Normative Judaism accepts a dual divine revelation: the written Torah (the five books of Moses) and the oral law, both given by God to the lawgiver on Sinai. Neusner's excellent introduction explains how the oral law handed down from generation to generation was eventually put into writing and became the Mishnah, and how the Mishnah generated the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds. Neusner adeptly elucidates two important points: that God speaks to humanity even today through a continuous interpretation of the oral law, and that Judaism differs from its daughter religions, Christianity and Islam, in its acceptance of the equal validity of the oral law.