Study Bekhorot folio 8B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
The Talmud responds: Is it written: Cursed are you from among all beasts, and from among all animals? No, it is written: “From among all animals, and from among all beasts,” meaning that it is cursed from among the livestock, which were cursed from among the undomesticated animals.
The Talmud challenges: Why must it mean that the snake was cursed more than the donkey in the same proportion that the donkey was cursed more than the cat? But say instead that just as the livestock were cursed more than the undomesticated animals by a measure of one to 3; the Talmud interjects: An
The Talmud answers: If you wish, say that it is written: “Cursed are you from among all animals,” including the most accursed of them, i.e., the donkey. If you wish, say instead that since it is a curse that the snake received here, the verse imposes upon it the most extreme curse that can be deri
§ With regard to the gestation time of a snake, the Talmud relates that the Roman emperor said to R' Yehoshua ben Ḥananya: In the case of a snake, after how long a period of gestation does it give birth? R' Yehoshua ben Ḥananya said to him: After 7 years. The emperor said to him: But the elders,
The emperor said to him: But how can you disagree with the rabbis of Athens? Aren’t they wise? R' Yehoshua ben Ḥananya responded: We are wiser than they. The emperor said: If you are wiser than they, then go defeat them in debate and bring them to me. R' Yehoshua said to him: How many are there?