Joshua ben Perachiah

Joshua ben Perahiah or Joshua ben Perachya (Hebrew: יהושע בן פרחיה, romanized: Yehoshuaʿ ben Peraḥyā) was nasi of the Sanhedrin in the latter half of the 2nd century BCE.

He and his colleague Nittai of Arbela were the second of the five pairs (Zugot) of scholars who received and transmitted Jewish tradition.

At the time of the persecution of the Pharisees by John Hyrcanus (c. 134-104 BCE), Joshua was deposed — a disgrace to which his words in Menachot 109b allude. However, in Sanhedrin 107b and Sotah 47a, it was during the persecutions of Pharisees 88-76 BC by Alexander Jannaeus, not John Hyrcanus whose persecution he fled. He fled to Alexandria, but returned to Jerusalem when the persecutions ceased and the Pharisees again triumphed over the Sadducees.

The following ethical maxim found in the Ethics of the Fathers shows his gentle judgment of his fellow men and his eagerness to spread knowledge among the people:

Joshua ben Perahiah and Nittai the Arbelite received [the Torah] from them. Joshua ben Perahiah says, "Set up a teacher [rav] for yourself. And get yourself a companion-disciple. And give everybody the benefit of the doubt."

Only a single halakhah of Joshua's has been preserved: he objected to the import of wheat from Alexandria as impure because, with no rain falling on it, it was watered by still water in conflict with Leviticus 11:38.

In other traditions he was known in Jewish magical papyri as an exorcist, and his name was used in incantations inscribed on magical bowls.

In another tradition he is also the teacher of Yeshu (in uncensored manuscripts of the Talmud), where he and Yeshu flee to Egypt. In other manuscripts his student is Judah ben Tabbai. The account as it appears in the Talmud is as follows: