Babylonian Talmud תלמוד בבלי
The central text of Jewish tradition: three centuries of debate on the Mishna in Babylonia, sealed around 4260.
The Talmud is not a code but a record of conversation. To every line of the Mishna the Gemara puts questions: where is this from, who disputes it, what if the case were different, does it contradict another passage. The argument matters more than the conclusion, so both sides are preserved: «these and these are the words of the living God».
The work went on in the academies of Sura, Pumbedita and Nehardea for some three centuries — Rav and Shmuel, Rabbi Yochanan from the Land of Israel, Abaye and Rava. Rav Ashi ordered the material over sixty years, Ravina brought it to a close around 4260, and the savoraim added the final connective layer.
Sixty-three tractates, some two and a half million words of Hebrew and Aramaic, unpunctuated — barely readable without Rashi. Beside law it holds medicine, astronomy, parables and biography.