Talmud (The)

About 120 years after the destruction of the Temple, the rabbi Judah began to take down in writing the Jewish traditions; his book, called the Mishna, contains six parts (1) Agriculture and seed-sowing, (2) Festivals, (3) Marriage; (4) Civil affairs, (5) Sacrifices; and (6) what is clean and what unclean. The book caused immense disputation, and two Babylonish rabbis replied to it, and wrote a commentary in sixty parts, called the Babylonian Talmud Gemara (imperfect). This compilation has been greatly abridged by the omission of Nos. 5 and 6.