An online, digitized repository of the entire Babylonian Talmud called Hachi Garsinan will be launched on Monday in what its developers have described as a revolution for Talmud study.Five hundred CE sounds early to me. Talmudists tell me that the text of the Babylonian Talmud was set in more like the tenth century CE, although the matters to which it refers do pertain mostly to 500 and earlier.
Uniquely, the project includes all known textual variants of the Babylonian Talmud and allows researchers, scholars and students to easily compare the different texts side by side, as well as highlighting the differences between each version.
The name, Hachi Garsinan, is an Aramaic term used by the medieval Talmudic scholar Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, known as Rashi, to indicate that there existed an alternative version of the Talmudic text which made more sense contextually than the standard wording.
The complete text of the Talmud was finally compiled in 500 CE, but textual variations between written manuscripts occurred before the era of the printing press and the first printing of the entire Talmud which took place in Venice in 1523.
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This is not the first Talmud app: there's one for the iPhone, on which more here and here and links. But this new one seems to have a considerably more comprehensive compendium of textual variants. Cross-file under Talmud Watch.
