Non-Overlapping Lifetimes
There are several interesting girsological / biographical related items on Sanhedrin 29, which Artscroll happens to take note of.
First off, there’s an erroneous Rav Ami on the daf. To quote the Sefaria text on 29b, with Rav Steinsaltz’s commentary:
בִּפְנֵי שְׁלֹשָׁה, וְלֹא קָנוּ מִיָּדוֹ. רַב אַמֵּי אָמַר: כּוֹתְבִין, וְרַב אַסִּי אָמַר: אֵין כּוֹתְבִין.
הֲוָה עוֹבָדָא, וְחַשׁ לַהּ רַב לְהָא דְּרַב אַסִּי.If he made an admission in the presence of three witnesses and they did not perform a formal act of acquisition with him, Rav Ami says: They can write a record of the admission in a document. Since the admission was made in the presence of three individuals, who are considered a court, it is permitted for a court to write its verdicts. And Rav Asi says: They may not write it in a document; perhaps the debtor intended for them to serve only as witnesses, not as a court.
There was an incident in which a person admitted his debt before three witnesses, and Rav was concerned for this opinion of Rav Asi, and ruled that they may not write a record of the admission.
Artscroll notes that, given how the second statement mentions that Rav was concerned for Rav Asi’s position, it makes sense that the “Ami” part of Rav Ami was spurious and should be emended to simply Rav. And that this is what is found in the She’iltot. So they made that emendation.
I would elaborate a little bit. If we are speaking of Rav Ami / Rav Asi, which probably are the same as Rabbi Ami / Rabbi Asi, then they are third-generation Amoraim, students of Rabbi Yochanan. We would not really expect Rav, a first-generation Amora, to react to / pay heed to, the position of such a Rav Asi.
On the other hand, the real Rav Asi, not accompanied by a Rav Ami, is Rav Asi of Hutzal in Bavel, a first-generation Amora. He is a colleague and somewhat of a lesser stature / student to Rav. So, it would make sense for the first segment to mention a Rav / Rav Asi dispute, and for this to be followed by Rav, one of the participants, to pay heed to his colleague’s opinion.
Also, we don’t need to go to the She’iltot for this. Look at printings / manuscripts of our own sugya. It only appears in the Vilna Shas (in parentheses to be removed) and in the Barco printing. Venice omits it.
Indeed, if you have רב אמי אמר, it clearly looks like dittography, the erroneous duplication of a word. Indeed, some manuscripts will print the amar as am’ as an abbreviation, and such an abbreviation can be taken by a scribe to mean ami.
Looking now at manuscripts, they all just have “Rav”, and Florence 8-9 and Yad HaRav Herzog have the am’ abbreviation which would confuse a copyist, especially in the context of a subsequent Rav Asi statement.
A bit , we encounter a seeming interaction between Rav and Rav Yehuda:
גְּמָ׳ הֵיכִי אָמְרִינַן לְהוּ? אָמַר רַב יְהוּדָה: הָכִי אָמְרִינַן לְהוּ, ״נְשִׂיאִים וְרוּחַ וְגֶשֶׁם אָיִן אִישׁ מִתְהַלֵּל בְּמַתַּת שָׁקֶר״.
GEMARA: The mishna teaches that the judges intimidate the witnesses. The Gemara asks: What do we say to them? Rav Yehuda says that this is what we say to them: It is stated: “As clouds and wind without rain, so is he who boasts himself of a false gift” (Proverbs 25:14). In other words, there will be no rain and no blessing from your deeds if you lie.
אֲמַר לֵיהּ רָבָא, יָכְלִי לְמֵימַר: שַׁב שְׁנֵי הֲוָה כַּפְנָא, וְאַבָּבָא אוּמָּנָא לָא חֲלֵיף.
Rava said to him: If so, false witnesses can say to themselves that they do not have to worry about this punishment, according to the folk saying: Seven years there was a famine, but over the craftsman’s door it did not pass. If the witnesses are not farmers, they do not need to worry over lack of rain. Consequently, they will disregard this concern
So first, second-generation Rav Yehuda speaks, and then fourth-generation Rava speaks to him, leih. Artscroll notes a problem, but I’ll quote a work available on Sefaria, The Jewish Spiritual Heroes, by Gershom Bader, to make the issue evident:
The question of how long and when Rava lived is very complicated. According to Rashi, Rava lived only forty years. There is a place in the Talmud which says that Rava was born on the day when Rav Judah bar Ezekiel died. But the “Chronicle of Rav Shrira Gaon” says that Rava was born in the year 352 C. E. which contradicts the place cited from the Talmud, for if it is true, then Rava would have been born not on the day of Rav Judah bar Ezekiel’s death but thirteen years later. Another theory is that of Maimonides who amends the Talmudical source to read that Rava was born before the death of Rav Judah. The Talmud also mentions once that Rava said something to Rav Judah. On another occasion he quoted something in Rav Judah’s name. Since Rava was head of the academy in Mechoza for fourteen years, there are some who estimate his life at 74 years.
Now, some of these are questionable, such as Rava for 40 years is probably Rabba, who was a kohen from Eli’s house. But the big problem is that Rava was born when Rav Yehuda died, or according to the Iggeret of Rav Sherira Gaon, even after. How then could he speak to Rav Yehuda? (Rambam fixing the text would could help.) By the way, the footnote for Rava saying something to Rav Yehuda is not our sugya, but Bava Batra 97a, which we should examine separately.
We might say that that gemara about birth and death was metaphorical, and just meant that these covered long spans of time, such that one’s sun rose as the other’s sun set, but not that it was on the precise year / month / day.
However, the easy answer, which Artscroll follows, is that we should strip out the word ליה, “to him”. If I recall correctly, they also cite the Sheiltot for that.
But again, we don’t even need the She’iltot, just manuscripts of our local sugya. Yes, the printings have leih:
as well as the Yad HaRav Herzog manuscript:
However, the others do not, either having amar Rava, Rava amar, or amar Rav Pappa.
Reading a bit further in the gemara on 29a, we have Rav Ashi’s reaction to Rav Yehuda, followed by his own idea:
אֶלָּא אָמַר רָבָא, אָמְרִינַן לְהוּ: ״מֵפִיץ וְחֶרֶב וְחֵץ שָׁנוּן אִישׁ עֹנֶה בְרֵעֵהוּ עֵד שָׁקֶר״.
Rather, Rava said that we say this verse to them: “As a hammer, and a sword, and a sharp arrow, so is a man who bears false witness against his neighbor” (Proverbs 25:18), meaning that a false witness will die prematurely.
אֲמַר לֵיהּ רַב אָשֵׁי, יָכְלִי לְמֵימַר: שַׁב שְׁנֵי הֲוָה מוֹתָנָא, וְאִינִישׁ בְּלָא שְׁנֵיהּ לָא שְׁכֵיב.
Rav Ashi said to him: Here too, false witnesses can say to themselves a folk saying: Seven years there was a pestilence, but a man who has not reached his years did not die; everyone dies at his predestined time. Therefore, they will disregard this concern as well.
אֶלָּא אָמַר רַב אָשֵׁי: אָמַר לִי נָתָן בַּר מָר זוּטְרָא, אָמְרִינַן לְהוּ: סָהֲדֵי שַׁקָּרֵי אַאוֹגְרַיְיהוּ זִילִי, דִּכְתִיב: ״וְהוֹשִׁיבוּ שְׁנַיִם אֲנָשִׁים בְּנֵי בְלִיַּעַל נֶגְדּוֹ וִיעִדֻהוּ לֵאמֹר בֵּרַכְתָּ אֱלֹהִים וָמֶלֶךְ״.
The Gemara presents another suggestion: Rather, Rav Ashi said: Natan bar Mar Zutra said to me that we say to them that false witnesses are belittled even by those who hire them, and all the more so by others; as it is written that Jezebel said when she ordered witnesses to be hired to testify against Naboth: “And set two men, base fellows, before him, and let them bear witness against him, saying: You cursed God and the king” (I Kings 21:10). Even Jezebel, who gave the orders to hire them, called them “base fellows.”
The problem, once again, is that a similar tradition about Rava and Rav Yehuda being born / dying also applies to Rav Ashi and Rava. Rav Ashi was born on the day Rava died. Again, Artscroll with She’iltot, and again, we can turn to our manuscripts. The printings have leih:
as well as Yad HaRav Herzog:
But other manuscripts omit the leih:
In general, we can talk about the pattern of:
Amora X says A
Amora Y gives reason A is wrong
Amora Y says B
Amora Z gives reason B is wrong
Amora Z says C
with the question of whether items (2) and (4) are actually said by the named Amora, or were supplied by the Talmudic Narrator, attributed to the new Amora as a kind of amar lecha Y after the fact to explain why each Amora gives a different explanation.
This is different and takes it further. With an amar leih, we have an explicit speaker and hearer, and sound more real. But the facts are that the texts don’t actually originally have this; perhaps the scribe imagined this was being said to the objecting Amora and so put it in.