•Son of Ammihud king of Geshur. (2 Samuel 3:3; 13:37; 1 Chronicles 3:2) He was probably a petty
chieftain, dependent on David. (B.C. 1040.)
Talmon
(oppressor), the head of a family of door-keepers in the temple, “the porters for the camps of
the sons: of Levi.” (1 Chronicles 9:17; Nehemiah 11:19) (B.C. 1013.) Some of his descendants
returned with Zerubbabel, (Ezra 2:43; Nehemiah 7:45) and were employed in their hereditary office
in the days of Nehemiah and Ezra. (Nehemiah 12:25)
Talmud
(i.e. doctrine, from the Hebrew word “to learn”) is a large collection of writings, containing a
full account of the civil and religious laws of the Jews. It was a fundamental principle of the
Pharisees, common to them with all orthodox modern Jews, that by the side of the written law,
regarded as a summary of the principles and general laws of the Hebrew people, there was an oral
law, to complete and to explain the written law. It was an article of faith that in the Pentateuch there
was no precept, and no regulation, ceremonial, doctrinal or legal, of which God had not given to
Moses all explanations necessary for their application, with the order to transmit them by word of
mouth. The classical subject is the following in the Mishna on this wing: “Moses received the (oral)
law from Sinai, and delivered it to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets
and the prophets to the men of the Great Synagogue.” This oral law, with the numerous commentaries
upon it, forms the Talmud. It consists of two parts, the Mishna and Gemara.
•The MISHNA, or “second law,” which contains a compendium of the whole ritual law, was reduced
to writing in its present form by Rabbi Jehuda the Holy, a Jew of great wealth and influence, who
flourished in the second century of the Christian era. Viewed as a whole, the precepts in the Mishna
treated men like children, formalizing and defining the minutest particulars of ritual observances.
The expressions of “bondage,” or “weak and beggarly elements,” and of “burdens too heavy for
men to bear,” faithfully represent the impression produced by their multiplicity. The Mishna is
very concisely written, and requires notes.
•This circumstance led to the commentaries called GEMARA (i.e. supplement, completion), which
form the second part of the Talmud, and which are very commonly meant when the word “Talmud”
is used by itself. There are two Gemaras; one of Jerusalem, in which there is said to be no passage
which can be proved to be later than the first half of the fourth century; and the other of Babylon,
completed about 500 A.D. The latter is the more important and by far the longer.
Tamah
(laughter). The children of Tamah or Thamah, (Ezra 2:53) were among the Nethinim who
returned with Zerubbabel. (Nehemiah 7:55)
Tamar
(palm tree).
•The wife successively of the two sons of Judah, Er and Onan. (Genesis 38:8-30) (B.C. about 1718.)
Her importance in the sacred narrative depends on the great anxiety to keep up the lineage of
Judah. It seemed as if the family were on the point of extinction. Er and Onan had successively
perished suddenly. Judah’s wife, Bathshuah, died; and there only remained a child, Shelah, whom
Judah was unwilling to trust to the dangerous union as it appeared, with Tamar, lest he should
meet with the same fate as his brothers. Accordingly she resorted to the desperate expedient of
entrapping the father himself into the union which he feared for his son. The fruits of this intercourse
were twins, Pharez and Zarah, and through Pharez the sacred line was continued.
frankie
(Frankie)
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