The Talmud preserves centuries of rabbinic arguments, not just their verdicts
Rabbinic Judaism's central text after the Hebrew Bible is essentially a vast record of debate. Thousands of scholars disagree across 63 tractates on law, ethics, history and folklore, in a blend of Aramaic and Hebrew. There are actually two Talmuds, and the one compiled in Babylonia eventually eclipsed its older rival.
The name means study or learning, from a Semitic root for teaching. The Talmud combines the Mishnah, a written compilation of the Oral Torah, with the Gemara, the layered commentary on it. Its sages, known collectively as Chazal, cover everything from legal procedure to customs and stories. The tradition took shape between 70 CE, when Rome razed the Second Temple, and the Arab conquests of the early 7th century.
Ancient Jewish learning had two great hubs, in Syria Palaestina and in Babylonia, and each produced its own Talmud. The earlier was assembled in Galilee in the late 4th or early 5th century from the teaching of academies at Tiberias, Sepphoris and Caesarea. It is called the Jerusalem Talmud, though Palestinian Talmud is more accurate since it was not compiled in Jerusalem. It remained incomplete and hard to read, written in a Western Aramaic dialect, and it shows keen interest in farming law and the geography of the land.
The Babylonian version grew out of academies such as Nehardea, Pumbedita and Mahoza between the 3rd and 6th centuries. Tradition credits its foundations to Abba Arika, who lived from 175 to 247, and its final form to Rav Ashi and Ravina II around 500 CE, though a date in the mid-6th century is more likely. It is longer, more discursive and fonder of anecdote than its western counterpart.
Neither covers the whole Mishnah. The Babylonian commentary treats only 37 of the 63 tractates, and of the agricultural order Zeraim it discusses just Berakhot, perhaps because farming rules for the Land of Israel mattered less in Mesopotamia. As Babylonia became the diaspora's intellectual centre, its Talmud became the default meaning of the word. The Palestinian text still left a mark: Maimonides consulted both and favoured the Jerusalem version when their principles clashed.
Source: Talmud
