Rava or Rabba with Rav Amram?
Two quick points on yesterday’s daf (Bava Kamma 105).
מִילְּתָא דְּאִיבַּעְיָא לֵיהּ לְרָבָא, פְּשִׁיטָא לֵיהּ לְרַבָּה – דְּאָמַר רַבָּה: ״שׁוֹרִי גָּנַבְתָּ״, וְהוּא אוֹמֵר: ״לֹא גָּנַבְתִּי״;
The Gemara comments: The matter that was a dilemma for Rava is obvious to Rabba, as Rabba says that in a scenario where one says to another: You stole my ox, and the other says: I did not steal it.
In similar situations, how do we pasken? This gets to the question of whether hilcheta kebatrai works from fourth-generation and on, or whether it is even fourth-generation against third-generation. Also, whether Rava is actually a student of Rabba. I don’t think he was. I wrote a whole article about it. See here.
We have Rava relate a shmayta (report, sometimes self-contained earlier proto-sugya) before Rav Amram:
יָתֵיב רָבָא וְקָאָמַר לְהָא שְׁמַעְתָּא. אֵיתִיבֵיהּ רַב עַמְרָם לְרָבָא: ״וְכִחֵשׁ בָּהּ״ – פְּרָט לְמוֹדֶה בָּעִיקָּר.
Rava sat and said this halakha, that one who protected himself from potential liability for payment by taking a false oath that he is a bailee is liable to pay the additional one-fifth payment and bring a guilt-offering. Rav Amram raised an objection to Rava from a baraita: The verse states concerning one who is liable for taking a false oath concerning a monetary matter: “And deals falsely with it” (Leviticus 5:22); this serves to exclude one who admits to the primary feature of a claim.
Artscroll gets it right by fixing it to Rabba.
Hebrew Wikipedia claims there was just one Rav Amram, a second- and third-generation Amora, who was first a student of Rav and later a primary student of Rav Sheshet. (Yet he is third-generation, like Rav Sheshet.) Rav Aaron Hyman writes in Toledot Tannaim vaAmoraim that the student of Rav was Rav Amram I, while the student of Rav Sheshet was Rav Amram II. This makes sense to me.
Still, we see him generally interact with Rav Sheshet, Rav Nachman, and Rabba, and objecting to them, asking them questions. And here, Rava or Rabba calls him Tedora (fool). And in Bava Metzia 20b, Rabba calls him Tarda. (Note the transposition, and that daled and resh appear similar to each other.)
א"ל רב עמרם לרבה היכי פשיט מר איסורא מממונא א"ל תרדא שטרי חליצה ומיאונין תנן
Rav Amram said to Rabba: How can the Master resolve the halakha in the case of a bill of divorce, which is a ritual matter, from the mishna, which discusses monetary matters? Rabba said to him: Fool, we learned in the mishna that this halakha applies in the case of documents of ḥalitza and documents of refusal as well, which are ritual matters.
Indeed, if we look at the variants on Hachi Garsinan within our own sugya, Rava is restricted to the printings. Thus:
All the manuscripts have Rabba:
Indeed, even where the printings have Rava, it began with Soncino and Venice in the very first instance of Rabba that they wrote Rava. For the second instance, they wrote resh bet and apostrophe, as a shorthand for the name above. That is an easier error to make.
Then, Vilna expanded that Rav’ to Rava and made it consistent, and twice as erroneous.