Jesus the Jew. Geza Vermes
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of the capital. Two of his grandsons, Hanan, his daughter’s son, and Abba Hilkiah, his son’s son, were also renowned for their powers as rain-makers.62 From the viewpoint of geographical connections it is of interest to note that in a parallel text Abba Hilkiah, instead of being mentioned by name, is referred to as ‘a Hasid from Kefar Imi’, a village otherwise unknown but appearing in a Galilean context in the passage in question of the Palestinian Talmud.63
2. Hanina ben Dosa
The Galilean connections of his descendants, and even more those of Honi himself, remain purely conjectural. Nevertheless the hypothesis associating charismatic Judaism with Galilee acquires further support in the incontestably Galilean background of Hanina ben Dosa, one of the most important figures for the understanding of the charismatic stream in the first century AD.64 In a minor key, he offers remarkable similarities with Jesus, so much so that it is curious, to say the least, that traditions relating to him have been so little utilized in New Testament scholarship.65
Who then was Hanina ben Dosa? Rabbinic sources report that he lived in Arab, a Galilean city in the district of Sepphoris.66 Situated about ten miles north of Nazareth, the town, as has been noted, had for its religious leader some time in the first century AD, though definitely before the outbreak of the First War, a figure of no less eminence than Yohanan ben Zakkai. Hanina is once described as his pupil.67 His family background is undocumented, but it would be a mistake to attach much importance to the Greek name of his father; Dosa ( = Dositheus) was not unheard of even among rabbis and to carry this name was not tantamount to favouring Hellenistic ideas.
That Hanina lived in the first century AD may be deduced indirectly but convincingly from the fact that the Talmudic sources associate him with three historical figures who definitely belonged to that period: Nehuniah, a Temple official, Rabban Gamaliel and Yohanan ben Zakkai.68 If, as is likely, the Gamaliel in question was Gamaliel the Elder, a man claimed by the Apostle Paul to have been his master,69 and not Gamaliel II, the former’s grandson, Hanina’s activity would appear to have fallen in the period preceding the year of AD 70. In support of this view, it should be underlined that he is nowhere connected with any event occurring after the destruction of Jerusalem.70
Setting aside various secondary accretions according to which he was a wholesale wonder-worker, the primary rabbinic tradition represents Hanina as a man of extraordinary devotion and miraculous healing talents.
His name first appears in a chapter of the Mishnah where the early Hasid is depicted as spending a full hour on directing his heart towards his Father in heaven before starting his prayer proper, his rule of concentration being:
Though the king salute him, he shall not return his greeting. Though a snake wind itself around his ankle, he shall not interrupt his prayer.71
An episode in Hanina’s life is chosen to illustrate this injunction.
When Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa prayed, a poisonous reptile72 bit him, but he did not interrupt his prayer. They (the onlookers) departed and found the same ‘snake’ dead at the opening of its hole. ‘Woe to the man’, they exclaimed, ‘bitten by a snake, but woe to the snake which has bitten Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa.’73
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