History of responsa in Judaism, which is known in Hebrew as "She'elot U'teshuvot" (Sephardi pronunciation) or "Shailos Uteshuvos" (Ashkenazi pronunciation), spans a period of 1,700 years. Rabbinic responsa constitute a special class of rabbinic literature, differing in "form", but not necessarily in content, from Rabbinic commentaries devoted to the exegesis of the Bible, the Mishnah, the Talmud, and "halakha" (the codes of Jewish religious law). The codes themselves contain the rules for ordinary incidents of life. The responsa literature covers all these topics and more.Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography: "Responsal literature as a whole has as yet found no literary historian; single periods have been discussed while others have been entirely neglected, the works on these separate epochs including: Joel Müller, "Briefe und Responsen aus der Vorgaonäischen Jüdischen Literatur", Berlin, 1886; idem, "Einleitung in die Responsen der Babylonischen Geonen". ib. 1891; Zecharias Frankel, "Entwurf einer Geschichte der Literatur der Nachtalmudischen Responsen", Breslau, 1865. The responsa by European and American rabbis to problems arising in America are summarized by J. D. Eisenstein, "The Development of Jewish Casuistic Literature in America", Baltimore, 1905.</ref>