R. Eleazar
220 CE–279 CE · Amoraim · Tiberias
R. Eleazar ben Pedat was a second-generation Palestinian Amora of the 3rd century, active primarily in Tiberias. He was a student of R. Johanan and became one of the most prolific contributors to the Jerusalem Talmud. Known for his sharp analytical mind and his refinement of halakhic principles, Eleazar engaged deeply with biblical exegesis and developed novel interpretations of Tannaitic teachings. He was renowned for his humility and his ability to synthesize earlier traditions into coherent legal frameworks. His teachings span nearly every tractate of the Talmud, and he is frequently cited as a voice of authority in Palestinian Jewish law during the later third century.
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TiberiasLand of Israel
We know they were here, but the specifics of what they did at this stop aren’t recorded yet in our corpus.
Tiberias in this era
During the mid-to-late third century, Tiberias lay within the Roman Empire under the Severan dynasty and their successors—a period of increasing political fragmentation and military crisis in the broader empire, though the Land of Israel remained under Roman administrative control. The Jewish community of Tiberias was in transition: the Second Temple had fallen nearly 150 years prior, and rabbinic Judaism was consolidating itself as the primary form of Jewish practice and authority, with the city becoming a major center of Talmudic learning and legal debate. The Palestinian Patriarchate (Nasi), the recognized Jewish leadership under Roman sufferance, had ties to Tiberias, making it a hub of oral tradition and halakhic development. R. Eleazar, a prominent Amora of the third generation, was part of this creative ferment—a time when the devastation of the Bar Kokhba war lay in the past, allowing Jewish intellectual life to flourish amid the relative stability of the early Severan period, even as the broader empire began its slow decline.
About Tiberias
Galilee center; home of Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk and his Hasidic disciples after aliyah.
In Tiberias at the same time
Anonymous (Sefer Yetzirah), Chiyya HaGadol, Levi bar Sisi, R. Yochanan, Reish Lakish, Yose bar Chanina
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with R. Eleazar’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
Anonymous (Sefer Yetzirah), Chiyya HaGadol, Levi bar Sisi, R. Yochanan, Reish Lakish, Yose bar Chanina, Shimon bar Abba, Rabbi Ami, Shmuel bar Nachmani, Ulla, Chiyya bar Abba, Yitzchak Nappacha, Yehuda Nesia II, Rabbi Zeira, Rabbi Levi, Rabbi Yose, Shimon bar Pazi, Rabbi Yirmeyah
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with R. Eleazar’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.