# Talmud ## Intro The Talmud is the central text of Judaism after the Bible, and it is unlike anything in the Christian library. It is not a catechism. It is not a systematic theology. It is not even, in the ordinary sense, a book. It is a record of arguments, running for centuries, about how to keep the Torah, preserved with the losing opinions left in. A page of it typically opens with a short legal statement from around AD 200. Underneath, generations of rabbis take it apart: what does this word mean, what case does it cover, does it contradict another ruling, what if the situation were slightly different. Someone objects. Someone answers. Sometimes nobody wins and the discussion ends with *teiku*, a word meaning the question stands unresolved. Then, without warning, the legal discussion breaks off into a story about a rabbi, or a piece of medicine, or an argument about the age of the world, and then returns. Two versions exist. The **Jerusalem Talmud** was completed around AD 400 in the land of Israel. The **Babylonian Talmud**, produced in the academies of Sura and Pumbedita and finished roughly AD 500 to 600, is far longer and far more authoritative, and it is what "the Talmud" ordinarily means. For a Christian engaging Judaism, three things about it matter enormously. It is the reason a modern rabbinic Jew reads the Hebrew Bible the way he does. It contains material that bears directly on Christian claims, some of it favourable and most of it not. And it is the single most misquoted body of literature in the world, in a genre of antisemitic literature with a body count, which means a Christian who cites it carelessly is not merely making a mistake. ## In full The **Talmud** (from *lamad*, to learn) is the compilation of rabbinic law, argument, and lore that forms the foundation of rabbinic Judaism. It has two layers: the **Mishnah**, a legal code redacted around AD 200, and the **Gemara**, the record of subsequent analysis of that code by the *amoraim*. Its authority in Judaism rests on the claim examined at [Oral Torah Is Binding Objection Defeater](/codex/oral-torah-is-binding-objection-defeater/): that Moses received an oral Torah at Sinai alongside the written text, transmitted through an unbroken chain (Pirkei Avot 1:1) and eventually committed to writing. On that view the Talmud is not commentary on revelation but revelation itself, in its transmitted form, and the written Torah cannot be rightly read apart from it. Three framing observations for Christian engagement. 1. **It is argument, not assertion.** A line lifted out of a Talmudic exchange frequently means the opposite of what it appears to mean in isolation, because the passage may be stating a position in order to demolish it, or preserving a rejected minority view, or working through a hypothetical. Reading the surrounding discussion is not optional scholarship; it is the minimum condition of quoting the text at all. 2. **It is enormous and uneven.** The standard Vilna edition runs to twenty folio volumes. It contains legal reasoning of extraordinary rigour, ethical material of great beauty, folk medicine, astronomy, dream interpretation, and polemic. Selecting from it to characterize "what Judaism teaches" is like selecting from the entire corpus of Christian patristic and medieval literature to characterize what Christians believe. 3. **Christian engagement with it has a criminal history.** The Talmud was burned in Paris in 1242 and in Rome in 1553. It was the object of forced disputations in which Jewish participants argued under threat. It was censored by Christian authorities from the sixteenth century, which is why the standard printed editions are missing passages that survive in manuscripts. And it is the raw material of a quote-mining literature that circulates today and that has been used to justify murder. Any Christian who takes it up should know all of this before opening it. ## Structure ### The Mishnah Redacted around AD 200 under **Judah ha-Nasi**, the Mishnah is a topically organized legal code in Hebrew, divided into six orders (*sedarim*), traditionally remembered by the acronym *zeman nakat*: | Order | Hebrew | Subject | |-------|--------|---------| | **Zeraim** | Seeds | Agricultural law, and the tractate on blessings and prayer | | **Moed** | Appointed times | Sabbath, festivals, fasts, the Day of Atonement | | **Nashim** | Women | Marriage, divorce, vows, the *sotah* | | **Nezikin** | Damages | Civil and criminal law, courts, idolatry, and Pirkei Avot | | **Kodashim** | Holy things | Sacrifices, the Temple, dietary slaughter | | **Tohorot** | Purities | Ritual purity and impurity | Sixty-three tractates in all. The Mishnah records disputes rather than resolving all of them, characteristically naming the dissenting sage, and the Houses of Hillel and Shammai disagree throughout. Related material of the same period includes the **Tosefta**, a supplementary collection roughly four times the Mishnah's length, and the *baraitot*, tannaitic traditions not included in the Mishnah but cited in the Gemara. ### The Gemara The Gemara is the record of the *amoraim*, the sages of the third to sixth centuries, analyzing the Mishnah. It is written mostly in Aramaic, Galilean Aramaic in the Jerusalem Talmud and Babylonian Jewish Aramaic in the Babylonian. Its characteristic moves have names: the *kushya* (difficulty), the *terutz* (resolution), the *shinuya* (distinction), and *teiku*, the marker that a question remains open. ### The two Talmuds | | Jerusalem (Yerushalmi) | Babylonian (Bavli) | |---|---|---| | Completed | c. AD 400 | c. AD 500 to 600 | | Place | Tiberias, Caesarea, Sepphoris | Sura, Pumbedita, Nehardea | | Language of Gemara | Galilean Aramaic | Babylonian Jewish Aramaic | | Length | Roughly a third of the Bavli | Roughly 2.5 million words | | Coverage | Four orders, incompletely | Thirty-seven tractates | | Authority | Consulted; yields to the Bavli | Decisive for halakhah | The Bavli's greater authority is partly a matter of its later completion, its more developed argumentation, and the political fortunes of the Babylonian academies. Where the two conflict on a point of law, the Bavli generally prevails. ### Adjacent literature - **Midrash**: exegetical and homiletical commentary on Scripture, including Genesis Rabbah, Leviticus Rabbah, Pesikta Rabbati, the Tanhuma literature, and the Mekhilta on Exodus and Sifre on Numbers and Deuteronomy. Spans roughly the fourth to eleventh centuries. - **Targumim**: Aramaic renderings read alongside the Hebrew in synagogue, notably Targum Onkelos on the Torah and Targum Jonathan on the Prophets. - **Halakhic codes**: Maimonides's *Mishneh Torah* (c. 1180), Jacob ben Asher's *Arbaah Turim*, and Joseph Karo's *Shulchan Aruch* (1565) with Moses Isserles's Ashkenazi glosses. ## How to read a page A standard Vilna page (*daf*, with two sides, *amud alef* and *amud bet*) has the Mishnah and Gemara in the centre, **Rashi**'s commentary in the inner margin, and **Tosafot**, the twelfth- and thirteenth-century French and German glossators, in the outer margin. Further commentaries surround them. Citation convention: the tractate name, the folio number, and the side. **b. Sanhedrin 43a** means the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin, folio 43, first side. **y. Yoma 6:3** means the Jerusalem Talmud, tractate Yoma, chapter 6, halakhah 3. **m. Yoma 6:8** means the Mishnah alone. The folio numbering derives from the Bomberg printing of the 1520s and is standard across editions, which is why a citation works in any of them. ## Halakhah and aggadah The Talmud's material divides roughly into **halakhah**, legal reasoning that establishes binding practice, and **aggadah**, narrative, homily, ethics, theology, and lore. The distinction matters greatly for Christian argument. Halakhah is binding and its disputes are resolved by recognized principles. **Aggadah is not binding**, and Jewish tradition has always held it more loosely, which means a Christian building a case on an aggadic passage should say so. This cuts both ways and the standard must be applied evenly. Counter-missionary argument cites aggadic material freely where it supports the case, and a rule that discounts aggadah must discount it in both directions. See the discussion at [Rabbinic Sources Attest a Suffering Messiah Argument](/codex/rabbinic-sources-attest-a-suffering-messiah-argument/), where the suffering-Messiah passages are aggadic and are cited as evidence of what sages thought rather than as binding doctrine. ## Passages that matter in Christian-Jewish dialogue Every one of these is treated at length on a linked page, with its context, its difficulties, and the scholarly literature. | Passage | Content | Where it is treated | |---------|---------|---------------------| | **b. Sanhedrin 98a-98b** | The Messiah among the diseased at the gates of Rome; his name derived from Isaiah 53:4; the clouds-or-donkey resolution of Daniel 7:13 against Zechariah 9:9 | [Rabbinic Sources Attest a Suffering Messiah Argument](/codex/rabbinic-sources-attest-a-suffering-messiah-argument/), [Jesus Failed the Messianic Job Description Objection Defeater](/codex/jesus-failed-the-messianic-job-description-objection-defeater/) | | **b. Sukkah 52a** | The mourning of Zechariah 12:10 as mourning for Messiah ben Joseph who was slain, with a second opinion about the evil inclination | [Zechariah 12 Pierced One Objection Defeater](/codex/zechariah-12-pierced-one-objection-defeater/) | | **b. Yoma 39b** | Four Yom Kippur signs failing for the last forty years of the Temple | [Talmud Attests the Temple Signs Ceased Argument](/codex/talmud-attests-the-temple-signs-ceased-argument/) | | **b. Sanhedrin 41a** | The Sanhedrin exiled from the Chamber of Hewn Stone forty years before the destruction | [Talmud Attests the Temple Signs Ceased Argument](/codex/talmud-attests-the-temple-signs-ceased-argument/) | | **b. Sanhedrin 43a** | Yeshu hanged on the eve of Passover for sorcery and enticement, with five named disciples | [Talmud Confirms the Execution of Jesus Argument](/codex/talmud-confirms-the-execution-of-jesus-argument/) | | **b. Sanhedrin 38b** | Akiva on the plural thrones of Daniel 7:9, and the two-powers rebuke | [Two Powers in Heaven Argument](/codex/two-powers-in-heaven-argument/) | | **b. Hagigah 15a** | Elisha ben Abuyah, the seated Metatron, and "perhaps there are two powers in heaven" | [Two Powers in Heaven Argument](/codex/two-powers-in-heaven-argument/) | | **b. Bava Metzia 59b** | The Oven of Akhnai: a heavenly voice overruled, "it is not in heaven," and "my sons have defeated me" | [Oral Torah Is Binding Objection Defeater](/codex/oral-torah-is-binding-objection-defeater/) | | **m. Hagigah 1:8** | Sabbath, festival, and sacrilege laws as "mountains hanging by a hair" | [Oral Torah Is Binding Objection Defeater](/codex/oral-torah-is-binding-objection-defeater/) | | **b. Berakhot 26b** | The fixed prayers instituted to correspond to the daily offerings | [Blood Atonement Not Required Objection Defeater](/codex/blood-atonement-not-required-objection-defeater/) | | **b. Moed Katan 28a** | As the red heifer atones, so the death of the righteous atones | [Rabbinic Sources Attest a Suffering Messiah Argument](/codex/rabbinic-sources-attest-a-suffering-messiah-argument/) | | **b. Sanhedrin 97b** | Rav: "all the predestined dates have passed"; and the curse on those who calculate the end | [Daniel 9 Seventy Weeks Objection Defeater](/codex/daniel-9-seventy-weeks-objection-defeater/) | | **b. Sanhedrin 56a** | The seven Noahide commandments and their derivation | [Jews Do Not Need Jesus Objection Defeater](/codex/jews-do-not-need-jesus-objection-defeater/) | | **b. Sanhedrin 91b** | When the evil inclination enters: at conception or at the embryo's formation | [Original Sin Is Foreign to Judaism Objection Defeater](/codex/original-sin-is-foreign-to-judaism-objection-defeater/) | | **b. Kiddushin 30b** | "I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as its antidote" | [Original Sin Is Foreign to Judaism Objection Defeater](/codex/original-sin-is-foreign-to-judaism-objection-defeater/) | | **Tosafot to b. Sanhedrin 63b** | *Shituf*, association, not among the Noahide prohibitions | [Christianity Is Idolatry Objection Defeater](/codex/christianity-is-idolatry-objection-defeater/) | ## Censorship and its direction From the sixteenth century, Christian ecclesiastical censors expurgated passages from printed editions of the Talmud. The context includes the burning of the Talmud in Rome in 1553, the papal bull *Cum nimis absurdum* (1555), and the conditions under which the Basel edition of 1578 to 1580 was produced. The censored material includes the passages concerning Jesus, references to *goyim* in contexts the censors found offensive, and much else. The standard **Vilna** edition (1880 to 1886), which became the basis for most later printings and for the pagination everyone uses, reflects this history. The material survives elsewhere: in manuscripts, notably **Munich Codex Hebraicus 95**, the only complete Talmud manuscript; in early printings that predate the censorship; and in modern critical and restored editions. **A Christian raising this should raise it as an admission.** Christians did the censoring. Presenting the gaps in the printed Talmud as evidence of Jewish concealment inverts the historical record and will be corrected immediately by anyone who knows it. ## The quote-mining problem There is a body of literature that mines the Talmud for offensive-sounding lines and presents them as Judaism's secret teaching. It circulates today, largely online, and it has a documented history in the propaganda of movements that carried out mass murder. It is worthless as scholarship and it should be named as what it is. Its standard techniques: - **Quoting a rejected opinion as though it were the ruling.** The Talmud preserves minority views precisely so they can be recorded and set aside. - **Quoting a hypothetical.** Talmudic reasoning frequently constructs extreme cases to test a principle's limits. - **Quoting the *kushya* and omitting the *terutz*.** The difficulty is stated in order to be resolved; quoting only the difficulty reverses the passage's meaning. - **Mistranslating deliberately**, including inventing passages that do not exist and citing folio numbers that do not contain them. - **Ignoring the commentaries.** Rashi and Tosafot are on the page for a reason and frequently state what a passage is actually doing. - **Reproducing forgeries.** Several widely circulated "Talmud quotations" have no source at all. **Practical rule for anyone using this codex.** Cite the Talmud only from a text you have read in context, in a reputable translation, with the surrounding discussion. The Soncino, Steinsaltz, and Koren editions and the Sefaria digital library make this straightforward and free. If a citation comes from a compilation of Talmud quotations rather than from the Talmud, do not use it. The apologetic reason for this rule is separate from the moral one and also sufficient: a Christian who deploys a mined quotation in conversation with a Jew who has actually studied will be exposed immediately, and everything else he says will be discounted. ## Editions and access - **Vilna Shas** (Romm, 1880 to 1886), the standard printing whose pagination is universal. - **Soncino** English translation (1935 to 1952), the older standard, freely available. - **Steinsaltz** edition, with a modern Hebrew or English translation and running commentary, and the **Koren Talmud Bavli** built on it. - **Schottenstein** edition (ArtScroll), heavily annotated. - **Sefaria**, a free digital library with the Hebrew and Aramaic text, translations, and linked commentaries, which is the practical tool for checking a citation. ## See also - [Judaism](/codex/judaism/), the world-religions hub covering history, scriptures, doctrine, and branches. - [Oral Torah Is Binding Objection Defeater](/codex/oral-torah-is-binding-objection-defeater/), on the claim that grounds the Talmud's authority. - [The Jewish Defense](/codex/the-jewish-defense/), the apologetics navigator. - [Counter-Missionary Movement](/codex/counter-missionary-movement/), the modern movement that draws on this literature. - [Rabbinic Sources Attest a Suffering Messiah Argument](/codex/rabbinic-sources-attest-a-suffering-messiah-argument/), [Talmud Attests the Temple Signs Ceased Argument](/codex/talmud-attests-the-temple-signs-ceased-argument/), [Talmud Confirms the Execution of Jesus Argument](/codex/talmud-confirms-the-execution-of-jesus-argument/), and [Two Powers in Heaven Argument](/codex/two-powers-in-heaven-argument/), the four arguments built from Talmudic material. - [Two Powers in Heaven](/codex/two-powers-in-heaven/), the concept hub. - [Israel and the Church](/codex/israel-and-the-church/), the covenantal frame. - [Dead Sea Scrolls](/codex/dead-sea-scrolls/) and [Septuagint](/codex/septuagint/), the other Second Temple textual witnesses.
## Common questions this page answers **Q: What is the Talmud?** The Talmud is the central text of Judaism after the Bible, and it is a record of argument rather than a catechism or a systematic theology. It has two layers. The **Mishnah** is a topically organized legal code in Hebrew, redacted around AD 200 under Judah ha-Nasi, divided into six orders and sixty-three tractates. The **Gemara** is the record of generations of subsequent rabbis analyzing that code, written mostly in Aramaic. Two versions exist: the Jerusalem Talmud, completed around AD 400 in the land of Israel, and the Babylonian Talmud, completed roughly AD 500 to 600 in the academies of Sura and Pumbedita, which is about three times longer and is the authoritative one. Its characteristic feature is that it preserves the losing arguments: minority opinions are recorded alongside accepted rulings, and some discussions end with *teiku*, a marker that the question remains unresolved. **Q: What is the difference between the Mishnah and the Gemara?** The Mishnah is the code; the Gemara is the discussion of it. The Mishnah was redacted around AD 200, is written in Hebrew, and states legal positions concisely, frequently naming a majority ruling and a dissenting sage. The Gemara is the work of the *amoraim*, the sages of roughly the third through sixth centuries, and it takes the Mishnah apart line by line: defining terms, testing rulings against other rulings, introducing hypotheticals, raising difficulties (*kushya*) and resolving them (*terutz*). Together they constitute the Talmud. Related literature of the same period includes the **Tosefta**, a supplementary tannaitic collection, and the *baraitot*, tannaitic traditions cited in the Gemara but not included in the Mishnah. **Q: Is the Talmud binding on Jews?** For Orthodox and, in a developing sense, Conservative Judaism, yes, on the basis of the Oral Torah claim: that Moses received an oral tradition at Sinai alongside the written text, transmitted through an unbroken chain set out at Pirkei Avot 1:1 and eventually recorded. Reform Judaism treats it as an important historical and ethical resource rather than as binding law, and the Karaite movement has rejected the Oral Torah since the eighth or ninth century. Within the binding material an internal distinction matters: **halakhah**, the legal reasoning, is binding and its disputes are resolved by recognized principles, while **aggadah**, the narrative, homiletic, and theological material, has always been held more loosely and is not binding. That distinction is important in Christian-Jewish argument and the standard has to be applied evenly by both sides. **Q: Why are some passages missing from printed editions of the Talmud?** Because **Christian** censors removed them. From the sixteenth century, ecclesiastical censors expurgated passages from printed editions, in a period that included the burning of the Talmud in Rome in 1553 and the conditions imposed on the Basel edition of 1578 to 1580. The censored material includes the passages concerning Jesus and various references the censors found offensive. The standard Vilna edition of 1880 to 1886, which supplies the pagination everyone still uses, reflects this history. The material survives in manuscripts, above all Munich Codex Hebraicus 95, the only complete Talmud manuscript, in printings predating the censorship, and in modern restored editions. A Christian raising this in conversation should raise it as an admission about his own tradition's conduct. Presenting the gaps as evidence of Jewish concealment inverts the record and will be corrected by anyone who knows it. **Q: Does the Talmud say bad things about Jesus and Christians?** Some passages are hostile, and the honest answer says so rather than deflecting. B. Sanhedrin 43a describes a Yeshu hanged on the eve of Passover on charges of sorcery and enticing Israel, and other passages of disputed reference exist. Peter Schäfer's *Jesus in the Talmud* (Princeton, 2007) is the standard scholarly treatment and reads these as late Babylonian counter-narratives responding to the Gospels rather than as independent early testimony. What is not honest is the quote-mining literature that presents selected lines as Judaism's secret teaching. Its techniques are identifiable: quoting rejected minority opinions as rulings, quoting hypotheticals constructed to test a principle, quoting a stated difficulty while omitting its resolution, ignoring the Rashi and Tosafot commentaries printed on the same page, mistranslating, and in several widely circulated cases citing passages that do not exist. That literature has a documented history in the propaganda of movements that carried out mass murder, and it should be named as what it is. **Q: How do I check a Talmud citation?** Read it in context, in a reputable edition, with the surrounding discussion. Citations follow a standard form: **b. Sanhedrin 43a** means the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin, folio 43, first side; **y. Yoma 6:3** means the Jerusalem Talmud, tractate Yoma, chapter 6, halakhah 3; **m. Yoma 6:8** means the Mishnah alone. The folio numbering comes from the Bomberg printing of the 1520s and is identical across editions, so a citation works in any of them. The Soncino translation (1935 to 1952) is freely available, and the Steinsaltz and Koren editions provide modern translations with running commentary. **Sefaria** is a free digital library with the original text, translations, and linked commentaries, and it is the practical tool for verification. The rule that matters: if a quotation comes from a compilation of Talmud quotations rather than from the Talmud itself, do not use it.