Rabbah bar Bar Chana
270 CE–340 CE · Amoraim · Sura (Babylonia)
Rabbah bar Bar Chana was a Babylonian Amora of the third generation, active primarily in the late third and early fourth centuries. Though associated with Babylonia, he spent time in and maintained connections with the Land of Israel, particularly Tiberias. He is best remembered in Talmudic tradition as a storyteller and traveler whose accounts of far-flung journeys—some fantastical, some practical—fill numerous pages of the Babylonian Talmud. His narratives, whether describing maritime voyages, encounters with giants and demons, or geographical curiosities, became legendary in rabbinic lore. Beyond his travel tales, he was regarded as a serious scholar, but it is his vivid recountings of extraordinary experiences that secured his place in collective Jewish memory.
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Sura (Babylonia)Babylonia
We know they were here, but the specifics of what they did at this stop aren’t recorded yet in our corpus.
Sura (Babylonia) in this era
Sura, nestled along a tributary of the Euphrates in Sasanian Persia, became the intellectual powerhouse of Jewish Babylonia during the Amoraic period. Under the rule of the Sasanian kings—particularly during the reigns of Shapur II and his successors—the Jewish community flourished in a complex arrangement of relative autonomy, governed by an Exilarch whose authority the Persian crown recognized. The academy at Sura, especially under Rav Ashi in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, became the primary engine for compiling and standardizing the Babylonian Talmud, transforming centuries of oral debate into written law. Scholars gathered in the beth midrash to dispute interpretations of Mishnaic law with a rigor that shaped Jewish practice for all subsequent generations. The city hummed with the rhythms of intensive study—rows of students debating fine points of contract law and ritual purity, their voices rising and falling in the characteristic melody of Talmudic argument, while merchants and farmers beyond the academy walls carried on the ordinary business that sustained this extraordinary center of learning.
About Sura (Babylonia)
Babylonian Geonic academy
In Sura (Babylonia) at the same time
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Rabbah bar Bar Chana’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
Anonymous (Sefer Yetzirah), Anonymous Merkavah mystics, Rav Huna, Rav Chisda, Rav Hamnuna, Yose bar Chanina, Shimon bar Abba, Rabbi Ami, Shmuel bar Nachmani, Ulla, Rabbi Assi, Chiyya bar Abba, Yitzchak Nappacha, Rabbah bar Rav Huna, Rabbi Helbo, Rav Safra, Yehuda Nesia II, Rabbi Zeira
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Rabbah bar Bar Chana’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Jewish world
- Nachman bar Yaakov (son-in-law of Resh Galuta)· 230 CE–320 CE
- Abbahu of Caesarea· 240 CE–320 CE
- Levi (the EY midrashic storyteller)· 250 CE–320 CE
- Yirmeyah (Bavel-born EY scholar)· 260 CE–335 CE
- Yonah (Yerushalmi)· 260 CE–330 CE
- Yose (Yerushalmi-era)· 260 CE–330 CE
- Shimon bar Pazi· 260 CE–330 CE
- Chaggai· 270 CE–340 CE
- Bar Hedya (dream interpreter of Berakhot 55-56)· 270 CE–340 CE
- Rav Yosef bar Chiyya (Sinai)· 270 CE–333 CE
- Rabbah bar Nachmani (Akar Harim)· 270 CE–330 CE
- Abaye· 280 CE–338 CE
- Adda bar Ahava (II)· 280 CE–350 CE
- Yudan· 280 CE–350 CE
- Tachlifa bar Avdimi· 280 CE–350 CE
- Rava bar Yosef bar Chama· 280 CE–352 CE
- Acha of Lod· 280 CE–360 CE
- Nachman bar Yitzchak· 290 CE–356 CE
- Idi bar Avin· 290 CE–360 CE
- Rami bar Chama· 290 CE–360 CE
- Mana (II)· 290 CE–360 CE
- Acha bar Yaakov· 290 CE–370 CE
- Rav Kahana (III, disciple of Rava)· 300 CE–370 CE
- Rav Papa· 300 CE–375 CE
Graeco-Roman world
Christian world
Scientists
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.