Editing Talmud (section)

== Dating ==

=== Premodern estimates ===
The Talmud itself (BM 86a) incorporates a statement that "[[Ravina II|Ravina]] and [[Rav Ashi]] were the end of instruction". Likewise, [[Sherira ben Hanina]] writes that "instruction ended" with the death of [[Ravina II]] in 811 [[Seleucid era|SE]] (500 CE), and "the Talmud stopped with the end of instruction in the days of [[Rabbah Jose]] (fl. 476-514)".<ref name=":4" /> ''[[Seder Olam Zutta]]'' records that "in 811 SE (500 CE) Ravina the End of Instruction died, and the Talmud was stopped", and the same text is found in Codex Gaster 83.<ref name=":5">{{Cite book |last=Neubauer |first=Adolf |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nDRNAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA61 |title=Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles and Chronological Notes |date=1887 |publisher=Clarendon Press |pages= |language=he}}</ref> Another medieval chronicle records that "On Wednesday, 13 [[Kislev]], 811 SE (500 CE), Ravina the End of Instruction son of Rav Huna died, and the Talmud stopped."<ref name=":5" /> [[Abraham ibn Daud]] gives 821 SE (510 CE) for the same event, and [[Joseph ibn Tzaddik]] writes that "[[Maremar|Mareimar]] and [[Mar bar Rav Ashi|Mar bar Rav Assi]] et al. completed the Babylonian Talmud . . . in 4265 [[Anno Mundi|AM]] (505 CE)".<ref name=":5" /> [[Nachmanides]] dated the Talmud's compilation to "400 years after the [[Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE)|Destruction]]", which is 470 CE if taken as exact.<ref name=":6">{{Cite book |last1=Stemberger |first1=Günter |title=Let the wise listen and add to their learning (Prov. 1:5): festschrift for Günter Stemberger on the occasion of his 75th birthday |last2=Cordoni |first2=Constanza |last3=Langer |first3=Gerhard |date=2016 |publisher=De Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-044103-1 |series=Studia Judaica |location=Berlin Boston (Mass.) |pages=606–609}}</ref> According to [[Moses da Rieti]], "Ravina and Rav Ashi compiled the Talmud but they did not complete it, and Mar bar Rav Ashi and Mareimar et al. sealed it in the days of Rabbah Jose . . . he headed the academy for 38 years after succeeding Ravina, until 4274 AM (514 CE), and in his days the Babylonian Talmud was sealed, which was begun and largely redacted in the days of Rav Ashi and Ravina".<ref>{{Cite book |last=of Rieti |first=Moses ben Isaac |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RAY-AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA25 |title=מקדש מעט |date=1851 |publisher=דפוס אלמנת י"פ זולינגער |pages=93r–93v |language=he}}</ref>

The ''Wikkuah'', a description of the 1240 [[Disputation of Paris]], records that [[Yechiel of Paris]] claimed that "the Talmud is 1,500 years old", which would put it in the 3rd century BCE. Pietro Capelli suggests that it must have been traditional among medieval Ashkenazic Jews to date the Talmud from its beginning instead of its completion. Later manuscripts of the ''Wikkuah'' adopt the usual system of dating it to the time of Ravina II. [[Nicholas Donin]], by contrast, claimed that the Talmud was only composeed "400 years" before, i.e. around 840 CE.<ref name=":6" /> 

=== Modern estimates ===
A wide range of dates have been proposed for the Babylonian Talmud by historians.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The New Testament and rabbinic literature |date=2010 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-17588-4 |series=Supplements to the journal for the study of Judaism |location=Leiden |pages=82}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Amsler |first=Monika |title=The Babylonian Talmud and late antique book culture |date=2023 |publisher=Cambridge university press |isbn=978-1-009-29733-2 |location=Cambridge |pages=122–123}}</ref> The text was most likely completed, however, in the 6th century, or prior to the [[early Muslim conquests]] in the mid-7th century at the latest,{{Sfn|Schiffman|2024|p=138}} on the basis that the Talmud lacks loanwords or syntax deriving from [[Arabic]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Amsler |first=Monika |title=The Babylonian Talmud and late antique book culture |date=2023 |publisher=Cambridge university press |isbn=978-1-009-29733-2 |location=Cambridge |pages=123}}</ref> 

Recently, it has been extensively argued that Talmud is an expression and product of [[Sasanian Empire|Sasanian]] culture,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kiel |first=Yishai |title=Sexuality in the Babylonian Talmud: Christian and Sasanian contexts in late antiquity |date=2016 |publisher=Cambridge university press |isbn=978-1-107-15551-0 |location=New York (N.Y.) |pages=9}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Secunda |first=Shai |title=The Iranian Talmud: reading the Bavli in its Sasanian context |date=2014 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-4570-7 |edition= |series=Divinations: rereading late ancient religion |location=Philadelphia}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Secunda |first=Shai |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/on1127664734 |title=The Talmud's red fence: menstrual impurity and difference in Babylonian Judaism and its Sasanian context |date=2020 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-885682-5 |edition= |location=Oxford, United Kingdom ; New York, NY |oclc=on1127664734}}</ref> as well as other [[Greek language|Greek]]-[[Roman Empire|Roman]], [[Middle Persian]], and [[Syriac language|Syriac]] sources up to the same period of time.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Goldstone |first=Matthew |date=2019 |title=The Babylonian Talmud in its cultural context |url=https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/rec3.12317 |journal=Religion Compass |language=en |volume=13 |issue=6 |doi=10.1111/rec3.12317 |issn=1749-8171}}</ref> The contents of the text likely trace to this time regardless of the date of the final redaction/compilation.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Secunda |first=Shai |date=2016 |title="This, but Also That": Historical, Methodological, and Theoretical Reflections on Irano-Talmudica |url=https://www.academia.edu/37709046 |journal=Jewish Quarterly Review |language=en |volume=106 |issue=2 |pages=236 |doi=10.1353/jqr.2016.0013 |issn=1553-0604}}</ref> 

Additional external evidence for a [[Terminus ad quem|latest possible date]] for the composition of the Babylonian Talmud are uses of it by external sources such as ''[[Pirqoi ben Baboi#Work|Letter of Baboi]]'' ({{Circa|813}})<ref>{{Cite book |last=Amsler |first=Monika |title=The Babylonian Talmud and late antique book culture |date=2023 |publisher=Cambridge university press |isbn=978-1-009-29733-2 |location=Cambridge |pages=128}} On the precise date of Pirkoi's letter cf. I. Gafni, 'How Babylonia Became Zion: Shifting Identities in Late Antiquity', in: L.I. Levine and D.R. Schwartz (eds), ''Jewish Identities in Antiquity: Studies in Memory of Menahem Stern'' (Tübingen, 2009), p. 333 n. 2.</ref> and chronicles like the ''Seder Tannaim veAmoraim'' (9th century) and the ''[[Iggeret of Rabbi Sherira Gaon]]'' (987).<ref name=":1" /> As for a [[Terminus post quem|lower boundary on the dating]] of the Babylonian Talmud, it must post-date the early 5th century given its reliance on the [[Jerusalem Talmud]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Amsler |first=Monika |title=The Babylonian Talmud and late antique book culture |date=2023 |publisher=Cambridge university press |isbn=978-1-009-29733-2 |location=Cambridge |pages=127–131}}</ref>