of the specific laws and their underlying principles. Such dis-
cussions in turn eventually gave rise to a new generation of
legal dicta, and these in turn provoked new efforts at dialecti-
cal complication. Thus the Talmudic tradition grew.
The Hebrew word talmud and its Aramaic equivalent
gemaraD both mean “study.” Each term had other meanings
at various times, but in the end gemaraD came to be the name
of the vast Mishnah commentary that had taken shape, and
talmud the name of the combined text (Mishnah plus
gemaraD) that eventually emerged. The rabbis of the immedi-
ate post-Mishnaic period (third to fifth centuries CE) are
called amoraD from the Aramaic Dmr, “say, discuss”), because
their characteristic contribution to the developing tradition
was the extended discussion of the Mishnah they produced.
Through a process that can no longer be traced with cer-
tainty, the text of the gemaraD underwent periodic reshaping
until finally the two Talmuds as we now know them came
into being. It should be emphasized that early rabbinic
Torah study was oral, so that the gemaraD was not so much
a fixed text as a more-or-less accepted formulation of accu-
mulated lore. There is therefore no reason to assume that
there ever was an authorized “original text” of the Talmud,
and there may have been parallel recensions of these collec-
tions from the earliest stages of their history preserved in dif-
ferent localities. There is still no altogether accepted standard
text, and even the relatively uniform wording of recent cen-
turies has much to do with the eventual predominance of Eu-
ropean over Asian and North African Jewry and the stan-
dardization that inevitably followed the invention of
printing.
The Jerusalem, or Palestinian, Talmud. The so-called
Jerusalem Talmud (Heb., Talmud Yerushalmi) is really the
work of the rabbinic academies of the Galilee; it was substan-
tially completed by the middle of the fifth century. The Jeru-
salem Talmud covers the first four orders of the Mishnah
with the exception of two tractates (Avot and EEduyyot); in
the last two orders, only half of tractate Niddah has Palestin-
ian gemaraD. The Jerusalem Talmud is characterized in gener-
al by brevity and an absence of editorial transitions and clari-
fications. Its discussions frequently seem laconic and
elliptical and often take the form of terse remarks attributed
to one or another amora with no connective phrasing at all
between them. Occasionally, however, such comments are
built up into a more integrated dialectical treatment, with
objections raised and answered, contradictions cited and re-
solved, and biblical proof texts adduced as the editors see fit.
The Babylonian Talmud. According to tradition, the
redaction of the Babylonian Talmud (Heb., Talmud Bavli)
was completed by the amoraim Ashi and RavinaD around the
year 500. It is clear, however, that the distinctive features of
this Talmud in contrast to the other are the work of several
generations of mostly anonymous rabbis who came after
these authorities and are collectively known as the savoraim
(from the Aramaic root svr, “consider, hold an opinion”),
that is, those who reconsidered the Talmudic text and estab-
lished its final version. Thanks to the labors of these latter
revisers, the Babylonian Talmud is far more thoroughly
worked out than the Palestinian. Its arguments are replete
with a sophisticated technical terminology for introducing
source materials, considering objections and counterobjec-
tions, offering refutations and defending against them, and
so forth. In addition to their detailed contributions, the sa-
voraim also composed entire sections of the Talmud; in par-
ticular, the extended discussion at the beginning of many
tractates is attributed to them. In general, the literary superi-
ority of the Babylonian Talmud, its far greater logical clarity,
and its considerably larger bulk can be attributed to the sa-
voraim of the sixth and seventh centuries. The Talmud in
its current form did not exist until these had done their work.While the Jerusalem Talmud treats the entire first order
of the Mishnah, the Babylonian Talmud has gemaraD only
for the first tractate (Berakhot), which deals with liturgy; the
rest of the order treats agricultural rules that were not consid-
ered applicable outside the Holy Land. On the other hand,
and harder to explain, the great bulk of the fifth order, which
regulates the long-destroyed Temple cult and is not to be
found in the Jerusalem Talmud, has very substantial Babylo-
nian gemaraD. Otherwise, with minor exceptions, the two
Talmuds cover the same parts of the Mishnah.
LATER DEVELOPMENTS. Over the several centuries following
the appearance of the two Talmuds, the Babylonian Talmud
gradually eclipsed the other. This predominance was ratio-
nalized by the claim that the Babylonian Talmud was the
more recent, so that its editors already knew the Jerusalem
Talmud and could include its acceptable teachings in their
own work and suppress those portions for any reason found
unworthy. In retrospect, however, it is clear that such a claim
was part of the propaganda of the Babylonian geonim of the
last centuries of the first millennium CE in favor of their own
authority and against the rival authority of the rabbis of the
Land of Israel. The eventual predominance of the Babylo-
nian Talmud throughout the Diaspora and even in the Land
of Israel probably is to be explained through reference to
such factors as the relatively stronger ties of the rising com-
munities of North Africa and Spain to Babylonian Jewry and
the relatively more severe decline of Palestinian Jewry, espe-
cially under the onslaught of the Crusades. Those parts of
Europe, especially Italy, that retained strong ties with the
community in the Land of Israel apparently maintained a
tradition of study of the Jerusalem Talmud, but by the begin-
ning of the second millennium this process had run its
course. From then on, “the Talmud” always meant the Baby-
lonian. It was taken for granted that issues of Jewish law
should be resolved by reference to the Babylonian Talmud,
not the Palestinian, and that the latter could provide rulings
only in cases where the Babylonian Talmud was silent or am-
biguous.
Once the primacy of the Babylonian Talmud was estab-
lished, this primacy was continually reinforced. The Babylo-
nian Talmud received more attention. It was studied by8970 TALMUD