"X Haynu Tanna Kamma": From Dialogue to Stock Formulation

The anonymous redactors of the Babylonian Talmud try to simulate dialogue by employing stock phrases that were lifted from what is presented as actual dialogue between amoraic colleagues or teachers and students. One example is the stock formulation X Haynu Tanna Kamma? Icha beinaihu….’ This phrase first appears in the Bavli within a discussion between the fourth-generation Babylonian amora Rava and his teacher R. Nahman, in which the student questions the logic of his master’s understanding of a Mishnah. The anonymous redactors subsequently employ this formula divorced from any dialogic context to the point that the very meaning of the phrase is denatured.