Antiquities of the Jews, fit the twenty-eighth, concluding Book XIII

Aristobulus was succeeded by his brother Alexander Yannai, about whom Josephus tells an amusing episode (XIII.13.372):

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Shamelessly including a picture (from here), as last time it got some people to read my post

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Alexander Yannai was a bit of a bad egg( Read more... )

One can see why Jesus fled from him, in the Talmudic story in which Jesus is misattributed to his time (possibly a confusion of Jesuses?). <checks Wikipedia> Ah, in BT Sotah 47a and Sanhedrin 107 it says:

What was the case of Rabbi Joshua ben Perahiah? When King Yannai put the Rabbis to death. [Shim'on ben Shetah was hidden by his sister and] Rabbi Joshua ben Perahiah and Yeshu fled to Alexandria in Egypt.

So, most definitely a bad egg, then. (If you're interested in the full story about Jesus, which is pretty much the only one in the Talmud in which Jesus is portrayed sympathetically, you can read it here.

[Please comment at my collected Book XIII notes post, on Dreamwidth for preference, or on LiveJournal.]

Josephus notes