NATHAN BEN ISAAC HA-KOHEN HABABLI:

By: Executive Committee of the Editorial Board., M. Seligsohn

Babylonian historian of the tenth century. He was the author of a history of the exilarchate that gives many interesting details in regard to the exilarchs, particularly his contemporary 'Uḳba. Extracts from this history were published by Samuel Shullam in his edition of Zacuto's "Yuḥasin" (Constantinople, 1546), as well as by Neubauer ("M. J. C." ii. 83 et seq.). Since Nathan b. Jehiel of Rome, the author of the "'Aruk," is quoted in Zacuto's "Yuḥasin" (ed. Filipowski, p. 174, London, 1856) as "Nathan ha-Babli of Narbonne," Grätz ("Gesch." 3d ed., v. 288, 469-471) mistook the latter for Nathan ben Isaac ha-Kohen ha-Babli and ascribed to him an "'Aruk" similar to that written by Nathan b. Jehiel. Grätz even went so faras to identify Nathan ben Isaac with the fourth of the four prisoners captured by Ibn Rumaḥis (see Ḥushiel ben Elhanan), assuming that he settled afterward at Narbonne.

E. C. M. Sel.