequent interpreters (whether Jewish or Christian) who have been necessarily influenced by their environment and by contemporary thought. At all events, if these writings have many old elements and may be used to illustrate the background of the New Testament, they illustrate not only the excessive legalism and ritualism against which early Christianity contended, but also the more spiritual and ethical side of Judaism. Upon this latter phase the pseudepigraphical and apocalyptical writings have shed much unexpected light in linking the Old Testament with both Christian and Rabbinical theology. The various problems which arise are still under discussion, and are of great importance for the study of Palestinian thought at the age of the parting of the ways. They touch, on the one hand, the absolute originality of Christianity and its attitude to Jewish legalism, and, on the other, the true place of the pseudepigrapha in Jewish thought and the antiquity of the Judaism which dominates the Talmud. They do not, however, exclude the possibility that by the side of the scholasticism of the early Jewish academical circles was the more popular thought which, forming a link between Jews and Christians, ultimately fell into neglect as Judaism and Christianity formulated their theologies.
On the close relation between the thought of the age, see B. Ritter, Philo u. d. Halacha (Leipzig, 1879); M. Grünwald in Königsberger's Monatsblätter (Berlin, 1890); N. I. Weinstein, Zur Genesis d. Agada (Frankfort-on-Main, 1901); W. Bousset, Relig. d. Judentums, pp. 50 sqq.; R. Graffin's ed. of Aphraates (q.v.) (Paris, 1894), p. xlix. seq.; S. Funk on the haggadic elements in Aphraates (Vienna, 1891); and art. Midrash, § 4. In this respect the pseudepigraphic lit. is frequently of the greatest interest; thus Mark. iv. 24 finds a close parallel in “the Testament of Zebulun,” viii. 3 (R. H. Charles, Test. of xii. Patriarchs, p. 117), and does not differ essentially from the saying ascribed to Gamaliel II. (Shabb. 51b) and others. A close parallel to Matt. vii. 3 is ascribed to R. Tarpon, latter half of 1st century A.D. (Arak. 16b: “If one says, take the mote from thy eye, he answers, take the beam from thy eye”); it seems to have been a popular saying (see Baba Bathra, 15b). See further, for the Talmud and Midrashim in relation to the New Testament generally, the literature in Strack, pp. 165 sqq.; also A. Wünsche, Neue Beiträge z. Erläut. d. Evangelien (Göttingen, 1878); C. H. Toy, Judaism and Christianity (London, 1890; with Schechter's essay in his Studies [1896], pp. 283-305); H. Laible, Jesus Christus im Talmud (Berlin, 1891); R. T. Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash (London, 1903; with W. Bacher's review in Jew. Quart. Rev., xvii. 171—183); Bousset, op. cit.; Oesterley and Box, op. cit. (with C. G. Montefiore's review in Jew. Quart. Rev., 1908, pp. 347-357); I. Abrahams in Swete's Camb. Bibl. Essays (1909), pp. 163-192; C. G. Montefiore, Synoptic Gospels (1909); H. L. Strack, Jesus, die Häretiker u. die Christen (1910).
The Talmud itself is still the authoritative and practical guide of the great mass of the Jews, and is too closely connected Results of criticism. with contemporary and earlier Palestinian history to be neglected by Christians. With the progress of modern research the value of this and of the other old Rabbinical writings is being re-estimated, and criticism has forced a modification of many old views.[5] Thus, an early reference to the title of a work does not prove that it is that which is now current; this applies, for example, to the tractate Ēduyyōth (see Jew. Ency., viii. 611), and to the Midrash Siphrē, which frequently differs from that as known to the Talmud (ib., xi. 331). It has been found that a tradition, however
- ↑ There are many details in the Talmud which cannot be dated; if some are obviously contemporary, others find parallels in Ancient Babylonia, for example in the code of Hammurabi. See L. N. Dembitz, Jew. Quart. Rev., xix. 109-126, and the literature on the code (see Babylonian Law). Numerous miscellaneous examples of the intimate relationship between the Rabbinical and older oriental material will be found in H. Pick, Assyrisches u. Talmudisches (Berlin, 1903) ; A. Jeremias, Bab. im N. Test. (Leipzig, 1905), Alte Test. im Lichte d. Alten Orients (ib., 1906); E. Bischoff, Bab. astrales im Weltbilde d. Thalmud u. Midrasch (ib., 1907).
- ↑ I. Abrahams, on “Rabbinic Aids to Exegesis,” in Swete's Camb. Bibl. Essays (1909), p. 181.
- ↑ See the essay of Schlatter, Sprache u. Heimat d. vierten Evangalisten (1902).
- ↑ See P. Fiebig, Alt-jüd. Gleichnisse u. d. Gleichnisse Jesu (Leipzig, 1904); Lauterbach, Jew. Ency., ix. 512 sqq.; Oesterley and Box, p. 96 seq.
- ↑ The “higher criticism” of these writings affords many useful hints and suggestions for that of other composite works, e.g. the Old Testament. It may be noticed also that the references to the Old Testament sometimes represent a slightly divergent text; see V. A. Aptowitzer, Schriftwort in d. Rabb. Lit. (1906); I. Abrahams, Camb. Bibl. Essays, pp. 172 sqq.
