As mentioned recently, I wrote an article called It’s The Eponymy, Stupid, detailing possible reasons for eponymous statements, e.g. Rabbi Natan deducing a law of financial transitivity—if A owes B and B owes C, one can take from A and give (וְנוֹתְנִין) to C, based on a derasha of a biblical phrase beginning with וְנָתַן.
You can read the original article here and the brief Substack writeup here:
I discussed several instances of eponymous statements, and several overlapping reasons which could plausibly account for the phenomenon. The alternative explanation, which these reasons may counter, is that the names, or the attributions of statements to names, are entirely fabricated by the Talmud’s redactors.
This past week, I wrote a follow-up article (flipbook and plain text).
In it, I focused on one reason — Chazal like wordplay. Focusing first on Rav Mattana I, who we’ve seen likes derashot involving gematria and finding allusions to people in Torah, it is unsurprising that he’d darshen וּמִמִּדְבָּר מַתָּנָה.
Then I drilled down to Ben Rechumi on Nazir 13a, where he twice employs the term רָחֵימְנָא, “I love”, within an analysis of one who accepts nezirut conditioned on the birth of another person’s son (ben). While Rabbi Loius Jacobs presents this as an obviously fabricated name, I point out that only our printed texts have Ben Rechumi, while Vatican 110 and Munich 95 both have Rav Rechumi.
(The article contains manuscript images, but since last time I showed Vatican 110, here is Munich 95.
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And Rechumi, especially Rav Rechumi, is a popular name, corresponding to Ahava. There are two Amoraim and one Savora with that plain name, an additional one adorned with a place name, and one Sage, Rabbi Rechumi, appearing in the Zohar.
Based on the local interaction in Nazir 13a — he poses an inquiry to Abaye, we know this is Rav Rechumi I, who is well established as a fourth-generation colleague or student of Abaye and Rava, in Pumpedita or Mechoza. Finally, we flesh Rav Rechumi I out a bit, based on his occurrences, and ssee that he is a real holy and flawed individual, who wasn’t invented for fun wordplay.