The Canon · No. 032
Rabbinic Judaism
The Judaism of the Talmud
c.70 CE – present · Abrahamic · Living · Worldwide
IV. THE CLASSICAL & IMPERIAL WORLD — c.200 BCE – 500 CE
How many
Essentially all Jews today except Karaites and Samaritans — around 14.5 million.
Who began it
Yohanan ben Zakkai, who according to tradition was smuggled out of besieged Jerusalem in a coffin and obtained Vespasian's permission to open a school at Yavneh. Judah ha-Nasi compiled the Mishnah around 200 CE.
What it is for
To keep Judaism alive after the Temple was destroyed and sacrifice became impossible. It is the most successful institutional pivot in religious history.
What it worships
One God, as before, without image or intermediary.
What it holds
The revolutionary claim is the Oral Torah: that alongside the written Torah, God gave Moses an oral tradition of interpretation, transmitted through the sages, and that this has equal authority. This gives the rabbis licence to develop the law continuously, and it is the exact point Karaites and Samaritans reject. Study of Torah becomes itself the highest form of worship. Prayer replaces sacrifice; the synagogue replaces the Temple; the rabbi, a teacher and jurist with no priestly powers, replaces the priest.
What it does
Three daily prayer services corresponding to the abolished Temple offerings. Talmud study as a lifelong discipline, traditionally in chavruta, argumentative pairs. Halakha, the legal system, governing every domain of life and continuously extended by responsa — rabbinic answers to submitted questions, a genre running unbroken from the 7th century to the present and now covering electricity, IVF and artificial intelligence.
After death
Olam Ha-Ba, the world to come; bodily resurrection at the messianic age; Gan Eden and Gehinnom. The rabbis discuss it constantly and bind nobody. A recurring Talmudic position holds that the righteous of all nations have a share in the world to come — Judaism does not teach that non-Jews must convert to be saved, which sharply distinguishes it from its two daughter religions.
Its texts
Mishnah (c.200 CE); Talmud, Babylonian (c.500 CE) and Jerusalem; Midrash; the Geonic responsa; Rashi's commentary (11th c.); Maimonides' Mishneh Torah (1180) and Guide for the Perplexed; Karo's Shulchan Aruch (1565).
Its branches
All modern denominations descend from it: Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist.
Of note
Given its own entry because the shift from a temple-and-sacrifice religion to a text-and-study religion is so complete that Second Temple Judaism and Rabbinic Judaism are barely the same thing.
Its timeline
- c.70 CE Temple destroyed; Yavneh academy founded.
- 132–136 CE Bar Kokhba revolt crushed; Rabbi Akiva executed; Judea devastated.
- c.200 CE Mishnah compiled.
- c.500 CE Babylonian Talmud completed in the academies of Sura and Pumbedita.
- c.600–1000 CE The Geonim of Babylon become the global authority; the responsa system matures.
- 1135–1204 Maimonides codifies the law and attempts to reconcile Torah with Aristotle.
- 1240, 1242 CE The Talmud is put on trial in Paris and burned by the cartload.
- 1565 CE Shulchan Aruch published; with Isserles' Ashkenazi glosses it becomes the standard code.
Sources
Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.