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Showing posts with label oral law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oral law. Show all posts

Monday, August 12, 2013

Latest Talmud book from Independent History and Research

The Talmud Tested

A Comparison of the Principles and Doctrines of Modern Judaism with the Religion of Moses and the Prophets

By Alexander McCaul
Professor of Hebrew and Rabbinic Literature at Kings College, London 

With an introduction and bibliography by Michael Hoffman



“...unparalleled knowledge of Jewish history, religion and Hebrew...the foremost gentile expert on Jewish matters.”—John J. Moscrop, Measuring Jerusalem

"An apologetic and polemic almost without rival." —Walter Riggans, Biographical Dictionary

Partial list of Contents
Judaism’s perversion of Moses • Rabbinic injustice to women, slaves and gentiles • Rabbinic intolerance toward other nations •Hatred in the Talmud contrasted with charity in the Bible •Compulsory conversion of gentiles •Judaism’s ‘anti-semitic’ attitude toward fellow Jews regarded as am ha’aretz •Impoverished Jews whipped for accepting help from Christians •Converts to Christianity to be killed •Rabbinic contempt for sons of Noah • Intolerance of rabbinic prayers •Rabbinic lies and legends •Judaism a heathen religion: astrology, charms and amulets •Excommunication in Judaism •Synagogue system based on the oral law •Members of the Sanhedrin had to be skilled in magic •Polygamy •Divorce •Judaism’s oppression of the poor •Propaganda techniques and tricks of rabbinic deceit •Judaism as moral and intellectual slavery. •Rabbinic authority exalted above all others •Jews forbidden to love their gentile neighbors •Rabbinic permission to violate God’s commands •The rabbinic criminal code • The impenitent Jew at the tribunal of God’s judgment • and much more.

What is unique about this book?
Alexander McCaul reproduces on page after page of this volume, passages from the Babylonian Talmud and other sacred rabbinic texts in their original Hebrew and Aramaic, and then translates them into English, so there can be no question of misquoting, or “taking out of context.” The Talmud Tested offers incontestable documentary proof that Judaism leads it followers to mental and spiritual bondage in this world and eternal damnation in the next. Michael Hoffman writes: “This is the most convincing and comprehensive Christian textbook on Judaism since Eisenmenger, and it has the advantage of being in English, in clear, modern type. Open-minded persons who study it from cover to cover are unlikely to be deceived by the rabbis to any considerable degree ever again. Dr. McCaul’s phenomenal scholarship effectively inoculates his readers against the epidemic of Talmudic confusion engulfing our nation.”

A Personal Note from Michael Hoffman
"It has long been our objective to publish Alexander McCaul’s masterwork. He was the Victorian Eisenmenger (though he sometimes disparaged his German predecessor for the often caustic and satirical tone Dr. Eisenmenger adopted; Prof. McCaul was sensitive in how he approached potential Judaic converts). What is best about the McCaul book, besides being in English, are the numerous Hebrew citations printed on many pages and then translated into English, which he uses to convict the rabbis, by their own words, of deceit, guile, malice, idolatry etc. This edition of The Talmud Tested  from Independent History and Research represents the clearest and most readable McCaul facsimile on the market, and it is supplemented by the new introduction, wherein readers learn of the extent to which “Jews” were considered the natural object of missionary zeal, when Christianity was still worthy of the name. If thousands of copies of this book were to be circulated among Christian leaders and open-minded persons of good will, we could see something wonderful develop."


Sample from the book:
Documented on pp. 236-237: "The fabulous exaggerations of the Talmud...this subterfuge”
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Monday, July 08, 2013

Only uncensored Babylonian Talmud in English may be complete in a few years

By Michael Hoffman

If the Koren translation of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz's Babylonian Talmud is as faithful to his text as was the Random House edition, and if all Steinsaltz volumes are printed, this will represent a milestone in the history of the publication of the Babylonian Talmud - the first complete edition in English which has not been redacted.

A little more than half way through the project, Random House stopped publication of the uncensored Steinsaltz Talmud after printing 21 volumes and a "reference guide," for reasons never fully explained. A set of those 21 Random House Steinsaltz volumes have commanded relatively high prices on the rare book market, when they can be located.

One reason for pressure perhaps being brought to bear on Random House may have been Steinsaltz's unprecedented candor.

Unlike the Schottenstein edition which is basically a whitewash, or the Soncino, which confines controversial passages to footnotes, Steinsaltz candidly translated the most revealing and troubling Talmud Bavli passages which, heretofore, had been concealed from gentiles, as well as those Judaics who did not read Aramaic and the middle Hebrew jargon in which the Babylonian Talmud is written.

Caveat: this Koren edition is not a reprint of the superb Random House translation. The 2012-2013 Koren edition of Steinsaltz represents a new English translation, and may or may not constitute a strictly uncensored rendering of Steinsaltz's Israeli Hebrew edition. It remains to be seen how faithful Koren will be to the Random House translation (we will exercise due diligence in comparing the two as the Koren volumes appear).

From our preliminary examination of the first five inaugural volumes, it appears that the Koren edition has not been censored. We began our analysis by turning to sensitive passages in tractate Berakhot. We started by examining the portions pertaining to the halachos of niddah (the vertiginously oppressive laws on menstruation), and the permission for the use of lies and deception — "circumventions by artifice" (Berakhot 31a [p. 205]). In these cases there was no evidence of redaction. However, we have not yet read the entire set (approximately 25 volumes yet to be printed), consequently our initial enthusiasm is, at this point, necessarily conditioned by the fact that we will need to examine the entire printing before we can say for certain that the Koren English version is faithful to Rabbi Steinsaltz's modern Hebrew version.

Our hope is that the Koren edition both accurately translates Steinsaltz and gives us the Steinsaltz Talmud tractates never published by Random House, in which case the Koren Talmud Bavli will represent a true landmark in the study of the Torah SheBeal Peh in English.

Hoffman is the author of the 1100 page textbook, Judaism Discovered, available on the Amazon Kindle.
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