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The Talmud is a central text of Rabbinic Judaism. It is also traditionally referred to as Shas, a Hebrew abbreviation of shisha sedarim, the "six orders". The term "Talmud" normally refers to the Babylonian Talmud, though there is also an earlier collection known as the Jerusalem Talmud.
The Talmud has two components. The first part is the Mishnah, the written compendium of Judaism's Oral Torah (Torah meaning "Instruction", "Teaching" in Hebrew). The second part is the Gemara (c. 500 CE), an elucidation of the Mishnah and related Tannaitic writings that often ventures onto other subjects and expounds broadly on the Hebrew Bible. The term Talmud can be used to mean either the Gemara alone, or the Mishnah and Gemara as printed together.
The whole Talmud consists of 63 tractates, and in standard print is over 6,200 pages long. It is written in Tannaitic Hebrew and Aramaic. The Talmud contains the teachings and opinions of thousands of rabbis on a variety of subjects, including Halakha (law), Jewish ethics, philosophy, customs, history, lore and many other topics. The Talmud is the basis for all codes of Jewish law and is much quoted in rabbinic literature.
Industry:Literature
Techno-thrillers (or technothrillers) are a hybrid genre, drawing subject matter generally from science fiction, thrillers, spy, action, and war. They include a disproportionate amount (relative to other genres) of technical details on its subject matter (typically military technology); only science fiction tends towards a comparable level of supporting detail on the technical side. The inner workings of technology and the mechanics of various disciplines (espionage, martial arts, politics) are thoroughly explored, and the plot often turns on the particulars of that exploration.
Techno-thrillers tend to have a broad scope in the narrative, and can often be regarded as contemporary speculative fiction; world wars are a common topic. Techno-thrillers often overlap, as far as the genre goes, with near-future science fiction. To the extent that technology is now a dominant aspect of modern global culture, most modern thrillers are "techno-thrillers", and the genre is somewhat diffuse. The category of techno-thriller blurs smoothly into the category of hard science fiction; the defining characteristics of techno-thriller are an emphasis on real-world or plausible near-future technology. There is often a focus on military or military-political action. The techno-thriller genre also has substantial overlaps with the genres of conspiracy fiction and apocalyptic fiction.
Michael Crichton and Tom Clancy are considered to be the fathers of the "modern techno-thriller"; Crichton's book The Andromeda Strain and Clancy's book The Hunt for Red October set out the type example which defined the genre, although many authors had been writing similar material earlier. Nigel Balchin wrote earlier examples of similar stories during the 1940s. Other early examples of techno-thriller, written before the category had been well defined as a sub-genre, include Moonraker (1955) by Ian Fleming, Fail-Safe (1962) by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, The Penetrators (1965) by Hank Searls (writing as Anthony Grey); Tree Frog by Martin Woodhouse (1966), North Cape (1969) by Joe Poyer, and Firefox by Craig Thomas (1977), later made into a movie, and Shuttle Down, by G. Harry Stine (writing as Lee Correy) (1981).
Industry:Literature
A testament is a document that the author has sworn to be true.
Testament can refer to:
Industry:Literature
A textbook or coursebook is a manual of instruction in any branch of study. Textbooks are produced according to the demands of educational institutions. Although most textbooks are only published in printed format, many are now available as online electronic books.
Industry:Literature
Thanksgiving Day (Jour de l'Action de grâce in Canadian French) is a national holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada as a day of giving thanks for the blessing of the harvest and of the preceding year. Several other places around the world observe similar celebrations. It is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and on the second Monday of October in Canada. Thanksgiving has its historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, and has long been celebrated in a secular manner as well.
Industry:Literature
In contemporary literary studies, a theme is the central topic a text treats. Themes can be divided into two categories: a work's thematic concept is what readers "think the work is about" and its thematic statement being "what the work says about the subject".
The most common contemporary understanding of theme is an idea or concept that is central to a story, which can often be summed in a single word (e.g. love, death, betrayal). Typical examples of themes of this type are conflict between the individual and society; coming of age; humans in conflict with technology; nostalgia; and the dangers of unchecked ambition. A theme may be exemplified by the actions, utterances, or thoughts of a character in a novel. An example of this would be the theme loneliness in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, wherein many of the characters seem to be lonely. It may differ from the thesis—the text's or author's implied worldview.
A story may have several themes. Themes often explore historically common or cross-culturally recognizable ideas, such as ethical questions, and are usually implied rather than stated explicitly. An example of this would be whether one should live a seemingly better life, at the price of giving up parts of ones humanity, which is a theme in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Along with plot, character, setting, and style, theme is considered one of the fundamental components of fiction.
Industry:Literature
Theology is the systematic and rational study of concepts of God and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.
Industry:Literature
Theology Proper is the sub-discipline of Systematic Theology which deals specifically with the being, attributes and works of God.
In a Christian setting, this study includes Trinitarian, the Holy Spirit (Pneumatology) and the study of Jesus Christ (Christology). The term Theology (lit. 'God-word') is popularly described as 'talk about God' or God-talk, but is usually used in the generic sense to describe religious studies.
Industry:Literature
Tone is a literary compound of composition, which encompasses the attitudes toward the subject and toward the audience implied in a literary work. Tone may be formal, informal, intimate, solemn, somber, playful, serious, ironic, condescending, or many other possible attitudes. Each piece of literature has at least one theme, or central question about a topic, and how the theme is approached within the work is known as the tone.
Industry:Literature
Torah is the central concept in the Judaic tradition. It has a range of meanings: it can most specifically mean the first five books of the Tanakh, it can mean this plus the rabbinic commentaries on it, it can mean the continued narrative from Genesis to the end of the Tanakh, it can even mean the totality of Jewish teaching and practice. Common to all these meanings, Torah consists of the foundational narrative of the Jewish people: their call into being by God, their trials and tribulations, and their covenant with their God, which involves following a way of life embodied in a set of religious obligations and civil laws (halakha).
In rabbinic literature the word Torah denotes both the five books, Torah Shebichtav, and an Oral Torah, Torah Shebe'al Peh. The Oral Torah consists of interpretations and amplifications which according to rabbinic tradition have been handed down from generation to generation and now embodied in the Talmud and Midrash.
According to rabbinic tradition, all of the teachings found in the Torah, both written and oral, were given by God to Moses, some of them at Mount Sinai and others at the Tabernacle, and all the teachings were written down by Moses, which resulted in the Torah we have today. According to a Midrash, the Torah was created prior to the creation of the world, and was used as the blueprint for Creation. The majority of Biblical scholars believe that the written books were a product of the Babylonian exilic period (c. 600 BCE) and that it was completed by the Persian period (c. 400 BCE).
Traditionally, the words of the Torah are written on a scroll by a sofer on parchment in Hebrew. A Torah portion is read publicly at least once every three days, in the halachically prescribed tune, in the presence of a congregation. Reading the Torah publicly is one of the bases for Jewish communal life.
Industry:Literature
