Asher ben Jehiel, a pupil of Me'ir of Rothenburg, was the author of the popular Talmudic compendium, generally quoted as Rabbenu Asher, on the lines of Alfasi, besides other halakhic works.
In his Me'or t Enayim (Mantua, 1573) Dei Rossi endeavoured to investigate Jewish history in a scientific spirit, with the aid of non-Jewish authorities, and even criticizes Talmudic and traditional statements.
Elaborate legal enactments codified in Babylonia by the 10th century B.C. find striking parallels in Hebrew, late Jewish (Talmudic), Syrian and Mahommedan law, or in the unwritten usages of all ages; for even where there were neither written laws nor duly instituted lawgivers, there was no lawlessness, since custom and belief were, and still are, almost inflexible.
The extant writings of the Jewish sages are contained in the books of Job, Proverbs, Psalms, Ben-Sira, Tobit, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom of Solomon, 4th Maccabees, to which may be added the first chapter of Pirke Aboth (a Talmudic tract giving, probably, pre-Christian material).
The details of the tradition of authorship show considerable variation; according to the Talmudic view Adam is author of the Sabbath psalm, xcii., and Melchizedek of Ps.