ḤANINA (HANANIAH; ḤINENA) B. ADDA (IDDA):

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By: Joseph Jacobs, S. Mendelsohn

Babylonian scholar of the third century. He was skilled in both Halakah and Haggadah; Adda B. Ahabah appears to have beenhis teacher in the former (Pes. 75a; 'Ab. Zarah 40a); in the latter he seems to have been a pupil of Tanḥum b. Ḥiyya. From Tanḥum, Ḥanina received the following illustration of the relative positions of the prophet and the elder (teacher, sage): "A king delegated two commissioners; with respect to one he wrote, 'Unless he exhibits to you my signature and my seal, credit him not'; with reference to the other he wrote, 'Even if he shows you neither my signature nor my seal, credit him.' So it is said regarding the prophet: '. . . and giveth thee a sign or a wonder' [Deut. xiii. 2 (A.V. 1)]: while of the sages it is said: 'According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do'" (Deut. xvii. 11; Yer. Ber. i. 3b; Yer. Sanh. xi. 30b; Yer. 'Ab. Zarah ii. 41c; Cant. R. i. 2). In the Book of Isaiah (the future: "will say"), instead of the usual ("saith"), is used eight times (i. 11, 18; xxxiii. 10; xl. 1, 25; xli. 21, twice; lxvi. 9). This peculiarity, according to Ḥanina, contains an allusion to the corresponding number of prophets that were to appear after the destruction of the (first) Temple: Joel, Amos, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah (Pesiḳ. xvi. 128b; see Buber ad loc.). An elder namesake of Ḥanina was a tanna, contemporary of AḤai b. Josiah, with whom he discussed a halakic midrash (Mek., Mishpaṭim, v.; comp. Sifra, Ḳedoshim, ix. 6, 14).

J. S. M.