[Avodah] tannaitic transmission?

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Fri, Oct 28, 2016 at 08:42:44AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
: The gemara in makot (15b-top) has an exchange between R'Yochanan and a
: Tanna (whose job it was to memorize tannaitic material)...

R' Yochanan was a first generation amorah. Being a talmid of Rebbe's since
before the closing of the mishnah. I think "tanna" still meant literally
"he who repeats" in that era, and only came to refer to the ones whose
words tended to be the things repeated much later.

...
: My other thought was that the tanna's transmission was true and it
: reflected the earlier generation's surety concerning the halacha in the
: endpoint cases, but lack of surety with the halacha in the in-between
: case and thus they recorded the agreed upon halachot and left the
: middle case unadjudicated. Perhaps R'Yochanan was saying it was time
: to finalize the adjudication according to his opinion. Thoughts?

Perhaps the most fundamental difference between the Bavli and the Y-mi
is that the Bavli is willing to interpolate what an earlier source would
have said, must have meant, etc... whereas the Y-mi would just leave such
questions unanswered. (Instead, Y-mi shaqla vetarya is about comparing
and ontrasting two dinim -- why does X hold here and not there? if X
holds there, we should assume it would work here too! and the like.)

We say that R' Yochanan and RL compiled the Y-mi, but if that were
true there would only be one generation of Israeli amoraim. Perhaps
they started the process of making a talmud, the way Abayei and Rava
started something which much later ended up R' Ashi and Ravina's Bavli
(which then got further editing...)

But in any case, if we use the Y-mi as an indicator of R Yochanan's style,
who would have cared more about preserving the mesorah, and quoting the
statement unmodified. I would therefore guess that if he is deciding
how the quote should be repeated, he isn't merely changing the din,
he is asserting that was how it was originally said.

It's a guess based on the feel of Israeli amoraic culture. Could well
be wrong.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When memories exceed dreams,
micha at aishdas.org        The end is near.
http://www.aishdas.org                   - Rav Moshe Sherer
Fax: (270) 514-1507