Also 6 Thalmood, 6–8 Thalmud. [a. late Heb. talmū·d instruction (c. 130 A.D.), f. lāma·d to instruct, teach. So med.L., F., Ger., etc., talmud.
From its primary sense of ‘teaching, instruction, learning,’ the word was applied to the teaching or instruction contained in a biblical text, and to the body of traditional learning possessed by a particular Rabbi; but it came to be applied distinctively to the discussion, explanation, and illustration of the body of traditional law contained in the Mishnah, and so to the concrete collection of this teaching.]
In the wide sense, The body of Jewish civil and ceremonial traditionary law, consisting of the MISHNAH or binding precepts of the elders, additional to and developed from the Pentateuch, and the later GEMARA or commentary upon these, forming a complement, explanatory, illustrative, and discursive, to the Mishnah. The term was originally applied to the Gemara, of which two recensions exist, known respectively as the Jerusalem (or Palestinian) and the Babylonian Talmud; to the latter of which the name is in strictest use confined.
The precepts of the Mishnah were collected and codified about A.D. 200; the redaction of the Jerusalem Talmud had reached almost its present form by A.D. 408; that of the Babylonian Talmud extended from A.D. 400 to 500.
1532. More, Confut. Tindale, Wks. 679/2. As the Iewes had set vp a boke of their Talmud to destroye the sense of the scripture.
1580. G. Gilpin, Beehive Rom. Ch., 74. The Iewes Rabbines … with their Caballa and with their Thalmood.
1636. Weemes, Treat. Foure Degenerate Sonnes, 349. They say that the text of the Scriptures is like water, and Mishna like wine, and the Talmud like spiced wine…. So they compare the Law to salt, Mishna to pepper, and the Talmud to spices.
1665. Boyle, Occas. Refl., V. vii. (1848), 322. He must devour the tedious and voluminous Rhapsodies that make up the Talmud, in many of which he can scarce learn any thing but the Art of saying nothing in a multitude of words.
1727–41. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., When they [the Jews] say simply the Talmud, they always mean this [the Babylonian Talmud].
1867. Deutsch, in Q. Rev., Oct. Between the rugged boulders of the law which bestrew the pass of the Talmud there grow the blue flowers of romance and poetry, in the most catholic and Eastern sense.
attrib. 1892. Zangwill, Childr. Ghetto, I. 123. Mr. Moggid, you’re a saint and a Talmud sage.
