Person
Rabbi Phinehas ben Hama רבי פנחס בר חמא
"poverty in a man's house is worse than fifty plagues"
His teachers were Rabbi Jeremiah and Rabbi Hilkiah. He was probably born at Siknin; he visited Babylonia too. Hananiah and Rabbi Abbahu cite him.
The sources give no years: it is said only "a Palestinian amora of the fourth century". The window is set by that and by the generation of his teachers.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Midrash Ruth Rabbah — the answer to the patriarch about the book of Ruth
Scholarship
- The Jewish Encyclopedia (1906) — the century, the teachers and the sayings on poverty and on a name
Basis: Talmud and midrash.