Aligning with a (Tannaitic?) Dispute

On Bava Batra 70b, we get this:

לֵימָא בִּפְלוּגְתָּא דְּהָנֵי תַּנָּאֵי – דְּתַנְיָא: שְׁטַר כִּיס הַיּוֹצֵא עַל הַיְּתוֹמִים – דַּיָּינֵי גוֹלָה אָמְרִי: נִשְׁבָּע וְגוֹבֶה כּוּלּוֹ. וְדַיָּינֵי אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל אָמְרִי: נִשְׁבָּע וְגוֹבֶה מֶחֱצָה.

The Gemara suggests: Let us say that Rav Amram and Rav Ḥisda disagree with regard to the issue that is the subject of the dispute between these tanna’im, as a halakha is taught in a baraita with regard to a purse document, i.e., a document that records an arrangement whereby one gives another money as an investment in a joint venture on condition that the profits will be divided equally between the two parties. If the person who received the money died, and this document was presented by the lender against the orphans, the Judges of the Exile say that the lender takes an oath that the money had never been returned to him, and he collects the entire sum. And the judges of Eretz Yisrael say that he takes an oath and collects only half of the sum.

Rashbam ad loc. writes that the Judges of the Exile are Shmuel and Karna, and that the Judges of Eretz Yisrael are Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Asi. Indeed, it’s clear where he gets this, as Sanhedrin 17b grapples with Sages called by appellations but not by their proper names, and works to resolve them. It does so in exactly this manner, except it tags the single Sage Karna for the plural Judges, not listing Shmuel. A single judge may be mentioned and preside over an entire court, which is how Rav Steinsaltz resolves that issue there.

[Our Bava Batra sugya discusses a conflicting position of the (plain) Nehardeans, but in Aramaic, not Hebrew. The sugya in Sanhedrin does identify judges of Nehardea, but I don’t know that that is relevant.]

What is strange is that Shmuel and Karna are first-generation Amoraim. Why should the gemara say בִּפְלוּגְתָּא דְּהָנֵי תַּנָּאֵי, suggesting that they are Tannaim? Meanwhile, Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Asi are third-generation Amoraim, so in what way are these Tannaim? We could just say that Rashbam wasn’t thinking as we do, and isn’t concerned about scholastic generations. But this seems hard to say, since everyone knows the difference between a Tanna and an Amora!

[Artscroll translates as above about Tannaim, and make the identifications in footnotes based on Rashbam, so something is inconsistent about their translation.]

Rather, the words דְּהָנֵי תַּנָּאֵי seem spurious, and should not appear in our gemara. The same for the word דְּתַנְיָא which only introduces a brayta, not Amoraim. Looking at variant texts on Hachi Garsinan, we see that the words דְּהָנֵי תַּנָּאֵי and דְּתַנְיָא only appear in the Vilna printing:

However, across the board, all the other printings and the manuscripts don’t include it:

Rather, they are just aligning the dispute with another, perhaps earlier, Amoraic dispute.

Perhaps what mislead the one who produced the Vilna text was misled by the very end of the sugya,

אֲמַר לֵיהּ: אֲנַן, דְּדַיָּינֵי גוֹלָה

Mar Zutra said to him: With regard to the opinion of the judges of the exile, we

אִיפְּכָא מַתְנִינַן לַהּ.

learned the reverse, that is to say, according to our version of the baraita, it is the judges of the exile who maintain that the claimant collects only half the sum, which corresponds to the halakha taught by Rava.

But matnitin lah doesn’t need to only be a Tannaitic source. It can be any teaching from a Sage.