Rashbam changes Rava to Rabba
(1) An incident on Bava Batra 32a-b:
הָהוּא דַּאֲמַר לְחַבְרֵיהּ: מַאי בָּעֵית בְּהַאי אַרְעָא? אֲמַר לֵיהּ: מִינָּךְ זְבֵינְתַּהּ, וְהָא שְׁטָרָא.
§ The Gemara relates an incident where two people disputed the ownership of land. There was a certain person who said to another: What do you want with this land of mine? The possessor said to him: I purchased it from you, and this is the bill of sale.
אֲמַר לֵיהּ: שְׁטָרָא זַיְיפָא הוּא! גְּחֵין לְחֵישׁ לֵיהּ לְרַבָּה: אִין, שְׁטָרָא זַיְיפָא הוּא; מִיהוּ שְׁטָרָא מְעַלְּיָא הֲוָה לִי, וְאִירְכַס, וְאָמֵינָא: אֶינְקֹיט הַאי בִּידַאי כָּל דְּהוּ.
The first said to him in response: It is a forged bill of sale. The possessor leaned over and whispered to Rabba: Yes, it is a forged bill. But I had a proper bill of sale and it was lost, and I said to myself: I will hold this bill of sale in my possession, such as it is.
אָמַר רַבָּה: מָה לוֹ לְשַׁקֵּר? אִי בָּעֵי, אָמַר לֵיהּ: שְׁטָרָא מְעַלְּיָא הוּא. אֲמַר לֵיהּ רַב יוֹסֵף: אַמַּאי סָמְכַתְּ – אַהַאי שְׁטָרָא; הַאי שְׁטָרָא חַסְפָּא בְּעָלְמָא הוּא.
Rabba said: Why would he lie and state this claim? If he wants to lie, he can say to him that it is a proper bill of sale, and he would have been deemed credible and awarded the field. Rav Yosef said to Rabba: In the final analysis, on what are you relying to award him the land? On this bill of sale? This admittedly forged bill is merely a worthless shard, and cannot be used in court as evidence.
and the same for the next case, involving a monetary loan.
To whom did this man lean and whisper? The Rishonim I checked all have Rabba. Rashbam writes:
לחיש ליה לרבה - גרסינן דרבה מלך מקמי דרב יוסף כדאמרינן בשלהי דברכות (דף סד.) והיה רב יוסף חבירו מקשה לו:
That is, the correct girsa should be Rabba, rather than Rava. After all, Rabba presided over Pumbedita before Rav Yosef, as we state at the end of Berachot (64a). Thus, Rav Yosef, his colleague, attacked his position.
The idea here is that Rabba (bar Nachmani) and Rav Yosef are third-generation Pumbeditan Amoraim, colleagues, so would operate together in this manner. Not so for fourth-generation Rava, who is more of a student of Rav Yosef (and, I’d add, not so of Rabba).
I agree with the sentiment, and would suggest the same myself. Rashbam famously is in favor of emendations which make the text and logic flow smoothly, while Rabbeinu Tam works to defend the older, more difficult seeming girsa. But Rava / Rabba is a frequent switchoff, and this one makes sense.
On Hachi Garsinan, let us inspect printings and manuscripts. Printings:
So Vilna has Rabba. Venice makes it ambiguous, Rab’ so that we don’t know that last letter, but follows it up with a full Rabba in the zuzim case. Pisaro is inconsistent, so likely isn’t trustworthy and of help — it has Rava in the first case and Rabba in the second.
Among manuscripts, here are a few:
So Florence 8-9 has Rava throughout, in all four instances. Hamburg 165 has Rabba throughout.
Munich 95 in interesting, in that it starts, in the first of the many instances, with Rava, then corrects it to Rabba. Subsequently, it is consistent in writing Rabba with no fixes. So the question is what happened in that first instance. Was it a mere misstep, or did the scribe start thinking and corrected, before proceeding to write the next bits of text?
Another four manuscripts:
So Oxford has Rava throughout; Paris has Rabba throughout; Escorial has Rabba throughout. And Vatican 115 has Rabba throughout.
Again, I agree with Rashbam. However, consider that we just saw the other day (daf 22), by the premature death of Rav Ada bar Abba, that Abaye and Rava were running their academies in Pumbedita at the same time as Rav Yosef was alive and kicking. Thus, Abaye thought the cause of Rav Ada’s death was his grudge for Rav Ada enticing people to eat the juicy meat in Rava’s academy instead of gnawing on the bones in Abaye’s academy. And when Rav Dimi of Nehardea was mistreated by Rav Ada, he kvetched to Rav Yosef.
If Rava was prominent enough to lead an academy, he could operate at a trial — not just a question in the beit midrash — in which Rav Yosef was present. Indeed, rather than assuming that these were lone judges, we might imagine Abaye, Rava, and Rav Yosef on a three-person panel of judges. That Rava says what he says first, and then Rav Yosef responds, is because the litigant leaned over to him and whispered this, whereupon Rava reacted. It does not seem implausible.