Study Berakhot folio 9A with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
The Talmud answers: No, there is no contradiction. Actually, the time just before sunrise is considered day and the fact that it is referred to here as night is because there are people who are still asleep at that time and, if the need arises, it can be characterized as beshokhbekha [when you lie
R' Aḥa, son of R' Ḥanina, said that R' Yehoshua ben Levi said: The halakha is in accordance with the opinion of R' Shimon who said it in the name of R' Akiva. R' Zeira said: As long as he will not recite: Help us lie down [hashkivenu] as well, after reciting the evening Shema before sunrise, as the
That is how the halakha was taught in the study hall. However, when Rav Yitzḥak bar Yosef came to Babylonia from Eretz Yisrael, where R' Yehoshua ben Levi lived, he said that this ruling that R' Aḥa, son of R' Ḥanina, said that R' Yehoshua ben Levi said, was not said explicitly by R' Yehoshua ben Le
The incident was as follows: This pair of rabbis got drunk at the wedding of R' Yehoshua ben Levi’s son and fell asleep before reciting the evening Shema. By the time they awoke, dawn had already passed. They came before R' Yehoshua ben Levi and asked him if they could still recite the evening Shema
The Mishnah relates that there was an incident where Rabban Gamliel’s sons returned very late from a wedding hall and they asked their father if they were permitted to recite Shema after midnight.