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From: stevemac@bud.indirect.com (Pascal MacProgrammer)
Subject: talmid and talmud
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Date: Sat, 11 Feb 1995 16:17:18 GMT
X-Disclaimer: Disagree if you like, but I'm never wrong.
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Not so very long ago, deardorj@ucs.orst.edu (James Deardorff) said...

>I've been trying to determine about how far back in time the word "talmud"
>extends within Hebrew or Aramaic.  Not being knowledgeable in the area, my
>first clue so far comes from the Encyc. Judaica, which mentions that "talmud"
>had the meaning of teachings received by one or more pupils.  So from that I
>can only guess that the word predates the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds.

  The basic, ancient root for the word is "LMD", meaning 'to goad'.  I
suppose teachers had different methods of installing knowledge in their
pupils way back then.  I'm not sure where the prefix "T-" comes from, but 
the infix "-Y-" in "TLMYD" (talmid) implies a person who does something, 
while the infix "-W-" in "TLMWD" (talmud) implies some kind of activity.
  The word "talmid" occurs only once in the Bible, that I can find, in 
1Ch 25:8; I don't find the word "talmud" at all.  This doesn't prove that 
the word wasn't used, though.

-- 
                              ==----=                    Steve MacGregor
                             ([.] [.])                     Phoenix, AZ
--------------------------oOOo--(_)--oOOo----------------------------------
          You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish!
