Gemara Sentence Examples

As regards the Talmud, neither the Mishnah nor the subsequent Gemara aimed at presenting a digested corpus of law.

The material thus accumulated, both halakhic and agadic, forming a commentary on and amplification of the Mishnah, was eventually written down under the name of Gemara (from gemar, to learn completely), the two together forming the Talmud (properly "instruction").

In the Palestinian Talmud (Yerushalmi) the gemara of the 5th order (Qodashim) and of nearly all the 6th (Tohoroth) is missing, besides smaller parts.

In the Babylonian Talmud (Babhli) there is no gemara to the smaller tractates of Order r, and to parts of ii., iv., v., vi.

These are always printed in the editions on the same page as the Mishnah and Gemara, the whole, with various other matter, filling generally about 12 folio volumes.

Similar evidence is furnishedby the Mishna and the Gemara, the Targums, and lastly by the Greek version of Aquila, 4 which dates from the first half of the 2nd century A.D.

The Gemara names 3 Jewish cubits (2) of 5, 6 and 7 palms; and, as Oppert (24) shows that 25.2 was reckoned 7 palms, 21.6 being 5 palms, we may reasonably apply this scale to the Gemara list, and read it as 18, 21.6 and 25.2 in.

On the later history of the canonical law (Mishnah, Gemara, &c.) see Talmud.

The course of development between the recognition of the supremacy of the Pentateuch and the actual writing down of the Mishnah and Gemara can be traced only in broad lines.

His methods were not free from arbitrariness; he would attribute to " the wise " the opinion of a single authority which he regarded as correct; he would ignore conflicting opinions or those of scholars which they themselves had afterwards retracted, and he did not scruple to cite his own decisions.2 The period of the Amora'im, " speakers, interpreters," (about 220-500 A.D.), witnessed the growth of the Gemara, when the now " canonical " Mishnah formed the basis for further amplification and for the collecting of old and new material which bore upon it.

The Gemara is much indebted to this pair and to Johanan b.

In Babylonia, however, learning still flourished, and with Rab Ashi (352-427) the arranging of the present framework of the Gemara may have been taken in hand.

In the latter the Gemara follows each paragraph of the Mishnah; in the former, references are usually made to the leaves (the two pages of which are called a and b), the enumeration of the editio princeps being retained in subsequent editions.

The Mishnah is written in a late literary form of Hebrew; but the Gemara is in Aramaic (except the Baraithas), that of the Bab.

Especially interesting are the Baraithas which are preserved in the Gemara in Hebrew; they are " external " decisions not included in the more authoritative 4 See Strack, p. 16 seq.

The " canonical " Mishnah and Gemara were now the objects of study, and the scattered Jews appealed to the central bodies of Judaism in Babylonia for information and guidance.

The school of Shammai disallows it; but the school of Hillel allows it," &c. In the Gemara, the decisions of the Mishnah are not only discussed, explained or developed, but all kinds of additional matter are suggested by them.

Apart from the popular paraphrastic translations of the Old Testament (see Targum), the great mass of orthodox Rabbinical literature consists of (1) the independent Midrashim, and (2) the Mishna which, with its supplement the Gemara, constitutes the Talmud.