72
CHRISTIANITY IN TALMUD
THE AGE OF BALAAM (JEsus)
(15) b. Sanh.
106b.-A certain heretic said to
B..
Hanna, 'Have you ever heard how old
Balaam was ?' He replied,
'
There is nothing
written about it. But from what is written
(Ps. lv. 23),
Men of blood and deceit shall not
live out half their days,
he must have been
thirty-three or thirty-four years old.' He [the
heretic] said,
'
Thou hast answered me well.
I have seen the chronicle of Balaam, and
therein is written 11
Balaam, the lame, was
thirty-three years old when Pinhas the Robber
killed him."'
Commentary.-R.
Hanina lived in Sepphoris at the
end of the second and the beginning of the third
century (died 232 A.D.). The story of this conver-
sation with a heretic was reported in Babylonia prob-
ably by Rab, who, like Hanina, was a disciple of
Rabbi (Jehudah ha-Qadosh. See above, p. 17). The
heretic-Min-was in all probability a Christian, as
will be shown later when the passages dealing with
the Minim come under review. And while there is
no apparent reason why a Christian should inquire as
to the age of the ancient Balaam, he might well have
inquired-especially in Galilee-about the age of
Jesus. It would seem, however, that he was not
asking for information, but had a desire to find out
whether R. Hanna knew anything about Jesus.
For he confirmed the Rabbis answer by facts known
to himself. The ` Chronicle of Balaam' probably de-
notes a Gospel, though none of the known Gospels
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