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The strong expression י אֵין לוֹ מוֹחַ בְּקׇדְקֳדוֹ by Reb yehudah haNasi to Levi, in the Gemara (9a) suggests that Levi asked Rebbe about the wording of the Mishnah, (where it should have numbered sixteen women, rather than fifteen who are prohibited for yibum, and who affect their co-wives, as well.)
Maharitz Chayes notes that Rebbe himself is the redactor of the Mishnah. This being the case, instead of speaking objectively about the Mishnah, we should have expected Levi to have spoken to Rebbe in first person and ask, “Why did you write in the Mishnah…”
Furthermore, the response of Rebbe in the Gemara reads “The Mishnah is not dealing with controversial cases.”
Again, here, Rebbe should have personally defended his choice of words and said, “I did not include controversial cases.”
he concludes that most of the text of the Mishnah predated Rebbe. Rebbe put the Mishnah in its final form and order, but the wording of most Mishnayos was not his.
We explore these claims and the critical “letter of Sherira gaon: that gives us a glimpse into the archeology of the Mishnah from a 10th century viewpoint.