UC Press Blog

by Ishay Rosen-Zvi, author of How to Read the Mishnah and Midrash: An Introduction to Early Rabbinic Literature

What exactly is the Mishnah? At first glance, the answer seems obvious. The Mishnah, compiled in the early third century CE by Rabbi Judah the Patriarch, is usually described as the foundational code of Jewish law. Both the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds treat it as a binding halakhic work, and since the nineteenth century many scholars have followed this assumption. Yet unlike a typical legal code, the Mishnah rarely states final decisions. It frequently records multiple opinions without resolving them.

This peculiarity has puzzled scholars for generations. Some have argued that the Mishnah should indeed be understood as a legal code. Although explicit rulings are rare, decisions are implied through editorial selection and subtle redactional shaping—especially when the Mishnah is compared with parallel traditions preserved in the Tosefta and the baraitot. Jacob Nahum Epstein attributed the Mishnah’s restrained editorial style to its gradual formation: the redactors could make only minute adjustments to traditions that had already acquired authoritative status, particularly those associated with Rabbi Akiva. Menachem Elon pushed this view even further, describing the Mishnah as the first comprehensive code of Jewish law—the corpus juris of halakhah.

Others, however, have been less convinced. Ḥanokh Albeck pointed out that the Mishnah’s contradictions, multiplicity of opinions, and reluctance to settle disputes sit uneasily with the idea of a decisional code. He therefore proposed that the Mishnah is better understood as an anthology of traditions. Other scholars have offered variations on this theme. Dov Zlotnick saw the Mishnah as preparatory material for future legal decision-making; Yehuda Brandes argued that the third century Amoraim transformed an originally anthological work into a halakhic code through interpretive rules; Abraham Goldberg described it as a textbook; Elizabeth Shanks Alexander emphasized its pedagogical and dialectical function; Jacob Neusner read it as a philosophical work; and Jacob Elman suggested that it integrates multiple purposes.

The sheer diversity of these interpretations reveals something important: the Mishnah resists easy classification. Like the parable of the blind men and the elephant, each approach captures part of the truth while leaving other features unexplained. If the Mishnah were simply an anthology, why were so many traditions preserved in parallel sources omitted from it? If it were a code, why are explicit rulings so rare? If it were a textbook, why does it often begin in medias res, presupposing principles that are never explained? And if it were designed primarily for dialectical pedagogy, why is its style so strikingly concise and laconic?

In my book How to Read the Mishnah and Midrash, I argue that the challenge of defining the Mishnah comes not just from mixed purposes but from the unprecedented scope of the work itself. The Mishnah seems to aim for something much more extensive: the embodiment of the Oral Torah.

Its scope is indeed extraordinary. No domain of law lies outside its horizon. The Mishnah moves effortlessly from civil law to Temple ritual, from the architecture of the sanctuary to the regulation of bodily functions. The laws of kingship and the Sanhedrin appear in the same format as those governing Sabbath observance or damages.

Equally striking is its near silence about scripture. Even when the biblical basis of a law is obvious, the Mishnah rarely cites the relevant verse. For example, in the entire chapter devoted to the Four Species (Sukkah 3), the Mishnah never mentions that the etrog, lulav, hadas, and arava correspond to the biblical verse in Leviticus 23:40. Later texts—the Tosefta and the midrashim—had to fill in that connection. This reluctance to cite scripture collapses distinctions between laws explicitly stated in the Bible, laws derived from it, and laws with no clear biblical basis. In doing so, the Mishnah presents halakhah as a independent and autonomous system.

That ambition, however, proved short-lived. Already in the halakhic midrashim and later in the Talmuds, rabbis began anchoring the Mishnah’s teachings back in scripture. The Babylonian Talmud repeatedly asks of mishnaic rulings: “Whence do we know this?”—and the answer is usually a biblical verse. The Mishnah’s bold claim to independence did not last long. But recognizing that ambition allows us to see the Mishnah anew: not merely as a legal handbook, but as one of the most daring Jewish intellectual projects of antiquity.