Rav Ashi in the context of "Amoraim"

The Talmud (/ˈtɑːlmʊd, -məd, ˈtæl-/; Hebrew: תַּלְמוּד‎, romanized: Talmūḏ, 'study' or 'learning') is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and second in authority only to the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), the first five books of which form the Torah. It is a primary source of Jewish law (הֲלָכָה, Halakha) and Jewish theology. It consists of the part of the Oral Torah compiled in the Mishnah and its commentaries, the Gemara. It records the teachings, opinions and disagreements of thousands of rabbis and Torah scholars—collectively referred to as Chazal—on a variety of subjects, including Halakha, Jewish ethics, philosophy, customs, history, and folklore among other topics. Until the Haskalah in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Talmud was the centerpiece of Jewish culture in nearly all communities and foundational to "all Jewish thought and aspirations", serving also as "the guide for the daily life" of Jews.

"Talmud" is used interchangeably with "Gemara". The text is made up of 63 tractates, each covering one subject area. The language of the Talmud is Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. Talmudic tradition emerged and was compiled between the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and the Arab conquest in the early seventh century. Traditionally, it is thought that the Talmud itself was compiled by Rav Ashi and Ravina II around 500 CE, although it is more likely that this happened in the middle of the sixth century.

The Gemara (also transliterated Gemarah, or in Yiddish Gemore) comprises a collection of rabbinical analyses and commentaries on the Mishnah and presented in 63 books. The term is derived from the Aramaic word גמרא‎ and rooted in the Semitic word ג-מ-ר (gamar), which means "to finish" or "complete". Initially, the Gemara was transmitted orally and not permitted to be written down. However, after Judah the Prince compiled the Mishnah around 200 CE, rabbis from Babylonia and the Land of Israel extensively studied the work. Their discussions were eventually documented in a series of books, which would come to be known as the Gemara. There are two versions of the Talmud: the Babylonian Talmud (Talmud Bavli) and the Jerusalem Talmud (Talmud Yerushalmi). The Mishnah is virtually the same in two Talmuds; the Gemara is what differentiates the Babylonian Talmud from its Jerusalem counterpart.

The Babylonian Talmud, compiled by scholars in Babylonia around 500 CE and primarily from the academies of Sura, Pumbedita, and Nehardea, is the more commonly cited version when referring to the "Gemara" or "Talmud"; redaction of the Jerusalem Talmud was interrupted in the mid-fourth century when the Romans suppressed Jewish scholarship in Israel and most Talmudists fled to Babylon. As a result, the Bavli was more intensively edited, studied, and commented on. The main compilers of the Babylonian Talmud were Ravina and Rav Ashi. The Jerusalem Talmud was compiled by Jewish scholars in the Land of Israel, primarily from the academies of Tiberias and Caesarea, around 350–400 CE.

Ravina II or Rabina II (Hebrew: אבינא בריה דרב הונא or רבינא האחרון; died 475 CE or 500 CE) was a Babylonian rabbi of the 5th century (seventh and eighth generations of amoraim). Rabina is a traditional portmanteau of the title Rav and the personal name Abina, a form of the Aramaic word for "father" (compare Abuna, Abaye, Abin, Abahu, Abba, Rava, Rabin).

The Talmud says that "Ravina" and Rav Ashi were "the end of instruction", which is traditionally interpreted to mean that the two were responsible for redacting the Babylonian Talmud. Most scholars agree that this "Ravina" was Ravina II, the son of Huna bar Abin HaKohen, and not Ravina I, the colleague of Rav Ashi who died before him.