Appendix 5
RABBINIC THEOLOGY AND LITERATURE
(Book I. ch. 8.)
1. The Traditional Law. - The brief account given in vol. i. p. 100, of the character and
authority claimed for the traditional law may here be supplemented by a chronological
arrangement of the Halakhoth in the order of their supposed introduction or
promulgation.
In the first class, or 'Halakhoth of Moses from Sinai,' tradition enumerates fifty-five,1
which may be thus designated: religio-agrarian, four;2 ritual, including questions about
'clean and unclean,' twenty-three;3 concerning women and intercourse between the sexes,
three;4 concer ning formalities to be observed in the copying, fastening, &c., of the Law
and the phylacteries, eighteen;5 exegetical, four;6 purely superstitious, one;7 not otherwise
included, two.8 Eighteen ordinances are ascribed to Joshua, of which only one is ritual,
the other seventeen being agrarian and police regulations.9 The other traditions can only
be briefly noted. Boaz, or else 'the tribunal of Samuel,' fixed, that Deut. xxiii. 3 did not
apply to alliances with Ammonite and Moabite women. Two ordinances are ascribed to
David, two to Solomon, one to Jehoshaphat, and one to Jehoida. The period of Isaiah and
of Hezekiah is described as of immense Rabbinic activity. To the prophets at Jerusalem
three ritual ordinances are ascribed. Daniel is represented as having prohibited the bread,
wine and oil of the heathen (Dan. i. 5). Two ritual determinations are ascribed to the
prophets of the Exile.
1. The numbers given by Maimonides, in his Preface to the Mishnah, and their
arrangement, are somewhat different, but I pre fer the more critical (sometimes even
hypercritical) enumeration of Herzfeld. They are also enumerated in Peiser's Nachlath
Shimoni, Part I. pp. 47 -49 b.
2. Peah ii. 6; Yad. iv. 3; Tos. Peah iii. 2; Orlah iii. 9.
3. Erub. 4 a; Nidd. 72 b; Ab. d. R. N. 19, 25; Tos. Chall. i. 6; Shabb 70 a; Bekh. 16 a;
Naz. 28 b; Chull. 27 a, 28 a; 42 a, 43 a; Moed Q 3 b. Of these, the most interesting to the
Christian reader are about the 11 ingredients of the sacred incensed (Ker. 6 b); about the
26 kinds of work prohibited on the Sabbath (Shabb. 70 a); that the father, but not the
mother, might dedicate a child under age to the Nazirate (Naz. 28 b); the 7 rules as to
slaughtering animals; to cut the neck; to cut through the trachea, and, in the case of four-
footed animals, also through the gullet; not to pause while slaughtering; to use a knife
perfectly free of all notches, and quite sharp; not to strike with the knife; not to cut too
near the head; and not to stick, the knife into the throat; certain determinations about the
Feast of Tabernacles, such as about the pouring out of the water, &c.
4. Ab. Z. 36 b; Niddah 45 a, 72 b.
5. Jer. Meg. i. 9; Shabb. 28 b; Men. 32 a; 35 a.
6. Ned. 37 b. These four Halakhoth are: as to the authoritative pronunciation of certain
words in the Bible; as to the Itur Sopherim, or syntactic and stylistic emendation in the
following five passages: Gen xviii. 5, xxiv. 55; Numb. xxxi. 2; Ps. 1xviii. 22 (A.V. 21);