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(ibid.) which discusses a child born to a woman who did not wait
three months after her first husband’s death before marrying his
brother in fulfillment of the mitzvah of yibum. Now it is uncertain
whether this is the first husband’s child born after a nine month
pregnancy or the yavam’s child born after a seven month pregnancy.
The mishnah writes that the yavam must divorce his wife, that the
child is kosher and they have to offer an asham talui sacrifice. [They
cannot remain married because the child might be the dead brother’s,
rendering her forbidden to him as the widow of a brother who left a
child. However, either way the child is kosher: he is either the son of
the first husband and was conceived in a permitted manner or he is
the son of the second and was born in fulfillment of the mitzvah of
yibum. The couple must each offer an asham talui though, because of
the possibility of their having transgressed a prohibition that carries
the kareis penalty.]

The Yerushalmi then writes: “We see from here that a woman
cannot become pregnant from two men at the same time.” [“That is
to say that the second one’s intercourse contributes nothing to the fe-
tus” (Korban Ha’eda). In other words, if the second intercourse were
beneficial to the fetus we would not say that the child is kosher. We
would have been concerned that she may have been pregnant from
the first husband rendering the yibum prohibited – there being no
mitzvah since the first husband left a child – and if the intercourse
with the yavam also contributed to the formation of the fetus it would
be a mamzer.]

The Yerushalmi concludes: “This contradicts the Rabannan of the
Agaddata, because the Rabannan of the Agaddata say, ‘“the warrior
was ascending…from the Philistine ranks” – from a hundred Philis-
tine foreskins, for a hundred Philistine foreskins had intercourse with
her.’ Said Rabbi Matanya,‘They do not contradict each other: Before
the sperm has decomposed a woman can become pregnant from two
men at the same time, whereas once it has decomposed, a woman
cannot become pregnant from two men at the same time.’”

Now, the Talmud Bavli (Sotah 42b), interprets the passuk (Shmuel
I, 17:4) “The ish habeinayim (warrior) left the Philistine camps,” as

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