The study of the Talmud was to become the chief occupation of the Jews for many centuries. It was a world in itself in which they lived, and in which they could forget the cruel world without. Its study reacted on their character. First the Jew made the Talmud, then the Talmud made the Jew.
Talmudic Literature.
Like the Bible, the Talmud produced a literature still vaster than itself. While the Gemara is a commentary, it needed later commentaries to explain it to the student—for although so diffuse in treatment, its language is terse. Frequently a letter stands for a word and a word for a sentence. Therefore in editions of the Talmud to-day, Mishna and Gemara together form the text and are printed in the centre of each page, while commentaries in smaller type are grouped around it. Since the days of printing all editions are paged alike.
Saboraim.
After the completion of the Talmud, the work of the Academies became preservative rather than creative. While not adding to the laws now gathered in the Talmud, the rabbis reviewed them and formulated from them complete codes for practical application. This tended to give a finality to the laws so far evolved, which had both its good and bad side. This undertaking gave to this next school of commentators the name of Saboräim—revisers or critics—the third group of law expounders. (For first group, Tannäim, see p. 186; for second group, Amoräim, see page 228). They edited the Talmud and amplified it with agadistic material and finally brought it down into the form in which we have it to-day.
Notes and References.
Language of the Talmud:
The Mishna is written in Hebrew, and so too are some of the older quotations in the Gemara. Many Greek words are adopted, of which Sanhedrin is one; some Latin words too. But the bulk of both Gemaras is written in a dialect of Aramaic—we might say Jüdisch-Aramaic just as we speak of Jüdisch-Deutsch to-day.
A knowledge of grammar was brought to Persia (Babylonia) from Greece, which resulted in the important service of introducing vowel points and accents. This tended to simplify the study of Hebrew Scriptures and made the text more certain.