Abaye in Rav Pappa's Academy? (full article)
Discussions in the Talmud are often synchronic – occurring at one point in time – like a conversation between a teacher and his students. In other instances, they are diachronic – happening across time, with earlier Sages staking out a position and scholars of progressively later generations weighing in.
The discussion on Zevachim 91b appears to be diachronic. The preceding Mishnah had presented a dispute between Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai, a fifth-generation Tanna, who declared presumptive status of oil in the Temple based the idea that oil could not be donated as a nevada (gift offering); third- or fourth-generation Tanna, Rabbi Tarfon, maintained it could be donated. In the gemara, Shmuel, a first-generation Amora in Nehardea (whose student Rav Yehuda founded Pumbedita academy), suggests that within Rabbi Tarfon’s position, a handful of the oil is sacrificed on the altar. Then, within Pumbedita, Rabbi Zeira II, a fourth-generation Amora, finds support for Shmuel from a clause in the Mishna. His Pumbeditan fourth-generation colleague, Abaye, challenges this understanding from another clause of the Mishnah. Of course, throughout, the connective tissue of the (perhaps Savoraic era) Talmudic Narrator elaborates and explores these positions.
Then, Rav Pappa, a fifth-generation Pumbeditan Amora who studied under Abaye but more under Rava, begins a new discussion of Shmuel’s statement, declaring that it accords with one side of a Tannaitic dispute in a brayta, between sixth-generation Tanna Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi and the anonymous Tanna Kamma, presumably sixth-generation Tannaitic colleagues.
I don’t know where Rav Pappa began this new but related discussion. Was it in Pumbedita, when he was a student? Or, was it in Naresh academy, near Sura, in the academy he founded after Rava’s death, when Rav Pappa was an elder. By “elder”, I mean that he founded Naresh after Rava’s death. Rav Pappa was born 300 CE, Rava died 352 CE, and Rav Pappa died in 375 CE, so Rav Pappa was over 50 years old in Naresh.
Actually, I’m fairly sure that Rav Pappa opened this discussion in Naresh. After all, the gemara continues with a discussion to identify the principle under dispute by the Tannaim in Rav Pappa’s brayta, beginning with אַמְרוּהָ רַבָּנַן קַמֵּיהּ דְּרַב פָּפָּא, the Sages before Rav Pappa proposed a specific hermeneutical principle under dispute. These “Sages before Rav Pappa” appear 17 times in the Talmud, and we might examine each to see who responds to them. The word kameih, “before”, seemingly indicates that they are subordinate to Rav Pappa, because that is what kameih often means. These are then Rav Pappa’s students, not colleagues, and are sixth-generation Amoraim – meaning contemporaries of Rav Ashi.
What then seemed totally incongruous was Rav Pappa’s response, or rather, to whom he responds. אֲמַר לֵיהּ רַב פָּפָּא לְאַבָּיֵי, which both Rav Steinsaltz and Artscroll render as Rav Pappa responding to Abaye! Why is fourth-generation Abaye present? Abaye presided over Pumbedita academy until his death, whereupon his colleague Rava took over. If Naresh was founded after Abaye and Rava’s death, then how could this occur in Naresh?
I second-guessed myself, and wondered if we must place this conversation back in Pumbedita academy, with Abaye presiding, and the “Sages before Rav Pappa” as his fifth-generation colleagues. Then, it happens to mention that these anonymous Sages were “before” Rav Pappa to show how they base themselves on Rav Pappa’s ideas, or to foreshadow how Rav Pappa will ultimately reject their proposed interpretation.
However, I realized that the sugya itself was problematic. If the Sages before Rav Pappa proposed this, why should Rav Pappa turn to his teacher Abaye to respond and reject? Before reinterpreting the sugya, we should confirm the girsa. And indeed, in the parallel sugyot in Shevuot 31a-b and Menachot 107b, it is אֲמַר לְהוּ רַב פָּפָּא, that Rav Pappa replied to those Sages.
What seems to have occurred was a game of broken telephone. The earlier Venice printing, in the 1500s, transformed the original אֲמַר לְהוּ רַב פָּפָּא אִי מִמִּנְחָה into אֲמַר לְהוּ רַב פָּפָּא לְאַבָּיֵי אִי מִמִּנְחָה, thus inserting the word לְאַבָּיֵי but keeping that Rav Pappa spoke לְהוּ, to them. Perhaps this was due to orthographic confusion, since the word אִי and the mem of מִמִּנְחָה looking like a bet attached to a yud could approximate the beginning of אַבָּיֵי. And, Abaye indeed appeared earlier in the sugya, so it could seem credible to scribe or printer. Then, the Vilna printer from the 1800s corrected the לְהוּ which means “to them” to לֵיהּ, since Rav Pappa is only speaking to one person, Abaye.
I could have stopped earlier, at an incorrect place. I could have argued, as some scholars (and one of the agentic web browsers I tested on this question) seem to say, that this is after all a diachronic discussion, happening across time. If so, the interactions don’t need to make sense from a chronological or geographic perspective. It was the Talmud’s redactors who juxtaposed various Sages’ statements and transformed it into a conversation.
While this may be sometimes true, I disagree that this is the typical behavior within diachronic sugya construction. Rather, diachronic discussion happened naturally across time, as later Sages were aware of earlier ideas and conversations. Each piece of the diachronic sugya may be a self-contained synchronic sugya, as here. And I can attest to my own experience, that many times in which something seemed chronologically out-of-place, a careful examination of parallel sugyot and / or the manuscript evidence leads to a corrected text without the anachronism. Abaye does not appear in Naresh academy, nor should we accept when he does.