The document discusses David Kraemer's book "Reading the Rabbis: The Talmud as Literature" and how it examines defining the genre of the Talmud. Kraemer acknowledges that the Talmud defies traditional definitions but pursues analyzing it using literary standards. The challenge is to delineate an appropriate literary genre for the Talmud. While the Talmud meets some definitions of literature, it is not conventionally thought of as such, so the work examines how it can be both literary and not literary simultaneously.