Numerous passages in Bauer and Zirker’s “Whipping Boys Explained: Literary Annotation and Digital Humanities” got me thinking about the way text annotations accrete and the implications of an increasingly rich annotation layer for the text it’s attached to–whether a physical book that has passed through many hands, a book or article annotation that cites earlier notes on the same subject, or on a digital annotation platform. At what point in time does the annotation layer merge with the text and exist in tension with it? Or, could an annotation layer at some point rival its object as “primary text”?  Would that depend on a reader’s habits or intentions or is simply it a matter of critical mass? Bauer and Zirker gesture at these questions when they ask “what the idea of a literary text is presupposed by annotation, and how does annotation affect a text, both in its medial forms and as regards its meaning?” (paragraph 6).

As I read through the essay I began thinking about the Talmud. I’m fairly secular and have never studied it, but it offers a fascinating case for considering the implications of annotation over time. A general description of the Talmud’s contents is a “the teachings and opinions of thousands of rabbis (dating from before the Common Era through to the fifth century) on a variety of subjects, including Halakha (law), Jewish ethics, philosophy, customs, history, lore and many other topics.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talmud.

Physically, it is a conglomerate, layered text comprising of treatises, interpretations, teachings, commentary, and commentary on commentary relating to Jewish law. But it is not the kind of legal document one would find in a contemporary law library.  Here is an example of a typical page:

Page of the Talmud, diagrammed: 1: Mishnah, oral law codified into “short rulings” cir. 200 AD; 2: Gemara, “a collection of scholarly discussions on Jewish law, 200 to 500 AD, which refer to both the Mishnah and other works including the Torah; 3: Commentaries of Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, 11th Century French scholar); 4: other commentaries dating  from the 10th Century onwards; 5: Page and chapter heading   (from https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24367959)

Therefore, I found Bauer and Zirker’s initial attempt to limit their consideration of annotation to “literary” material a matter of convenience for the sake of their project, but not a fruitful way to think about textual annotation in the terms they set out. (Even they couldn’t sustain it: early in the essay they note that, somehow unlike creative literature, “legal and religious texts are annotated with a view to clarifying meaning and defining their relevance for the lives of people who are affected by them” (paragraph 4). Yet just a few paragraphs later they cite biblical glossing and annotation as “an enrichment of the reading process” (paragraph 11) and “based on an idea of who and what the reader is” (paragraph 10). The motivations for and implications of annotation really hold for all texts.  And the Talmud is an exceptionally rich subject for consideration in this regard, with “all the imperfections, the trivialities, the multiplicity of voices, the wild associations – everything that characterizes human conversation.”

Although it took many centuries to develop into its current form, it is not even a document frozen in time; a new edition is underway with additional, recent contributions. A comprehensive digital edition was recently launched, as “the Talmud is peculiarly suited to a digital treatment.” Mayer Pasternak, director of the project, elaborates on this:

”It’s a web of interconnected ideas and thoughts and commentaries.  In one place something might be very poorly elaborated and you’ll find in another place in the Talmud it’s discussed at length – there’s a constant cross-referencing process.” So if you’re itching to read the Talmud on your commute, there’s an app for that, with hundreds of thousands of hyperlinked sources and annotations.

This is one text that cannot exist apart from the multi-level, multi-layered annotations that accrued throughout centuries of use in numerous locations; the annotations, and its ongoing centrality in Jewish thought, debate, and practice, are what create and sustain the text as a living document. Like Bauer and Zirker’s ideal annotation platform, it is a remarkable “model of collaboration” among author, annotator, and reader over time.