Originally published in Reuben Ahroni, ed., Hebrew Annual Review 7: Biblical and other studies in honor of Robert Gordis (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University, 1983), 137-49. Republished in L. Jacobs, Rabbinic thought in the Talmud (London; Portland, OR: Vallentine Mitchell, 2005), 55-67. Robert Gordis (1971. pp. 95-103) has demonstrated the use of the heptad…