The Mishnah and the Talmud
Oral law is written down, then argued over in writing for centuries.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 300 years
- Known to
- ± 20 years
- Era
- Classical, Holocene
Around 200 CE Judah the Prince compiles the Mishnah, a concise code of oral legal tradition organised by subject. Generations of subsequent debate about it in the academies of Palestine and Babylonia are recorded as the Gemara, and the two together form the Talmud. Its method is distinctive: it preserves rejected minority opinions alongside accepted ones, so the reasoning remains visible and reopenable rather than settled.