f Halachists succeeded a
set of men headed by Akiba ben Joseph, who, ignoring practical issues,
evolved laws from the Bible text or from traditions held to be divine. A
spiritual, truly religious conception of Judaism was supplanted by legal
quibbling and subtle methods of interpretation. Like the sophists of
Rome and Alexandria at that time, the most celebrated teachers in the
academies of Babylonia and Palestine for centuries gave themselves up to
casuistry. This is the history of the development of the Talmud, or more
correctly of the two Talmuds, the one, finished in 390 C. E., being the
expression of what was taught at the Palestinian academies; the other,
more important one, completed in 500 C. E., of what was taught in
Babylonia.

The Babylonian, the one regarded as authoritative, is about four times
as large as the Jerusalem Talmud. Its thirty-six treatises
(_Massichtoth_), in our present edition, cover upwards of three thousand
folio pages, bound in twelve huge volumes. To speak of a completed
Talmud is as incorrect as to speak of a biblical canon. No religious
body, no solemn resolution of a synod, ever declared either the Talmud
or the Bible a completed whole. Canonizing of any kind is distinctly
opposed to the spirit of Judaism. The fact is that the tide of
traditional lore has never ceased to flow.

We now have before us a faint outline sketch of the growth of the
Talmud. To portray the busy world fitting into this frame is another and
more difficult matter. A catalogue of its contents may be made. It may
be said that it is a book containing laws and discussions, philosophic,
theologic, and juridic dicta, historical notes and national
reminiscences, injunctions and prohibitions controlling all the
positions and relations of life, curious, quaint tales, ideal maxims and
proverbs, uplifting legends, charming lyrical outbursts, and attractive
enigmas side by side with misanthropic utterances, bewildering medical
prescriptions, superstitious practices, expressions of deep agony,
peculiar astrological charms, and rambling digressions on law,
zoology, and botany, and when all this has been said, not half its
contents have been told. It is a luxuriant jungle, which must be
explored by him who would gain an adequate idea of its features and
products.

The Ghemara, that is, the whole body of discussions recorded in the two
Talmuds, primarily forms a running commentary on the text of the Mishna.
At the same time,