Consider the Odyssey, a classic example of a Greek text.
The Odyssey was codified and passed down through generations in Greece. People write about the Odyssey, but almost no one has writted linear commentaries for it.
Lets compare that to the Talmud. The Mishnah is the core of the Talmud, and it is a collection of oral law written down (in about 200 C.E.) by Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi. Like the Odyssey, it is unchanged and has been transmitted through the generations.
However, its story does not end there. The next generation of Rabbis writes the Gemara. The Gemara is a collections of more oral law from the generation of the Mishnaic Rabbis, along with debate about the laws in the Mishnah, trying to find proofs for laws, trying to deal with problematic laws, clarify vague laws, and so on. The Mishnah and the Gemara make up the Talmud. (Note that there are actually two versions of the Talmud, the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud. They have the same Mishnah but the Gemara is different. The Babylonian Talmud is more complete and therefore more widely studied).
Skipping forward a few years, the Rabbis of the middle ages start to comment on the Talmud. Rashi commented on the entire (Babylonian) Talmud, and so did the Rabbis of his grandchildrens' generation. Meanwhile, other Rabbis, such as Maimonadies (I'm sure I spelled that wrong), were trying to extract the laws from the Talmud (a daunting task because not all discussions were resolved). Even very recently, Rabbi Steinsaltz wrote his commentary on the entire Talmud. The cycle of commentary never ends.
Are you really saying that the Talmud is comparable to the Odyssey, but not to Plato? I'd expect, since you're talking about a philosophical tradition, that the reverse would be more accurate. Philosophical commentary abounds in the Greek tradition:
Commentaries were also written on Homer, but as the Iliad and the Odyssey are literary rather than philosophical works the commentary takes a different form. Here are a few selections from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeric_scholarship#Classical_... :
> Homer does not play a role in any censorial evaluation of Aristotle as a critic, but appears in a professional study of poetry, the "Poetics", with regard to the difficulty with some of his language. Aristotle’s main study of Homer did not survive. It is listed in Diogenes Laertius' "Life of Aristotle" as "Six books of Homeric problems."
> Many ancient Greek writers discussed topics and problems in the Homeric epics, but the development of scholarship per se revolved around three goals: (1) Analyzing internal inconsistencies within the epics; (2) Producing editions of the epics' authentic text, free of interpolations and errors; [and] (3) Interpretation: both explaining archaic words, and exegetical interpretation of the epics as literature.
> there was also a fashion for allegory, especially among the Stoics. The most notable passage is a scholion on Iliad 20.67, which gives an extended allegorical interpretation of the battle of the gods, explaining each god as symbolic of various elements and principles in conflict with one another, e.g., Apollo is opposed to Poseidon because fire is opposed to water.
The difference is that with the Odyssey and Plato, commentaries on the work are not considered part of the work. The commentaries on the Talmud are considered part of the Talmud, including inheriting the Talmud's status as law -- making the Talmud very much a living document.
The Odyssey was codified and passed down through generations in Greece. People write about the Odyssey, but almost no one has writted linear commentaries for it.
Lets compare that to the Talmud. The Mishnah is the core of the Talmud, and it is a collection of oral law written down (in about 200 C.E.) by Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi. Like the Odyssey, it is unchanged and has been transmitted through the generations.
However, its story does not end there. The next generation of Rabbis writes the Gemara. The Gemara is a collections of more oral law from the generation of the Mishnaic Rabbis, along with debate about the laws in the Mishnah, trying to find proofs for laws, trying to deal with problematic laws, clarify vague laws, and so on. The Mishnah and the Gemara make up the Talmud. (Note that there are actually two versions of the Talmud, the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud. They have the same Mishnah but the Gemara is different. The Babylonian Talmud is more complete and therefore more widely studied).
Skipping forward a few years, the Rabbis of the middle ages start to comment on the Talmud. Rashi commented on the entire (Babylonian) Talmud, and so did the Rabbis of his grandchildrens' generation. Meanwhile, other Rabbis, such as Maimonadies (I'm sure I spelled that wrong), were trying to extract the laws from the Talmud (a daunting task because not all discussions were resolved). Even very recently, Rabbi Steinsaltz wrote his commentary on the entire Talmud. The cycle of commentary never ends.