The Talmud: A Biography (Lives of Great Religious Books)

About this book

The life and times of an enduring work of Jewish spirituality The Babylonian Talmud a postbiblical Jewish text that is part scripture and part commentary is an unlikely bestseller. Written in a hybrid of Hebrew and Aramaic it is often ambiguous to the point of incomprehension and its subject matter reflects a narrow scholasticism that should hardly have broad appeal. Yet the Talmud has remained in print for centuries and is more popular today than ever. Barry Scott Wimpfheimer tells the remarkable story of this ancient Jewish book and explains why it has endured for almost two millennia. Providing a concise biography of this quintessential work of rabbinic Judaism Wimpfheimer takes readers from the Talmuds prehistory in biblical and second-temple Judaism to its present-day use as a source of religious ideology a model of different modes of rationality and a totem of cultural identity. He describes the books origins and structure its centrality to Jewish law its mixed reception history and its golden renaissance in modernity. He explains why reading the Talmud can feel like being swept up in a river or lost in a maze and why the Talmud has come to be venerated--but also excoriated and malignedin the centuries since it first appeared. An incomparable introduction to a work of literature that has lived a full and varied life this accessible book shows why the Talmud is at once a received source of traditional teachings a touchstone of cultural authority and a powerful symbol of Jewishness for both supporters and critics.