Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <Yigal-Levin AT utc.edu>]

Just a couple of additions to Jim's post:

First of all, he forgot the first in the list, Tractate Chagigah (or
Hagigah - it's spelled with a Heth). It deals with "festival offering" in
the Temple.


At 08:56 AM 9/3/2002 +0000, jwest AT highland.net wrote:
>> Hi All!
>> 
>> I have a copy of Cohen's "Everyman's Talmud" which is a brief summary of 
>> the Talmud's major themes and teachings. However, there are numerous
inline 
>> refs which I don't understand. eg.
>> 
>> Chag. 12a etc.
>> Joma 54b  ====  Tractate Yoma

Deals with "the Day" - Yom Kippur

>> Taan. 10a  ======  Tractate Taanim

Taanit - deals with rules of fasting

>> B.B. 25a   =====  Tractate Baba Bathra

Bava Bathra  - deals with fiscal and civil law


>> Tamid 32a   ====== Tractate Tamid

Deals with the daily offerings in the Temple

>> Sifre     ======  Tractate Sifre

Sifre is not a tractate at all, but a Midrash (exegetical exposition) on
Numbers and Deuteronomy.

>> Shab. 32a  ======  Tractate Shabbath

Deals with the Sabbath

>> Ber. 59a  ======  Tractate Berakoth

Deals with blessings to be said at various occasions.

In general, a "tractate" ("masekhet" in Hebrew) is one of the "books" of
the Mishna. In this case, the referrence is to the commentary on those
tractates in the Babylonian Talmud. You can know this by the type of
citation: in the Mishna, citation is done be chapter and section, so if
this referred to the Mishna, it would be Shab. 4:3.
In printed editions of the Babylonian Talmud, there is a convention for
pagination, and each "sheet" is numbered, its two sides being "page" a and
b. (meaning that page 4a would be called p. 8 in our modern system). 
As Jim stated:
 they are well known to readers of the talmud 
>just like Gen 1:3 is well known to you.  ;-)
>
>best
>

Yigal

>
>
>
>---
>You are currently subscribed to b-hebrew as: [Yigal-Levin AT utc.edu]
>To unsubscribe, forward this message to
$subst('Email.Unsub')
>To subscribe, send an email to join-b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu.
>
>
Dr. Yigal Levin
Dept. of Philosophy and Religion
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
615 McCallie Avenue
Chattanooga TN 37403-2598
U.S.A.