The Talmud is one of the richest and most complicated works of literature the world has ever known. Since being composed around 1500 years ago it has inspired not only religious reverence but significant intellectual engagement. In this course learners will be introduced to the unique characteristics of this text and the challenges that inhere in studying it while studying a chapter of the Talmud. Students of the course can expect to develop an appreciation for how the Talmud works and why it continues to inspire religious and intellectual devotion. They will be challenged to employ critical reading skills and to analyze legal and historical concepts.
Video 7 Overview of Mishnah - What it is and how it works
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From the course by Northwestern University
The Talmud: A Methodological Introduction
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From the lesson
False Testimony From Bible to Rabbis
The Talmud relies heavily on the authority and substance of its canonical predecessor, the Hebrew Bible. This module charts a trajectory from the biblical origins of the treatment of false testimony in Deuteronomy through its treatment within the second temple apocryphal book Susannah and the early Rabbinic law code, the Mishnah.
Meet the Instructors
Barry Scott WimpfheimerAssociate Professor
Religious Studies
[MUSIC]
The Talmud is structured as a commentary to an earlier work of literature,
the Mishnah.
This lecture will provide an overview of the Mishnah and
work through the Mishnah passage that treats false testimony.
There are three genres of literature that discuss what is sometimes called
the Oral Law.
That is legal traditions that were considered binding on the rabbinic
community, but were not explicitly included in the Hebrew Bible.
These genres are Mishnah, Midrash, and Talmud.
The Mishnah is basically a law code.
It is organized by topic.
Each tractate deals with a specific legal topic and
each chapter usually deals with a particular facit of that topic.
The Mishnah is written in Hebrew in a distinctive, concise style.
Legal opinions are stated relatively tersely, often without explanation or
justification.
Though both stories and
biblical interpretation are found in the Mishnah, these are relatively rare.
Midrash is a form of biblical interpretation.
Much of Midrash is legal in nature and
shows how the Oral Law can be derived from scriptural verses.
But Midrash is not organized as a code would be organized.
Instead of being organized by topic as the Mishnah is, works of Midrash
are typically organized according to the order of the biblical verses.
Unlike Mishnah and Midrash, the Talmud is less its own genre of text and
more an all encompassing combination of Mishnah, Midrash and many other genres.
As I mentioned, the Talmud is formally structured around the Mishnah.
One could say then that the Talmud contains the entire Mishnah.
The Talmud also contains Midrash.
Often the Talmud will ask a question about the Mishnah and answer it with a Midrash.
Although much of the Talmud is formulated as a multigenerational conversation about
the Mishnah by the rabbis, it also includes long and
sometimes fantastical stories, occasional theologizing, and snippets of folk-wisdom.
One of the Talmud's defining features is its tendency to leave disputes between
rabbis over important matters, unresolved.
And unlike the Mishnah, which is written entirely in Hebrew,
the Talmud is written in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic.
Okay, now lets take a look at the beginning of our chapter of Talmud.
As with every chapter of Talmud, it starts off by quoting the Mishnah
around which the Talmudic discussion will center.
How do witnesses become edim zomemin?
This sentence introduces our topic, edim zomemin, false witnesses.
In the next line, the Mishnah imagines a potentially problematic piece of false
testimony that witnesses could give.
We testify about so-and-so that he is a son of a divorced woman or
of a woman who was released from a levirate marriage.
The two witnesses, remember from the biblical law that all legally valid
testimony must be collaborated by at least a second witness.
Claim that the mother of some guy, let's call him John Doe, or
better yet, John Cohen.
Was before she was married to John's dad, either previously divorced or
dismissed from an expectation of marriage by her late husband's brother.
You might be asking yourself right now, who cares?
Why would that be relevant to a court case?
This sounds like gossip or a personal attack.
In fact, such genealogical information would be legally relevant if John Cohen
really was a cohen, a member of the priestly caste.
According to laws found in the biblical book of Leviticus, a cohen may not marry
a divorced woman, or a woman who was released from levirate marriage.
The son of such a prohibited marriage would be invalidated from the priesthood.
So if John Cohen's mother was previously divorced, that would mean that
John had been falsely claiming all the benefits of the priesthood.
Like making the priestly blessing for the congregation, and
eating specially tithe produce.
Now why might this kind of false testimony pose a legal problem for the rabbis?
Well, remember the biblical law about how edim zomemim are punished,
you shall do to him as he schemed to do to his fellow.
What did this false witness scheme to do to his fellow?
Have him invalidated from the priesthood.
But what if the false witnesses aren't priests?
How could measure for measure justice be executed in that case?
The Mishnah thinks that it can't, and that in this case,
we make an exception to the biblical law.
We do not say, make him the son of a divorced woman or
of a woman who was released from levirate marriage in so-and-so's stead, but
rather he gets 40 lashes.
Since in this case, it's not possible to do to him as he schemed to do to his
fellow, the Mishnah's best recourse is corporal punishment,
lashes being a relatively common rabbinic response to legal crimes.
The Mishnah now gives another example of false testimony that can't be punished
measure for measure.
We testify about so-and-so that he is liable to be
exiled as an unintentional murderer.
We do not say, let this one be exiled in so-and-so's stead, but
rather he gets 40 lashes.
What in this situation poses a problem for the Mishnah?
Why not carry out the punishment for false witnesses in the normal way and
send them into exile as they had schemed to do with their fellow?
It's not entirely clear because the Mishnah does not provide a rationale.
In fact, this is one of a number of points where the text of this Mishnah is not
entirely clear.
Was there anything else that seemed strange to you,
about this passage of Mishnah?
How about the fact that the first sentence doesn't seem to be connected with
what follows?
The first sentence, how do witnesses become edim zomemim,
seems as though it is about to introduce the standard legal procedure for
identifying and punishing false witnesses.
But instead, the Mishnah starts describing cases that specifically
don't fit into the normal framework.
Furthermore, the Mishnah seems to be starting in the middle of the topic.
Even if the first sentence which doesn't fit with the rest of the material
were removed,
why start the chapter on edim zomemim by describing these unusual scenarios?
We've now identified at least three textual ambiguities in this Mishnah.
First, why can't a witness be sent into exile for false testimony.
Second, the introduction to the Mishnah, how to become edim zomemim, does not fit
with the cases that follow it in which someone is not a full edim zomemim.
And third, the Mishnah starts in the middle of the topic,
rather than at the beginning.
As we progress through the material,
we'll see how the later rabbis address these issues.
[MUSIC]
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