was given to Moses by God complete at once, or handed to him by volumes. (Gittin 60a.)
In course of time Divine inspiration was taught as belonging to the Prophets and the Hagiographa, to the Mishnah, the Talmud, and even to the Haggadah.
A very singular anticipatory revelation was believed to have been made on Sinai to the prophets. In "Shemoth Rabba" we read: "What the prophets were about to prophesy in every generation they receive from Mount Sinai." The revelation was apparently made to the souls of those about to be created. And so Isaiah is represented as saying: "From the day that the Torah was given on Mount Sinai, there I was and received this prophecy,—and now the Lord God and His Spirit have sent me."[1]
The Talmud conta ins a somewhat similar curious teaching as regards "Miracles"—the course of creation was not disturbed by them, they were all primarily existing, as well as pre-ordained. They were "created" at the end of all things, in the gloaming of the sixth day. Creation, together with these so-called exceptions, once established, nothing could be altered in it. The laws of nature went on by their own immutable force, however much evil might spring therefrom.
The Talmud—Its Story through the Ages
The wonderful Jewish book—the Talmud—cannot complain of neglect or of oblivion. Never has any writing in the whole human history been so hated and hunted down. It has been proscribed and burnt again and again. Before the marvellous compilation was fully completed the Emperor Justinian, in A.D. 553, condemned it by name. Then for more than a thousand years anathemas, edicts of the sternest condemnation, were issued against the Jewish sacred volume which has done so much for the Chosen People.
- ↑ "It is evident that some of the 'dicta' of the Rabbis, such as, for instance, the above-quoted passages, are not intended to be taken literally, but are the paradoxes of idealists, which leave us in some doubt as to how much they supposed to have been revealed explicitly to Moses."—Pirke Aboth (Sayings of the Fathers), note by Dr. Taylor, Master of S. John's, Cambridge, p. 122. Dr. Taylor, however, adds that "such statements have to be taken into account in estimating the ancient Rabbis' views of revelation."
