Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash

H. L. Strack and Gunter Stemberger's Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, published in English translation by Fortress Press in 1992, is the standard academic reference introducing the formation, structure and content of rabbinic literature, tracing the Mishnah, both Talmuds and the major Midrash collections from their origins through their eventual redaction. Strack's original German handbook dates to the early twentieth century, substantially revised and expanded by Stemberger into the modern standard reference generations of students of rabbinic literature have used since. Its strength is comprehensiveness and its standing as the field's default entry point, covering the textual history of dozens of individual rabbinic works in one volume. Its limit is that a reference work of this scope necessarily summarizes rather than argues any one text's meaning in depth, so a claim about the specific content or interpretation of a particular Talmudic or Midrashic passage needs a source focused on that text itself.