Talk:Minor tractate

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Origin of the minor tractates with the ge'onim[edit]

Is there any reason to believe the claim in the article (added by User:79.180.37.31 at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Minor_tractate&diff=442337540&oldid=430107827) that Rabbi Kanievski says that the minor tractates were written by the ge'onim? He in fact implies the opposite in his introduction to his commentary on Maseches Tzitzis: http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=40793&st=&pgnum=3). If he refers to the collection-type tractates and not the seven original ones, it should be clarified, but I don't know if/where Rabbi Kanievski says that. Should that line be deleted? I added a {{Citation needed|December 2012}} tag to it. Ba name ba (talk) 03:34, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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from the Encyclopedia Judaica

In addition to the 63 regular tractates of the Mishnah and Talmud, there are appended at the end of the fourth order, *Nezikin, 14 smaller or minor tractates which were first published together in their present format in the Romm-Vilna edition (1886). These tractates contain a wealth of legal and aggadic material. In manuscript and published form, these uncanonical treatises may also be found under different titles, arrangements, and order. Their appellation as minor or smaller tractates does not necessarily refer to their size, but rather to the fact that they were not canonized. ....The time when these works were compiled remains uncertain. Some scholars assign them to the end of the geonic period, but recent scholarship favors a much earlier date. M. Higger, in the introduction to his critical edition of these seven minor tractates, judges them to be the “first postmishnaic compendia regulating specific Jewish practices and usages.” His opinion is that “most of the Minor Tractates are Palestinian in origin, but were later modified or elaborated in Babylonia.” Thus it may be that the original composition of these codes was already completed by 400 C.E. Since they were of Palestinian origin, they were not included in the final redaction of the Babylonian Talmud.

- Aaron Rothkoff, Minor Tractates, Encyclopedia Judaica RK (talk) 01:04, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]