Sefer HaMitzvot ספר המצוות
The Rambam's list of the six hundred and thirteen commandments—with the rules by which he decided what counts as one.
The number 613 is named in the Talmud, but no list is given there, and the lists current before the Rambam disagreed with one another. He began from the other end: with fourteen rules by which a commandment counts as a commandment—do not count general exhortations, do not count the details of one commandment separately, do not count what the sages instituted.
Only then comes the list itself: 248 positive and 365 negative. The Ramban wrote objections to the book, disputing dozens of items—and that dispute became a genre of its own. The Sefer HaMitzvot underlies the Mishneh Torah: first the list, then the code.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Makkot 23b — «six hundred and thirteen commandments were said to Moses»
Rishonim
- Sefer HaMitzvot, the fourteen roots — the rules for counting the commandments
- Ramban, glosses on Sefer HaMitzvot — the dispute over what counts as a commandment
Basis: documents and evidence.