Whois & Analysis for sefaria.org

The Tanakh (or; also Tenakh, Tenak, Tanach) or Mikra or Hebrew Bible is the canonical collection of Jewish texts, which is also a textual source for the Christian Old Testament.

These texts are composed mainly in Biblical Hebrew, with some passages in Biblical Aramaic (in the books of Daniel, Ezra and a few others).

The traditional Hebrew text is known as the Masoretic Text.

The Tanakh consists of twenty-four books.

The Mishnah or Mishna ("study by repetition", from the verb shanah, or "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first major written redaction of the Jewish oral traditions known as the "Oral Torah".

It is also the first major work of Rabbinic literature.

The Mishnah was redacted by Judah the Prince at the beginning of the third century AD in a time when, according to the Talmud, the persecution of the Jews and the passage of time raised the possibility that the details of the oral traditions of the Pharisees from the Second Temple period (536 BC – 70 AD) would be forgotten.

Most of the Mishnah is written in Mishnaic Hebrew, while some parts are Aramaic.

The Talmud (Hebrew: ' "instruction, learning", from a root ' "teach, study") is a central text of Rabbinic Judaism.

It is also traditionally referred to as ', a Hebrew abbreviation of ', the "six orders", a reference to the six orders of the Mishnah.

The term "Talmud" normally refers to the collection of writings named specifically the Babylonian Talmud (Talmud Bavli), although there is also an earlier collection known as the Jerusalem Talmud, or Palestinian Talmud (Talmud Yerushalmi).

When referring to post-biblical periods, namely those of the creation of the Talmud, the Talmudic academies and the Babylonian exilarchate, Jewish sources use the term "Babylonia" long after it had become obsolete in geopolitical terms.

In Judaism, the midrash (pl.

') is the genre of rabbinic literature which contains early interpretations and commentaries on the Written Torah and Oral Torah (spoken law and sermons), as well as non-legalistic rabbinic literature (') and occasionally the Jewish religious laws ('), which usually form a running commentary on specific passages in the Hebrew Scripture (').

The Torah ("instruction, teaching") is the central reference of Judaism.

It has a range of meanings.

It can most specifically mean the first five books (Pentateuch) of the twenty-four books of the Tanakh, and it usually includes the rabbinic commentaries (').

The term "Torah" means instruction and offers a way of life for those who follow it; it can mean the continued narrative from Book of Genesis to the end of the Tanakh, and it can even mean the totality of Jewish teaching, culture and practice.

Common to all these meanings, Torah consists of the origin of Jewish peoplehood: their call into being by God, their trials and tribulations, and their covenant with their God, which involves following a way of life embodied in a set of moral and religious obligations and civil laws (').