How was the Babylonian Talmud compiled and by whom? These are among the most intractable problems in Jewish literature. This many-volumed work, bearing all the marks of a finished literary product, replete with the names of Amoraim and with their opinions and debates, from the beginning of the third to the end of the fifth century, remains completely silent on the questions every student feels bound to ask: Who recorded all these opinions? Is it a literary work at all or was it originally a verbal compilation, committed to writing at a later date? Is it correct to speak of ‘editors’ of the Talmud, or did the work simply grow by stages? What are we to make of the mediaeval tradition that R. Ashi and Ravina were the compilers of the Talmud, in view of the immense portion of the work that must have been added, at least, after these teachers? Assuming that there were editors, what principles guided them in their selection of the material and how did they shape it? Is there evidence of different hands shaping the material in different tractates or even in the same tractate? Why is there no Talmud to many of the tractates of the Mishnah? Mediaeval and modern scholars down to the present day have tried to supply answers to these and similar questions, but the basic problem remains as stubborn as ever.