Akiva Ben Joseph - Parentage and Youth

Parentage and Youth

While a great many legends (אגדות) in the Talmud and the Midrash discuss Akiva's personal life, relatively few discuss his early childhood or familial background. Additionally, some of the traditions about his early life are contradictory.

Akiva ben Joseph (written עקיבא in the Babylonian talmud, and עקיבה in the Jerusalem Talmud — another form for עקביה) who is usually called simply Akiva, was of comparatively humble parentage. A misunderstanding of the expression "Zechus Avos" (Ber. l.c.), joined to a tradition concerning Sisera, captain of the army of Hazor (Giṭ. 57b, Sanh. 96b), is the source of another tradition (Nissim Gaon to Ber. l.c.), which makes Akiva a descendant of Sisera. According to the romantic story of Akiva's marriage with the daughter of the wealthy Jerusalemite, Kalba Savua, Akiba began life as an uneducated shepherd who worked for this aristocrat. (see below "Akiva and his wife" and "His relationship with his wife"). His wife's name is not given in the earlier sources, but she is called Rachel in a later version of the tradition (Ab. R. N. ed. S. Schechter, vi. 29). She stood loyally by her husband during that critical period of his life in which Akiva dedicated himself to the study of Torah.

A different legendary tradition (Ab. R. N. l.c.) narrates that Akiva at the age of 40, and when he was the father of a numerous family dependent upon him, eagerly attended the academy of his native town, Lod, presided over by Eliezer ben Hyrkanus. Hyrcanus was a neighbor of Joseph, the father of Akiva. The fact that Eliezer was his first teacher, and the only one whom Akiva later designates as "rabbi," is of importance in settling the date of Akiva's birth. These legends set the beginning of his years of study at about 75–80. Earlier than this, Yochanan ben Zakai was living, and Eliezer, being his pupil, would have been held of no authority in Johanan's lifetime. Consequently, according to the legendary tradition that Akiva was 40 when beginning the study of the Law, he must have been born about 40–50.

Besides Eliezer, Akiva had other teachers—principally Joshua ben Hananiah (Ab. R. N. l.c.) and Nahum Ish Gamzu (Hag. 12a). He was on equal footing with Rabban Gamaliel II, whom he met later. In a certain sense, Tarphon was considered as one of Akiva's masters (Ket. 84b), but the pupil outranked his teacher, and Tarphon became one of Akiva's greatest admirers (Sifre, Num. 75). Akiva probably remained in Lod (R. H. i. 6), as long as Eliezer dwelt there, and then removed his own school to Bene Berak, five Roman miles from Jaffa (Sanh. 32b; Tosef., Shab. iii. 3). Akiva also lived for some time at Ziphron (Num. xxxiv. 9), the modern Zafrân (Z. P. V. viii. 28), near Hamath (see Sifre, Num. iv., and the parallel passages quoted in the Talmudical dictionaries of Levy and M. Jastrow). For another identification of the place, and other forms of its name, see A. Neubauer, Géographie, p. 391, and M. Jastrow, l.c.

Among Akiva's other contemporaries were Elisha ben Avuya, Eliezer ben Tzodok, Eleazar ben Azaria, Gamliel II, Yehuda ben Betheira, Yochanan ben Nuri, Yosi Haglili, Rabbi Yishmael and Chanina ben Dosa.