AMORAIM. The Aramaic word amoraʾim (sg., amoraʾ), meaning "speakers," generally refers to those masters who in explaining and applying the earlier teachings of the Palestinian tannaim (c. 70–200 CE) contained in the Mishnah (and in its related collections, such as the Tosefta), made rabbinic Judaism into a wider social movement. Occasionally the term may denote the individual who repeated a rabbi's statement. The significance of the amoraim lies in what they accomplished in their own day and in the impact on later generations of Jews of the collection of their teachings in the gemaraʾ (which combined with the Mishnah is the Talmud) and in the Midrash.

The amoraim are conventionally divided into generations demarcated by the life span of several prominent teachers: three to five generations of Babylonian and Palestinian masters (c. 220–375) and two or three longer additional Babylonian generations (375–460/500). Recently scholars have suggested that Ashi (375–424/7) should be...