TALMUD (Talmūdh, «Study»). - Great corpus of rabbinic traditions, constituted by the development that the Mishnah (v.) underwent in the following centuries. The majority of the Mishnaic treatises are developed in the discussion, called gēmārā, due to the masters called amoraim (v.), who in the periodic sessions of the Talmudic academies discussed the various legal texts.
The Talmudic academies were called jēšibhōth (jēšibhāh originally meaning the "seat" of the master). In Palestine the most famous was located at Jamnia (Jabneh) and existed well before A.D. 70; the Palestinian academies ceased to exist around 740. In Babylonia the most famous schools were Sūrā and Pumbēditā; they included regular students, often maintained by the head of the Academy, who received offerings for this purpose. Seventy scholars constituted the "Great Sanhedrin"; behind them took their places another thirty scholars, who constituted the "Small Sanhedrin." From time to time subjects for discussion were proposed and the president checked by means of a colloquy whether the students had prepared the text for study. Preceptive topics of current relevance were also discussed and the definitive solution was written down. A special month was dedicated to questions coming from abroad. The T. could be defined as the minutes of the sessions of the academies.
There are two redactions of the T.: the T. jērāšalmi, anciently called T. 'ēres Jīšrā'ēl, redacted in Palestine around 425; the T. babhlī, redacted in Babylonia in the 5th century; the latter was subjected in the following centuries to the revision of the savoraim (v.). The Talmudic period is considered closed between the 6th and 7th centuries; preceptive activity was continued by the "decisors" (v.). The doctors of the T. draw their deductions in preceptive matters by making use of hermeneutical rules sui generis, called middōth, with which they seek to connect, often doing violence to the text, their deductions to the biblical text. The number of the middōth varies according to the periods; they are linked to the names of three doctors: Hillel (v.), who establishes 7 rules, R. Jismā'ēl (2nd century), who establishes 13.
R. 'Elī'ezer ben Jōsē hag-gēlīl (end of 2nd century), who brings the rules to 32. In the content of the T. one must distinguish the normative or halakhic part (v. HĀLĀKHĀH) from the haggadic or narrative part (v. HAGDADĀKH). The material treated is extremely varied: civil and criminal law; norms for worship; mystical doctrines; folklore; philosophical ideas; history, geography; medicine.
According to the opinion of the rabbis, Moses received the Tōrāh on Sinai, transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to the Judges (v.), the Judges to the Prophets and the Prophets to the men of the Great Synagogue (Abāth, 1, 1). The law received by Moses would be not only the Pentateuch, which, redacted in writing, was made accessible to all peoples, but also the entire Bible, the Mishnah and the T. (Bērābhāth, 52); the various masters do nothing but "rediscover" the ideas and the individual norms that were part of the heritage given by God to Moses. The T. counts for the Jews as representing for the most part an interest not only theoretical-scientific, but eminently practical. The language is for the most part Aramaic; there are numerous Greek and Latin words more or less transformed.
Bibliography12 works
Eugenio Zolli