Mishnah

General Information

Mishnah, a Hebrew term meaning "repetition" or "study," is the name given to the oldest postbiblical codification of Jewish Oral Law. Together with the Gemara (later commentaries on the Mishnah itself), it forms the Talmud.

Between 400 BC and the beginning of the Christian Era, the biblical laws (see Torah) were intensively studied, applied to new situations, and supplemented by traditions of popular observance and by precedents established by prominent leaders. This material, long transmitted by word of mouth and known as the Oral Torah, defined the meaning of biblical laws. After the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, the Jewish scholars and teachers called tannaim continued to elaborate and systematize the Oral Torah. About 200 AD, Rabbi Judah Ha - Nasi promulgated a collection of the most reliable traditions. This work, the Mishnah, became the official text out of which further Jewish legal development occurred.

The Mishnah consists of 6 orders (sedarim): Zeraim ("Seeds"), treating agricultural laws; Moed ("Seasons"), Sabbath and festivals; Nashim ("Women"), marriage, divorce, and family law; Neziqin ("Damages"), civil and criminal jurisprudence; Qodashim ("Holy Things"), sacrificial cult and dietary laws; and Tohorot ("Purifications"), ritual defilement and purification. These sections are divided into 63 treatises. The Mishnah includes some nonlegal material, notably the Pirke Avot ("Chapters of the Fathers"), a collection of wise sayings that forms the final treatise of the Neziqin.

The rabbis cited in the Mishnah were regarded as more authoritative than those of succeeding generations, and they produced several other compilations of law and lore.

Bernard J Bamberger

Bibliography:
T R Herford, The Ethics of the Talmud: Sayings of the Fathers (1962); The Mishnah (1931); H L Strack, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash (1931); J Weingreen, From Bible to Mishna: The Continuity of Tradition (1976).