The Talmud

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history and contents of the Talmud, one of the most important texts of Judaism. The Talmud was probably written down over a period of several hundred years, beginning in the 2nd century. It contains the authoritative text of the traditional Jewish oral law, and also an account of early Rabbinic discussion of, and commentary on, these laws. In later centuries scholars wrote important commentaries on these texts, which remain central to most strands of modern Judaism.

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Philip Alexander 4 episodes
  Emeritus Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Manchester
• Rabbi Norman Solomon No other episodes
  Former Lecturer at the Oxford Centre for Jewish and Hebrew Studies
• Laliv Clenman No other episodes
  Lecturer in Rabbinic Literature at Leo Baeck College and a Visiting Lecturer at the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King's College London

Reading list

• Engendering Judaism
  Rachel Adler (Jewish Publication Society, 1998) Google Books →
• Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties
  Shaye Cohen (University of California Press, 2001) Google Books →
• Holy Men and Hunger Artists: Fasting and Asceticism in Rabbinic Culture
  Eliezer Diamond (Oxford University Press, 2003) Google Books →
• The Babylonian Talmud
  I. Epstein (ed.) (Soncino Press, first edition 1935-1948, second edition 1978) Google Books →
• The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature
  Charlotte E. Fonrobert and Martin S. Jaffee (eds.) (Cambridge University Press, 2007) Google Books →
• Rabbinic Texts and the History of Late-Roman Palestine
  Martin Goodman and Philip Alexander (eds.) (Oxford University Press/British Academy, 2011) Google Books →
• Rabbinic Thought in the Talmud
  Louis Jacobs (Vallentine Mitchell, 2005) Google Books →
• Demonic Desires: "Yetzer Hara" and the Problem of Evil in Late Antiquity
  Ishay Rosen-Zvi (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011) Google Books →
• Jewish Marriage in Antiquity
  Michael L. Satlow (Princeton University Press, 2001) Google Books →
• Why Study Talmud in the Twenty-First Century? The Relevance of the Ancient Jewish Text to Our World
  Paul Socken (ed.) (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009) Google Books →
• The Talmud: A Selection
  Norman Solomon (Penguin, 2009) Google Books →
• A Very Short Introduction to Judaism
  Norman Solomon (Oxford University Press, first edition 1996, revised edition 2014) Google Books →
• The Essential Talmud
  Adin Steinsaltz (Basic Books, 2006) Google Books →
• The Talmud: A Reference Guide
  Adin Steinsaltz (Maggid, 2013)
• Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash
  H. L. Strack and G. Stemberger (T&T Clark, 1996) Google Books →

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Programme ID: b044j7pd

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b044j7pd

Auto-category: 296.1 (Judaism - Talmud and Rabbinical literature)