The History of the Bible in the Middle East

In mediaeval and early modern periods, jews treated the bible as a liturgical and homiletic text. Jewish communal life was based not on the bible really, but on laws, customs and traditions derived from the talmud. The vast corpus of rabbinic teaching assembled in the western persian empire about 500 a d. Shortly after the fall of the western roman empire. Rabbis actually required very little biblical learning. They had to know the tara, divided into 54 portions called palashot, and read in an annual cycle in sabbath services. Services also included a reading called a haftera, usually taken from one of the major prophets.