ABSTRACT
Yet in ’Abbayē’s time there was current the principle, formulated in Pumpeditha, 1 1 0 that a text cannot be distorted from the meaning of its ‘peshaṭ’ (וטושפ ידימ אצוי ארקמ ןיא). This formula, which apparently occurs
in the Babylonian Talmud only, seems to have been employed to counter exorbitant deductions from identity or close analogy of expression (geze rah shawah); 1 1 1 it constitutes a via media between the extravagant lengths to which verbal analogy might be pressed, and ’Abbayē’s principle (cf. supra p. 162) that the richness of scriptural meaning contains no superfluities, so that convergent results deduced from discrete texts can only have been arrived at improperly. 1 1 2 We find i t applied with regard to two incompatible expressions of opinion on the part of R. ‘Aqiba 1 1 3
regarding compensation payable in the case of an unbetrothed virgin who is seduced. The Biblical texts 1 1 4 do not further particularise the marital state of the victim (השרא אל רשא) , and the Mishnah 1 1 5 raises the question of a victim whose betrothal had been previously terminated.
