Introduction

The Jews are a people whose historical roots are in the ancient land of Israel. In this country their Hebrew language initially developed, and their oral traditions, in prose and poetry, entered into their canonized holy scriptures and subsequent religious, judicial, and literary textual compilations that gained central position in Jewish life throughout history. Together with the Bible, these works, the Mishnah, the midrashic collections, and the Talmuds, the Jerusalem as well as the Babylonian, served as the foundations for their narrative traditions that developed when the Jews were in exile, diffused among other peoples.