The study of the late antique Babylonian rabbis has undergone a scholarly revolution over the last fifty years. The medieval rabbinic chronographies, which constituted the primary source about the rabbinic past for over a millennium, are now approached with extreme caution and skepticism. The clearest impact of this methodological shift is the wide acceptance that the Babylonian rabbis of the Talmudic period were organized not within a few large academies, as they were described in medieval chronographies, but rather in smaller disciple circles assembled around a charismatic master. Little attention, however, has been devoted to better understanding the nature of these disciple circles. Instead, disciple circles are treated as primitive academies. Previous assumptions dependent on a more institutional understanding of the Amoraic period—what we might call proto-institutional assumptions—persist. This article explores how attention to the distinct dynamics of disciple circles outside of proto-institutional assumptions can offer a radically different image of the social historical context of the Talmudic-era rabbis. It examines the way the two early major Babylonian Amoraim, Rav and Shmuel, whom medieval rabbinic chronographies and modern scholars continue to credit with founding rabbinic academies in Sura and Nehardea, respectively, related to particular geographic locales and their authority—or lack thereof—over them. Comparing the image of Rav and Shmuel in the Amoraic and post-Amoraic material in the Talmud and in medieval chronographies reveals distinct stages in the way their relationship with geography was conceived, which, in turn, reflect three distinct stages in the development of the Babylonian rabbinic movement.

在过去的五十年里，对已故古代巴比伦拉比的研究经历了一场学术革命。中世纪的拉比编年史构成了一千多年拉比过去的主要来源，现在人们以极其谨慎和怀疑的态度来对待它。这种方法论转变的最明显影响是人们广泛接受塔木德时期的巴比伦拉比不是像中世纪编年史中描述的那样在几所大型学院内组织起来，而是在一个有超凡魅力的大师周围聚集的较小门徒圈子里组织起来。然而，很少有人关注更好地理解这些门徒圈子的性质。相反，弟子圈被视为原始书院。以前的假设依赖于对阿莫拉时期的更制度化的理解——我们可以称之为原始制度假设——仍然存在。本文探讨了对原始制度假设之外门徒圈子的独特动态的关注如何能够提供塔木德时代拉比的社会历史背景的截然不同的形象。它考察了两个早期主要的巴比伦 Amoraim，Rav 和 Shmuel，中世纪拉比编年史和现代学者继续相信他们分别在 Sura 和 Nehardea 建立了拉比学院，与特定的地理区域和他们的权威（或缺乏权威）有关他们。