56 replies to this topic

[Jewcepticon]

We don't. There are individual pages and portions of gemara extant from the end of geonic times from the Cairo geniza, but that's it. Not very much.
See here:

http://printingtheta...rg/objects.html

Note that the oldest extant COMPLETE talmud is the Munich Manuscript from 1342 CE here:

oh shoot...it's gone! it's supposed to be here http://mdz1.bib-bvb.de/~talmud/

correct but theres whole complete Spanish(and yemenite) Texts from a thousand year ago which where 'certified' copies from the Gaonic texts.

the shabsi frankel edition quotes all of those.

MOST of those, not ALL of those. It also doesn't correct the text it just footnotes them

Heres a better edition (and its one volume) http://www.mishnetorah.com/en/

[Jewcepticon]

Yeah, but you got it from JTS! That's hardly better than the Church itself! Who knows what those dastardly Conservatives may have done to the text!

well they also have the lieberman adition which is a whole database of girsot

[dandare]

I would think that the real problem with significantly correcting the gemara nowadays (unlike ArtScroll etc) is for those who will learn other sefarim and find references based on the Vilna pagination without being able to find them in their shas.
In this way it is different from Rambam (Frenkel) and Tur (Shirat Devora) where the references are based on chapter and paragraph rather than page number.

[qgh]

I would think that the real problem with significantly correcting the gemara nowadays (unlike ArtScroll etc) is for those who will learn other sefarim and find references based on the Vilna pagination without being able to find them in their shas.
In this way it is different from Rambam (Frenkel) and Tur (Shirat Devora) where the references are based on chapter and paragraph rather than page number.

you can still keep the general layout of the Vilna edition. (Steinsaltz Vilna edition added the censored parts into the text)
the censored parts can be added in parecentesis or marked in some other way so we know that for some time it was missing and therefore some comentators may have not seen them.

[David F]

Just my two cents - most of the censored parts have very little effect on hashkafic issues (except for Christianity-bashing, which is always fun), and probably none on halakha. So unless like Mike, you are into the comparisons and contrasts between Paganism, Catholicism, and lehavdil Kabbalah - you can very well study the Vilna or ArtScroll editions and be none the worse for it.

[Jewcepticon]

Just my two cents - most of the censored parts have very little effect on hashkafic issues (except for Christianity-bashing, which is always fun), and probably none on halakha. So unless like Mike, you are into the comparisons and contrasts between Paganism, Catholicism, and lehavdil Kabbalah - you can very well study the Vilna or ArtScroll editions and be none the worse for it.

if you say so, however the bit I learned of Masechet avoda Zara with Hakham faur totally changed the meaning of the Masechet

the classes are here http://www.moreshetsepharad.org

it doesnt have all the classes. Tho I do, listen to the first one especially around 11:00

[warren]

if you say so, however the bit I learned of Masechet avoda Zara with Hakham faur totally changed the meaning of the Masechet

the classes are here http://www.moreshetsepharad.org

it doesnt have all the classes. Tho I do, listen to the first one especially around 11:00

Why don't you tell us in your own words what the masechet meant to you before this class and after?

[qgh]

Just my two cents - most of the censored parts have very little effect on hashkafic issues (except for Christianity-bashing, which is always fun), and probably none on halakha. So unless like Mike, you are into the comparisons and contrasts between Paganism, Catholicism, and lehavdil Kabbalah - you can very well study the Vilna or ArtScroll editions and be none the worse for it.

True. Large parts of our Gamara in general have little effect on halakhic or hashafic issues. you are missing the point. If you are going to study a text and it was censored by the catholic church because the Jewish people did not have complete freedom at that time and now we are able to study the text with out censoriship why do we need to come up with excuses for continuing a situation which we had in eurupe which was not positive.

[Snag]

I could pose the same question to you . where do you draw the line?
what if the catholic church would have censored entire chapters or an entire maschechet and it would not be part of the published version. would you still say we should continue to not print those chapters or machechtot.

You can draw the line anywhere you want with regards to the gray zone. I am talking about clear cut censorship.
you have a sugiya and it is cut in the middle. We have other versions that do have the censored part. what is not clear here?

i draw the line, as i mentioned, at not making any emendations to the text, ever. footnotes are acceptable, and adding an entire missing chapter or masechet would be like a footnote, in that it is not changing the extant text of the gemara.

as i mentioned, the certainty as to the correct girsa in those censored parts may be questionable, leading to the decision to leave them footnoted rather than inserted into the main body of text, which we view as authoritative.

I would think that the real problem with significantly correcting the gemara nowadays (unlike ArtScroll etc) is for those who will learn other sefarim and find references based on the Vilna pagination without being able to find them in their shas.
In this way it is different from Rambam (Frenkel) and Tur (Shirat Devora) where the references are based on chapter and paragraph rather than page number.

you are incorrect about the tur - many meforshim do cite page numbers, particularly when referencing the beis yosef, whose comments on a single siman are often quite lengthy. the shiras devorah attempted to partially rectify this concern by inserting page numbers in the margins, and then proceeded to add reference notes to the text using the old pagination, which, to me, is very confusing and counter-intuitive. i guess they are concerned that someone may have to find a reference in the old tur...

[Jewcepticon]

Why don't you tell us in your own words what the masechet meant to you before this class and after?

listen to what I sent it should be clear. The major difference in meaning from the analphabetic to the geonic-Sephardic reading of the text for that sugya at least.

[dandare]

you are incorrect about the tur - many meforshim do cite page numbers, particularly when referencing the beis yosef, whose comments on a single siman are often quite lengthy. the shiras devorah attempted to partially rectify this concern by inserting page numbers in the margins, and then proceeded to add reference notes to the text using the old pagination, which, to me, is very confusing and counter-intuitive. i guess they are concerned that someone may have to find a reference in the old tur...

Many of the references to the tur/by by page number are not references to our standard edition.
However, I agree with you that Shiras Devora's marginal(?) page numbers are ridiculous as they are almost invisible and one only occurs every few pages, so are difficult to find.

[qgh]

i draw the line, as i mentioned, at not making any emendations to the text, ever. footnotes are acceptable, and adding an entire missing chapter or masechet would be like a footnote, in that it is not changing the extant text of the gemara.

and if we have a different version available how do you know that the Vilna edition was not the one that was changed and ammended. In fact maybe the Vilna edition is problematic because of the rules you are stating.

as i mentioned, the certainty as to the correct girsa in those censored parts may be questionable, leading to the decision to leave them footnoted rather than inserted into the main body of text, which we view as authoritative.

In other words you are saying it is possible that where we have a sugiya cut in the middle , it may be that it was that way originally and the other versions added them later. The Catholic church had nothing to do with this.

What made the Vilna edition authoritative was simply that it was what was available at a certain time to be printed in those places where books were printed. So the Catholic church gets to decide what our authoritative texts are.

[warren]

rabbeinu gershom m'ohr hagolah issued a cherem against purposely making any changes to the text of the gemara.

Where could I find a copy? Or a secondary source that mentions it? Thanks.

[Diogenes The Cynic]

Just my two cents - most of the censored parts have very little effect on hashkafic issues (except for Christianity-bashing, which is always fun), and probably none on halakha. So unless like Mike, you are into the comparisons and contrasts between Paganism, Catholicism, and lehavdil Kabbalah - you can very well study the Vilna or ArtScroll editions and be none the worse for it.

Do you say the ani ma'amim every morning?

[Snag]

pardon?

right back atcha?

and if we have a different version available how do you know that the Vilna edition was not the one that was changed and ammended. In fact maybe the Vilna edition is problematic because of the rules you are stating.

true - and if i were to print the shas, i would choose one of the editions and print that one faithfully, without emending its text in any way.

In other words you are saying it is possible that where we have a sugiya cut in the middle , it may be that it was that way originally and the other versions added them later. The Catholic church had nothing to do with this.

no, that's not what i'm saying at all. what i am saying is that while the church was definitely responsible for the removal of a part of the sugya, we have no certain way of ascertaining that the text that we have as being the missing piece is authoritative, and therefore we do not add it into the gemara, since while something is certainly missing, replacing it with something that is possibly corrupted is no solution.

What made the Vilna edition authoritative was simply that it was what was available at a certain time to be printed in those places where books were printed. So the Catholic church gets to decide what our authoritative texts are.

again, i am not saying that the vilna edition is more authoritative than any other, just that our mesorah says that a printer must pick an edition and stick to it without emendation, except as footnotes or marginalia.

Where could I find a copy? Or a secondary source that mentions it? Thanks.

i don't know offhand, but b"n i'll try to find one.

[Snag]

I have no idea what you were saying in that post.

i was saying that there was a somewhat standard pagination scheme in the tur which was referenced by the acahronim, so the same objection dandare posited to changing the gemara would apply to the tur

[Snag]

There was a somewhat standard pagination scheme in the Tur referenced by the Acharonim?

yes.