1. The text is from the CD ROM of the Sol and Evelyn Henkind Talmud Text Databank of the Saul Lieberman Institute of Talmudic Research, version 5. Emendations based on the other manuscripts are set in angled brackets.

2. For a complete listing of variants, see Yonatan Feintuch, “Ma‘asei ḥakhamim ve-ha-sugiyot ha-mekhilim ’otam be-bava batra perakim 'aleph-gimel” (MA thesis, Bar-Ilan University, 2004), 14–17; Feintuch, “External Appearance versus Internal Truth: The Aggadah of Herod in Bavli Bava Batra,” AJS Review 35, no. 1 (2011): 86–91Google Scholar.

3. So MSS Escorial and Paris, and the printings. Omitted in MSS Munich, Florence, and Vatican.

4. The meaning of this last line is not completely clear, in part because of the difficulty of understanding the word kalanya here. Feintuch, “External Appearance,” 90, translates: “Though your weapon is on you, your genealogical record, however, is here in our archives, in which it can be seen that you are not a king [rekha], nor a descendant of a king. (It is recorded): ‘Herod, the servant, has made himself free.’”

5. Feintuch, “External Appearance,” who also deals with the complex question of the contextualization of the story at the beginning of tractate Bava Batra. See too Feintuch, “Ma‘asei ḥakhamim,” 14–32; Halevy, A. A., Sha‘arei ha-’aggadah (Tel Aviv: Guttenberg, 1963), 180–90Google Scholar; Kalmin, Richard, Jewish Babylonia between Persia and Roman Palestine (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 50–53Google Scholar.

6. Halevy, Sha‘arei ha-’aggadah, 180.

7. Cf. Bamidbar Rabbah 14:8: “…the Temple Herod built, built by a sinful king, and its building was atonement (kapparah) for killing the sages.”

8. On the motifs of sight and hearing see Feintuch, “External Appearance,” 98–100.

9. E.g. Ilan, Tal, Mine and Yours Are Hers: Retrieving Women's History from Rabbinic Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 153Google Scholar. After quoting the beginning of the story, Ilan comments: “With the exception of one scholar, all agree that this is the talmudic version of the complex and tragic marriage between Herod and the Hasmonean princess Mariamme, which is described in great detail by Josephus.” Ilan even goes so far as to suggest that since Josephus describes Herod crying out for Mariamme and “uttering unseemly laments” (Ant. 15.240–2), then “why not imagine further, that Herod refused to part with Mariamme, and thus had her body preserved so that he could gaze upon her. And if that were so, perhaps he also violated the corpse, or perhaps rumor had it that he did.” This attempt at “reading-in” is extreme, but illustrates the general scholarly tendency to read the two stories in light of one another.

10. Schwartz, Daniel R., “Herod in Ancient Jewish Literature,” in The World of the Herods, ed. Kokkinos, Nikos (Stuttgart: Fran Steiner, 2007), 48Google Scholar.

11. Schwartz, “Herod in Ancient Jewish Literature,” 49.

12. I am grateful to the anonymous reader for pointing this out.

13. Yassif, Eli, The Hebrew Folktale: History, Genre, Meaning (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 141–42Google Scholar. Yassif's mention of the suicide among the items containing a “grain of truth” is puzzling. Neither Josephus, nor other historians to the best of my knowledge, claim Mariamme committed suicide.

14. Halevy, Sha‘arei ha-’aggadah, 180.

15. Herodotus, Histories, 1:198; Epstein, Jacob Nahum, Mavo le-sifrut ha-'amoraim (Jerusalem: Magnes; Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1962), 198Google Scholar. However, Halevy, Sha‘arei ha-’aggadah, 181 n. 6, quotes other classical authors and claims that burial in honey or wax in order to preserve the body was found elsewhere too. He also notes that Josephus mentions that the body of Aristobolus II was preserved in honey (Ant. 14.124; a datum often mentioned by scholars who argue the Bavli story is indebted to Josephus). On burial in honey in antiquity, see also Budge, Wallis E., A History of Egypt from the End of the Neolithic Period to the Death of Cleopatra VII (London: Kegan Paul, 1902), 155Google Scholar; Crane, Eva, The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting (New York: Routledge, 1999), 538–39Google Scholar.

16. Herodotus, Histories, 1:140; see Morley, Margaret Warner, The Honey-makers (reprint, Chicago: A.C. McClurg, 1899), 257Google Scholar.

17. The Latin (?) terms, rekha = rex, king, and kalanya = colonia, freeman, in the Romans' rebuke should not be taken as evidence of the story's origin in the classical world rather than in Babylonia. The etymology of rekha is disputed: Sokoloff, Michael, A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic (Ramat-Gan; Baltimore: Bar Ilan University Press; Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 1084Google Scholar, states that the etymology is unknown. Jastrow, Marcus, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli, and Yerushalmi and the Midrashic Literature (reprint, New York: Jastrow Publishers, 1967), 1474Google Scholar, gives a Hebrew etymology (granted that Jastrow's semiticizing bias is well known). Krauss, Samuel, Griechische und Lateinische Lëhnworter im Talmud, Midrasch und Targum (1898–99; reprint, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1964), 579Google Scholar, in fact derives it from the Persian aryaka, as does Epstein, Mavo le-sifrut ha-'amoraim, 199; but see Bernhard Geiger's note to Krauss, Samuel, Tosafot he-'arukh ha-shalem (New York: Pardes, 1937), 383Google Scholar. Because Targum Onkelos, as the Talmud itself notes (section a') translates ‘avrekh (Genesis 41:43) as “father of the king” ‘’abba de-malka’), the meaning was available to the Bavli storytellers. They created verisimilitude by attributing a foreign-sounding term to the Romans, rather than having the Romans use the word malka or suchlike. And even if we do take it as a transliteration of the Latin rex, this word was probably so commonly known that it is no surprise that Bavli storytellers would have employed it in fictive Roman speech. The term kalanya appears elsewhere in the Bavli (B. Sukkah 45a, B. Avodah Zarah 10a; though with slightly different meaning), and was therefore also available to Bavli storytellers.

18. I have used the edition of Grenet, Frantz, La Geste D'Ardashir Fils de Pâbag: Kārnāmag ī Ardaxšēr ī Pābagān (Die: Editions A. Die, 2003)Google Scholar, and the English translation of Asha, Rahm, The Book of the Acts of Ardashir Son of Pabag: karnamag i ardasir i pabagan. Text, Transcription and Translation (Vincennes: Irman, 1999)Google Scholar. For other translations see Herman, Geoffrey, “Ahasuerus, the Former Stable Master of Belshazzar and the Wicked Alexander of Macedon: Two Parallels between the Babylonian Talmud and Persian Sources,” AJS Review 29, no. 2 (2005): 288Google Scholar n. 29.

19. Christensen, Arthur, L'Iran sous les Sassanides (Copenhagen: E. Munksgaard, 1944), 58Google Scholar; Wiesehofer, Josef, Ancient Persia from 550 BC to 650 AD, trans. Azodi, A. (London: I.B. Tauris, 1999), 167–68Google Scholar.

20. On the Xwaday-namag, see Yarshater, Ehsan, “Iranian National History,” in The Cambridge History of Iran, ed. Yarashater, Ehsan, vol. 3 (1) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 359–62, 393–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Christensen, Arthur, Les gestes des rois dans les traditions de l'Iran antique (Paris: Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1936), 59–62Google Scholar; Shahbazi, Shahpur, “On the Xwaday-Namag,” Acta Iranica: Papers in Honor of Professor Ehsan Yarshater 16 (1990): 218–33Google Scholar. Howard-Johnston, James, “State and Society in Late Antique Iran,” in The Sasanian Era, ed. Curtis, Vesta S. and Stewart, Sarah, vol. 3, The Idea of Iran (London: I. B. Tauris, 2008), 119Google Scholar, suggests that it may have been “revised and extended” under Kosrow II (590–628) and Yazdgard III (633–651). A version of the Xwaday-namag also reached the Byzantine author Agathias Scholasticus. See Cameron, Averil, “Agathias on the Sassanians,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 22–23 (1969–70), 69Google Scholar.

21. Translation from The History of al-Tabari, vol. 5, The Sasanids, the Byzantines, the Lakhmids, and Yemen, trans. Bosworth, Clifford E. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999)Google Scholar. For other Muslim historians who relate traditions of Ardashir's ascent to power, see Herman, “Ahasuerus, the Former Stable Master of Belshazzar,” 289 n. 34.

22. Translation from Ferdowsi, Abolqasem, Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings, trans. Davis, Dick (New York: Penguin, 2006)Google Scholar. I have also consulted the French translation of Le Livre des Rois, trans. Mohl, Juhl (1866; reprint, Paris: Jean Maisonneuve, 1957)Google Scholar. On the utility of Ferdowsi for Sasanian history and his use of the Xwaday-Namag, see Pourshariati, Parvaneh, Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2008), 14–15, 461–62Google Scholar; Wisehoefer, Ancient Persia, 225.

23. The Karnamag claims that Sasan was a descendant of Daray son of Daray (probably the Achaemenid Darius III). Tabari gives two genealogies that reach back to the Kayanid kings; see Bosworth, trans., The History of al-Tabari, 3.

24. The time span of three days varies among the versions. In the Shahnameh, the astrologers state: “A servant who was valiant and of noble birth would flee from his court, and this man would become a great king, a ruler of the world, powerful and blessed by the stars” (Davis, trans., Shahnameh, 535; Mohl, trans., Le Livre des Rois, 5:285). In the version of the Arab historian Al-Tha'alibi, it is one week (Al-Tha'alibi, Histoire des Rois des Perses, trans. Zotenberg, Hermann [Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1900], 477Google Scholar.) In the Greek additions to the Armenian historian Agathangelos, History of the Armenians, 3–9, Ardawan himself observes the stars and tells his wife, “I observed the course of a star and I have inferred today the following, that if someone wished to rebel against his own master and to make war upon him, on the present occasion he would win and his master be defeated,” and the maidservant subsequently tells Ardashir, “For the king has seen the course of the stars and said, ‘Now a slave working against his master gains the victory upon the present occasion.’” See Lafontaine, Guy, La Version grecque ancienne du livre arménien d'Agathange (Louvain: Peeters Lafontaine, 1973), 173–77Google Scholar; translation from Dodgeon and Lieu, The Roman Frontier, 9. On this version, see Muradyan, Gohar, and Topchyan, Aram, “The Romance of Artaban and Artasir in Agathangelos's History,” e-Sasanika 4 (2008)Google Scholarhttp://www.humanities.uci.edu/sasanika/pdf/eSasanika4-topchyan.pdf.

25. Grenet, La Geste D'Ardashir, 66.

26. The connection between the opening of the Herod narrative and this tradition of the Karnamag was noted by Geoffrey Herman in a lecture presented at Bar-Ilan University in November, 2004. That we came to this conclusion independently supports the contention that the rabbinic account was patterned upon the Sasanian tradition.

27. Herman, “Ahasuerus, the Former Stable Master,” 288–92.

28. Davis, trans., Shahnameh, 256.

29. George Pisida, Heracliados II.173–177; see Pertusi, Agostino, Georgio di Pisidio i. Panegirici epici (Ettal: Buch-Kunstverlag, 1959), 259Google Scholar. English translation from Dodgeon and Lieu, The Roman Frontier, 12. However, tein tuxein, translated as “by station,” probably an accusative of respect, can simply mean “by fortune” or “by happenstance,” i.e., who happened to be a slave. Migne, J. P., “Heracliados, Acr. II,” Patrologia Graeca 92 (Paris, 1875): 1328Google Scholar, offers: “Quippe Artasarem, quie fuit servus origine, per vim atque audacium ferunt stricte ense, ab eius, cui suberant, potestate Parthis abductis ad servilem, quem arripit, thronum, rursus in malis locasse thronum Persidis.” In the Greek additions to Agathangelos, Artavan tells Ardashir that “it would be much more preferable for him to die than to concede his kingdom to Artasiras (=Ardashir), who was slave.” (Translation from Muradyan and Topchyan, “The Romance of Artaban and Artasir,” reconstructed from later witnesses.)

30. “A certain Persian called Artaxares (=Ardashir), at first obscure (adoxos) and undistinguished (aphanestatos), but able and energetic all the same, and good at instigating disturbance, gathered together a band of fellow conspirators and made an attack, killing the king, Artabanus (=Ardawan).” Section 122B, cited from Cameron, “Agathias on the Sassanians,” 86, 156. Cf. 124B: “It is said that Artaxares' mother was married to a certain Pabak, who was quite obscure (pantapasi men aseimotato), a leather worker by trade, but very learned in astrology and easily able to discern the future.”

31. Christensen, Les gestes des rois, 81. See too, Cameron, “Agathias on the Sassanians,” 107–09: “Agathias is here reflecting the popular tradition about Ardasher, which emphasized his lowly origins.… The Khvadhaynamagh version, on the other hand, traced his descent to the Avesta saga-kings and the Achaemenid dynasty.” And see Herman, “Ahasuerus, the Former Stable Master of Belshazzar,” 289 n. 35.

32. The traditions of King Agrippa, a descendant of Herod, weeping upon reading the Deuteronomic passage about the laws of the king, only to be reassured by the people “You are our brother,” suggest there was some suspicion of Agrippa's yiḥus, which could be related to that of his ancestor Herod (M. Sotah 7:8 and elsewhere). However, there need be no necessary connection between the genealogical status of Agrippa and Herod, as the relevant factor for each, in the rabbinic view (at least what emerges as the rabbinic view), would have been the status of the mother (cf. the commentaries to M. Sotah 7:8, and Tosafot, B. Bava Batra 3b, s.v. kol). Josephus himself considered Herod to be Jewish; see Cohen, Shaye J.D., The Beginnings of Jewishness (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 13–24Google Scholar; Baumgarten, Albert, “Kesheirutam shel hurdos u-vnei beito ke-malkhei yisra'el,” in Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple, Mishna and Talmud Period: Studies in Honor of Shmuel Safrai, ed. Gafni, Isaiah, et al. (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi, 1993), 31–37Google Scholar. However, since Josephus relates that Herod's mother was an Arab, a rabbinic reading of Josephus would deem Herod a gentile (though not necessarily a slave). The crucial question is what the sages knew of Herod's parentage. Note that Rabbenu Gershom, to B. Bava Batra 3b, relates that Hyrkanos, Herod's father (!), married a “captive woman” after one of his successful campaigns against the Romans (!), and Herod descended from this union, inheriting the status of slave from the mother. (So the version included in the Vilna printing of the Talmud. In a version published from a manuscript, Peirush Rabbenu Gershom ha-shalem ‘al masekhet bava batra, ed. Leitner, Tzvi [Jerusalem, 1998], 8Google Scholar, the claim is that, although the “captive woman” became Jewish in the appropriate way, people insulted Herod by recalling his provenance. I am grateful to Yehoshua Rabinowitz for referring me to the manuscript version.) This effort to explain why the Bavli calls Herod a slave suggests to me that rabbinic tradition (at least the tradition Rabbenu Gershom inherited) did not know of Josephus's account of Herod's ancestry. Evidence from the medieval Sefer Yosifon suggests the same; the author calls Herod “a slave/servant of our house” (‘eved beiteinu, chap. 43:147). See Sefer Yosiphon, ed. Flusser, David (Jerusalem: Bialik, 1978)Google Scholar, 1:190, 2:115.

33. I have not carried out a comprehensive study of variants of bat kol/kala and kol/kala, but a check of a few instantiations suggests that such variants are rare. T. Sotah 13:5–6 reports of occasions when Yoḥanan the High Priest and Simon the Righteous heard a word/speech (davar) from the Holy of Holies, which becomes a kol in MS Munich and Vatican of B. Sotah 33a, and a bat kol in the Vilna printing, and also a bat kol in Y. Sotah 9:14 (24b) (I thank the anonymous reviewer for this reference.) In B. Bava Meẓia 84b, MSS Escorial, Hamburg, Vatican, and Munich 95 read kala, while Florence reads bat kala. However this kala is the voice that emanates from the upper story where R. Eleazar b. R. Shimon's corpse remained unburied for years. Hence it is not the typical heavenly bat kol, and here too the original reading of kol seems to have been changed by the scribe of MS Florence to bat kol. See too Lindbeck, Kristen, Elijah and the Rabbis: Story and Theology (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 58–59Google Scholar.

34. To cope with this difficulty, the commentary ‘Iyyun ya‘akov, in ‘Ein ya‘akov, ad loc., suggests that Herod alone heard the bat kol, and it was directed to him alone. But the text reads “Any slave” (kol ‘avda).

35. Naḥmanides to Genesis 49:10 explains that the Hasmonean dynasty was punished and replaced because they too were illegitimate rulers, as a legitimate monarch must be a member of the tribe of Judah and House of David. Of course this explanation raises the question of why Herod received divine favor to succeed them; see Abudarham, David, Sefer Abudarham ha-shalem (Jerusalem: Usha, 1963), 201Google Scholar.

36. If the term kala is synonymous with bat kala, we are back to the questions above.

37. These readings are mentioned in Rabbinovicz, Raphael, Dikdukei soferim (reprint, New York, 1960)Google Scholar, to B. Bava Batra 3b, n. resh. See too Haggadot ha-talmud (Jerusalem, 1961 [Constantinople, 1511]), 88bGoogle Scholar. This reading was clearly in the manuscript of the author, as he glosses kalda'i with “those who gaze upon the stars” (שמע לכלדאי פי' החוזים בכוכבים). I have not yet tracked down the Yalkut reading myself. Rabbinovicz refers to a manuscript of Yalkut Shim‘oni to Haggai. (Printings, including the first printing [Salonika, 1526], lack the text of the story here.) He does not say which manuscript, but apparently he means Parma codex 1172, as Hyman, Aharon, Mekorot yalkut shimoni (Jerusalem: Rav Kook, 1965), 2:xxivGoogle Scholar, mentions that the Parma manuscript adds two traditions at the end of Haggai, after paragraph 568, which do not appear in the printings (see too Hyman's comments, pp. 5–6). On this manuscript, see Lauterbach, Jacob Z., “The Yalkut Ha-Makhiri on Hosea and Michah,” in Occident and Orient: Moses Gaster Anniversary Volume, ed. Schindler, Bruno (London: Taylor and Sons, 1936), 368Google Scholar.

38. Wald, Stephen, Perek ’elu ‘ovrin: bavli pesaḥim: perek shlishi (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 2000), 358Google Scholar, Sabato, Mordekhai, Ketav-yad temani le-masekhet Sanhedrin (bavli) u-mekomo be-masoret ha-nusaḥ (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 1998), 13Google Scholar.

39. Rubenstein, Jeffrey L., “Talmudic Astrology: Bavli Šabbat 156a-b,” HUCA 78 (2007): 137–66Google Scholar.

40. Epstein, Mavo le-sifrut ha-’amoraim, 198.

41. It is also possible that the version in Haggadot ha-talmud represents an effort to interpret and clarify the vague kala or the ha-hu gavra of the manuscripts. If so, I think the scribe accurately explicated the story!

42. A similar account of the flight of two sons to India and attempt at poisoning appears in Shahnameh; see Davis, trans., Shahnameh, 541–42, 554–57. Dio Cassius, Roman History, 80.3.1–2, mentions that Ardashir fought three battles against the Parthians and killed the king, Artabus. A rock relief at Naqsh-e Rustam shows Ardashir on his horse standing over Ardawan's corpse; see Christensen, L'Iran sous les Sassanides, 91.

43. Bosworth, trans., The History of al-Tabari, 23–24. However, see Yarshater, “Iranian National History,” 476–77, who suggests that Tabari's account of Ardashir's early career may not have derived from the Xwaday-namag.

44. On the female relative of Ardawan, see Christensen, L'Iran sous les Sassanides, 88–89; Yarshater, “Iranian National History,” 380; and see Browne, Edward G., “Some Account of the Arabic Work Entitled ‘Nihayatu ’l-irab fi akhbari 'l-Furs wa 'l-‘Arab,’ Particularly of that Part which Treats of the Persian Kings,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1900): 218Google Scholar, where she is a cousin.

45. Davis, trans., Shahnameh, 542.

46. Davis, trans., Shahnameh, 556–560.

47. Bosworth, trans., The History of al-Tabari, 24–25.

48. The rabbinic uses and inversions of the Sasanian accounts lend themselves to analysis in terms of James C. Scott's notion of “hidden transcripts” in Domination and the Arts of Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990)Google Scholar, but this is not the forum for such an endeavor.

49. De Jong, Albert, “Sub Specie Maiestatis: Reflections on Sasanian Court Rituals,” in Zoroastrian Ritual in Context, ed. Stausberg, Michael (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 345–49Google Scholar; Choksy, Jamsheed K., “Sacral Kingship in Sasanian Iran,” Bulletin of the Asia Institute 2 (1988): 36–40Google Scholar.

50. Asha, Acts of Ardashir son of Pabag, 27.

51. Asha, Acts of Ardashir son of Pabag, 29.

52. Karnamag, chapter 9 (Asha, Acts of Ardashir son of Pabag, 43): “Ardashir ordered to dig out and destroy the castle. He founded there a district called Kujaran. He established there a Victorious Fire (temple)”; and chapter 11 (p. 52): “He ordered to set up on the same place a city called Valas-sabuhr, and established ten Victorious Fires there, and sent immense property and wealth to the House of the sacred Fire.…”

53. Also parallel in Tha'alibi. de Mensace, J.P.. “Zoroastrian Pahlavi Writings,” in Cambridge History of Iran, ed. Yar-Shater, Ehsan, vol. 3 (2) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 188Google Scholar, describes the Karnamag as presenting Ardashir as a “king who gains his kingdom at the point of the sword, and establishes cities and sacred fires.” See too Christensen, L'Iran sous les Sassanides, 96.

54. Bosworth, trans., The History of al-Tabari, 11.

55. The crown of hedgehog or lizard skin is clearly a means of humiliation, like Jesus's crown of thorns. The motif is not common, but neither does it seem that the storyteller intended to play on the figure of Jesus.

56. Asha, The Acts of Ardashir, 51.

57. Asha, The Acts of Ardashir, 53.

58. See the passage from Bamidbar Rabbah 14:8.

59. Asha, The Acts of Ardashir, 53–54.

60. Asha, The Acts of Ardashir, 54–55.

61. The parallel in the late midrash, Yalkut Shim‘oni #913, clearly derives from the Bavli.

62. On this story see Hezser, Catherine “‘The Slave of a Scholar is Like a Scholar’: Stories about Rabbis and Their Slaves in the Babylonian Talmud,” in Creation and Composition, ed. Rubenstein, Jeffrey L. (Tuebingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2005), 190–96Google Scholar; Kalmin, Richard, Sages, Stories, Authors, and Editors in Rabbinic Babylonia (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994), 52–65Google Scholar; Kalmin, Richard, “Genealogy and Polemics in Literature of Late Antiquity,” HUCA 67 (1996): 77–94Google Scholar. Vidas, Moulie, “The Bavli's Discussion of Genealogy in Qiddushin IV,” in Antiquity in Antiquity, ed. Gardner, Gregg and Osterloh, Kevin (Tuebingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 306–26Google Scholar.

63. So MSS Escorial and Paris, and the printings. Omitted in MSS Munich, Florence, and Vatican.

64. Kalmin, Sages, Stories, Authors, and Editors, 65: “The story portrays an attempt by rabbis to discredit self-proclaimed Hasmoneans in Amoraic Babylonia.” Cf. Vidas, “The Bavli's Discussion of Genealogy,” 312–13: “The instruction concerning Hasmonean descent should probably be read not just in terms of a rabbinic assertion regarding the historical house of the Maccabees (though it was certainly understood to be so later), but also as targeting genealogical boasting by honor-seeking or match-seeking Jews who affiliated themselves with the Jewish royal house in order to boost their genealogical status.”

65. Geoffrey Herman, “Ha-kohanim be-bavel bi-tekufat ha-talmud” (Master's thesis, Hebrew University, 1981), 85–90.

66. This baraita has no parallels, though the first clause appears verbatim in M. Sukkah 5:2. That Rava's name is omitted in most manuscripts of B. Bava Batra 4a (section [D]), also suggests that B. Sukkah 51b is the original, and the name was omitted when the section was transferred to B. Bava Batra 4a.

67. It is possible that the storytellers in B. Bava Batra 4a are responsible for adding section E, which contributes to the theme that the sages, rather than Herod, deserve credit for the temple, and this section was subsequently transferred back to B. Sukkah 51b. But it is probably less risky to take section E as part of the original tradition in B. Sukkah 51b, and simply a product of a more general (anachronistic) tendency to see the sages in control of Jewish institutions throughout the ages.

68. There may be a loose parallel in Bava b. Buta's mention of the year it takes for a messenger to reach Rome and a year to return, to the account of Ravina waiting for one year for a caravan to go to Be Hozai and one year for it to return (in the context of seizing a debtor's property), B. Bava Kamma 112b. But the formulations do not have enough language in common to suggest direct dependence. See too the account of R. Huna b. Natan in B. Baba Batra 74b. The exegesis of Deuteronomy 17:15 in terms of a Jewish king (and other leaders), which Herod attributes to the sages, appears elsewhere in the Bavli (B. Yevamot 45b and 102a, B. Kiddusin 76b, and especially B. Bava Kamma 88a). But again the storytellers do not seem to have drawn directly from these passages, and the exegesis appears to be early; see Sifre Devarim, Shoftim, pis.157 to Deuteronomy 17:15 (ed. Finkelstein, p. 208).

69. Rubenstein, Jeffrey L., Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 258–59Google Scholar; Rubenstein, Jeffrey L., Stories of the Babylonian Talmud (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 209–28Google Scholar.

70. Feintuch, “External Appearance,” 94.