Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Online Resources for the Talmud

Today I was trying to double check a reference regarding the פרוכת or "veil" that separates the holy place from the most holy place (Exodus 26:31; 36:35; 2 Chronicles 3:14) in b.Yoma 72a, regarding the distinction between embroidered and woven work in the Tabernacle. And I found a lot of good resources for studying the Talmud.

For example, you can find the entire Soncino translation at halakhah.com, where you can download it in .pdf format.

Perhaps more impressively for scholarship, you can view digital photographs of different MSS themselves at Online Treasury of Talmudic Manuscripts. The navigational tools are all in Hebrew. You indicate what order, tractate, page (daf), side (amud), and then which manuscript. Seeing the page is important, since the arrangement is very important for Rabbinic documents. Unfortunately, however, it only includes the Bavli and the Mishna.

There are numerous other sites, many including streaming audio, so you can hear the text, but these two suffice to give a good start.

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