During the interval between these two disasters (56-117), or, more accurately, until the Kitos War under Trajan, the school at Yavne was the recognized tribunal that gathered the traditions of the past and confirmed them; that ruled and regulated existing conditions; and that sowed the seeds for future development.
Shimon's son, Judah I, however, was fortunate enough to unite with his inherited rank the indisputable reputation of a distinguished scholar, a combination of great importance under the circumstances.
The academy at Sepphoris, to which eminent students from Babylonia also flocked, erected an indestructible monument to itself through Judah's activity in editing the Mishnah, which attained to canonical standing as the authentic collection of the legal traditions of religious practise.
In the Mishnah, the completion of which was accomplished soon after the death of its author or editor (about 219), the schools both of the Land of Israel and of Babylonia received a recognized text-book, upon which the lectures and the debates of the students were thence-forward founded.
The recognition of Rabbi Judah's Mishnah marks a strong dividing line in the history of the Academies and their teachers: it indicates the transition from the age of the Tannaim to that of the Amoraim.
Gamaliel III, the unpretentious son of a distinguished father, became patriarch; but Hanina bar Hama succeeded him as head of the school, and introduced the new order of things that commenced with the completion of the Mishnah.
The imposing personality and unexampled learning of Johanan rendered Tiberias for a long period the undisputed center of Levantine Judaism, the magnet which attracted Babylonian students.
For a time, indeed, Caesarea came into prominence, owing solely to the influence of Hoshaya, who lived there in the first half of the third century, and exercised the duties of a teacher contemporaneously with the Church Father Origen, with whom he had personal intercourse.
After Johanan's death the school at Cæsarea attained a new standing under his pupil Abbahu; and throughout the whole of the fourth century the opinions of the "sages of Caesarea" were taken into respectful account, even in Tiberias.
Sepphoris also resumed its former importance as a seat of learning; and eminent men worked there in the fourth century, long after the disaster to the city wrought by the forces of the emperor Gallus.
In the department of the Aggadah—always highly prized and popular in the Land of Israel—the renown of Tiberias was also greatly augmented by many prominent and productive workers, from the contemporaries and pupils of Johanan down to Tanhuma ben Abba, who was illustrious as a collector and an editor of aggadic literature.
Further importance was gained by Tiberias as the seat of the Masoretic traditions and innovations; for there in the seventh century was introduced that system of punctuation which was destined to aid so efficiently in the proper reading and understanding of the biblical text.