Talmud of Jerusalem
An in-depth introduction to the ancient work of Jewish law and theology.
One of the world’s supreme works of religious literature, the Talmud has been unjustly neglected by a civilization that is rightly proud of its Judeo-Christian heritage. In The Talmud of Jerusalem, Dagobert D. Runes offers a fascinating and scholarly overview of its evolution and the rabbis who taught and contributed to it.
The Talmud came into being in the centuries after Jerusalem fell to the Roman Empire, when the people of Palestine were scattered to the four corners of the earth. To preserve their faith amid the strange customs of Pagan lands, the wandering Israelites turned to their teachers for a fresh interpretation of the Torah, the ancient book of Moses. The Oral Laws formulated by the sages were eventually codified in the Talmud.
Dagobert D. Runes
Dagobert D. Runes was born in Zastavna, Bukovina, Austria-Hungary (now in Ukraine), and received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Vienna in 1924. In 1926 he emigrated to the United States, where he became editor of the Modern Thinker and later Current Digest. From 1931 to 1934 he was director of the Institute for Advanced Education in New York City, and in 1941 he founded the Philosophical Library, a spiritual organization and publishing house.
Runes published an English translation of Karl Marx’s On the Jewish Question under the title A World Without Jews, featuring an introduction that was clearly antagonistic to extreme Marxism and “its materialism,” yet he did not entirely negate Marxist theory. He also edited several works presenting the ideas and history of philosophy to a general audience, including his Dictionary of Philosophy.
