Abba Jose ben Hanan

Who is Abba Jose ben Hanan?

Abba Jose ben Hanan or Abba Jose ben Hanin was a tanna who lived in Judea during the 1st century CE. His career spanned the last decades before the destruction of the Second Temple and was a contemporary of Eliezer ben Jacob and of Hanina ben Antigonus, with both of whom he is mentioned in a halakhic discussion. His name occurs also as "Abba Jose ben Hanan," or "ben Johanan", "Abba Joseph," and"Abba Issi." Jose's halakot are also mentioned in Sifre, Numbers 8, Mid. ii. 6, and Sotah 20b. He transmitted an aggadah of Abba Kohen Bardela and one of Shmuel haKatan. A sentence of Jose's, rebuking the priestly families that acted violently toward the people, transmitted by Abba Saul ben Botnit, reads as follows: "Woe unto me for the house of Baithus and its rods; woe unto me for the house of Hnin and its calumnious whispering; woe unto me for the house of Qatros and its pens; woe unto me for the house of Ishmael ben Phabi and its fists."

In Yebamot 53b an "Abba Jose b. Johanan" is mentioned as having transmitted a halakhah of Rabbi Meir, who lived a century later. Bacher therefore supposes that the author of the sentence quoted above was Abba Saul ben Botnit, and that it was transmitted by the Abba Jose of Yebamot.