AḤADBOI B. MATNAH:
By: S. Mendelsohn
Babylonian amora of the fourth generation, and contemporary of Raba b. Joseph (Shab. 24a, 60b). His sister, being ill, willed her belongings to a brother, Rab Tobi, it being customary to give a learned heir the preference over one unlearned. Aḥadboi represented to her that the world would say, "That one is a learned man; this one [himself] is not!" So the sister altered the will in his favor. The story ends with the statement that a lawsuit followed, and Rab Naḥman decided that as the testatrix, in the event of her recovery, would have had the right to annul her will, she had also the right to change it during her illness; hence, Aḥadboi was declared the legitimate heir (B. B. 151a).
