Quotes:Talmud

H. P. Blavatsky

Talmud. Rabbinic Commentaries on the Jewish faith. It is composed of two parts, the older Mishnah, and the more modern Gemara. Hebrews, who call the Pentateuch the written law, call the Talmud the unwritten or oral law. [w.w.w.] The Talmud contains the civil and canonical laws of the Jews, who claim a great sanctity for it. For, save the above‐stated difference between the Pentateuch and the Talmud, the former, they say, can claim no priority over the latter, as both were received simultaneously by Moses on Mount Sinai from Jehovah, who wrote the one and delivered the other orally.

Source: H. P. Blavatsky, The Theosophical Glossary, art. Talmud

Zirkoff, Boris

*Talmud. Tide Vol. VIII, p. 416, for comprehensive data. Also art. by I. O. M. Deutsch in the Quarterly Review for October. 1867.

Source: Boris de Zirkoff, «H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings», vol. 1, p. 528

*Talmud. Consult Vol. VIII, p. 416, for comprehensive summary of data concerning the Talmud. Both Sotah and Sanhedrin are treatises therein.

Source: Boris de Zirkoff, «H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings», vol. 4, p. 666

Talmud. The great Rabbinical thesaurus reduced to writing during the second, fourth and sixth centuries of our era. Consists of two distinct parts: the Mishnah, and its Commentary, the Gemara. The Mishnah was comp. and ed. by Judah Hanasi, and is the first Jewish code of laws since the Torah; it is a systematic collection of religio-legal decisions developing the laws of the Old Testament. There are two Gemaras: the Babylonian, which is the record of the discussions of the Babylonian scholars on the laws and teachings of the Mishnah; and the Palestinian, which is a similar record in conn. with Palestinian scholars. The Mishnah together with one or other of the Gemaras forms the Babylonian or the Palestinian Talmud respectively. They were always printed separately. The Teachers mentioned in the Mishnah from the death of Hillel to its completion, are the Tannaim. Those mentioned in the Gemara are the Amaraim. Later teachers who added comments to the Talmud (6th and 7th cent.) are known as Saboraim (“reasoners”). The Rabbis who interpreted the Talmud are known as the Geonim, if they were heads of academies, and as Posekim (“deciders”).— The Babylonian Talmud. Tr. into English under ed. of I. Epstein. Sonsino Press, London, 1935-48. 34 vols.

Source: Boris de Zirkoff, «H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings», vol. 8, p. 416