Jerusalem Talmud Jerusalem at this time. The Jerusalem Talmud was compiled in the Land of Israel, then divided between the Byzantine provinces of Palaestina Prima and Palaestina Secunda, and was brought to an end sometime around 400. The Jerusalem Talmud predates its counterpart, the Babylonian Talmud (known in Hebrew as the "Talmud Bavli"), by about 200 years, and is written in both Hebrew and Jewish Palestinian Aramaic. The word "Talmud" itself is often defined as "instruction". Both versions of the Talmud comprise two parts, the Mishnah (of which there is only one version), which was finalized by Judah the Prince around the
Hebrew language ancestor of Hebrew and Phoenician is called Canaanite, and was the first to use a Semitic alphabet distinct from Egyptian. One ancient document is the famous Moabite Stone written in the Moabite dialect; the Siloam Inscription, found near Jerusalem, is an early example of Hebrew. Less ancient samples of Archaic Hebrew include the ostraca found near Lachish which describe events preceding the final capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity of 586 BCE. In its widest sense, Biblical Hebrew means the spoken language of ancient Israel flourishing between the 10th century BCE and the turn of the 4th