The Mishnah or the Mishna (/ˈmɪʃnə/; Hebrew: מִשְׁנָה, romanized: mišnā, lit. 'study by repetition', from the verb לִשְׁנוֹת lišnot, "to repeat") is the first written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah. Having been collected in the 3rd century CE, it is the first work of rabbinic literature, written primarily in Mishnaic Hebrew but also partly in Jewish Aramaic. The oldest surviving physical fragments of it are from the 6th to 7th centuries. It is viewed as authoritative and binding revelation by most Orthodox Jews and some non-Orthodox Jews.
The Mishnah was redacted by Judah ha-Nasi probably in Beit Shearim or Sepphoris, in the late second or early third century CE. in a time when the persecution of Jews and the passage of time raised the possibility that the details of the oral traditions of the Pharisees from the Second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE) would be forgotten.
