04 April 2011

Rabbinic Popularity in the Mishnah IV: סדר נזיקין

Continuing on the project I begun last week of counting up the most commonly appearing rabbis in the Mishnah (previously: סדר זרעים ,סדר מועד & סדר נשים), next up in the series is Seder Nezikin. Once again, unsurprisingly, Rabbi Yehudah is, again, the most commonly appearing rabbi within this seder. However, a caveat is in order: מסכת עדיות is rather anomalous, so I'm going to list the top ten without Eduyot and then the top ten with Eduyot (and I'm omitting Avot from this counting).
Top ten (without Eduyot):
1 - רבי יהודה
2 - חכמים
3 - רבי מאיר
4 - רבי שמעון
5 - רבי עקיבא
6 - רבן שמעון בן גמליאל
7 - רבי יוסי
8 - רבי אליעזר
9 - רבי ישמעאל
10 - רבן גמליאל

Now the top ten with Eduyot:
1 - חכמים
2 - רבי יהודה
3 - בית הלל
4 - בית שמאי
5 - רבי מאיר
6 - רבי עקיבא
7 - רבי שמעון
8 - רבי אליעזר
9 - רבן שמעון בן גמליאל
10 - רבי יוסי

Now the most appearances within each tractate:
בבא קמא - רבי יהודה
בבא מציעא - רבי יהודה
בבא בתרא - רבי יהודה
סנהדרין - רבי יהודה
מכות - רבי יהודה
שבועות - רבי מאיר
עדיות - בית הלל
עבודה זרה - חכמים
הוריות - רבי שמעון

2 comments:

Rabbi Y said...

R. Drew,
What do think the list signifies?
It reminds of Newsweek's 50 Most Influential American Rabbis.

Drew Kaplan said...

R'Y.,
I haven't fully wrestled with the significance question: it's something that's an ongoing question for me. I will say that I had expected the rabbis of the fifth generation (R' Yehudah, R' Shimon, etc.) to be mentioned more frequently than those of the fourth (R' Joshua, R' Akiva, etc.), and so on. It's certainly true so far that those from the 2nd c. get quoted more than, let's say the 1st c. rabbis, although the two "Houses" get a fair number of mentions.
I don't know what to say to your remark about Newsweek's top 50 Rabbis - I'll leave that comparison untouched....