Babylonian Talmud תלמוד בבלי
The central text of Jewish tradition: three centuries of debate on the Mishna in Babylonia, sealed around 4260.
The Talmud is not a code but a record of conversation. To every line of the Mishna the Gemara puts questions: where is this from, who disputes it, what if the case were different, does it contradict another passage. The argument matters more than the conclusion, so both sides are preserved: "these and these are the words of the living God".
The work went on in the academies of Sura, Pumbedita and Nehardea for some three centuries—Rav and Shmuel, Rabbi Yochanan from the Land of Israel, Abaye and Rava. Rav Ashi ordered the material over sixty years, Ravina brought it to a close around 4260, and the savoraim added the final connective layer.
Sixty-three tractates, some two and a half million words of Hebrew and Aramaic, unpunctuated—barely readable without Rashi. Beside law it holds medicine, astronomy, parables and biography.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Bava Metzia 59b — “it is not in heaven” — how the law is decided
- Eruvin 13b — a dispute for the sake of Heaven: both sides are the words of the living God
- Bava Batra 8a — a model of reasoning about the life of a community
Rishonim
- the Epistle of Rav Sherira Gaon — how the Talmud took shape and was edited
Basis: tradition.