I heard that Bava Basra is the longest masechta in blatt but Brochos is the longest mesechta in words. Did anyone else hear anything about that?
What most likely got this rumor started is that Brachos does have and lots of pages with minimal commentary. Brachos does in fact (according to my calculations) take the record for most Talmudic text per page.
words/daf | letters/daf | words | letters | daf | mesechta |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1,115.14 | 4,337.46 | 70,254 | 273,260 | 63 | ברכות |
975.11 | 3,786.44 | 26,328 | 102,234 | 27 | כריתות |
971.69 | 3,771.92 | 12,632 | 49,035 | 13 | הוריות |
933.52 | 3,718.42 | 28,939 | 115,271 | 31 | מגילה |
931.76 | 3,625.12 | 104,357 | 406,013 | 112 | סנהדרין |
889.70 | 3,536.23 | 26,691 | 106,087 | 30 | תענית |
805.50 | 3,204.36 | 22,554 | 89,722 | 28 | מועד קטן |
815.60 | 3,179.48 | 39,149 | 152,615 | 48 | סוטה |
751.97 | 2,972.61 | 24,815 | 98,096 | 33 | ערכין |
765.57 | 2,947.04 | 17,608 | 67,782 | 23 | מכות |
729.62 | 2,866.87 | 113,820 | 447,232 | 156 | שבת |
731.56 | 2,859.64 | 59,256 | 231,631 | 81 | קידושין |
712.81 | 2,827.15 | 18,533 | 73,506 | 26 | חגיגה |
715.04 | 2,800.14 | 84,375 | 330,417 | 118 | בבא מציעא |
711.64 | 2,782.31 | 83,973 | 328,313 | 118 | בבא קמא |
691.35 | 2,762.51 | 51,851 | 207,188 | 75 | עבודה זרה |
698.94 | 2,760.97 | 23,065 | 91,112 | 33 | תמורה |
696.08 | 2,738.49 | 50,118 | 197,171 | 72 | נידה |
698.23 | 2,729.91 | 84,486 | 330,319 | 121 | יבמות |
687.53 | 2,724.15 | 23,376 | 92,621 | 34 | ראש השנה |
686.13 | 2,704.34 | 82,335 | 324,521 | 120 | פסחים |
683.51 | 2,684.79 | 60,832 | 238,946 | 89 | גיטין |
676.45 | 2,668.62 | 40,587 | 160,117 | 60 | בכורות |
681.60 | 2,660.13 | 32,717 | 127,686 | 48 | שבועות |
671.59 | 2,648.57 | 73,203 | 288,694 | 109 | מנחות |
661.24 | 2,602.73 | 73,398 | 288,903 | 111 | כתובות |
657.24 | 2,592.09 | 57,180 | 225,512 | 87 | יומא |
646.52 | 2,540.40 | 67,238 | 264,202 | 104 | עירובין |
638.92 | 2,507.10 | 24,918 | 97,777 | 39 | ביצה |
635.14 | 2,494.26 | 89,555 | 351,691 | 141 | חולין |
587.31 | 2,323.16 | 32,302 | 127,774 | 55 | סוכה |
582.73 | 2,299.84 | 69,345 | 273,681 | 119 | זבחים |
512.22 | 2,049.89 | 4,610 | 18,449 | 9 | תמיד |
508.82 | 1,978.57 | 89,044 | 346,249 | 175 | בבא בתרא |
430.52 | 1,670.32 | 27,984 | 108,571 | 65 | נזיר |
384.00 | 1,535.95 | 8,064 | 32,255 | 21 | מעילה |
383.06 | 1,499.28 | 34,475 | 134,935 | 90 | נדרים |
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30Downloaded the texts from mechon mamre, and wrote a computer program to count everything. – Shalom Aug 27 '10 at 1:20
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@Shalom Can you add Shekalim (as printed in the Bavli) to the list? – Double AA♦ Oct 20 '13 at 16:37
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If you still have the code, could you post it somewhere (like a gist) for other people to see? – Scimonster Oct 18 '17 at 17:24
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2
No, Shabbos is the longest.
See the comments here: Shelosha Veshishim - mi yodeya?
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1So at least I'm not the only one who heard the debunked Brachos rumor ... I wonder where it came from. – Shalom Aug 26 '10 at 21:52
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1@Shalom They say it in the name of the Vilna Gaon, but I have no idea why. – Yehoshua Mar 12 '16 at 17:16
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@Shalom 1/2 While I’ve heard the rumor too for many years, with different names of masechtot and in the name of various people I’ve never seen a legitimate source from the VG. But supposing the rumor is true I wonder if a) the individual(s) who asserted so was simply wrong or b) the the computation of words yielded different totals; IOW, Rabbi X counted קמ״ל as three words (=קא משמע לן) whereas the computer counts it as one. Same goes for dozens of other acronyms. – Oliver Jan 27 at 13:36
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@Yehoshua 2/2 Furthermore, supposing the VG did assert so, I wonder (but doubt) if his emendations and the textual variants between the edition(s) he used (Amsterdam 1644 & Frankfurt on the Oder 1715) and the Mamre text (IIRC they use the Vilna ed.) could make up for the discrepancy. – Oliver Jan 27 at 14:05