The sage who led the academy of Sura and is traditionally credited with beginning the great redaction of the Babylonian Talmud.
Life
Rav Ashi (c. 352–427), head of the reestablished academy at Sura for some five decades, is remembered in tradition as the principal editor who, with his colleague Ravina, began gathering, organizing, and redacting the vast oral discussions into the Babylonian Talmud. Though the Talmud reached final form only generations later, his role in shaping the central text of rabbinic Judaism makes him one of its most consequential sages.