Page:Palestine Exploration Fund - Quarterly Statement for 1894.djvu/100

78 the remarkable precipice of el Muntâr, and the name survives in that of the well Sûk  on this ridge.

This enumeration of 80 sites will, I think, be found to exhaust all that is of interest in the geography of the Mishnah. 

Talmudic history is notoriously inexact, and makes many confusions between historic personages. The Mishnah is not concerned with history, and the most important information is contained in the "Sentences of the Fathers," a tract which contains many sayings interesting to students of the Gospels. In this tract the succession of famous teachers is given (Pirki Aboth, i, ii) from Simon the Just, about 300 B.C., to Eleazar bar Azariah, who died in Galilee about 140 A.D. The succession of doctors of the law is thus approximately dated by generations. Simon the Just 300 B.C., Antigonus of Socho 270 B.C., Jose of Zeredah and Jose of Jerusalem 240 B.C., Joshua and Nitai of Arbela 190 B.C., Judah and Simon 150 B.C., Shemaiah and Abtalion 100 B.C., Hillel and Shamai 50 B.C., Gamaliel 20 B.C., Simon his son born about the commencement of the Christian era, Judah (Rabban) about 40 A.D., Gamaliel his son was living about 90 A.D., Akiba died 135 A.D., and Eleazar bar Azariah about 140 A.D.. Rabbi Tarphon lived about the same time as the last, and the latest of these doctors was Rabbi Judah, who compiled the Mishnah at Tiberias about 150-190 A.D. Fourteen generations of doctors of the Law formed the successive precepts on which the Mishnah is based.

The earliest recollections of historic personages include Monobasus, Izates, and Helena of the Royal family of Adiabene (Yoma, iii, 10; Nezir, iii, 6), converted to Judaism in the first century A.D. After whom Vespasian and Titus are noticed in connection with the great Polemos or War of 70 A.D. (Sotah, viii, 14), Hadrian's mixture of wine and clay as a ration for troops is noticed (Abodah Zara, ii, 4) and the fall of Bether 