The Talmud of Babylonia

This translation and explanation of Tractate Besah in the Babylonian Talmud (“Bavli”) is meant to facilitate study of the history, religion and culture of the people of Israel in Babylonia from the redaction of the Mishnah, ca. 200 C.E., into the sixth century, when the Talmudic text itself was completed. My decision to undertake this translation is based upon the particular needs of recent scholarship on early Rabbinic Judaism. Recent study increasingly has worked to evaluate Rabbinic documents viewed as wholes. The texts, that is, are recognized to be the creations of specific groups of people who, in ways unique to their own circumscribed historical periods, addressed and answered questions of moment to their society. Study of these groups requires a clear understanding of the literary character and substantive interests of each document of the Rabbinic corpus. While viewed comparatively in relationship to the other documents in the corpus, each text is interpreted in light of its own principle interests and from the perspective of the historical context in which it came into being. This new translation and explanation of Bavli Besah represents one aspect of that interpretative task, so as to be instrumental in explaining the Talmud and the Judaism that document so richly reveals.