JOSE, ABBA, BEN ḤANIN:

(Redirected from ABBA JOSE BEN ḤANIN.)

By: Solomon Schechter, M. Seligsohn

Palestinian tanna of the last decades before the destruction of the Temple; contemporary of Eliezer B. Jacob and of Ḥanina b. Antigonus, with both of whom he is mentioned in a halakic discussion (Tosef., Suk. iv. 15). His name occurs also as "Abba Jose b. Hanan," or "b. Johanan" (which is erroneously followed by "ish Yerushalayim"), "Abba Joseph," and"Abba Issi." Jose's halakot are also mentioned in Sifre, Num. 8, Mid. ii. 6, and Soṭah 20b. He transmitted a haggadah. of Abba Cohen Bardela (Sifre, Deut. 2) and one of Samuel ha-Ḳaṭon (Derek Ereẓ Zuṭa ix.). A sentence of Jose's, rebuking the priestly families that acted violently toward the people, transmitted by Abba Saul b. Boṭnit, reads as follows: "Wo unto me for the house of Baithus and its rods; wo unto me for the house of Ḥanin and its calumnious whispering; wo unto me for the house of Ḳatros and its pens; wo unto me for the house of Ishmael b. Phabi and its fists" (Pes. 57a, where he is called "Abba Joseph").

In Yeb. 53b an "Abba Jose b. Johanan" ("b. Hanan" in Rashi) is mentioned as having transmitted a halakah of R. Meïr, who lived a century later. Bacher ("Ag Tan." i. 46, note 2) therefore supposes that the author of the sentence quoted above was Abba Saul b. Boṭnit, and that it was transmitted by the Abba Jose of Yebamot (comp. Büchler, "Die Priester und der Cultus," p. 30).

S. S. M. Sel.