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503 very young at the time of the war with Nero. He was distinguished for bodily strength and reckless courage. After Cestius had been put to flight he surrounded himself with a band of men and devastated the lands of the Idumeans about Akrabattenc but, being pursued by troops from Jerusalem, he threw himself into the fortress of Masada (Josephus, " B. J. " ii. 22, § 2 iv. 9, § 3). He kept up his guerrilla warfare, however, gradually increasing his troops until they numbered many thousand Sicarii and, after fortifying Nain, he encamped in the valley of Paran. Having conquered the Idumeans and mastered Hebron, he swept up to the very gates of Jerusalem. Here an ambush was laid by the Jews of the city, and his wife and some of his soldiers were seized but Bar Giora compelled them to be delivered up to him (ib. iv. 9, §§ 8, 10). In the mean time the Idumeans and the Zealots in Jerusalem came into conflict (April, 68) and the Idumeans, suffering defeat, called Bar Giora into the city. Though Matthias, high priest at the time, had been instrumental in summoning him, Bar Giora later put







him

to death (ib. iv. 9, § 11 v. 13, § 1), henceforth considering himself lord of the city, and maintaining constant strife with John of Gischala, leader of the Zealots, the latter being outdone in their frenzy by Bar Giora's followers, the Sicarii. The Idumeans, though formerly oppressed by Bar Prom his Giora, now joined their forces to his. strong fortification at Phaselis in which he garrisoned his ten thousand soldiers he could command

— —

the whole of Jerusalem (ib. v. 8, § 1 6, § 1). When Titus moved up to the walls of Jerusalem, Bar Giora made peace with John and the Zealots, and in a number of sallies inflicted serious losses on the Romans (ib. v. 2, § 4; vi. 1, § 7). After Jerusalem had been almost entirely taken and the Temple had been burned down (on the Ninth of Ab), Bar Giora and other fearless men withdrew to the upper city, from which they negotiated with Titus, offering to surrender on condition that they should be allowed to go free under oath not to draw their weapons. The Romans refused, and the struggle broke out afresh. On the eighth of Elul the upper city also fell a prey John surrendered, but Bar Giora, to the flames.

through subterHunger, however, drove him to come forth. He startled the Roman soldiers by his sudden appearance in a white shroud; but they quickly recovered from their fright, seized him, and He was kept for the emperor's led him to Titus. triumph at Rome, where he was dragged through the streets and then hurled from the Tarpeian rock (Josephus, "B. J." vii. 2, § 1; vii. 5, § 6; 8, § 1). resisting to the last, took flight

ranean passages.

Cassius, lxvi. 7; Tacitus, Hist. v. 12; Esresippus, iv. 22, v. 49 ; Securer, Geseh. i. 521 et seq. A passage in Pesik. B. seems to refer to the subject {Monats(Jerusaschrift, xli. 563), also a passage in Ab. E. N., B, c. vii.

Bibliography: Dlo

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Bar Bar Kappara

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

503

vi. 15)

S.

Kr.

,

BAB HEBB-ffiTJS. BRvEUS. BAB JESUS ("son

See

Gregory bar He-

bore the

of

title

"Elymas

lated to Djin, Deut.

xiii.

"

(=

A

of Jesu or Joshua"): in Acts xiii. 6-11 as a

"sorcerer, a false prophet," who, when Paul and Barnabas came to Cyprus, was found in the company He also of Sergfus Paulus, the Roman proconsul.

perhaps refrom the

Arabic alim = wise). He opposed Paul in his attempt to convert the proconsul; whereupon Paul, "filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him," and cursed him with temporary blindness, calling him " son of the Devil " (" Ben Belial ") and " immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness," and he had to be led by the hand. The proconsul, "when he saw what was done," was .converted. Simon Magus, to whom Bar Jesus bears a striking resemblance, is apparently the person mentioned by Josephus (" Ant. " xx. 7, § 2), as " Simon a Jew, born in Cyprus," who "pretended to be a magician," one of the friends of Felix, the procurator of Judea, and employed by him to seduce Drusilla from her husband, Azizus, king of Emesa. The same Simon Magus occurs in the story of Peter the Apostle (Acts viii. 20-24), of which the Paul story obviously forms New Testament critics therefore a counterpart. doubt the authenticity of the whole story (see Holzmann, on Acts xiii., and P. W. Sehmiedel, in "En;

cyc. Bibl.") The Syriac,

taking offense at "Son of Jesus" being called "Son of the Devil," has changed the name " Bar Jesus " into " Bar Shuma " (Son of the Name); one Latin translation has "Bar Jesuba," which again has led modern writers like August

Klostermann to new conjectures. Bibliography of the Bible,



Cueyue, Encyc. Biblica,

s.v.;

Hastings, Diet.

s.v.

K.

T.

BAB KAPPABA (Aramaic



Hebrew,

"

Ben ha-

Palestinian scholar of the beginning of the third century, occupying an intermediate posi-

Kappar ")



between tanna and amora. His real and comname was Eleazar (there seems to be no ground for the form "Eliezer") ben Eleazar ha-Kappar. This is the form appearing in the tannaite sources, Tosefta (Bezah i. 7; Hullin vi. 3) and Sifre (Num. 42, ed. Friedmann, p. 126): the usual Talmudic form, "Bar Kappara," and the frequent appellation, " Eleazar ha-Kappar Berabbi " (see Berebi), are abtion

plete

breviations of this. Like nearly all those who occupied the intermediate positions between tannaimand amoraim (called " semi-tannaim " for convenience' sake), Bar Kappara was a pupil of Judah I. ha-Nasi but he seems to have counted among his teachers, in addition, R. Nathan the Babylonian (Midr. Teh. xii. 4, ed. Buber

other editions and MSS. read "Jonathan") and R. Jeremiah ben Eleazar, probably identical with the Jeremiah mentioned in the Mekilta and Sifre (Pesik. xxvii. 172*; Tan., Ahare Mot, vi. [ed. Buber, vii.]; and parallel passages cited by Buber). The strained relations between Bar Kappara and the patriarchal house, of which mention will shortly be made, in-

duced him to withdraw to the south of Palestine. Bar Kappara set up his academy at Csesarea (concerning TriB or TONS, the alleged residence of Bar Kappara, in the passage Academy 'Ab. Zarah 31re, nothing further is at Csesarea. known according to Bacher, " Agada der Tannaiten," ii. 505, it may have been a suburb of Cassarea) and his school came to be a serious rival of Rabbi's. Among the most

His

Jewish magician described

sorcerer;

2; explained also