#talmud asks

Not necessarily. He may or may not have just raped that man. And he also went to the bull after he slept with this guy's wife and an engaged woman. I think he might just be a sex pest.

Allow me to start by taking this ask apart a bit. Firstly, you sent it to me. I sadly have two flaws that stand in the way of answering it. Firstly, I sadly didn't study the entire Talmud yet. This isn't a fact I'm proud of, and I really should get around to fix it. Due to that, I don't know every argument in the Talmud and can't judge with certainty which are the funniest. Thus, let as assume חסורי מיחסרא, this question is lacking a part, and should be phrased "funniest talmud argument you know tier list???" But there still is the second problem, that I don't exactly have a good sense of humor and don't tend to find Talmudic arguments very funny upon first reading - though I can see it when other people point out something funny. Which would make it kind of hard for me to make a tier list, but not impossible, I suppose.

Now that we handled these two points, let's get to the body of the question. You see, the problem is "argument" has two meanings that can be applied to things appearing in the Talmud. The definitions provided hence ate taken from Merriam-Webster: the act or process of arguing, reasoning, or discussing; or a reason given for or against a matter under discussion. Now, the second meaning exists within a subset of the other, as it were - the Talmudic discussion is an argument, in which various Amora’im give their reasoning, their arguments, on the matter at hand. This distinction os important, because a piece of reasoning can be funny while the discussion it's a part of is not - though a discussion that is funny is likely to have funny reasonings as well.

A tier list is another problem. While its definition is clear enough, it essentially asks me to not only take the Talmudic arguments that are funny and list them, but also order them according to which one is funnier. This presents a problem to me due to the humor issue I pointed out earlier. However, I can still try - though it might be more of a list than a tier list. And whether or not it's funny is very subjective.

Let's start with the classic: rabbi Yirmiyah asked Rabbi Zeira whether, since rabbi Me’ir considers an embryo shaped like an animal in the womb as a child, what if it's a girl and her father received and accepted an engagement offering for her? It matters because maybe the guy will want to marry her sisters or something. This is a classic because the Talmud itself calls it ridiculous and said that Rabbi Yirmiyah went this far to try and make Rabbi Zeira laugh, but even that didn't work. Now, this is technically a question and not an argument of any sort. But in theory it could be one of the reasoning sort - according to rabbi Me’ir, in such a case the engagement holds because the child is considered a functional child. I don't know how to rate it, maybe somewhere around 6/10 because it barely qualifies as an argument. You tell me if it's funny.

בעא מיניה רבי ירמיה מר' זירא לר"מ דאמר בהמה במעי אשה ולד מעליא הוא קבל בה אביה קידושין מהו למאי נפקא מינה לאיתסורי באחותה למימרא דחיי והאמר רב יהודה אמר רב לא אמרה ר"מ אלא הואיל ובמינו מתקיים אמא רב אחא בר יעקב עד כאן הביאו רבי ירמיה לר' זירא לידי גיחוך ולא גחיך

נידה דף כג./BT Niddah 23A

Next up: whodonit Amora’ic version. So, there was this guy, rav Ada bar Aba. He was a student of Rava's, and he died. The following events are preceding his death: Rav Dimmi of Neharde‘a was bringing dried figs to Pumbedita, so Resh Galuta told Rava to check if this rav Dimmi guy is a Torah student, because part of the laws for respecting Torah students is holding the market for them, meaning closing the competition for the duration of their stay and sales. Rava sends rav Ada bar Aba to the ship, and he asks rav Dimmi: say an elephant swallowed an egyptian straw basket, and it came out the other hand. Is this basket Tahor? Rav Dimmi has no idea, so he asks him if he's Rava (since he didn't have a portrait of the great rabbi of the generation, but definitely heard of him). Rav Ada bar Aba mocks him a bit, and then because he didn't consider Rav Dimmi an actual student of the Torah the market was left opern and rav Dimmi's figs got spoiled. So he came to rav Yosef, who cursed rav Ada bar Aba for acting like this towards rav Dimmi. So, for whose sake did rav Ada bar Aba died? For Rav Dimmi's, who he insulted, or for rav Yosef, who cursed him? Well, problem is there are more contestants. First, Abayey, Rava's rival - because rav Ada told everybody that they should study from Rava who's way better than Abayey. All right, fine. Our next contestant is... Rava. Because apparently, even though he was his student, rav Ada bar Aba thought he deserved getting meat from the butcher before Rava's servant. And the last one is rav Nachman bar Yitzchak, who just said that rav Ada bar Aba must be dead if he didn't come in time for his Shi‘ur. Which might be the only positive interaction here. So all these Amora’im think they were the ones who, in a way, killed rav Ada bar Aba. (The answer is Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak, due to the timing, BTW.) I give this 10/10 because I really like the story. I bring here just the "argument" part, though I'm sure the elephant question sounds hilarious. It's a legitimate halachic question you all should know the answer to though. No I'm not sharing it here, now why would I do that?

נח נפשיה דרב אדא בר אבא רב יוסף אמר אנא ענישתיה דאנא לטייטיה רב דימי מנהרדעא אמר אנא ענישתיה דאםסיד גרוגרות דידי אביי אמר אנא ענישתיה דאמר להו לרבנן אדמגרמיתו גרמי בי אביי תו אכלו בשרא [שמינא] בי רבא ורבא אמר אנא ענישתיה [דכי הוה אזיל לבי טבחא למשקל אומצא] אמר להו לטבחי אנא שקילנא בישרא מיקמי שמעיה דרבא דאנא עדיפנא מיניה רב נחמן בר יצחק אמר אנא ענישתיה דרב נחמן בר יצחק ריש כלה הוה כל יומא מיקמי דניעול לכלה מרהיט בהדיה רב אדא בר אבא לשמעתיה והדר עייל לכלה ההוא יומא נקטוה רב פפא ורב הונא בריה דרב יהושע לרב אדא בר אבא משום דלא הוו בסיומא אמרו ליה אימא לן הני שמעתתא דמעשר בהמה היכי אמרינהו רבא אמר להו הכי אמר רבא והכי אמר רבא אדהכי נגה ליה [לרב נחמן בר יצחק] (ולא אתי רב אדא בר אבא) אמרו ליה רבנן לרב נחמן בר יצחק קום דנגה לן למה יתיב מר אמר להו יתיבנא וקא מנטרא לערסיה דרב אדא בר אבא אדהכי נפק קלא דנח נפשיה דרב אדא בר אבא ומסתברא דרב נחמן בר יצחק ענשיה

בבא בתרא כב./BT Bava Batra 22A

This next one is courtesy of my dear mutual @alyssumlovesthecosmere, who (unlike myself) follows Daf Yomi. I can't comment on how caught up they are, though. Anyway, apparently in the middle of Zevachim there's a discussion about the Talmudic laws of exegesis, learning things for the Torah, and the relationship between them. One such law is the Kal VaKhomer. Basically - if you have one situation which is relatively light but there's still a rule or prohibition that applies, you can derive from that that in a heavier situation this rule must apply as well - that's apparently called an a fortiori argument. Anyway, the Talmud asks whether you can apply this kind of argument to itself. This is a part of a larger conversation that I need more effort to wrap my head around, but basically the way they prove that it could be applied... Is by using a Kal VaKhomer from another thing they said prior, which was also concluded through a Kal VaKhomer. So it's a Kal VaKhomer inception essentially. Kal VaKhomers all the way down. 11/10, no notes.

דבר הלמד בקל וחומר מהו שילמד בקל וחומר ק"ו ומה גזירה שווה שאינה למידה בהיקש מדר' יוחנן מלמד בק"ו כדאמרן ק"ו הלמד בהיקש מדתנא דבי רבי ישמעאל אינו דין שילמד בקל וחומר וזהו ק"ו בן ק"ו בן בנו של ק"ו הוא אלא ק" ו ומה היקש שאינו למד בהיקש אי מדרבא אי מדרבינא מלמד בק"ו מדתנא דבי רבי ישמעאל ק"ו הלמד מהיקש מדתני דבי רבי ישמעאל אינו דין שילמד בק"ו וזה ק"ו בן קל וחומר

זבחים נ:/BT Zevachim 50B