Not to be confused with
Mishneh Torah, a much later book of Rabbinic literature by Maimonides.
The Mishnah or the Mishna (; Hebrew: מִשְׁנָה, romanized: mišnā, lit. 'study by repetition', from the verb שנה šānā, "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah. Having been collected in the 3rd century CE, it is the first work of rabbinic literature, written primarily in Mishnaic Hebrew but also partly in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic. The oldest surviving physical fragments of it are from the 6th to 7th centuries.
The Mishnah was redacted by Judah ha-Nasi probably in Beit Shearim or Sepphoris between the ending of the second century CE and the beginning of the third century in a time when the persecution of Jews and the passage of time raised the possibility that the details of the oral traditions of the Pharisees from the Second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE) would be forgotten.
After the Mishnah was compiled, it became the subject of centuries of rabbinic commentary, primarily taking place in the Land of Israel and Babylonia. Both of these centers compiled their own collection of rabbinic commentaries on the Mishnah, leading to the creation of the Jerusalem Talmud and the now more well known Babylonian Talmud ("Talmud" alone refers to the latter).
