JEWISH HANSARD

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 110, 11 May 1935, Page 21

JEWISH HANSARD

Wth the publication recently of the first eight volumes of a complete and unabridged English edition of the Babylonian Talmud a: monumental literary enterprise is inaugurated. The 5000 pages of these volumes represent the labours of Rabbi Dr. I. Epstein, the editor, and twelve' translators, over a period, of three years. Between now and 1938 twenty-two further volumes will be published before the translation is complete. The Talmud is a compilation of the sayings of the intellectual and spritual leaders =of -the Jewish people in Palestine and Babylonia during the first four or five centuries of tiie,British-era. "It is-the last book in. the world 'for armchair browsing," cautioned the Chief Rabbi, Dr. J. H. Hertz,1 who presided at a luncheon given by the publishers. Even in translation the text, he feared, would remain a closed' book to the ordinary student. Its reading would require mind, 'will power, hard thinking, and clos% application., It was the Hansard of discussions extending over three centuries, in which 1200 disputants took part, he added. Yet, evidently, there is some sparkling wit to be discovered-in the pages, for Mr. J. Davidson, a director of the firm-of publishers, directly afterwards pointed a remark with the following quotation from one of the authors: "Though the wine belongs to the ■ owner credit is given to the butler." '