Editing Talmud (section)

===Middle Ages===
At the very time that the [[Babylon]]ian ''[[savoraim]]'' put the finishing touches to the redaction of the Talmud, the [[emperor]] [[Justinian I|Justinian]] issued his edict against ''deuterosis'' (doubling, repetition) of the [[Tanakh|Hebrew Bible]].<ref>[[Novellae Constitutiones|Nov.]] 146.1.2.</ref> It is disputed whether, in this context, ''deuterosis'' means "Mishnah" or "[[Targum]]": in [[patristics|patristic]] literature, the word is used in both senses.

Full-scale attacks on the Talmud took place in the 13th century in France, where Talmudic study was then flourishing. In the 1230s [[Nicholas Donin]], a Jewish convert to Christianity, pressed 35 charges against the Talmud to [[Pope Gregory IX]] by translating a series of allegedly blasphemous passages about [[Jesus]], [[Mary (mother of Jesus)|Mary]] or Christianity. There is a quoted Talmudic passage, for example, where a person named Yeshu who some people have claimed is [[Jesus in the Talmud|Jesus of Nazareth]] is sent to Gehenna to be [[Tzoah Rotachat|boiled in excrement]] for eternity. Donin also selected an injunction of the Talmud that permits Jews to kill non-Jews. This led to the [[Disputation of Paris]], which took place in 1240 at the court of [[Louis IX of France]], where four rabbis, including [[Yechiel of Paris]] and [[Moses ben Jacob of Coucy]], defended the Talmud against the accusations of Nicholas Donin. The translation of the Talmud from Aramaic to non-Jewish languages stripped Jewish discourse from its covering, something that was resented by Jews as a profound violation.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rZGx-bS3vcgC&q=disputation+of+paris&pg=PA137|title=Faithful Renderings: Jewish-Christian Difference and the Politics of Translation|first=Naomi|last=Seidman|date=February 15, 2010|publisher=University of Chicago Press|via=Google Books|isbn=9780226745077}}</ref> The Disputation of Paris led to the condemnation and the first burning of copies of the Talmud in Paris in 1242.<ref>Rodkinson, pp. 66–69</ref><ref>Levy, p. 701</ref>{{efn|For a Hebrew account of the Paris Disputation, see Jehiel of Paris, "The Disputation of Jehiel of Paris" (Hebrew), in ''Collected Polemics and Disputations'', ed. J.D. Eisenstein, Hebrew Publishing Company, 1922; Translated and reprinted by Hyam Maccoby in ''Judaism on Trial: Jewish-Christian Disputations in the Middle Ages'', 1982}} The burning of copies of the Talmud continued.<ref>James Carroll ''Constantine's sword: the church and the Jews : a history''</ref>

The Talmud was likewise the subject of the [[Disputation of Barcelona]] in 1263 between [[Nahmanides]] and Christian converts in which they argued if Jesus was the messiah prophesized in Judaism, [[Pablo Christiani]]. This same Pablo Christiani made an attack on the Talmud that resulted in a [[papal bull]] against the Talmud and in the first censorship, which was undertaken at Barcelona by a commission of [[Dominican Order|Dominicans]], who ordered the cancellation of passages deemed objectionable from a Christian perspective (1264).<ref>Cohn-Sherbok, pp. 50–54</ref><ref name="Maccoby">Maccoby</ref>

At the [[Disputation of Tortosa]] in 1413, Geronimo de Santa Fé brought forward a number of accusations, including the fateful assertion that the condemnations of "pagans", "heathens", and "apostates" found in the Talmud were, in reality, veiled references to Christians. These assertions were denied by the Jewish community and its scholars, who contended that Judaic thought made a sharp distinction between those classified as heathen or pagan, being polytheistic, and those who acknowledge one true God (such as the Christians) even while worshipping the true monotheistic God incorrectly. Thus, Jews viewed Christians as misguided and in error, but not among the "heathens" or "pagans" discussed in the Talmud.<ref name="Maccoby"/>

Both Pablo Christiani and Geronimo de Santa Fé, in addition to criticizing the Talmud, also regarded it as a source of authentic traditions, some of which could be used as arguments in favor of Christianity. Examples of such traditions were statements that the Messiah was born around the time of the destruction of the Temple and that the Messiah sat at the right hand of God.<ref>[[Hyam Maccoby]], op. cit.</ref>

In 1415, [[Antipope Benedict XIII]], who had convened the Tortosa disputation, issued a [[papal bull]] (which was destined, however, to remain inoperative) forbidding the Jews to read the Talmud, and ordering the destruction of all copies of it. Far more important were the charges made in the early part of the 16th century by the convert [[Johannes Pfefferkorn]], the agent of the Dominicans. The result of these accusations was a struggle in which the emperor and the pope acted as judges, the advocate of the Jews being [[Johann Reuchlin]], who was opposed by the obscurantists; and this controversy, which was carried on for the most part by means of pamphlets, became in the eyes of some a precursor of the [[Protestant Reformation|Reformation]].<ref name="Maccoby"/><ref>Roth, Norman, ''Medieval Jewish civilization: an encyclopedia'', Taylor & Francis, 2003, p. 83</ref>

An unexpected result of this affair was the complete printed edition of the Babylonian Talmud issued in 1520 by [[Daniel Bomberg]] at [[Venice]], under the protection of a papal privilege.<ref>Rodkinson, p. 98</ref> Three years later, in 1523, Bomberg published the first edition of the Jerusalem Talmud. After thirty years the Vatican, which had first permitted the Talmud to appear in print, undertook a campaign of destruction against it. On the New Year, Rosh Hashanah (September 9, 1553) the copies of the Talmud confiscated in compliance with a decree of the [[Inquisition]] were burned at [[Rome]], in Campo dei Fiori (auto de fé). Other burnings took place in other Italian cities, such as the one instigated by [[Joshua dei Cantori]] at [[Cremona]] in 1559. Censorship of the Talmud and other Hebrew works was introduced by a papal bull issued in 1554; five years later the Talmud was included in the first [[Index Expurgatorius]]; and [[Pope Pius IV]] commanded, in 1565, that the Talmud be deprived of its very name. The convention of referring to the work as "Shas" (''shishah sidre Mishnah'') instead of "Talmud" dates from this time.<ref>Hastings, James. ''Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics Part 23'', p. 186</ref>

The first edition of the expurgated Talmud, on which most subsequent editions were based, appeared at [[Basel]] (1578–1581) with the omission of the entire treatise of 'Abodah Zarah and of passages considered inimical to Christianity, together with modifications of certain phrases. A fresh attack on the Talmud was decreed by [[Pope Gregory XIII]] (1575–85), and in 1593 [[Pope Clement VIII|Clement VIII]] renewed the old interdiction against reading or owning it.{{Citation needed|date=September 2010}} The increasing study of the Talmud in Poland led to the issue of a complete edition ([[Kraków]], 1602–05), with a restoration of the original text; an edition containing, so far as known, only two treatises had previously been published at [[Lublin]] (1559–76). After an attack on the Talmud took place in Poland (in what is now Ukrainian territory) in 1757, when [[Mikolaj Dembowski|Bishop Dembowski]], at the instigation of the [[Frankists (Sabbateanism)|Frankists]], convened a public disputation at [[Kamieniec Podolski]], and ordered all copies of the work found in his bishopric to be confiscated and burned.<ref>Rodkinson, pp. 100–103</ref> A "1735 edition of Moed Katan, printed in Frankfurt am Oder" is among those that survived from that era.<ref name=TalmudMoedKatan.OU/> "Situated on the Oder River, Three separate editions of the Talmud were printed there between 1697 and 1739."

The external history of the Talmud includes also the literary attacks made upon it by some Christian theologians after the Reformation since these onslaughts on Judaism were directed primarily against that work, the leading example being [[Johann Andreas Eisenmenger|Eisenmenger]]'s ''Entdecktes Judenthum'' (Judaism Unmasked) (1700).<ref>Rodkinson, p. 105</ref><ref>Levy, p. 210</ref><ref>Boettcher, Susan R., "Entdecktes Judenthum", article in Levy, p. 210</ref> In contrast, the Talmud was a subject of rather more sympathetic study by many Christian theologians, jurists and Orientalists from the [[Renaissance]] on, including [[Johann Reuchlin]], [[John Selden]], [[Petrus Cunaeus]], [[John Lightfoot]] and [[Johannes Buxtorf]] father and [[Johannes Buxtorf II|son]].<ref>Berlin, George L., ''Defending the faith: nineteenth-century American Jewish writings on Christianity and Jesus'', SUNY Press, 1989, p. 156</ref>