The daf for Shabbat, Sanhedrin 67, had a segment that was removed by the censors, about Ben Stada. The censorship cut off the end of a brayta, which discussed stoning for an inciter to idolatry. It stated that so was done to Ben Stada, hung on Pesach eve. The gemara (including Rav Chisda) goes on to discuss his identity. There might be a conservation of personalities here, like often happens by midrashim about Biblical personalities, in which case maybe the motivation for censorship wouldn’t even be true. It is not like Jesus was the only failed messiah at that general era. (No gemara mentions a Brian though.)
Anyway, earlier printings have it, and the manuscripts all have it. Don’t trust Hachi Garsinan, which makes it an entry for Vilna. Rather, click through to see the image, and you will see that Vilna printing skips over it.
I assume programmatic considerations here, that this is the primary entry, and they would not have been able to have that row. That’s why there are absolutely no differences from Venice, which indeed does have it.
Most interesting of these to me was Yad HaRav Herzog, which added a transferred segment from Shabbat 104b, also about Ben Stada:
That sugya reads:
הַמְסָרֵט עַל בְּשָׂרוֹ. תַּנְיָא, אָמַר לָהֶן רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר לַחֲכָמִים: וַהֲלֹא בֶּן סָטָדָא הוֹצִיא כְּשָׁפִים מִמִּצְרַיִם בִּסְרִיטָה שֶׁעַל בְּשָׂרוֹ? אָמְרוּ לוֹ: שׁוֹטֶה הָיָה, וְאֵין מְבִיאִין רְאָיָה מִן הַשּׁוֹטִים. ״בֶּן סָטָדָא״? בֶּן פַּנְדִּירָא הוּא! אָמַר רַב חִסְדָּא: בַּעַל ״סָטָדָא״, בּוֹעֵל ״פַּנְדִּירָא״. בַּעַל פַּפּוּס בֶּן יְהוּדָה הוּא? אֶלָּא אִמּוֹ ״סָטָדָא״. אִמּוֹ מִרְיָם מְגַדְּלָא שְׂעַר נְשַׁיָּא הֲוַאי? אֶלָּא כִּדְאָמְרִי בְּפוּמְבְּדִיתָא: סְטָת דָּא מִבַּעְלַהּ.
It was taught in a baraita that Rabbi Eliezer said to the Rabbis: Didn’t the infamous ben Stada take magic spells out of Egypt in a scratch on his flesh? They said to him: He was a fool, and you cannot cite proof from a fool. That is not the way that most people write.
The presumed reason for this haavara is that that gemara, as well, discusses the etymology of Ben Stada’s name. And the idea is that Ben Stada convinced people in inciting them to idolatry by performing seeming miracles, but these were really sorcery smuggled by him out of Egypt.
That is one of my favorite gemaras about intellectual property and export bans. The background is that Egypt had export restrictions on magic. Even though magic is essentially knowledge. He managed to smuggle it out of Egypt by carving it on his flesh.
A modern day equivalent is RSA encryption, which the United States classifies as munitions. Richard White, to protest this, got a tattoo of the algorithm on his arm, which technically makes him a munition who could not leave the country.
