"ההוא גברא דאפקיד כיפי גבי חבריה" (בבלי בבא מציעא לה ע"א): סיפור פשוט?

When Jonah Fraenkel revealed the thoroughgoing literary character of aggadic sage stories, he undermined the dominant scholarly assumption of the time which claimed that such stories were ornamented historical reports. However, Fraenkel also argued that, in contrast to aggadic stories, simple halakhic stories, which he believed were meant to faithfully recount legal precedents, underwent minimal literary editing. Fraenkel’s ultimate example of a simple halakhic story was the story of the precious jewels b. Bava Metzia 35a. By exploring the literary formation of this story, we hope to show that Fraenkel’s quintessential example of a halakhic story not only underwent a significant and creative process of literary editing but also was designed to play an interpretive role in the context of its talmudic sugya. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]