A huge limbo, in chaotic arrangement, consisting of the Mishna, or text, and Gemara, or commentary, of Rabbinical speculations, subtleties, fancies, and traditions connected with the Hebrew Bible, and claiming to possess co-ordinate rank with it as expository of its meaning and application, the whole collection dating from a period subsequent to the Captivity and the close of the canon of Scripture. There are two Talmuds, one named the Talmud of Jerusalem, and the other the Talmud of Babylon, the former, the earlier of the two, belonging in its present form to the close of the 4th century, and the latter to at least a century later. See Haggadah and Halacha.