Mishnah

The Mishnah (Hebrew משנה, "repetition") is a major source of rabbinic Judaism's religious texts. It is the first recording of the oral law of the Jewish people, as championed by the Pharisees and is considered the first work of Rabbinic Judaism. The Mishnah was redacted around the year 200 CE by Judah haNasi (Judah the Prince). He is usually simply referred to as 'Rabbi'. Nearly all of the Mishnah is written in Hebrew, except a few verses, which are written in Aramaic. Rabbinic commentaries on the Mishnah over the next three centuries were recorded mostly in Aramaic and were redacted as the Gemara. The Mishnah and the Gemara together form the Talmud.

The writing of the Mishnah

According to Jewish Law, the Written Law must be transmitted from a written source, and the Oral Law orally. Therefore, it is forbidden to write down the Oral Law in any form, other than for notes.

Related Topics:
Written Law - Oral Law

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The Babylonian_Talmud (Hagiga 14a) states that there were either six-hundred or seven-hundred orders of the Mishnah. Hillel the Elder organized them into six orders to make it easier to remember.

Related Topics:
Babylonian_Talmud - Hillel the Elder

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Over time, different traditions of the Oral Law came into being, debating what the laws or their rulings were. Further, (according to the Mavoh Hatalmud) many rulings were given about specific things that could have been taken out of context or where a ruling was revisited but the second ruling was not as popularly known. To correct this, Rabbi took up the redaction of the Mishnah. If something was already there with no conflict, he used it without changes in language, he reordered and ruled on where there was conflict, and clarifed where context was not given. The idea was not do this at his own discretion, but rather to examine the tradition as far back as he could, and only supplement as required.

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As he went through the tractates, the Mishnah was set forth, but throughout his life some parts were updated as new information came to light. Because of the proliferation of earlier versions, it was deemed too hard to retract anything already released, as such, a second version of certain laws were released. The Talmud refers to these differing version as "Mishnah Rishona" (First Mishnah) and "Mishna Acharona" (Last Mishnah).

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With Rabbi's death, no more redactions were done to the body of the Mishnah, though it was still not written down. It was finally written down some centuries later when it was deemed too difficult to remember, but the exact date is a matter of debate.

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