Bacher’s Intro to Talmud: A Summary and Rephrase of entry ‘Talmud’ in Jewish Encyclopedia

What follows (after the outline) is my summary and rephrase of parts of Wilhelm Bacher (1850 – 1913), “TALMUD”, in Jewish Encyclopedia (1901-1906).¹

I recently came across this intro, and noted that it’s excellent. (Bacher was a monumental scholar.) So I decided that it would be worthwhile to summarize/ rephrase/ modernize it, for a contemporary audience.

Note that this entry was written over a hundred years ago, and some of it is somewhat superseded. However, I believe that it mostly stands the test of time. In my opinion, it may arguably be better than the other intros, including those in the Encyclopedia Judaica.²

Outline

1. Intro

2. What “Talmud” Means

3. Talmud and Midrash

4. The Rise of Mishnah and the New “Talmud”

5. The Evolving Map of Study: Bible, Mishnah, Talmud, Haggadah

6. Gemara, Shema‘ta, and Other Technical Terms

7. The Talmud as Commentary on the Mishnah

8. Aggadah Within the Bavli

9. Language and Style of the Bavli

10. Manuscripts, Printing, and Page Layout

11. Halakhah, Haggadah, and the Anonymous “Framework” (=Stam)

12. Redaction and the Emergence of a Single Bavli

Intro

The Talmud is the name given to two monumental works produced by the rabbinic academies of late antiquity: the Jerusalem Talmud (Talmud Yerushalmi), created in the Land of Israel, and the Babylonian Talmud (Talmud Bavli), completed in Babylonia. When people say simply “the Talmud” they almost always mean the Babylonian Talmud, but in a broader sense the word can refer to the entire corpus of rabbinic tradition that culminates in these works. Historically, the Talmud represents the high point of the oral Torah’s literary development during the amoraic period, roughly the third to fifth centuries CE.

This discussion focuses especially on how the term Talmud developed, how it relates to Midrash and Mishnah, how the Bavli is structured and transmitted, and how its final form emerged from centuries of collective study and editing.

What “Talmud” Means

The word “Talmud” comes from the Hebrew root L-M-D, “to teach/learn” (limmed). In tannaitic literature (the period of the Mishnah), talmud first meant “study” or “learning”, especially the study of Torah.³ The phrase talmud Torah—“study of Torah”—was used for the religious obligation to study the law, broadly and narrowly defined.

From there, talmud also came to denote the knowledge acquired through study. A student could refer to the teacher from whom he gained most of his “talmud” (his learning). In this sense, talmud stands alongside ma’aseh (“practice”). A famous early discussion ranked talmud above ma’aseh because learning leads to proper action, though halakhic practice still depends on both teaching and concrete examples.

Another important early usage is the technical phrase “talmud lomar”, “Scripture comes to teach,” which introduces legal inferences drawn from biblical verses. Here talmud means instruction through exegesis: learning the law by analyzing the biblical text.⁴

Over time a more specific meaning emerged: talmud became the explanatory, analytic discussion attached to halakhic teachings, especially those supported or clarified by biblical interpretation. When halakhic sayings were explained and anchored in Scripture, that explanatory layer was called talmud. This sense is the ancestor of the later, more familiar use of the word to mean the great rabbinic compilations themselves.

Talmud and Midrash

In early rabbinic usage, Talmud and Midrash are closely related and sometimes even interchangeable.

Rabbinic tradition divided textual study of the Torah into three main branches:

1. Midrash – interpretive exposition of Scripture (especially halakhic midrash).

2. Halakhah – the legal rulings and norms.

3. Haggadah – the non-legal, narrative, ethical, and homiletic material.

Originally, Midrash and Talmud overlapped strongly in meaning. Midrash worked directly on the biblical text. Talmud, in its early technical sense, worked mainly on the halakhic traditions (the results of earlier Midrash), explaining them and showing their scriptural roots.

Because of this overlap, many tannaitic sayings list “Talmud” where other parallel texts have “Midrash,” or include both together. In those early sources, “Talmud” does not yet mean what we call the Babylonian or Jerusalem Talmud; rather, it names a kind of study and explanation within the larger system of Torah interpretation.

The Rise of Mishnah and the New “Talmud”

A major turning point came with Yehuda HaNasi, who compiled and edited the Mishnah. Originally “Mishnah” meant the whole body of repeated, memorized tradition; after his work, the Mishnah became a specific, authoritative collection of halakhic teachings.

Once this Mishnah was fixed, a new kind of study developed: intensive analysis and interpretation of the Mishnah itself. This analytical enterprise—examining the Mishnah’s language, clarifying its rulings, comparing it with other traditions, connecting it to Scripture—came to be called “Talmud” in a newly expanded sense.

Already in early amoraic times, a baraita (non-Mishnaic tannatic teaching) speaks of three parallel subjects of study:

• Miḳra – the Bible,

• Mishnah – the compiled oral law,

• Talmud – the in-depth study that explains and expands the Mishnah.

Teachers in Yehuda HaNasi’s academy worried that students were so absorbed in Talmud—critical, analytic discussion—that they were neglecting the Mishnah itself. This tension illustrates how central the new Talmud-study had already become.

Later sources describe an ideal division of study time: a third for Bible, a third for Mishnah, a third for Talmud. By then, Talmud clearly means the ongoing academic work of understanding and elaborating the Mishnah, carried out in the academies of Eretz Yisrael and Babylonia.

The Evolving Map of Study: Bible, Mishnah, Talmud, Haggadah

As the Mishnah and Talmud gained prominence, the older threefold division (Midrash–Halakhah–Haggadah) evolved into a new fourfold scheme:

1. Bible (Miḳra)

2. Mishnah (or Halakhah in some Eretz Yisrael usage)

3. Talmud – deep analysis and dialectic

4. Haggadah – aggadic teachings

Different amoraim (sages of the Talmudic period) describe how a person should be versed in all four, and even interpret biblical verses as alluding to these four branches. Some characterize them by mood: Scripture should be taught with seriousness, Mishnah calmly, Talmud with lively sharpness, and Haggadah with a pleasant, engaging tone.

By the amoraic period, these categories reflect real educational practice. A standard life-course is imagined: at five, a child begins Bible; at ten, Mishnah; at fifteen, Talmud. Haggadah, while less central to the formal curriculum, remains a respected and beloved part of the tradition.

Gemara, Shema‘ta, and Other Technical Terms

In Babylonia, another word arose alongside Talmud: “Gemara” (from Aramaic gemar, “to learn”). Gemara means “that which has been learned,” and came to refer to the traditional interpretations and discussions surrounding the Mishnah.

Over time, especially from the geonic period onward, Gemara became a common term for the Talmudic material—essentially synonymous with “Talmud” in the sense of the amoraic discussions on the Mishnah. Many later printed editions use “Gemara” where earlier texts had “Talmud,” partly because censors objected to the word “Talmud.”

Another important term in Babylonia was “shem‘ata”, which denotes the halakhic portions of the Talmud, as opposed to the aggadic.

In popular later usage, the abbreviation “Shas” (from Shisha Sidrei Mishnah – the six orders of the Mishnah) came to mean the entire Babylonian Talmud, emphasizing the way the Gemara is bound up with the mishnaic framework.

The Talmud as Commentary on the Mishnah

Unlike the Mishnah, which is a self-contained collection of teachings, the Talmud is fundamentally a commentary structure. It is not an independent book with its own internal arrangement, but a running discussion attached to the Mishnah.

This has several important consequences:

• In the Babylonian Talmud, each paragraph of Mishnah is followed by its corresponding Talmudic discussion (where such a discussion exists). The Talmud is thus, in form, an expansion of the Mishnah.

• Even mishnaic tractates without Babylonian Gemara are still printed in Talmud editions, showing that the Mishnah and Talmud are conceived as parts of one larger whole.

• The Talmud grew out of oral teaching in the academies. For generations, rabbis in Eretz Yisrael and Babylonia interpreted the Mishnah, debated its meaning, compared it to other tannaitic traditions (baraitot), and derived practical legal conclusions. Only later were these discussions shaped into the literary form we now have.

The Talmud’s halakhic discussions therefore do multiple things at once: they interpret the Mishnah, analyze its relationship to external baraitot and midrashim, incorporate new rulings and traditions of the amoraim themselves, and preserve stories about the sages and their ways of deciding law.

Aggadah Within the Bavli

Although the Talmud is primarily a halakhic work, Haggadah (=aggadah) plays a major role, especially in the Babylonian Talmud. Around a third of the Bavli’s material is aggadic, compared to roughly a sixth in the Jerusalem Talmud.

In Babylonia there was no large, separate corpus of aggadic midrashim on the scale found in Eretz Yisrael. As a result, many haggadic compilations were absorbed into the Bavli itself. Some notable examples are:

• A substantial midrash on the Book of Esther embedded in the tractate Megillah (from 10b to 17a). It has its own series of homiletical introductions (proems) and then a verse-by-verse exposition of Esther, in the style of Eretz Yisrael midrash.

• A fragmentary midrash on Lamentations incorporated into the last chapter of Sanhedrin.

• A long narrative unit in Gittin (55a–58a) on the destruction of Jerusalem, drawing on Eretz Yisrael materials and related midrashic traditions.

In many chapters, especially in tractates like Sanhedrin and Sotah, short legal passages serve as springboards for extended aggadic excursions, full of ethical teachings, legends, and theological reflections. (Later anthologies such as Ein Yaakov collect these haggadic portions for separate study.)

Language and Style of the Bavli

The Babylonian Talmud is written in a mixture of Mishnaic Hebrew and Babylonian Aramaic, with the Aramaic more closely related to eastern dialects like Syriac and even showing affinity to Mandaic. The text also incorporates loanwords from Greek and Latin, despite some older claims to the contrary, reflecting the broader cultural environment.

Stylistically, the Bavli is marked by:

• Frequent shifts between Hebrew and Aramaic, sometimes within a single story.

• A distinctive dialectical style: questions, objections, proposed answers and refutations, often marked by formulaic phrases.

• Occasional narrative units where a tradition that begins in Hebrew slides into Aramaic mid-story, especially in anecdotes preserved in baraitot.

For scriptural and legal interpretation, the Bavli uses a well-developed technical vocabulary of exegetical terms and logical moves, reflecting a sophisticated hermeneutical tradition.

Manuscripts, Printing, and Page Layout

The earliest layers of the Bavli circulated orally and, over time, in written notes and partial codices. The oldest complete manuscript of the Babylonian Talmud is the famous Munich manuscript, whose underlying text likely goes back to the ninth century. It already contains most tractates of the Bavli, plus mishnaic treatises without Gemara and some later additions.

In manuscripts, the layout varies:

• Often, the entire chapter of Mishnah is written first, in large script, followed by the Talmudic discussion in smaller script.

• In some cases, each section of Gemara begins with just the opening words of the relevant mishnaic passage.

• Later, the now-familiar format—Mishnah paragraph followed immediately by its Gemara—became standard in printed editions.

The first complete printed edition of the Bavli appeared in Venice (1520–1523) through Daniel Bomberg. This edition fixed several features that have remained standard:

• The pagination: page numbers and folio sides (e.g., Berakhot 2a, 2b, etc.) that all later editions follow, allowing precise cross-referencing.

• The page layout: the Talmudic text in the center, with Rashi’s commentary on one side and Tosafot on the other.

Later printings, such as Basel (1578–81) and Frankfurt-on-the-Main (1720–22), refined the text under the pressure of censorship and scholarly corrections, but Bomberg’s layout and pagination still define how the Bavli is studied today.

Halakhah, Haggadah, and the Anonymous “Framework” (=Stam)

The Bavli’s contents can be divided broadly into Halakhah (law) and Haggadah (non-legal teaching), but the internal structure is more complex.

On the surface, each sugya (unit of Talmudic discussion) weaves together:

• Named statements of individual sages (amoraim and sometimes tannaim).

• Anonymous editorial material: questions, objections, logical links, and summaries.

This anonymous stratum⁵ forms the framework of the Talmud. It is not attributed to any one individual; rather, it reflects the collective voice of the academies over generations. This voice poses questions (“they asked”), raises objections (“they refuted”), and stitches together disparate traditions into a continuous argument.

Formulas like:

• “ibba’ya lehu” – “They raised a question,”

• “metivi” – “They objected,”

• “tenan” – “We have learned [in a Mishnah],”

• “minahin mili” – “From where do we derive this?”

all speak in this corporate “we,” treating the authors of the Talmud as a single, ongoing scholarly community.

Redaction and the Emergence of a Single Bavli

The Talmud did not spring fully formed from one editor; it is the result of centuries of redaction. The process began in the earliest amoraic generations and continued until the time of Rav Ashi and beyond.

Scattered remarks in the Bavli give us glimpses into this process:

• Sages from different academies (Sura, Pumbedita, Nehardea) sometimes transmit different versions of the same teaching or attribute it to different authorities.

• Later amoraim compare these versions, sometimes preferring one, sometimes preserving both, often introduced with phrases like “There are those who say …” or “Another version.”

• A particularly revealing passage describes amoraim asking Rav Naḥman whether a given interpretation had been “established in the Gemara”—that is, incorporated into the official text of the Talmud.

By the time of Rav Ashi, head of the academy of Sura in the fifth century, the work of systematic editing and consolidation reached a decisive stage. While exact details are not recorded explicitly, tradition and internal evidence point to this period as the time when the Bavli took on its essential final form.

Despite the multiple schools and transmitters, the intense cross-pollination among the academies and the reliance on shared lectures and discussions led to what is, for practical purposes, a single Babylonian Talmud, with a remarkably unified style and conceptual world.

1. Specifically, these sections (see the entry’s “Table of Contents” for links to specific sections in the entry):

1. The Name

2. Relation to Midrash

3. The Three Subjects of Study

4. The Gemara

5. Relation to Mishnah

6. Editions of the Bavli

7. Earliest Manuscript of the Bavli

8. Haggadah of the Bavli

9. Style and Language

10. The Halakah in Bavli

11. The Framework Anonymous

12. Redaction

13. Technical Terms for Tradition

2. See the original entry for full citations of primary sources.

Footnotes are mine.

Compare also my other pieces on this topic:

• Beyond the Mystique: Correcting Common Misconceptions About the Talmud, and Pathways to Accessibility (Apr 25, 2025)

• Introduction to the Talmud - by Ezra Brand - work-in-progress (last updated 26-Jun-2025). See my note there for other intros.

As an aside, I recently proposed on Wikipedia to merge the entry “Gemara” with “Talmud”, and made a few revisions in those entries to highlight the fact that “Gemara” is for all intents and purposes a synonym of “Talmud”.

3. Compare also Jastrow (modernized), תַּלְמוּד:

(לָמַד)

teaching, lesson; learning, study.

• Shevuot 40b:13 תלמוד ערוך הוא בפיו וכ׳ - “it is a ready teaching in the mouth of Rabbi Yochanan: this opinion is Admon’s.”

• Bava Metzia 33b:3; Pirkei Avot 4:13 - הוי זהיר בת׳ ששגגת תלמוד וכ׳ - “be careful in teaching, for an error in teaching etc”., see זָדוֹן.

• Megillah 27a Manuscript Munich:, see לִימּוּד.

• Bava Batra 130b:8 - אין למדין הלכה לא מפי תלמוד וכ׳ Mss. (ed. למוד by censor’s change, see Rabbinowicz, ‘Dikdukei Sofrim’ there, note; Rashb. גמרא) - “we derive no rule of practice from a teacher’s remark or from a practical case, unless it is said, this is the rule for practice”; Niddah 7b:58 (ed. גמרא).

• Jerusalem Talmud Gittin 7:2:2 top - הרי זה גט … צריך תלמוד - “the letter of divorce is valid, but the thing requires (further) study”.

• Jerusalem Talmud Horayot 3:4:8 top - כשהיה חצי תַלְמוּדוֹ מזה וכ׳ when he owes part of his learning to one (his father), and part to the other (his teacher)”;

• and frequently.

4. Compare Jastrow (modernized), ibid. (previous footnote):

b) derivation from Biblical intimations.

• Bava Kamma 104b:13 יש תלמוד - “there is a Biblical text bearing on the subject before us”;

• יש תלמוד … ומריבוייא וכ׳ - “I said, yesh talmud, and I meant to say (that it can be derived) from the expletive expression of the texts”.

תלמוד לוֹמַר (abbrev. ת”ל)

there is a teaching in the Scriptural text to intimate, the text reads (may be read).

• Pesachim 21b:7 (referring to Deuteronomy 14:21) אין לי … לגר במכירה מנין ת”ל לגר … או מכור - “from the text you learn only that you may give it to the sojourner and sell it to the stranger: how will you prove that you may sell it to the sojourner? Read the text, to the sojourner … you may give it away or sell it”; לנכרי בנתינה

• מנין ת”ל תתננה ואכלה או מכור לנכרי - “how will you prove that you may give it away to the non-Jew? Read the text, thou mayest give it away … or sell it to the non-Jew”.

• Ibid. 24a (referring to Exodus 29:34) שאין ת”ל לא יאכל ומה ת”ל לא יאכל וכ׳ - “it was not necessary to say, ‘it shall not be eaten’, and what is intimated by saying, ‘it shall not be eaten’? If you cannot apply it to the law in the case, since it is said, ‘and thou shalt burn etc.’, apply it to all forbidden things etc”. (see עִנְיָן);

• and very frequently.

5. Often referred to in modern scholarship as the “stam”.