New Edition of the Babylonian Talmud, Vol. 1

and capital punishments. The seventy-one were a political body, who were also to decide on great events—as, for instance, the conduct of an entire tribe, or the actions of princes and heads of tribes. We, however, would add that the court of three also had to decide criminal cases to which capital punishment did not apply. It seems to us, from this tract (p. 212 of the Talmud), that a "stubborn and rebellious son" was punished with lashes by a court of three before being finally sentenced to death by the court of twenty-three.

Reifmann also quotes from the Midrash Aggada original: "Midrash Aggada" — a collection of non-legal, homiletic Jewish biblical exegesis that, before prophesying, a prophet was obliged to get permission from the Sanhedrin, who would first test him to see if he was a true prophet or not. We may here add that this contradicts the Talmud, which states that a true prophet was recognized by demanding a sign (p. 260). If the prophet had been obliged to get permission from the Sanhedrin, this would certainly be mentioned in the Talmud instead.

This is as much as we have to say in regard to the time and name, and the fact that the Sanhedrin ceased about forty years before the destruction of the Temple. At the same time, we would call the attention of the readers to the fact that this tract is distinct from all others, both in its Halakha legal rulings and its Haggada non-legal, narrative, or homiletic material. Aside from the many strange explanations of the verses of Scripture, which are not used in other extracts, it says plainly that there are numerous laws written in the Pentateuch the Five Books of Moses that have never occurred, and never will occur, but were written merely for study. The Haggada also distinguishes itself by its willingness to judge biblical figures, questioning whether they have a share in the world to come, and criticizing their acts, even those of the most holy among them. It is self-evident that later commentaries, and especially the cabbalists Jewish mystics, interpreted the Haggada in their own ways. We, however, have translated it almost literally, with an effort to make it intelligible to the general reader in some respects, and have added footnotes where we deemed it necessary. We may say that the real student will find much pleasure if they devote special attention to this tract.

For this purpose, we have made this celebrated tract a double volume, as we believe it will please the readers and the students, and will also equalize the size of the volumes.

M. L. R.

September 16, 1902.