Nazir

THE BACKBONE AND THE SKULL: The question was propounded: Does the Mishnah say the backbone and the skull,  or does it say perhaps the backbone or the skull?  — Raba replied: Come and hear: A backbone that has been stripped of most of its ribs  is clean,  but if it is in the grave, even though it is broken in pieces or separated [into parts], it is unclean,  because of the grave.  Now the reason [that the backbone is clean] is that it has been stripped, but if it were not stripped, it would be unclean,  and so may we [not] infer from this that the correct reading is, either the backbone or the skull? — Does it say, 'But if etc.'?  What we are told is that when [the backbone is] stripped, it is clean;  but the other case  still remains doubtful. Come and hear: R. Judah says: Six things were declared unclean by R. Akiba and clean by the Sages, and R. Akiba retracted his opinion. It is related that a basket full of [human] bones was taken into the Synagogue of the Tarsians  and placed in the open air.  Then Theodos, the Physician, together with all the physicians, entered, and said that there was not the backbone of a single corpse there.  The reason [that it was declared clean] is that there was not a backbone from a single [corpse], but had there been either a backbone or a skull from a single [corpse],  a nazirite would have been required to poll because of it, whence it follows that we read in our Mishnah, either the backbone or the skull? The case was put strongly. Not only was there not the backbone and skull of a single corpse, but there was not even the backbone of a single corpse or the skull of a single corpse. Judge  from the enumeration [of the six things]: And what are the six things that R. Akiba declared unclean and the Sages clean? A limb set up  from two corpses, a limb set up [from bones sever ed] from two living men, and a half-kab of bones taken from two corpses, a quarter [log] of blood taken from two [corpses], a barleycorn's bulk of bone broken into two parts, the backbone and the skull.