Editing Talmud (section)

== Textual criticism ==

=== Medieval era ===
The text of the Talmud has been subject to some level of critical scrutiny throughout its history. Rabbinic tradition holds that the people cited in both Talmuds did not have a hand in its writings; rather, their teachings were edited into a rough form around 450 CE (Talmud Yerushalmi) and 550 CE (Talmud Bavli.) The text of the Bavli especially was not firmly fixed at that time.

Gaonic responsa literature addresses this issue. Teshuvot Geonim Kadmonim, section 78, deals with mistaken biblical readings in the Talmud.  This Gaonic responsum states:
{{blockquote|... But you must examine carefully in every case when you feel uncertainty [as to the credibility of the text] – what is its source? Whether a scribal error? Or the superficiality of a second rate student who was not well versed?....after the manner of many mistakes found among those superficial second-rate students, and certainly among those rural memorizers who were not familiar with the biblical text. And since they erred in the first place... [they compounded the error.]|Teshuvot Geonim Kadmonim, Ed. Cassel, Berlin 1858, Photographic reprint Tel Aviv 1964, 23b.}}

In the early medieval era, Rashi already concluded that some statements in the extant text of the Talmud were insertions from later editors. On Shevuot 3b Rashi writes "A mistaken student wrote this in the margin of the Talmud, and copyists [subsequently] put it into the Gemara."{{efn|As Yonah Fraenkel shows in his book ''Darko Shel Rashi be-Ferusho la-Talmud ha-Bavli'', one of Rashi's major accomplishments was textual emendation. Rabbenu Tam, Rashi's grandson and one of the central figures in the Tosafist academies, polemicizes against textual emendation in his less studied work ''Sefer ha-Yashar''. However, the Tosafists, too, emended the Talmudic text (See e.g. ''Baba Kamma'' 83b ''s.v.'' ''af haka'ah ha'amurah'' or ''Gittin'' 32a ''s.v. mevutelet'') as did many other medieval commentators (see e.g. R. Shlomo ben Aderet, ''Hiddushei ha-Rashb"a al ha-Sha"s'' to ''Baba Kamma'' 83b, or Rabbenu Nissim's commentary to Alfasi on ''Gittin'' 32a).}}

=== Early modern era ===
The emendations of [[Yoel Sirkis]] and the Vilna Gaon are included in all standard editions of the Talmud, in the form of marginal glosses entitled ''Hagahot ha-Bach'' and ''Hagahot ha-Gra'' respectively; further emendations by [[Solomon Luria]] are set out in commentary form at the back of each tractate. The Vilna Gaon's emendations were often based on his quest for internal consistency in the text rather than on manuscript evidence;<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Gaon of Vilna |last=Etkes |first=Immanuel |year=2002 |publisher=University of California Press  |isbn=978-0-520-22394-3 |page=16 }}</ref> nevertheless many of the Gaon's emendations were later verified by textual critics, such as [[Solomon Schechter]], who had [[Cairo Genizah]] texts with which to compare our standard editions.<ref>Solomon Schechter, ''Studies in Judaism'' p. 92.</ref>

=== Contemporary scholarship ===
In the 19th century, [[Raphael Nathan Nota Rabinovicz]] published a multi-volume work entitled ''[[Dikdukei Soferim]]'', showing textual variants from the Munich and other early manuscripts of the Talmud, and further variants are recorded in the Complete Israeli Talmud and ''Gemara Shelemah'' editions (see [[#Critical editions|Critical editions]], above).

Today many more manuscripts have become available, in particular from the [[Cairo Geniza]].  The [[Academy of the Hebrew Language]] has prepared a text on CD-ROM for lexicographical purposes, containing the text of each tractate according to the manuscript it considers most reliable,<ref>Introduction to Sokoloff, ''Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic''. The texts themselves may be found at http://maagarim.hebrew-academy.org.il/Pages/PMain.aspx.</ref> and images of some of the older manuscripts may be found on the website of the [[National Library of Israel]] (formerly the Jewish National and University Library).<ref>{{cite web|url=https://web.nli.org.il/sites/nli/hebrew/collections/jewish-collection/talmud/pages/default.aspx/ |title=עיון בכתבי היד }}</ref> The NLI, the Lieberman Institute (associated with the [[Jewish Theological Seminary of America]]), the Institute for the Complete Israeli Talmud (part of Yad Harav Herzog) and the Friedberg Jewish Manuscript Society all maintain searchable websites on which the viewer can request variant manuscript readings of a given passage.<ref>See under [[#Manuscripts and textual variants]], below.</ref>

Some trends within contemporary Talmud scholarship are listed below.
* Orthodox Judaism maintains that the [[oral Torah]] was revealed, in some form, together with the written Torah. As such, some adherents, most notably [[Samson Raphael Hirsch]] and his followers, resisted any effort to apply historical methods that imputed specific motives to the authors of the Talmud. Other major figures in Orthodoxy, however, took issue with Hirsch on this matter, most prominently [[David Tzvi Hoffman]]n<ref>See particularly his controversial dissertation, ''Mar Samuel'', available at [[iarchive:MN41459ucmf_6|archive.org]] (German).</ref> and [[Joseph Hirsch Dünner]].
* Some scholars hold that there has been extensive editorial reshaping of the stories and statements within the Talmud. Lacking outside confirming texts, they hold that we cannot confirm the origin or date of most statements and laws, and that we can say little for certain about their authorship. In this view, the questions above are impossible to answer. See, for example, the works of [[Louis Jacobs]] and [[Shaye J.D. Cohen]].
* Some scholars hold that the Talmud has been extensively shaped by later editorial redaction, but that it contains sources we can identify and describe with some level of reliability. In this view, sources can be identified by tracing the history and analyzing the geographical regions of origin. See, for example, the works of [[Lee I. Levine]] and David Kraemer.
* Some scholars hold that many or most of the statements and events described in the Talmud usually occurred more or less as described, and that they can be used as serious sources of historical study. In this view, historians do their best to tease out later editorial additions (itself a very difficult task) and skeptically view accounts of miracles, leaving behind a reliable historical text. See, for example, the works of [[Saul Lieberman]], [[David Weiss Halivni]], and [[Avraham Goldberg]].
* Modern academic study attempts to separate the different "strata" within the text, to try to interpret each level on its own, and to identify the correlations between parallel versions of the same tradition. In recent years, the works of [[David Weiss Halivni]] and Shamma Friedman have suggested a paradigm shift in the understanding of the Talmud (Encyclopaedia Judaica 2nd ed. entry "Talmud, Babylonian"). The traditional understanding was to view the Talmud as a unified homogeneous work. While other scholars had also treated the Talmud as a multi-layered work, Halivni's innovation (primarily in the second volume of his ''Mekorot u-Mesorot'') was to differentiate between the Amoraic statements, which are generally brief Halachic decisions or inquiries, and the writings of the later "Stammaitic" (or Saboraic) authors, which are characterised by a much longer analysis that often consists of lengthy dialectic discussion. The Jerusalem Talmud is very similar to the Babylonian Talmud minus Stammaitic activity (Encyclopaedia Judaica (2nd ed.), entry "Jerusalem Talmud"). Shamma Y. Friedman's ''Talmud Aruch'' on the sixth chapter of Bava Metzia (1996) is the first example of a complete analysis of a Talmudic text using this method. S. Wald has followed with works on Pesachim ch. 3 (2000) and Shabbat ch. 7 (2006). Further commentaries in this sense are being published by Friedman's "Society for the Interpretation of the Talmud".<ref>{{cite web |title=Igud HaTalmud |url=http://www.talmudha-igud.org.il/default.asp?lang=en}}</ref>
* Some scholars are indeed using outside sources to help give historical and contextual understanding of certain areas of the Babylonian Talmud. See for example the works of Yaakov Elman<ref>{{cite book |author=Yaacov Elman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QdjGEVo0bVEC&q=shoshannat+yaakov |title=Shoshannat Yaakov: Jewish and Iranian Studies in Honor of Yaakov Elman |date=2012 |publisher=Brill Academic Pub Publishers |isbn=978-9004235441 |editor1=Steven Fine |access-date=11 November 2013 |editor2=Shai Secunda}}</ref> and of his student Shai Secunda,<ref>{{cite book |author=Shai Secunda |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TdFAAQAAQBAJ |title=The Iranian Talmud: Reading the Bavli in Its Sasanian Context |date=2013 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0812245707 |access-date=18 November 2013}}</ref> which seek to place the Talmud in its Iranian context, for example by comparing it with contemporary [[Zoroastrianism|Zoroastrian]] texts.