>>17839357Jewish canon (for lack of a better word) is complex and conceptually very different from how Christian canon works.
The Talmud is basically canon and legally authoritative but at the same time it’s not a coherent narrative story or even an instructional guide but a compilation of legal rulings, cases and debates. All often contradicting each other or exploring differing interpretations without pointing out which one "wins".
Like basically all the 613 mitzvot are filtered through the Talmud. There’s a biblical basis but what the law Jews actually follow looks like is usually that way because it’s in the Talmud. Like the Bible says you can’t boil a kid in its mothers milk, but Jews won’t even eat chicken with cheese because the Talmud interprets it as a prohibition of any combination of dairy and meat (but not fish). Same with Eruvin, those weird symbolic enclosures that surround Jewish neighbourhoods so they can carry stuff outside on Shabbat, those are also defined in the Talmud.
Basically Orthodox Judaism is completely reliant on the Talmud. If there’s something they do, that strict Torah-loving Biblical fundamentalist Protestants like SDA’s or JWs don’t then it probably comes from the Talmud.
Even the other post-Orthodox denominations like reform and conservative are deeply rooted in Talmudic tradition. The only Jews that aren’t are Karaites and Beta Israel (traditionally anyway).
So it is basically scripture. But if you look inside it doesn’t look anything like the type of scripture Christians are used to.