Lay people`s arguments and rabbis` responses in Bavli adjudication narratives

Narratives depicting exchanges between lay people and judges are common in the Babylonian Talmud, typically comprising only case details and the verdict. Some examples, however, portray petitioners and a judge in dialogue. Among them are depictions of total outsiders to the legal establishment using arguments and actions to sway the judge. In a minority of cases, these efforts work. Stylistically generic, the dramatic elements of these narratives have been overlooked, but literary analysis reveals drama and pathos in some examples. Adjudication narratives do not record how lay people actually spoke or acted. In fact, the voices of some petitioners are deliberately effaced or reframed into a case story formula. Yet the stories reflect attitudes towards non-experts by Amoraim and the editors of the Bavli and moreover, incorporate non- experts in the creation of legal norms and in the construction of legal authority.