Amoraic

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Relating to the amoraim, the Jewish sages whose discussions and interpretations of the Mishnah were recorded in the Talmud
2. Describing the scholars of late antiquity who expounded and debated the Mishnah, whose teachings form the Gemara of the Talmud
3. Pertaining to the rabbinic teachers known as amoraim, who interpreted and expanded upon the Mishnah in the centuries after its compilation

Etymology: Amoraic comes from "amora," the Aramaic term for "speaker" or "interpreter," used for the rabbis whose discussions and explanations were recorded in the Talmud. The word is built in English by adding the adjectival suffix "-ic" to that Hebrew-Aramaic noun, so it means "of the amoraim," the generation of teachers who followed the tannaim and whose debates form the bulk of the Gemara, the second part of the Talmud. The name thus describes a role rather than a book. An amora was someone who stood before a group and spoke the teaching aloud, often explaining or repeating what the earlier authorities had handed down. The period it names is traditionally placed after the compilation of the Mishnah, and the amoraic era is the stretch of debate and commentary that produced the Gemara, so an "amoraic" statement is one that belongs to that layer of rabbinic discussion.