This book has explored what is at stake and what is gained when we use an oral conceptual lens to frame the encounter with and interpretation of the literary artifacts of the Mishnah. The primary insights that we have drawn from research in the field of orality studies concern 1) the fact that orally transmitted texts should not be reflexively conceptualized as fixed and discrete textual entities, and 2) the fact that those who pass on texts play an active role in constructing what they transmit. These insights have allowed us to reimagine ancient processes of transmitting mishnaic texts in profound new ways.

The work of Chapter 1 offered us new ways to think about continuity among performative renditions of mishnaic materials that are not grounded in the presence of identical linear sequences of words. Quite importantly, different performative versions of mishnaic tradition also have structural frameworks, fixed phrases, and underlying conceptual concerns in common. These common elements, which I called compositional building blocks, allowed for mishnaic traditions to be reproduced with a high degree of similitude without requiring that the texts in question be fixed. The greater the number of compositional building blocks in common, the greater the correspondence between them. These findings were important because they helped us see that though the Mishnah was orally transmitted, it was not necessarily fixed, or equally as important, viewed as fixed, from the moment of its promulgation.