Rabbi Abba bar Pappa Is Not the Son of Famous Rav Pappa

This came up the other day in Daf Yomi, Bava Metzia 43b. Rabbi Abba bar Pappa is traveling to Israel and is asked to inquire something.

אֲמַר לֵיהּ רַבִּי זֵירָא לְרַבִּי אַבָּא בַּר פָּפָּא: כִּי אָזְלַתְּ לְהָתָם, אַקֵּיף אַסּוּלָּמָא דְצוֹר, וְעוּל לְגַבֵּיהּ דְּרַבִּי יַעֲקֹב בַּר אִידִי, וּבְעִי מִינֵּיהּ אִי שְׁמִיעָא לֵיהּ לְרַבִּי יוֹחָנָן: הֲלָכָה כְּרַבִּי עֲקִיבָא אוֹ אֵין הֲלָכָה כְּרַבִּי עֲקִיבָא? אֲמַר לֵיהּ: הָכִי אָמַר רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן: הֲלָכָה כְּרַבִּי עֲקִיבָא לְעוֹלָם.

Rabbi Zeira said to Rabbi Abba bar Pappa: When you go there, to Eretz Yisrael, take a circuitous route to the Ladder of Tyre, and enter before Rabbi Ya’akov bar Idi, and ask of him if he heard whether according to Rabbi Yoḥanan the halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Akiva or whether the halakha is not in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Akiva. He went and asked. Rabbi Ya’akov bar Idi said to him: This is what Rabbi Yoḥanan says: The halakha is always in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Akiva.

Someone asked how this could be possible, when Rav Pappa was fifth-generation, and the people being asked are earlier.

The answer is that Rabbi Abba bar Pappa isn’t the son of the famous Rav Pappa. I wrote an article about Rav Pappa’s ten sons. You can read the summary here, and click through to the actual Jewish Link article.

Additionally, on this daf, I’ll just mention that there are variant texts which don’t have R’ Abba bar Pappa. Thus, matching Vilna’s R’ Abba bar Pappa, we do have quite a lot:

Still we also have the more famous Rami bar Pappa in Florence 8-9. He would still be third-generation.

And, we have a name reversal, Rav Pappa bar Abba, who would be Rav Pappa’s fifth-generation contemporary, in Vatican 115a. That would have chronological difficulties.

I wrote about Pappa bar Abba. He is the famous obese Amora who can break benches by sitting on them, but it is highly unlikely that the famous Rav Pappa (who spoke about it) is the same person, despite Wikipedia which asserted otherwise.