Page 249 - GQ-9

Summaries 41*

were aware only of one geonic position, that of R. Saadya, and some of them
attributed R. Saadya’s position to R. Samuel.

The Contribution of the Early Sheilta
to the Research of the Editing Process of
the Tractate Sukka in the Babylonian
Talmud

Rabin Shustri

The Center for Basic Jewish Studies, Bar-Ilan University

J.N. Epstein published a Sheilta to Tractate Sukka from the Cairo Geniza.
Epstein discusses this Sheilta mainly in order to solidify his opinion that the
Sheiltot represent a different edition of the Babylonian Talmud than the one we
have. Rosenthal and Brody, on the other hand, counter-argue that the differences
between these texts do not represent a different edition. Rather, they consider
the edition of the Sheiltot and the edition of our Talmud to be one, attributing
the various differences to the period of oral transmission, during which texts
were often passed along in paraphrase.

Either way, it is agreed that there is no small number of variants between our
Talmud and the Talmud of the Sheiltot, which cannot be explained by glosses
and corrections. In this essay I demonstrate the value of these variants to the
understanding of our Talmudic edition. I brought three examples where unclear
versions in our Talmud are solved by comparing them to the Sheiltot. This
comparison uncovers the process of the sugia’s formation and illuminates the
relationship between its parts.