The Jerusalem Talmud (Hebrew: תַּלְמוּד יְרוּשַׁלְמִי, Talmud Yerushalmi, often Yerushalmi for short), also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmuda de-Eretz Yisrael (Talmud of the Land of Israel), is a collection of Rabbinic notes on the second-century Jewish oral tradition known as the Mishnah. Naming this version of the Talmud after the Land of Israel rather than Jerusalem is considered more accurate by some, as while the work was certainly composed in "the West" (as seen from Babylonia), i.e. in the Holy Land, it mainly originates from the Galilee rather than from Jerusalem in Judea, as no Jews lived in Jerusalem at this time. The Jerusalem Talmud was compiled in the Land of Israel, at that time divided between the Byzantine provinces of Palaestina Prima and Palaestina Secunda, and was brought to an end sometime around 400 CE. The Jerusalem Talmud predates its counterpart, the Babylonian Talmud (known in Hebrew as the Talmud Bavli), by about 200 years, and is written primarily in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic.
Both versions of the Talmud have two parts, the Mishnah (of which there is only one version), which was finalized by Judah ha-Nasi around the year 200 CE, and either the Babylonian or the Jerusalem Gemara. The Gemara is what differentiates the Jerusalem Talmud from its Babylonian counterpart.
The Jerusalem Gemara contains the written discussions of generations of rabbis in the Land of Israel (primarily in the Talmudic academies of Tiberias and Caesarea), compiled c. 350–400 CE into a series of books.
The Babylonian Gemara, which is the second recension of the Mishnah, was compiled by the scholars of Babylonia (primarily in the Talmudic academies of Sura and Pumbedita), and was completed c. 500. The Babylonian Talmud is often seen as more authoritative and is studied much more than the Jerusalem Talmud. In general, the terms "Gemara" or "Talmud," without further qualification, refer to the Babylonian recension. Additionally, the Babylonian manuscripts were copied and distributed nearly complete through the Middle Ages, while the Jerusalem version was rare, and several portions were lost. (See Text editions, below.)
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