Many current forms of Judaism believe in an oral law, handed down from Moses verbally, and not formally codified or written until the first few centuries AD, when it became the Mishnah. A few centuries after the creation of the Mishnah, it was combined with commentary and analysis of itself to form the Talmud; this combined form has several things to say about slavery. The first few centuries also produced commentaries on the Torah itself (the Midrash halakha) which were later given the status of official interpretations.