Rav Shmuel bar Yehuda of Pumbedita רב שמואל בר יהודה מפומבדיתא

Rav Shmuel bar Yehuda is named in Rav Sherira's letter with his town given: Pumbedita. He died in Kislev 4267—that is, at the end of 506 by the common count, already in the new Hebrew year.

Pumbedita and Sura are the two academies between which the whole work of this age went on, and both will outlive it by more than four centuries. The Savoraim left behind neither books nor collections of rulings; after them one book remained—the Talmud—but in the very form in which it can be read straight through.

The lists of the Savoraim have come down in poor shape: Seder Tannaim veAmoraim and Ibn Daud's Sefer haKabbalah give the names in a different order and sometimes in a different set. All that is known of this age rests on a single letter of Rav Sherira, written half a thousand years later.