Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash.

• Author: Goldman, Edward A.

Since Hermann Strack's Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash first appeared in translation in 1931, it has been the premier reference volume in English for all those who wish to wade into the sea of rabbinic scholarship. Because Rabbinics is such a vast field, comprising a large literature compiled over a long period of time, the novice to this literature is well advised to proceed with the help of a guidebook. Now, with the 1992 Fortress Press publication of Gunter Stemberger's monumental reworking and updating of Strack, translated from the German into English by Markus Bockmuehl, we have available a remarkably complete introduction to the primary rabbinic sources and the most important secondary literature on these sources, from the period treated by Strack until the time of publication.

Hermann Strack, a Protestant professor of Old Testament at the University of Berlin, wrote in the preface to his first German edition (1887) that "the following Introduction to the Talmud is the first attempt to give objective and scientific information concerning the whole of the Talmud and to lead into the study of this literary monument equally remarkable for its origin, compass, contents, and the authority which has been accorded to it." A second edition came out in 1894, and a third, which reproduced the second, in 1900. A thorough revision preceded the fourth edition in 1908, which "augmented considerably [the] bibliographical data in order to present to scholars, Christian as well as Jewish, a useful reference book. Anyone who earnestly desires to obtain information concerning the Talmud or any part thereof will now be able, even without the knowledge of the languages of the original texts, to acquire generally adequate instruction." Strack continues in his forward to the fourth edition by countering "certain ignorant agitators" who were attempting to convince Christian Germans that the Talmud was a Jewish secret book. His words sound remarkably current when he argues that "the Talmud, the Shulhan Aruk, and other Jewish literary works are secret books only for those - Jews no less than Christians - who have not acquired the necessary studies for a reading of the original texts nor know anything about the translations that are in existence." Strack's book was to serve as an antidote to such ignorance.

Twelve years later, in 1920, Strack produced a fifth edition. He added twelve years of bibliographic entries to his study of Talmud, added a chapter...