What is the Talmud?
The Talmud (or Oral Torah ), an explanation of the Written Torah (<Bible Old Testament, and ultimately Torah includes both; written and Oral Law), was given to Moses at Sinai. Without the Talmud the Written Torah (<Bible Old Testament) can't be understood.
There are a lot of critical facts and points that are only hinted at or not even mentioned in the Written Torah that were explained in the Talmud. The Talmud was not allowed to be formally written down; It was only memorized and transmitted from teacher to student through out the generations.
With time the generations started to forget the laws of the Talmud. The sages realized that if the Oral Torah would not be written down, it would be lost. Rabbi Yehuda ha-Nasi, the head of the generation, gathered the rabbis of that generation and the Mishna was written. The Mishna contains a brief listing of the Jewish Laws. With time people failed to understand the meaning of the Mishna, so that the Talmud was written. The Gemara and the Mishna together are called the Talmud.
The Gemara debates, dissects, and defines the principles of the Mishna so that the halacha-law could be understood.
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