The Mishnah is the written form of the Jewish Oral Law, as preserved by the Rabbis of the first few centuries after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in the first century. It is the sum of four centuries of Jewish religious activity in Palestine. Much of its contents reflect the Jewish religious tradition current at the time of Christ and the early Christian Church. Judaica scholar Jacob Neusner sculpts a broad path through the inaccessible world of the Mishnah with this first form-analytical rendering. As close to a literal translation into American English as is possible, it adheres to the word order, syntax, and formal patterns of the original Hebrew text. This is an essential resource for those seeking to understand the canon of Judaism.