The Indestructible Talmud - Steven Rosner

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Résumé :

Everyone loves a good story, but inside is a great story. It is the story of the Talmud's survival, despite its countless trials and tribulations in every century since the Babylonian exile.

For without hope, an individual or a nation goes into despair and after a short time, depending on one's strength of character, the will to live no longer exists, and death usually comes quickly...

Biographie:

In the 8th and 9th centuries, Islam ...

Sommaire:
whether by suicide, or more slowly by refusing to eat, drink, or take care of oneself. But as long as the Jewish people had the Talmud, at least some would retain hope for better times, during which they could practice their religion in peace. But as those times were all too few and far between, it took great courage and self-sacrifice to keep the Talmud viable for future generations.

So before a single section of the Talmud had been written down, its persecutions began, from the Greek Seleucids to the Roman Empire, from the Roman Catholic Church to Islam, from pagans to Jewish heretical sects, from the Russian Czars to Hitler, from individuals to nations, the persecutions of its enemies was never-ending, and we go into enough detail, so the reader, can appreciate the incredible saga of the Talmud's survival.

We describe how when the Babylonian Talmud been completed, Justinian, the Roman Emperor (527-565), decreed practically its death--capital punishment to anyone who was immersed in its study.

Next, the Karaites, in the 7th century, seriously threatened its existence. Time and time again, they were a stone's throw from making an end of the Talmud, and to its expositors. ...