Pseudepigraphic Abaye?
On yesterday’s daf (Bava Kamma 73b), Rava interpreted a strange brayta about a testimonies regarding slave whose eye and ear were lost, to prove his position that hakchasha is the beginning of hazama. He interpreted this based on the first segment of a brayta. Abaye replies that the second segment of the brayta should prove how to interpret that first segment:
אָמַר אַבָּיֵי: לָא,
Abaye said: No. There is another possible interpretation for the baraita, which answers the questions raised above and yet does not serve as proof for Rava’s opinion. According to this interpretation, the contradictory testimony was given after, not before, the testimony mentioned in the baraita.
Tosafot ad loc have a slightly different text, where it is amar leih Abaye:
אמר ליה אביי לא דאפכינהו ואזמינהו ממאי מדסיפא כו'
In this fairly lengthy comment, they make the point that it’s quite strange, because here Abaye argues on Rava, regarding how to interpret the reisha, based on the seifa. (And that, in the fourth-generation.) But then, on the next amud, Bava Kamma 74a, we have:
אֲמַר לֵיהּ רַב אַחָא בְּרֵיהּ דְּרַב אִיקָא לְרַב אָשֵׁי: דּוּקְיָא דְרָבָא מֵהֵיכָא? אִילֵּימָא מֵרֵישָׁא, רֵישָׁא מִי קָא מִתַּכְחֲשִׁי מְצִיעָאֵי?
Rava sought to infer from this baraita to his opinion that contradiction of testimony is the start of determining that testimony is conspiring testimony. Rav Aḥa, son of Rav Ika, said to Rav Ashi: From which case in the baraita is the inference of Rava? If we say that his inference is from the first clause, this is difficult. In the case of the first clause, if it involves three sets of witnesses, as claimed by Rava, is the intermediate set of witnesses contradicted and rejected before they are established as conspiring witnesses? The first set of witnesses testified that the eye injury took place after the tooth injury, whereas the intermediate set of witnesses reversed the order. If so, the intermediate set of witnesses sought to lower the master’s payment from the value of an eye to that of a tooth.
(As an aside, that’s the printed texts, with Rav Acha bereih deRav Ikka, who is a fifth-generation Amora, immediately after Rava, who should therefore know. All the manuscripts have Rav Acha bereih deRava, who likely isn’t the famous Rava’s son, and who is also sixth-generation, the famous Rav Acha of Rav Acha and Ravina, and would indeed speak like this to sixth-generation Rav Ashi.)
So Rav Acha bar Rava shows that Rava’s diyuk is not from the reisha but from the seifa. If this were so, how could Abaye have argued against Rava’s interpretation of the reisha? Or, why would this even be a matter of doubt to Rav Acha bar Rava, when it is explicit?
That is why Tosafot say:
נראה לר"י דכל סוגיא זו כפי מאי דס"ד השתא דדיוקא דרבא הוי מרישא אבל לפי האמת מסקנא דדיוקא דרבא מסיפא ולא אמר אביי זה מעולם אלא בני הישיבה היו מתרצים כן אליביה דאביי לפי מה שהיו סוברים דדיוקא דרבא מרישא אבל לפי המסקנא דאמר אביי דרישא בשלש כתות כדאוקמא רבא בלא מיפך והזמה ובסיפא בשתים במיפך ובהזמה ולאו דוקא נקט אביי אפכינהו תחילה דאם כן איתכחשו להו אלא מעיקרא אזמינהו והדר אפכינהו א"נ מעיקרא אפכינהו ואזמינהו תוך כדי דיבור
It appears to Rabbeinu Yitzchak that this entire sugya is based on the current assumption that Rava was interpreting from the reisha. However, in truth, the interpretation of Rava was from the seifa, and Abaye never ever said this. Rather, the members of the academy answered this in accordance with Abaye, according to what they (mistakenly) thought, that Rava’s interpretation was from the reisha…
It is certainly a possibility, but it makes me unhappy. Generally, I’d prefer Amoraim to actually say the words that are attributed to them. And I’ve written several articles and Substack posts about pseudepigraphic attributions, evaluating the strength of evidence, and showing the weaknesses of some of the arguments.
Here, I see three possibilities, rather than saying that the statement and attribution to Abaye was invented from whole cloth.
There is a core statement of Abaye, namely דְּאַפְכִינְהוּ וְאַזְּמִינְהוּ. The rest of it, from the members of the academy, is an expansion of the idea, based on assumptions about reisha or seifa. That kind of shakla vetarya and expanding of ideas by the Stamma, based on a core, but preserving the attribution, is indeed quite common.
It is not amar Abaye, or amar leih Abaye, but something like amar lecha Abaye. The Talmudic Narrator is often quite careful not to invent attributions. Amar lecha means that Abaye would have said to you, if he were here to speak, but he is not actually speaking. I don’t know where we see Abaye explicitly arguing, but maybe there is a basis for this.
If so, we should look for א”ל which is expandable into either amar leih or amar lecha.Abaye isn’t mentioned at all. I wouldn’t have thought of it, if not for seeing the manuscript, but make it amar lecha ana, I would say to you. Not that Abaye said it. Of course, we should have consistency across all occurrences of Abaye, which isn’t present in that manuscript, but it may be a vestige of an earlier consistent manuscript.
With this laid out, let us see the manuscripts which support (2) and (3).
So, Florence 8-9 is the one with the amar lecha ana:
Vatican has like our printed, amar Abaye, but there are a few with amar leih Abaye:
But importantly for (2), Munich has א”ל אביי which can be expanded in two ways.
