"The origins of Rabbinic literature go at least as far back as the second century BCE. Some of the books Misrash of Rabbinic interpretations of the Bible, or misrash although based on materials dating earlier than the sixth century CE, were not committed to writing and edited together until the eleventh or twelfth century CE. The scholars of the Bible from the time of Ezra on are first called “scribes,” because their first job was to make copies of the Torah. They are then called “sages” (‘’hakhamim’’), because in copying the Torah they came to know it and to interpret and apply it. The title “rabbi”, meaning master and teacher of the tradition, appears in the first century CE. The title persists to this day, but it is the classical Rabbis of the second century BCE through the sixth century CE to whose words we refer when we speak of Rabbinic literature."