The Framework Anonymous

The Framework Anonymous.

The real framework of the Talmud, however, on which the entire structure was built, was, as noted above, provided by the questions, comments, and discussions which are based on individual paragraphs of the Mishnah, and which are anonymous, or not ascribed to any author. Appended to these passages and interspersed among them are sayings whose authors are named; and this class frequently preponderates greatly. The anonymous framework of the Talmud may be regarded as the warp resulting from the united activity of the members of the academy, and upon which the woof of the Talmud was interwoven and developed during three centuries, until its final redaction gave it definitive form. The Talmud is really the work of the body of scholars in the academies, who devoted themselves to it generation after generation, and kept its traditions alive. Although many members of the academie—sthe great as well as the small, teachers as well as pupils—are mentioned as the authors of various sayings and decisions, and as taking part in the discussions and controversies, some of them being deemed scholars worthy of record on account of a single remark, the background of the Talmud, or rather the background for those elements regarding whose authorship statements are made, was formed by the united efforts of those who labored to produce that work. The manifold objections and refutations introduced by the word "metibi" (= "they object"), and the questions (generally casuistic in nature) preceded by the formula "ibba'ya lehu" (= "they have asked") refer to this body of scholars, regardless of the date at which they lived.