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Hanina bar Hama

Babylonian Jewish Talmudist (died c.250)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionOct 25, 2024
Entity authorityQ1062209 ↗
Source-derived summary

Hanina bar Hama (died c. 250) (Hebrew: חנינא בר חמא) was a Jewish Talmudist, halakhist and aggadist frequently quoted in the Babylonian and the Jerusalem Talmud, and in the Midrashim.

He is generally cited by the name R. Hanina, but sometimes with his patronymic (Hanina b. Hama), and occasionally with the cognomen "the Great".

Biography

Whether he was a Judean by birth and had only visited Babylonia, or whether he was a Babylonian immigrant in Judea, cannot be clearly established. In the only passage in which he mentions his arrival in Judea he refers also to his sons accompanying him, and from this some argue that Babylonia was his native land. It is certain, however, that he spent most of his life in Judea, where he attended for a time the lectures of Bar Kappara and Hiyya the Great and eventually joined the academy of Judah haNasi. Under Judah, he acquired great stores of practical and theoretical knowledge, and so developed his dialectical powers that once in the heat of debate with his senior and former teacher Hiyya he ventured the assertion that were some law forgotten, he could himself re-establish it by argumentation.

Relations with Judah I

Judah thought highly of him, and chose him in preference to his other disciples to spend time with him. Thus when Antoninus once visited Judah, he was surprised to find Hanina in the chamber, though the patriarch had been requested not to permit any one to attend their interview.

Editorial summary

“Hanina bar Hama” enters the record as babylonian Jewish Talmudist (died c.250). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Hanina, Hama and Babylonian can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current 247-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The authority record carries competing date values—0145, 0180—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Hanina, Hama and Babylonian.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Hanina bar Hama” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Hanina, Hama and Babylonian provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 25, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q1062209. VIAF identifies the subject as 13877355. The Library of Congress control number is n88262417. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Hanina bar Hama” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.