Baba ben Buta

Who is Baba ben Buta?

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Baba Ben Buta". Jewish Encyclopedia. 1901–1906. http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=42&letter=B&search=Baba%20Ben%20Buta.

Baba ben Buta was a teacher of the Law at the time of Herod the Great, and perhaps a member of the prominent family known as The Sons of Baba, who, at the time of the siege of Jerusalem by Herod, resisted its surrender, and whom Costobarus protected from the wrath of Herod for ten years, until they were discovered and put to death.

Baba ben Buta is also the subject of several traditions which are found in the Babylonian Talmud. While Baba ben Buta, if he existed, lived in the 1st century, the extensive traditions about him come from the 4th to the 8th centuries, when this Talmud was composed and redacted. Hence, it is worthwhile to realize that what is attested in the Bavli is not fact, but historical legend, attached to this particular character, who may be fictional. He is not at all attested to by contemporary writers.

But, according to a tradition preserved in the Babylonian Talmud, Baba ben Buta was the only teacher of the Law who was spared by Herod. According to this tradition it was Baba b. Buta, deprived of his eyesight by Herod, who advised the latter to rebuild the Temple in expiation of his great crimes. The following conversation between the king and the blind teacher, with its haggadic embellishments, forms the principal part of this tradition, and is considered likely to have some historical foundation: