Rabbi Yose ben Halafta רבי יוסי בן חלפתא

Rabbi Yose was one of the five disciples of Rabbi Akiva who survived Hadrian's persecutions and rebuilt the teaching. He lived in Sepphoris and worked as a tanner; in the Talmud he disputes with Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda more than with anyone else, and the rule runs: in a dispute between Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yose the law follows Rabbi Yose (Eruvin 46b), "for his reasoning is keen".

His chief work is Seder Olam Rabbah, a continuous count of years from the first day of Creation to the revolt of Bar Kokhba. The Talmud names the authorship outright: "Who taught Seder Olam? Rabbi Yose" (Yevamot 82b). Without that book there would be no year from Creation in a ketubah, and no timeline such as this.

Of him it is also told, in words that explain where such a work came from: "Never did I call my wife my wife or my ox my ox—but my wife my home and my ox my field" (Shabbat 118b): he would not tolerate looseness in anything. And the account of his praying in the ruins of Jerusalem and hearing a voice moaning over the destroyed house (Berakhot 3a)—tradition ties the memory of a broken order to him in particular.

The sources give no years for his life; the generation is known—the fourth generation of Tannaim, after the crushing of Bar Kokhba—and that is set as his window of activity.