The Rabbinical writings of the Jews are chiefly occupied with that traditional law, which, in our Saviour’s time, had almost strangled, by its parasitical growth, the genuine stock of the Mosaic institutions: but they also contain much information respecting civil and religious customs, especially the ritual of the second temple. According to the Jewish doctors, there existed two kinds of law; the _written_, promulgated on Sinai, and preserved in the Mosaic books; and the _oral_, delivered at the same time,[2] but handed down, traditionally, by a succession of teachers, to the captivity; and thence from Ezra to the time of Rabbi Judah _Hakkadosh_, (the holy,) who lived about the middle of the second century after Christ. As the dispersion of the Jews had rendered the oral transmission of their learning more difficult and uncertain, he reduced the traditions of the doctors into a system, to which the name of the MISHNA (repetition) was given. It consists partly of civil and criminal laws, partly of a ritual for the great Jewish festivals; in both, the Mosaic precepts bear a very small proportion to the later additions. The Mishna itself was soon found to need commentary and supplement; and the _Gemara_ of Jerusalem was compiled by Rabbi Jochanan, and two disciples of Judah Hakkadosh, to supply its deficiencies. This collection appears to have been received as of authority by the Jews of Palestine, who cultivated Rabbinical learning in the academies of Tiberias and Jafnia. In the sixth century, Rabbi Asa, president of the school of Sora, in the Babylonian territory, where the Jews were numerous and flourishing, compiled another Gemara. The original work of the Mishna, with the addition of one or the other of these Gemaras, forms the _Talmud_ (doctrine) of Jerusalem or Babylon.[3] The Talmud is the oracle of the Jewish doctors, venerated by the greater part of them as of equal if not greater authority than the law itself; though many, as the whole sect of Karaites, deny its authority. Probably the first step towards the religious improvement of the modern Jews, must be the abandonment of the Talmud, and a return to the simplicity of the Mosaic law. Footnote 2: See Maimonides, Preface to the Mishna, in Surenhusius, vol. i. Footnote 3: Basnage, Hist. of the Jews, b. iii. c. 5-7. Besides this great repository of their traditions, the Jews have commentaries of their Rabbins, of uncertain age, on books of Scripture, under the name of _Medraschim_; and collections of their sayings. I do not mention here their cabalistical writings; which are, evidently, too fanciful and absurd, to furnish materials to the antiquary.