The sugya in Sanhedrin 10b–11a provides an excellent illustration of how the editors of the Babylonian Talmud used earlier materials for the shaping of a complete and contrived literary unit. First, we must present the brief sugya in translation with explanatory notes in parenthesis, and then attempt to analyse its literary structure.

The sugya in translation

The Rabbis taught: The year can only be intercalated [by adding an extra month] by those who are invited for the purpose. [The Nasi, president of the Supreme Court, must invite, on the previous day, those who are to participate.] The story is told of Rabban Gamaliel [the Nasi at the time] who declared: ‘Arrange for me [lit. ‘Let them rise early in the morning’] seven people to come to the upper storey’ [where the procedure was to be carried out]. He arose on the morrow [lit. ‘He arose early’] and found eight people there, whereupon he declared: ‘Let the person who has come up here without permission [i.e. uninvited] go down again.’ Samuel ha-Katan stood up, saying: ‘I am the person who has come up without permission, but I have not come to intercalate the year but to learn a practical law which I required.’ He [Rabban Gamaliel] said to him: ‘Sit my son, sit; every year can suitably be intercalated through you but the Sages have said: The year can only be intercalated by those who are invited for the purpose’ [i.e. and you, worthy though you are, have not been invited].