Talmud

A massive collection of writings, comprising the Mishnah, commentaries, interpretations, and reinterpretations by scholars of the Torah; and the Gemara, commentaries on and interpretations of the Mishnah. The Talmud contains not just exegeses of Holy Scripture, but reflections on a huge array of subjects, like theology, diet, ethics, jurisprudence, mythology, philosophy, medicine, and so on. Two Talmuds exist: the Jerusalem or Palestinian Talmud (completed around the fifth century A.D.), in which the Gemara was the work of the scholars of the Palestinian academies; and the Babylonian Talmud (finished around the sixth century a.d.), whose Gemara was produced by the Babylonian academicians. The influence of the Babylonian Talmud has been far greater and is the one to which most scholars refer.