25 July 2011

Rabbinic Popularity in the Tosefta I: סדר זרעים

Having gone through the entirety of the Mishnah and counting up how frequently various sages were mentioned, I decided I would turn my attention to the Tosefta and do similarly (both because of curiousity and because I had developed a nice system for it (creating grids and working פרק by פרק in tallying them up (yup, old-fashioned(!)))).
So, I started off with סדר זרעים and found that, once again, Rabbi Yehudah is the most frequently mentioned sage and that his colleagues are also up there (if you would like to compare/contrast this with the Mishnah, see here). This סדר also prominently featured the two houses along with the חכמים. However, Rabban Shimon, son of Gamliel featured much more prominently than he did in the Mishnah (and his primary בר פלוגתא, Rebbe). The special honorary mention goes to Rabbi Shimon, son of Elazar, who seemingly came out of nowhere and was pretty frequently mentioned - the twelfth most mentioned in this סדר (the 11th was Rabbi Akiva). Here is the top ten:

1 - רבי יהודה
2 - רבי יוסי
3 - רבן שמעון בן גמליאל
4 - רבי שמעון
5 - חכמים
6 - רבי מאיר
7 - רבי אליעזר
8 - בית הלל
9 - בית שמאי
10 - רבי

As to the most frequent mentions in each מסכתא, voila:
ברכות - רבי יהודה
פאה - רבי יהודה ורבי שמעון
דמאי - רבי יוסי
תרומות - רבי יהודה
שביעית - רבי יהודה
כלאים - רבי מאיר
מעשרות - חכמים
מעשר שני - בית חלל
חלה - חכמים
ערלה - רבי יהודה ורבי שמעון בן אלעזר
בכורים - רבי שמעוןLink

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