Study Bekhorot folio 50A with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
R' Yoḥanan says: If one wishes to know how much to give for the redemption of the firstborn son, take the worn-out gold dinars of Hadrian and Trajan, which are sold at 25 dinars, and deduct from them 1/6th. And these that remain are the 5 sela that one must give for the redemption of the firstborn
Rather, deduct 1/6th and another dinar, and these that are left are for the redemption of the firstborn son. The Talmud challenges: But the calculation is still inexact, as this sum is 20 dinars less 1/6th of a dinar. Rather, first deduct one dinar, and from the remainder, i.e., 24 dinars, deduct
§ Rava says: The biblical sela coins, i.e., the shekels that must be given for the redemption of the firstborn son, are each 3⅓ dinars in weight, not 4 dinars. As it is written: “The shekel is 20 gera” (Exodus 30:13), and we translate “20 gera” as 20 ma’a. And it is taught in a baraita: 6 silver ma’
The Talmud raises an objection from a baraita, which discusses the halakha of one who redeems an ancestral field from the Temple treasury. The Torah states that one who consecrates his field in the Jubilee year gives as its redemption, for each of the upcoming 49 years, 50 sela for each area fit for
The baraita explains: This pundeyon, what is its function? It is a premium [kilbon] for exchanging the sela into pundeyon. In any case, this baraita teaches that there are 48 pundeyon in the sela of the Torah, which is 24 ma’a. This contradicts the statement of Rava, who said that the sela of the T