The Mishnah is primarily an edited anthology of brief and often elliptical pronouncements on matters of Jewish law and practice, frequently providing conflicting views on the individual matters discussed. Some of these pronouncements are attributed to a named rabbi, or group of anonymous rabbis, while others are entirely anonymous. While the content often relates to scripture, the form is not midrashic.

Amram Tropper, “The State of Mishnah Studies,” Rabbinic Texts and the History of Late-Roman Palestine, ed. Martin Goodman & Philip Alexander (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 91. 

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