Of course, immediately the Mishnah was complete, further generations of scholars–who were, it should be remembered, determining legal theory in the light of actual cases–began to comment upon it. By this time, since the rabbinic methods had spread to Babylonia, there were two centres of commentary, in Eretz Israel and in the Babylonian academies. Both produced volumes of Talmud, a word meaning ‘study’ or ‘learning’, which were compiled by the various generations of the amoraim. The Jerusalem Talmud, more correctly called the Talmud of the West, was completed by the end of the fourth century
...more
