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Medicine in the Babylonian Talmud

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STMAC aims to advance an inter-disciplinary and inclusive approach to the study of science in the ancient world, ranging from mathematics and physics, medicine and magic to astronomy, astrology, an...
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  • 14 September 2026
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Talmudic medicine in Aramaic originating in Babylonia can be traceable back to cuneiform tablets and ancient Babylonian medicine, essentially unaffected by Western medicine.   A general survey of Talmudic medicine finds it to be based upon 'local' Babylonian medicine, rather than medical traditions brought to Babylonia via the curriculum, i.e. the Mishnah and other compendia in Hebrew.    A medical handbook preserved in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Gittin, is organised from head-to-foot, and extensive evidence to support Akkadian influence is to be found in four different tables of parallels between the Gittin medical handbook and similar recipe compendia in Syriac, Mandaic, and Jewish Aramaic, presumably from the same period (roughly third century CE).  All of these related texts show considerable Akkadian influence in their technical terminology (disease and plant names, etc.).  Talmudic technical terminology for medical ingredients in the Babylonian Talmud points to numerous instances of Akkadian cognates, and these are strong indicators of a local medical substratum.   The conclusion is that cuneiform medicine was still accessible until the 4th century CE and fundamentally influenced medicine in the Babylonian Talmud.      

 

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Price: $131.99
Pages: 280
Publisher: De Gruyter
Imprint: De Gruyter
Publication Date: 14 September 2026
ISBN: 9783112243770
Format: Hardcover
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Markham Geller, University College London, London, UK.