Editing Talmud (section)

==Criticism==
{{Criticism of religion sidebar}}
Historian [[Michael Levi Rodkinson]], in his book ''The History of the Talmud'', wrote that detractors of the Talmud, both during and subsequent to its formation, "have varied in their character, objects and actions" and the book documents a number of critics and persecutors, including [[Nicholas Donin]], [[Johannes Pfefferkorn]], [[Johann Andreas Eisenmenger]], the [[Frankists (Sabbateanism)|Frankists]], and [[August Rohling]].<ref name="Rodkinson">Rodkinson</ref> Many attacks come from antisemitic sources such as [[Justinas Pranaitis]], [[Elizabeth Dilling]], or [[David Duke]]. Criticisms also arise from Christian, Muslim,<ref>Lewis, Bernard, ''Semites and anti-Semites: an inquiry into conflict and prejudice'', W.W. Norton & Company, 1999, p. 134</ref><ref>Johnson, Paul, ''A history of the Jews'', HarperCollins, 1988, p. 577</ref><ref>''Arab attitudes to Israel'', Yehoshafat Harkabi, pp. 248, 272</ref> and Jewish sources,<ref>Such as [[Uriel da Costa]], [[Israel Shahak]], and [[Baruch Kimmerling]]</ref> as well as from atheists and skeptics.<ref>Such as [[Christopher Hitchens]] and [[Denis Diderot]]</ref> Accusations against the Talmud include alleged:<ref name="Rodkinson"/><ref>[[Hyam Maccoby]], ''Judaism on Trial''</ref><ref>ADL report [http://www.adl.org/presrele/asus_12/the_talmud.pdf The Talmud in Anti-Semitic Polemics] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100805220714/http://www.adl.org/presrele/asus_12/the_talmud.pdf |date=2010-08-05 }}, [[Anti-Defamation League]]</ref><ref>[[Gil Student|Student, Gil]] – [http://talmud.faithweb.com/ Rebuttals to criticisms of Talmud]</ref><ref>[[Wilhelm Bacher|Bacher, Wilhelm]], "Talmud", article in ''Jewish Encyclopedia'', Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1901</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=32&letter=T|title=Talmud|publisher=JewishEncyclopedia.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=32&letter=T&search=talmud#145|title=Talmud |publisher=JewishEncyclopedia.com}}</ref>
# Anti-Christian or anti-gentile content<ref>Fraade, pp. 144–146</ref><ref>[[Baruch Kimmerling|Kimmerling, Baruch]], "Images of Gentiles" (book review), ''Journal of Palestine Studies'', April 1997, Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 96–98</ref><ref>Siedman, p. 137</ref><ref>Cohn-Sherbok, p. 48</ref>
# Absurd or sexually immoral content<ref>Steinsaltz, pp. 268–270</ref>
# Falsification of scripture<ref>See, for example, Uriel DaCosta, quoted by Nadler, p. 68</ref><ref>Cohn-Sherbok, p. 47</ref><ref>Wilhelm Bacher, "Talmud", article in ''Jewish Encyclopedia''</ref>

Defenders of the Talmud point out that many of these criticisms, particularly those in antisemitic sources, are based on quotations that are taken out of context, and thus misrepresent the meaning of the Talmud's text and its basic character as a detailed record of discussions that preserved statements by a variety of sages, and from which statements and opinions that were rejected were never edited out.

===Middle Ages===
At the very time that the [[Babylon]]ian ''[[savoraim]]'' put the finishing touches to the redaction of the Talmud, the [[emperor]] [[Justinian I|Justinian]] issued his edict against ''deuterosis'' (doubling, repetition) of the [[Tanakh|Hebrew Bible]].<ref>[[Novellae Constitutiones|Nov.]] 146.1.2.</ref> It is disputed whether, in this context, ''deuterosis'' means "Mishnah" or "[[Targum]]": in [[patristics|patristic]] literature, the word is used in both senses.

Full-scale attacks on the Talmud took place in the 13th century in France, where Talmudic study was then flourishing. In the 1230s [[Nicholas Donin]], a Jewish convert to Christianity, pressed 35 charges against the Talmud to [[Pope Gregory IX]] by translating a series of allegedly blasphemous passages about [[Jesus]], [[Mary (mother of Jesus)|Mary]] or Christianity. There is a quoted Talmudic passage, for example, where a person named Yeshu who some people have claimed is [[Jesus in the Talmud|Jesus of Nazareth]] is sent to Gehenna to be [[Tzoah Rotachat|boiled in excrement]] for eternity. Donin also selected an injunction of the Talmud that permits Jews to kill non-Jews. This led to the [[Disputation of Paris]], which took place in 1240 at the court of [[Louis IX of France]], where four rabbis, including [[Yechiel of Paris]] and [[Moses ben Jacob of Coucy]], defended the Talmud against the accusations of Nicholas Donin. The translation of the Talmud from Aramaic to non-Jewish languages stripped Jewish discourse from its covering, something that was resented by Jews as a profound violation.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rZGx-bS3vcgC&q=disputation+of+paris&pg=PA137|title=Faithful Renderings: Jewish-Christian Difference and the Politics of Translation|first=Naomi|last=Seidman|date=February 15, 2010|publisher=University of Chicago Press|via=Google Books|isbn=9780226745077}}</ref> The Disputation of Paris led to the condemnation and the first burning of copies of the Talmud in Paris in 1242.<ref>Rodkinson, pp. 66–69</ref><ref>Levy, p. 701</ref>{{efn|For a Hebrew account of the Paris Disputation, see Jehiel of Paris, "The Disputation of Jehiel of Paris" (Hebrew), in ''Collected Polemics and Disputations'', ed. J.D. Eisenstein, Hebrew Publishing Company, 1922; Translated and reprinted by Hyam Maccoby in ''Judaism on Trial: Jewish-Christian Disputations in the Middle Ages'', 1982}} The burning of copies of the Talmud continued.<ref>James Carroll ''Constantine's sword: the church and the Jews : a history''</ref>

The Talmud was likewise the subject of the [[Disputation of Barcelona]] in 1263 between [[Nahmanides]] and Christian converts in which they argued if Jesus was the messiah prophesized in Judaism, [[Pablo Christiani]]. This same Pablo Christiani made an attack on the Talmud that resulted in a [[papal bull]] against the Talmud and in the first censorship, which was undertaken at Barcelona by a commission of [[Dominican Order|Dominicans]], who ordered the cancellation of passages deemed objectionable from a Christian perspective (1264).<ref>Cohn-Sherbok, pp. 50–54</ref><ref name="Maccoby">Maccoby</ref>

At the [[Disputation of Tortosa]] in 1413, Geronimo de Santa Fé brought forward a number of accusations, including the fateful assertion that the condemnations of "pagans", "heathens", and "apostates" found in the Talmud were, in reality, veiled references to Christians. These assertions were denied by the Jewish community and its scholars, who contended that Judaic thought made a sharp distinction between those classified as heathen or pagan, being polytheistic, and those who acknowledge one true God (such as the Christians) even while worshipping the true monotheistic God incorrectly. Thus, Jews viewed Christians as misguided and in error, but not among the "heathens" or "pagans" discussed in the Talmud.<ref name="Maccoby"/>

Both Pablo Christiani and Geronimo de Santa Fé, in addition to criticizing the Talmud, also regarded it as a source of authentic traditions, some of which could be used as arguments in favor of Christianity. Examples of such traditions were statements that the Messiah was born around the time of the destruction of the Temple and that the Messiah sat at the right hand of God.<ref>[[Hyam Maccoby]], op. cit.</ref>

In 1415, [[Antipope Benedict XIII]], who had convened the Tortosa disputation, issued a [[papal bull]] (which was destined, however, to remain inoperative) forbidding the Jews to read the Talmud, and ordering the destruction of all copies of it. Far more important were the charges made in the early part of the 16th century by the convert [[Johannes Pfefferkorn]], the agent of the Dominicans. The result of these accusations was a struggle in which the emperor and the pope acted as judges, the advocate of the Jews being [[Johann Reuchlin]], who was opposed by the obscurantists; and this controversy, which was carried on for the most part by means of pamphlets, became in the eyes of some a precursor of the [[Protestant Reformation|Reformation]].<ref name="Maccoby"/><ref>Roth, Norman, ''Medieval Jewish civilization: an encyclopedia'', Taylor & Francis, 2003, p. 83</ref>

An unexpected result of this affair was the complete printed edition of the Babylonian Talmud issued in 1520 by [[Daniel Bomberg]] at [[Venice]], under the protection of a papal privilege.<ref>Rodkinson, p. 98</ref> Three years later, in 1523, Bomberg published the first edition of the Jerusalem Talmud. After thirty years the Vatican, which had first permitted the Talmud to appear in print, undertook a campaign of destruction against it. On the New Year, Rosh Hashanah (September 9, 1553) the copies of the Talmud confiscated in compliance with a decree of the [[Inquisition]] were burned at [[Rome]], in Campo dei Fiori (auto de fé). Other burnings took place in other Italian cities, such as the one instigated by [[Joshua dei Cantori]] at [[Cremona]] in 1559. Censorship of the Talmud and other Hebrew works was introduced by a papal bull issued in 1554; five years later the Talmud was included in the first [[Index Expurgatorius]]; and [[Pope Pius IV]] commanded, in 1565, that the Talmud be deprived of its very name. The convention of referring to the work as "Shas" (''shishah sidre Mishnah'') instead of "Talmud" dates from this time.<ref>Hastings, James. ''Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics Part 23'', p. 186</ref>

The first edition of the expurgated Talmud, on which most subsequent editions were based, appeared at [[Basel]] (1578–1581) with the omission of the entire treatise of 'Abodah Zarah and of passages considered inimical to Christianity, together with modifications of certain phrases. A fresh attack on the Talmud was decreed by [[Pope Gregory XIII]] (1575–85), and in 1593 [[Pope Clement VIII|Clement VIII]] renewed the old interdiction against reading or owning it.{{Citation needed|date=September 2010}} The increasing study of the Talmud in Poland led to the issue of a complete edition ([[Kraków]], 1602–05), with a restoration of the original text; an edition containing, so far as known, only two treatises had previously been published at [[Lublin]] (1559–76). After an attack on the Talmud took place in Poland (in what is now Ukrainian territory) in 1757, when [[Mikolaj Dembowski|Bishop Dembowski]], at the instigation of the [[Frankists (Sabbateanism)|Frankists]], convened a public disputation at [[Kamieniec Podolski]], and ordered all copies of the work found in his bishopric to be confiscated and burned.<ref>Rodkinson, pp. 100–103</ref> A "1735 edition of Moed Katan, printed in Frankfurt am Oder" is among those that survived from that era.<ref name=TalmudMoedKatan.OU/> "Situated on the Oder River, Three separate editions of the Talmud were printed there between 1697 and 1739."

The external history of the Talmud includes also the literary attacks made upon it by some Christian theologians after the Reformation since these onslaughts on Judaism were directed primarily against that work, the leading example being [[Johann Andreas Eisenmenger|Eisenmenger]]'s ''Entdecktes Judenthum'' (Judaism Unmasked) (1700).<ref>Rodkinson, p. 105</ref><ref>Levy, p. 210</ref><ref>Boettcher, Susan R., "Entdecktes Judenthum", article in Levy, p. 210</ref> In contrast, the Talmud was a subject of rather more sympathetic study by many Christian theologians, jurists and Orientalists from the [[Renaissance]] on, including [[Johann Reuchlin]], [[John Selden]], [[Petrus Cunaeus]], [[John Lightfoot]] and [[Johannes Buxtorf]] father and [[Johannes Buxtorf II|son]].<ref>Berlin, George L., ''Defending the faith: nineteenth-century American Jewish writings on Christianity and Jesus'', SUNY Press, 1989, p. 156</ref>

===19th century and after===
The [[Vilna Edition Shas|Vilna edition of the Talmud]] was subject to Russian government censorship, or self-censorship to meet government expectations, though this was less severe than some previous attempts: the title "Talmud" was retained and the tractate Avodah Zarah was included. Most modern editions are either copies of or closely based on the Vilna edition, and therefore still omit most of the disputed passages. Although they were not available for many generations, the removed sections of the Talmud, Rashi, Tosafot and Maharsha were preserved through rare printings of lists of ''errata'', known as ''Chesronos Hashas'' ("Omissions of the Talmud").<ref>[http://www.dhengah.org/torah/chhashas.pdf Chesronos Hashas] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081002041052/http://www.dhengah.org/torah/chhashas.pdf |date=2008-10-02 }}</ref> Many of these censored portions were recovered from uncensored manuscripts in the [[Vatican Library]]. Some modern editions of the Talmud contain some or all of this material, either at the back of the book, in the margin, or in its original location in the text.<ref>[[The Talmud: The Steinsaltz Edition]], pp. 103–104 {{cite book |title=Printing the Talmud: a history of the individual treatises printed from 1700 to 1750 |last=Heller|first=Marvin J. |year=1999 |publisher=Brill Publishers |location=Basel |pages=17, 166 }}</ref>

In 1830, during a debate in the [[Chamber of Peers (France)|French Chamber of Peers]] regarding state recognition of the Jewish faith, Admiral [[Carel Hendrik Ver Huell|Verhuell]] declared himself unable to forgive the Jews whom he had met during his travels throughout the world either for their refusal to recognize [[Jesus]] as the [[Messiah]] or for their possession of the Talmud.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Archives_israelites_1851_tome12.djvu/647|title=Page:Archives israelites 1851 tome12.djvu/647 |publisher=Wikisource}}</ref> In the same year the [[Luigi Chiarini (abbot)|Abbé Chiarini]] published a voluminous work entitled ''Théorie du Judaïsme'', in which he announced a translation of the Talmud, advocating for the first time a version that would make the work generally accessible, and thus serve for attacks on Judaism: only two out of the projected six volumes of this translation appeared.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/4319-chiarini-luigi|title=Chiarni, Luigi |publisher=JewishEncyclopedia.com}}</ref> In a like spirit 19th-century antisemitic agitators often urged that a translation be made; and this demand was even brought before legislative bodies, as in [[Vienna]]. The Talmud and the "Talmud Jew" thus became objects of antisemitic attacks, for example in [[August Rohling]]'s ''Der Talmudjude'' (1871), although, on the other hand, they were defended by many Christian students of the Talmud, notably [[Hermann Strack]].<ref>Rodkinson, pp. 109–114</ref>

Further attacks from antisemitic sources include [[Justinas Pranaitis]]' ''[[The Talmud Unmasked|The Talmud Unmasked: The Secret Rabbinical Teachings Concerning Christians]]'' (1892)<ref>Levy, p. 564</ref> and [[Elizabeth Dilling]]'s ''The Plot Against Christianity'' (1964).<ref>Jeansonne, Glen, ''Women of the Far Right: The Mothers' Movement and World War II'', University of Chicago Press, 1997, pp. 168–169</ref> The criticisms of the Talmud in many modern pamphlets and websites are often recognizable as verbatim quotations from one or other of these.<ref name=Internet>{{Cite web |first=Jeremy |last=Jones |title=Talmudic Terrors |date=June 1999 |website=Australia/Israel Review |url=http://www.aijac.org.au/review/1999/246/talmudic.html|access-date=2008-06-12|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020330032614/http://www.aijac.org.au/review/1999/246/talmudic.html |archive-date=2002-03-30}}</ref>

Historians [[Will Durant|Will]] and [[Ariel Durant]] noted a lack of consistency between the many authors of the Talmud, with some tractates in the wrong order, or subjects dropped and resumed without reason. According to the Durants, the Talmud "is not the product of deliberation, it is the deliberation itself."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Durant|first1=Will|author-link1=Will Durant|last2=Durant|first2=Ariel|author-link2=Ariel Durant|title=The Story of Civilization: The Age of Faith|year=2011|orig-year=1950|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cusRoE1OJvEC&pg=PP388|publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]]|isbn=9781451647617|page=388}}</ref>

===Contemporary accusations===
The Internet is another source of criticism of the Talmud.<ref name=Internet /> The [[Anti-Defamation League]]'s report on this topic states that antisemitic critics of the Talmud frequently use erroneous translations or selective quotations in order to distort the meaning of the Talmud's text, and sometimes fabricate passages. In addition, the critics rarely provide the full context of the quotations and fail to provide contextual information about the culture that the Talmud was composed in, nearly 2,000 years ago.<ref name="ADL">{{cite press release
 |publisher=[[Anti-Defamation League]]
 |date=February 2003
 |title=The Talmud in Anti-Semitic Polemics
 |url=http://www.adl.org/presrele/asus_12/the_talmud.pdf
 |access-date=September 16, 2010
 |quote=By selectively citing various passages from the Talmud and [[Midrash]], polemicists have sought to demonstrate that Judaism espouses hatred for non-Jews (and specifically for Christians), and promotes obscenity, sexual perversion, and other immoral behavior. To make these passages serve their purposes, these polemicists frequently mistranslate them or cite them out of context (wholesale fabrication of passages is not unknown)....In distorting the normative meanings of rabbinic texts, anti-Talmud writers frequently remove passages from their textual and historical contexts. Even when they present their citations accurately, they judge the passages based on contemporary moral standards, ignoring the fact that the majority of these passages were composed close to two thousand years ago by people living in cultures radically different from our own. They are thus able to ignore Judaism's long history of social progress and paint it instead as a primitive and parochial religion. Those who attack the Talmud frequently cite ancient rabbinic sources without noting subsequent developments in Jewish thought, and without making a good-faith effort to consult with contemporary Jewish authorities who can explain the role of these sources in normative Jewish thought and practice.
 |url-status=dead
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100805220714/http://www.adl.org/presrele/asus_12/the_talmud.pdf
 |archive-date=August 5, 2010
}}
</ref>

One such example concerns the line: "If a Jew be called upon to explain any part of the rabbinic books, he ought to give only a false explanation. One who transgresses this commandment will be put to death." This is alleged to be a quote from a book titled ''Libbre David'' (alternatively ''Livore David''{{hsp}}). No such book exists in the Talmud or elsewhere.<ref>{{cite book
  |last=Kominsky |first=Morris |author-link=Morris Kominsky
  |title=The hoaxers: plain liars, fancy liars, and damned liars|date=1970 |publisher=Branden Press
  |location=Boston |isbn=978-08283-1288-2 |lccn=76109134 |pages=169–176
  |url=http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/anti-masonry/van_hyning.html
|quote=Libbre David 37. This is a complete fabrication. No such book exists in the Talmud or in the entire Jewish literature.}}</ref> The title is assumed to be a corruption of ''Dibre David'', a work published in 1671.<ref>{{cite book|title=Israel and the New World Order|author=Andrew J. Hurley|publisher=Fithian Press|location=Foundation for a New World Order, Santa Barbara
|year=1991 |isbn=978-09318-3299-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/israelnewworldor00hurl}}</ref> Reference to the quote is found in an early [[Holocaust denial]] book, ''The Six Million Reconsidered'' by William Grimstad.<ref>The Six Million Reconsidered: A Special Report by the Committee for Truth in History, p. 16 [[Historical Review Press]], 1979</ref>