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The Talmudic Anthology, edited by Louis I. Newman and Samuel Spitz
- Abstract
There is a growing tendency these days to publish good books under bad tides. The present volume is a case in point. .It is, as its sub-title suggests, a comprehensive—and, it may be added, an excellent—collection of Rabbinic maxims, adages, parables, anecdotes, and apothegms such as should prove of eminent service to those wishing to recover the nuggets of traditional Jewish wisdom while lacking either the patience or the equipment to delve for them.
But this book is certainly not an anthology of the Talmud. For the Talmud is a vast literature that is by no means confined to such material. .A true anthology of its contents would have to include specimens of its dialectic, its modes of legal argumentation, and so forth. .Moreover, since the Talmud is a compilation of sources extending over several centuries, some sort of chronological stratification is imperative if the impression is not to be conveyed that its thought is everywhere uniform and consistent, and that there is such a thing as a standard Talmudic attitude towards this or that subject.
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