... academies in Babylon and Jerusalem were separately recorded, forming, respectively, the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds. The Babylonian Talmud was completed later than the Jerusalem Talmud,14 and, because the Babylonian discussions benefitted from knowledge of the Jerusalem Talmud, the Babylonian Talmud is the more influential.15 The writing of the Talmuds, however, was also seen as an allowance warranted only by the exigencies of the times. Consequently, the language of both Talmuds is terse and ambiguous. Talmudic discussions typically focus on specific cases, which frequently involve relatively unusual - and, therefore, memorable - facts. The mission of a Jewish law scholar is to discern conceptual principles from these paradigms and to use them to reach legal conclusions regarding modern scenarios with quite different facts. Jewish law scholars must not only inspect the thought processes implicit in the questions, answers and statements of each participant in a given Talmudic discussion, but must test hypotheses in ...

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