The Formulation and Transmission of Legal Cases in the Talmud: Three Examples

• In Event: Examining the Development of Rabbinic Law

Abstract

In this paper I will draw attention to the complex process of the textual formulation and transmission of legal cases in the Babylonian Talmud. The topic of amoraic legal cases cited in the Babylonian Talmud have been dealt in length previously, mainly by Eliezer Segal who devoted a special monograph to it, besides few other papers. In this paper I will discuss three cases from BABA METSIA. My main motivation will be to demonstrate the different ways in which the textual tradition of the cases has reached its final stage in our Talmud. In the first example a surplus detail was added to the story after its integration in the SUGYA by the Talmud compilers, which altered the derived legal conclusion from it. In the second example the Babylonian Talmud presents a Palestinian court case, but in distorted tradition, as evident from a parallel story in the Palestinian Talmud. This triggered further different textual variants that affected the talmudic text in the geonic period. In the third example I will present a neglected variant of a case found in some manuscripts of HALAKHOT GEDOLOT which seems to be secondary to the common talmudic text, due to apparently unnecessary details which have been added to the basic story. However, a more careful study will raise the possibility that this over-detailed story actually reflects an authentic tradition of the case, before it was formularized and abridged to its legal kernel. This editing process infected the natural flew of the original plot and generated an unconvincing story with unclear legal conclusions.

author

• Roni Shweka, Harvard University