Although the Babylonian Talmud, or Bavli, has been a text central and vital to the Jewish canon since the Middle Ages, the context in which it was produced has

The Babylonian Talmud, a postbiblical Jewish text that is part scripture and part commentary, is an unlikely bestseller. Written in a hybrid of Hebrew and Arama

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the Talmud in Judaism and beyond. Yet its difficult language and its assumptions, so distant from modern sensib