The first hypertext?


Numerous references exist that place the Talmud at the starting point of a continuum that ultimately leads to hypertext. Gary Wolf, in The Curse of Xanadu (Wired Magazine, 3.06) writes  that the Talmud is:

a sort of hypertext, with blocks of commentary arranged in concentric rectangles around the page
Tim Guay, from Simon Fraser University, in Web Publishing Paradigms, calls the Talmud hypertextual because of:
its commentary on commentary on the main text, and its annotations, and references to other passages within the Talmud, and outside in the Torah and Tenach (sic). (Hypertext.htm)
Of course footnotes were hardly needed to make this point. Anyone who has dabbled a bit in Talmud and has learned that the question of "what is Chanukah" gets raised out of a discussion of when Chanukah candles are to be kindled, which in turn grows out of a discussion of when Shabbat candles are to be kindled, is well aware of the associative and proto-hypertextual nature of that text.

Go to: If we really still need a definition..., or
Go to: The granddaddy of them all, or
Go to: Prove you're not making all this up