Mind of the Talmud: An Intellectual History of the Bavli

This book traces the development of the literary forms and conventions of the Babylonian Talmud, or Bavli. The Bavli, which evolved between the third and sixth centuries in Sasanian Iran (Babylonia), is one of the most comprehensive of all documents produced by rabbinic Jews in late antiquity. It became the authoritative legal force for medieval Judaism and for some its opinions remain definitive today.