If the argument in the previous pages of this book is correct, and if the type of literary analysis it pursues is convincing, a number of conclusions can be drawn as to the nature of the Babylonian Talmud in its present form. First, it has been noted that the editors of the Bavli were not averse to putting some views into the mouths of earlier teachers where they had no tradition that these teachers really said what they are reported to have said. This was not done with any attempt to deceive, any more than the authors of acknowledged pseudepigraphic works intended to deceive their readers. Although the editors of the Bavli nowhere acknowledge the pseudepigraphic nature of the work, this is simply the result of their general silence on the question of what they were trying to achieve. With careful study of the material it can be seen that the editors used pseudepigraphy as one of the literary devices for the construction of the sugya. The purely academic nature of a good deal of the material can similarly be discerned by the cautious student.

The element of contrivance can also be discerned when a sugya is examined in the form in which it has been shaped by the editors. As we have tried to show, the typical Talmudic sugya is so arranged that the argument proceeds, in true dramatic fashion, so as to lead by stages to a climax.