Joshua Ben Hananiah

Rabbinical Eras
Zugot Tannaim Amoraim Savoraim Geonim Rishonim Acharonim

Joshua ben Hananiah (Hebrew: יהושע בן חנניה d.131C.E.) was a leading rabbinical sage of the first half-century following the destruction of the Temple.

A disciple of Johanan ben Zakkai, he was an opponent of acenticism who represented the liberal school of Hillel against the strict legalism of Shammai in disputes with Johanan's other leading pupil, Eliezer ben Hyrcanus.

Early years

Rabbi Joshua was of Levitical descent (Ma'as. Sh. v. 9), and had served in the Temple of Jerusalem as a member of the class of singers. His mother intended him for a life of study and carried the child in his cradle into the synagogue, so that his ears might become accustomed to the sounds of the words of the Torah. According to another tradition (Ab. R. N. xiv).

Joshua became one of the inner circle of the pupils of Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai (Ab. ii. 8). Rabbai Johanan praised him in the words from [[Ecclesiastes 4:12: "And a threefold cord is not quickly broken," thought to mean in Joshua, the three branches of traditional Jewish learning at the time—Midrash, Halakah, and Aggadah—were united in a firm whole. Tradition places him at the head of Johanan's disciples along with Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus. These two are also frequently mentioned as upholders of opposite views. Eliezer and Joshua cooperated together, however, to rescue their teacher from the besieged city of Jerusalem in the closing days of the Jewish Revolt.

An Opponent of Asceticism

After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem Joshua opposed the exaggerated asceticism with which many wished to show their grief, such as going without meat and wine because the sacred altar, on which they had sacrificed animals and poured libations of wine, had been destroyed. He argued that to carry this policy to its logical conclusion, they ought to eat no figs or grapes either, since no more first-fruits were offered, and that they ought even to refrain from bread, since the loaves of the feast of first-fruits could no longer be sacrificed (Tosef., Sotah, end; B. B. 60b). With these arguments Joshua hoped to make his people's grief at the loss of the Temple, the center of their religious life, less bitter. In this attitude, tradition holds that he upheld the attitude of his master:

One time, when Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai was walking in Jerusalem with Rabbi Joshua, they arrived at where the Temple in Jerusalem now stood in ruins. "Woe to us" cried Rabbi Joshua, "for this house where atonement was made for Israel's sins now lies in ruins!" Answered Rabban Yohanan, "We have another, equally important source of atonement, the practice of loving-kindness, as it is stated "I desire loving-kindness and not sacrifice."(Avoth deRabbi Nathan).

Joshua's opposition to asceticism is also thought to be due to his mild and temperate nature. In regard to the severe regulations which had been adopted by the strict school of Shammai shortly before the destruction of the Temple, he said: "On that day they overstepped the boundary." Joshua saw the greatest danger to the community in the sickly offshoots of supposed piety. Classes of people he condemned as "enemies of general prosperity" included:

• foolishly pious men
• sly sinners who appear pious
• women who show an over-pious bearing
• hypocrites who pretend to be saints (Sotah iii. 4, 21b; Yer. Sotah 21b).

When Johanan ben Zakkai aked his pupils concerning the best standard of conduct, Joshua answered that one should seek association with a good companion and avoid a bad one. He recommended temperance and the love of mankind as the best assurance of individual happiness. Grudging, lustful passion, and hatred of mankind, he declared, bring only loss and ultimately death (Ab. ii. 11). Various anecdotes illustrate the opposition between Joshua, who represented the teachings of Hillel, and his colleague Eliezer, who represented the teachings of Shammai, much in the same way as the opposition between Hillel and Shammai is depicted elsewhere (Gen. R. lxx., beginning; Eccl. R. i. 8; Kid. 31a).

Joshua's permanent residence was located between Jamnia and Lydda, where he was a sewer by trade (Yer. Ber. 7d). This seemingly menial occupation, however, did not diminish the respect paid to him as one of the influential members of the emerging rabbinical academy at Jamnia.

Relations with Gamaliel II

After the death of Johanan ben Zakkai (c. 90 C.E.), Rabbi Joshua was a supporter of the efforts of Gamaliel II, the president of the academy, to promote of the views of Hillel's followers over those of Shammai's and end the discord which had so long existed between the schools. Nevertheless, the two scholars clashed severely on questions of authority, with Joshua apparently feeling that Gamaliel was too heavy-handed. On one occasion, Gamaliel humiliated Joshua when the authority of the president was in question (R. H. 25a; Yer. R. H. 58b). A subsequent similar public wrong done to Joshua by Gamaliel was considered such an offense that it occasioned Gamaliel's temporary removal from office. He soon obtained Joshua's forgiveness, and this opened the way for his reinstatement. However, Gamaliel was now obliged to share his office with Eleazar ben Azariah, who had earlier been appointed his successor (Ber. 28a).

Although Joshua disagreed vehemently with Eleazer on matters of policy, Joshua esteemed Eleazar very highly for his scholarship and piety and worked to bring him into line with Gamaliel's attempts a unification under the principles of Hillel. On one occasion, Joshua declared: : "Hail to thee, Father Abraham, for Eleazar ben Azariah came forth from thy loins!" (Tosef., Sotah, vii). Unfortunately, Eleazer

When it became necessary to present the plight of the Palestinian Jews at Rome, the two presidents, Gamaliel and Eleazar, went as their primary representatives, with rabbis Joshua and Akiba accompanying them.

This journey of the "elders" to Rome furnished material for many narratives. In one of these, the Romans call on Joshua ben Hananiah to give proofs from the Bible of the resurrection of the dead and of the foreknowledge of God (Sanh. 90b). In another, Joshua comes to the aid of Gamaliel when the latter is unable to answer the question of a philosopher (Gen. R. xx.). In one anecdote, concerning a sea voyage undertaken by Gamaliel and Joshua, the astronomical knowledge of the latter is put to good use, as he is said to have calculated that a comet would appear in the course of the voyage (Hor. 10a).

After Gamaliel's death, the presidency of the rabbinical council fell to Joshua, since Eliezer ben Hyrcanus was under a ban. Joshua wished to do away with a regulation of Gamaliel's, but met with opposition on the part of the council (Eruvin 41a).

Later, Joshua stood at the death bed of Eliezer and called to him: "O master, thou art of more value to Israel than God's gift of the rain; since the rain gives life in this world only, whereas thou givest life both in this world and in the world to come" (Mek., Yitro, Bachodesh, 10; Sifre, Deut. 32; comp. Sanh. 101a). When, after Eliezer's death, the other scholars, contested some of his opinions, Joshua said to them: "One should not oppose a lion after he is dead" (Gittin 83a; Yer. Git. 50a).

Under Hadrian

In the beginning of Hadrian's rule Joshua appears as a leader of the Jewish people. When the permission to rebuild the Temple was again refused, he turned the excited people from thoughts of revolt against Rome by a speech in which he skilfully made use of a fable of Æsop's concerning the lion and the crane (Gen. R. lxiv., end). About the same time Joshua by his eloquence prevented the whole area of the Temple from being pronounced unclean because one human bone had been found in it (Tosef., 'Eduy. iii. 13; Zeb. 113a). Joshua lived to witness Hadrian's visit to Palestine, and he followed the emperor to Alexandria (130). The conversations between Joshua and Hadrian, as they have been preserved in the Babylonian Talmud and the Palestinian Midrash, have been greatly modified and exaggerated by tradition, but they nevertheless present in general a just picture of the intercourse between the witty Jewish scholar and the active, inquisitive emperor, the "curiositatum omnium explorator," as Tertullian calls him.

Relations with the Emperor

In Palestinian sources Joshua answers various questions of the emperor: how God created the world (Gen. R. x.), concerning the angels (ib. lxxviii., beginning; Lam. R. iii. 21), as to the resurrection of the body (Gen. R. xxviii.; Eccl. R. xii. 5), and with reference to the Decalogue (Pesiḳ. R. 21). In the Babylonian Talmud three conversations are related, which resemble that on the Decalogue, in that Joshua silences the emperor's mockery of the Jewish conception of God by proving to him God's incomparable greatness and majesty (Ḥul. 59b, 60a). Joshua also rebukes the emperor's daughter when she mocks at the God of the Jews (ib. 60a); in another place she is made to repent for having mocked Joshua's appearance (Ta'an. on Ned. 50b). The emperor's question concerning the odor of Sabbath food is a mocking one (Shab. 119a). Once Joshua told the emperor that he would dream of the Parthians (Ber. 56a). At another time he excused his own non-appearance at a meeting by cleverly describing the infirmities of his old age (Shab. 152a). In one conversation, preserved by a later authority (Adolf Jellinek, B. H. v. 132), Joshua defended the justice of God, which was doubted by the emperor. Once a dispute in pantomime took place in the emperor's palace between Joshua and a Judæo-Christian ("Min"), in which Joshua maintained that God's protective hand was still stretched over Israel (Hagigah 5b). In another conversation Joshua defended the honor of Israel against a heretic, who had attacked it, by quoting from Micah vii. 4 (Er. 101a).

Opposes Judæo-Christians

Some of the questions addressed to Joshua by the Athenian wise men, found in a long story in the Babylonian Talmud (Bek. 8b et seq.), contain polemical expressions concerning Christianity (Moritz Güdemann, Religionsgeschichtliche Studien, pp. 89, 136 et seq.). The historical basis for this remarkable tradition is found in Hadrian's association with Joshua b. Hananiah, in Joshua's visit to Athens, and in his intercourse with Athenian scholars and philosophers. Its conclusion is an echo of the myth of the Danaides, and it is supposed to demonstrate the superiority of the "wise men of the Jews" over the "elders of Athens." Embodied in this tradition are the stories in which the wit of Athens is conquered by the cleverness of the men of Jerusalem (Lam. R. i. 1, s.v. "Rabbati"). In one of these the pupils of Johanan b. Zakkai make sport of an Athenian. That the tradition contains in parts polemics against Christianity is explained by the fact that Joshua b. Hananiah fought the heresy of the Judæo-Christians. The same spirit is manifested in the story concerning his nephew Hananiah (Eccl. R. i. 25). It is related that when Joshua ben Hananiah was about to die, the scholars standing round his bed mourned, saying: "How shall we maintain ourselves against the unbelievers?" Joshua comforted them with words from Jer. xlix. 7: "If counsel has been taken away from the children [of God, i.e.,Israel], the wisdom of these [the enemy] has also perished" (Ḥag. 5b).

After his death Joshua's importance was extolled in the words: "Since Rabbi Joshua died, good counsel has ceased in Israel" (Baraita, Sotah, end). Not long after Joshua's death the thinkers were superseded by the men of action, and Bar Kokba, enthusiastically greeted by Joshua's most influential pupil, Akiba b. Joseph, raised the flag of rebellion against Rome. That this step had not been taken earlier was due to Joshua's influence.

His Exegesis

In the haggadic tradition Joshua b. Hananiah's exegetical controversies with two of his most prominent contemporaries occupy an important place. These two are his colleague Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, who is frequently mentioned in the Halakah also as holding an opposite opinion, and Eleazar of Modi'im, who belonged to the school of Jabneh and was especially known as the author of haggadic expositions of the Bible. The controversies between Eliezer and Joshua refer to cosmology, to eschatology, comprising views on the period as well as on the future world and the resurrection, and to the interpretation of various Biblical passages.

The controversies between Joshua b. Hananiah and Eleazar of Modi'im are found in the tannaitic midrash to Exodus, and they form at the same time a continuous double commentary on the sections concerning the stay of the Israelites at Marah (Ex. xv. 22-27), the miracle of the manna (ib. xvi.), the fight with Amalek (ib. xvii.), and the visit of Jethro (ib. xviii.). In these controversies Joshua, as a rule, stands for the literal meaning of the words and the historical interpretation of the contents, putting emphasis on the meaning demanded by the context.

The Alexandrian Jews addressed twelve questions to Joshua (Niddah 69b). They fall into four groups:

1. three halakic
2. three haggadic
3. three foolishly ignorant questions (a sort of parody on the questions of halakic casuistry)
4. three questions taken from practical life.

Eleven questions also were addressed to him concerning the special position of woman in physical, spiritual, social, and religious matters (Gen. R. xvii., end). Some of these with his answers are:

• "Why is a man easy, a woman difficult, to persuade?"

"Man was created out of earth, which easily dissolves in water; woman was created from bone, which is not affected by water."

• "Why does a man have his head uncovered while a woman has hers covered?"

"Whoever has committed a sin is ashamed before people; thus woman is ashamed on account of Eve's sin, and consequently covers her head."

• "Why do women take precedence in funeral processions?"

"Because they have brought death into the world."

Sayings

Joshua ben Hananiah was regarded by posterity as a man always ready with an answer, and as the victorious representative of Jewish wit and wisdom. This is shown in the accounts of his conversations with heathens and in other narratives. He himself tells of three encounters in which he had to yield the palm to the wit of a woman and a child. He introduces the story in these words: "No one ever overcame me except a woman, a boy, and a maid" (Er. 53b; comp. Lam. R. i. 1, section "Rabbati," end). Joshua explains the end of verse 18 of Ps. ix. to mean that there are even among the Gentiles pious people who will have a share in the life everlasting (Tosef., Sanh. xiii. 2; comp. Sanh. 105a). "The Psalms," he also said, "do not refer to the personal affairs of David, but to the affairs of all Israel" (Pes. 117b). If a man learns a halakic sentence in the morning and two sentences in the evening, and he is busy the whole day at his trade, it will be accounted to him as though he had fulfilled the whole Torah (Mek., Beshallaḥ, Wayassa', 2). Holidays are intended to be employed one-half for worldly enjoyment, one-half for study (Pes. 68b; Betzah 15b). From Ruth ii. 19 it may be concluded that the poor person who receives does more for the giver than the giver does for the recipient (Lev. R. xxxiv.; Ruth R. ad loc.).

Rabbis of the Mishnah

Hillel   Shammai           Teacher → Student                                                                             Gamaliel the Elder               Johanan b. Zakai                 Father → Son                                                                                 R. Gamaliel   Jose the Galilean   Eliezer b. Hyrcanus   Joshua b. Hananiah   Eleazar b. Arach   Eleazar b. Azariah                                                                         Elisha b. Abuyah       Akiva   Ishmael b. Elisha   Tarfon                                                                                                 Meir   Judah b. Ilai   Jose b. Halafta   Shimon b. Yohai                                                                                             Judah HaNasi   Hiyya   Oshiah

Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography

• Frankel, Darke;
• Heinrich Graetz;
• Weiss, Dor;
• Brüll, Einleitung;
• Joseph Derenbourg, Histoire;
• Bacher, Agada der Tann. 2d ed., 123-187, 196-210;
• A. Lewysohn, Toledot R. Yehoshua' b. Hananiah, in Keller's Bikkurim, i. 26-35.

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