In "Becoming the People of the Talmud," Talya Fishman examines ways in which circumstances of transmission have shaped the cultural meaning of Jewish traditions. Although the Talmud's preeminence in Jewish study and its determining role in Jewish practice are generally taken for granted, Fishman contends that these roles were not solidified until the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. The inscription of Talmud which Sefardi Jews understand to have occurred quite early, and Ashkenazi Jews only later precipitated these developments. The encounter with Oral Torah as a written corpus...