Talmud
central text of Rabbinic Judaism
The Talmud (; Hebrew: תַּלְמוּד, romanized: Talmūḏ, 'study' or 'learning') is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism, and second in authority only to the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), the first five books of which form the Torah along with the texts in Nevi'im (Prophets) and Ketuvim (Writings). It is a primary source of Jewish law (הֲלָכָה, Halakha) and Jewish theology. It consists of the part of the Oral Torah compiled in the Mishnah and its commentaries, the Gemara. It records the teachings, opinions and disagreements of thousands of rabbis and Torah scholars (collectively referred to as Chazal) on a variety of subjects, including Halakha, Jewish ethics, philosophy, customs, history, and folklore among other topics. Until the Haskalah in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Talmud was the centerpiece of Jewish culture in nearly all communities and foundational to "all Jewish thought and aspirations", serving also as "the guide for the daily life" of Jews.
Talmud is used interchangeably with Gemara. The text is made up of 63 tractates, each covering one subject area. The Talmud is written in a combination of Aramaic and Hebrew. Talmudic tradition emerged and was compiled between the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and the Arab conquest in the early seventh century. Traditionally, it is thought that the Talmud itself was compiled by Rav Ashi and Ravina II around 500 CE, although it is more likely that this happened in the middle of the sixth century.
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This entry incorporates text from “Talmud” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.