“Designation is significant”: An Analysis of the Conceptual Sugya in bSan 47b–48b

Explicit rabbinic legal concepts and principles—notions such as “multiple causation is prohibited/permitted” (zeh ve-zeh gorem muttar/'asur), “retrospective determination of reality is/is not valid” (yesh/'ein bererah), and the like—occur frequently in the Babylonian Talmud (BT), especially in the later strata of that work. Most concepts and principles of this sort are applied to a case or two, although we sometimes find extended conceptual sugyot in BT that systematically analyze a particular legal principle. Such passages generally analyze a group of tannaitic sources in light of the specified principle, which is assumed to apply to all the cases cited; these cases may be adduced either to support or to refute the relevant principle.