Social network analysis of the Babylonian Talmud

Abstract

This article analyzes the citation network of the Babylonian Talmud, building on an earlier article that we published (Satlow and Sperling 2022). The article has three goals. Our first goal is to show how an ontological-based information extraction system combined with pattern matching can successfully extract structured data from a very complicated, unstructured text. Our second goal is to extend our previous analysis and demonstrate how citation data might lead to wider conclusions about redactional patterns. In addition to highlighting the citation tendencies of different tractates (which could indicate different redactors for those tractates), we hypothesize that there existed a source document originating in the circle of Rav Yehudah bar Yehezkel, used by at least some redactors, and that the character of Rabbi Zeira deserves further attention as an important figure connecting different nodes on the network. Finally, we seek to outline an analytical workflow that could be helpful to other historical projects in the digital humanities.