TOSEFTA

(Aramaic: Supplement, or Addition), a collection of oral traditions related to Jewish oral law. In form and content the Tosefta is quite similar to the Mishna, the first authoritative codification of such laws, which was given its final form early in the 3rd century AD by Judah ha-Nasi. Both the Tosefta and the Mishna represent the work of Jewish scholars called tannaim, who, for the most part, lived in Palestine and spent some 200 years gathering, evaluating, correlating, and selecting the most important traditions from a vast and heterogeneous mass of material that developed from the time of Ezra (c. 450 BC). Though experts are not quite sure why two separate collections came into existence, it is probable that the Tosefta was meant to complement the Mishna by preserving certain traditions, proofs, examples, and explanations of oral law that came to light during the years of research. This theory would explain also why some of the traditions mentioned in the Tosefta not only contradict the Mishna but sometimes make the Tosefta inconsistent with itself.