Reconstructing the Talmud: Volume Two continues the work of introducing the modern Talmud student to the methods and techniques of academic scholarship. It opens with an extended introduction describing the thinking and goals of the anonymous redactors of the Babylonian Talmud. It proceeds with nine close readings of talmudic passages demonstrating how the modern methods of source criticism, literary analysis, and historical contextualization illuminate our understanding of the Talmud.