Return to Sender (Berakhot 10b)

"The refutation of Rav Hisda is a conclusive refutation" (Steinsaltz, p. 69).  This phrase brought me up short just a little bit, since so much of the Talmudic discussion up to this point has been to explain, reconcile, domesticate, and otherwise minimize dissent, not summarily dismiss it.  But according to Steinsaltz this is "one of the most fundamental talmudic expressions," occuring "when the statement of an amora is powerfully refuted by a tannaitic source."   It literally means return, in the sense that his statement is thrown back to him.

But Hisda has a point.  If reciting the Shema after the third hour is a matter of reading Torah, the blessings that accompany the Shema are not Torah texts.    I wonder if the Mishnah's view that one who recites the Shema late is "like one who recites from the Torah" was formulated before the Shema acquired these additional blessings (i.e., Yotzer Or, etc.).