Ravina רבינא
the last Amora, who sealed the Babylonian Talmud
Two sages bore the name Ravina: the elder, Rav Ashi's colleague in the work of redaction, and the younger, Ravina bar Rav Huna, who died around the year 4260. With him the Talmud's famous formula is connected: «Rav Ashi and Ravina are the end of instruction» — not the end of study, but the end of the time when a new opinion could enter the text itself.
His generation worked under pressure. The Sasanian kings tightened restrictions on Jewish courts, on study, on the Sabbath; the exilarch Mar Zutra was executed. The fear that the tradition might be cut off is what drove Rav Ashi's project to completion.
Ravina and his circle gave the Talmud its finished form: they fixed the order of discussions, added the connective and concluding language, and determined where a dispute remains open and where the law emerges. What had been the living speech of the study hall became a text.
After him came the Savoraim, who polished but no longer changed.