What Is The Talmud?
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The term Talmud, derived from the Hebrew root למד/lmd (to learn), is a generic title applicable to two distinct but closely
related anthological literary corpora, namely the Talmud Bavli, or the Babylonian Talmud, compiled between the 6th and 7th
centuries CE and revised for some time thereafter, and the Talmud Yerushalmi, literally the Jerusalem Talmud...
Joshua Ezra Burns, Oxford Bibliographies
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Formally, the Talmud is a 2,711-page summary of oral law organized in 37 Tractates, or massekhtot.
But in fact, the Talmud is much more than that: it is the repository of thousands of years of Jewish wisdom.
It is an amalgam of law, legend, and philosophy, a blend of unique logic and shrewd pragmatism, of history and science, anecdotes and humor.
The Talmud considers no subject to be too strange, too remote, or too bizarre to be studied.
The Aleph Society
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The Talmud is a compendium of many texts, a comprehensive legal code, including rabbinic disputation and other,
extra-legal material. It is the most significant compilation of Rabbinic Judaism, dating from the 4th and 5th centuries CE,
consisting of the traditions of Jewish law (the Mishnah) and commentary.
The Pluralism Project, Harvard University
