In a practical sense, there are other books beside the Old Testament
which go to make up the Jewish Bible. The Talmud, or rather the two
Talmuds; the Jerusalem Talmu (comprising the Mishna, or Second Law),
compiled about 150 B.C. by a Jewish rabbi; and the Babylonian Talmud,
compiled about six hundred and fifty years later,--are regarded by the
Jews as equally inspired and equally binding in their moral requisitions
as that of the Old Testament. In fact, they compare the former to wine,
and the latter to water, when speaking of their relative value. Some
"tall stories" are found in these Jewish revelations, such as these: it
tells of a bird so tall that the water of a river in which it stood
came only to its knees, though the water was so deep that it took an ax,
thrown into it, seven years to reach the bottom; and of an egg of such
enormous dimensions, that, when broken, the white of it glued a whole
town together and a forest of three hundred cedar-trees. These are but
specimens of their miracles. Such is the character of the Jewish sacred
writings, emanating from the same source as the Old Testament; and
consequently of equal authority and reliability, and equally entitled to
our belief.