[3] His mother intended him for a life of study, and, as an older contemporary, Dosa ben Harkinas, relates,[4] she carried the child in his cradle into the synagogue, so that his ears might become accustomed to the sounds of the words of the Torah.
They were both present at the celebration of the circumcision of Elisha ben Abuyah (Acher), in Jerusalem, and diverted themselves by connecting passages in the Torah with others in the Prophets and the Hagiographa.
After the death of Yohanan ben Zakkai c. 80 CE, Joshua was the heartiest supporter of Gamaliel II's efforts to bring about the predominance of the views of Hillel the Elder's followers over those of Shammai's, and thus to end the discord which had so long existed between the schools.
He soon obtained Joshua's forgiveness, and this opened the way for his reinstatement; but he was now obliged to share his office with Eleazar ben Azariah, who had originally been appointed his successor.
"[13] When it became necessary to present the case of the Palestinian Jews at Rome, the two presidents, Gamaliel and Eleazar, went as their representatives, and Joshua ben Hananiah and Akiva accompanied them.
[19] When, after Eliezer's death, the other law scholars, Eleazar ben Azariah, Tarfon, and Akiva, contested some of his opinions, Joshua said to them: "One should not oppose a lion after he is dead".
When the permission to rebuild the Temple was again refused, he turned the excited people from thoughts of revolt against Rome by a speech in which he skilfully made use of a fable of Aesop concerning the lion and the crane.
The conversations between Joshua and Hadrian, as they have been preserved in the Babylonian Talmud (Hullin 59b) and the Palestinian Midrash, have been greatly modified and exaggerated by tradition, but they nevertheless present in general a just picture of the intercourse between the witty Jewish scholar and the active, inquisitive emperor, the "curiositatum omnium explorator", as Tertullian calls him.
In Palestinian sources Joshua answers various questions of the emperor: how God created the world,[25] concerning the angels,[26] as to the resurrection of the body,[27] and with reference to the Decalogue.
[37] Some of the questions addressed to Joshua by the Athenian wise men, found in a long story in the Babylonian Talmud,[38] contain polemical expressions concerning Christianity.
These two are his colleague Eliezer ben Hurcanus, who is frequently also mentioned in the Halakha as holding an opposite opinion, and Eleazar of Modi'im, who belonged to the school of Yavne and was especially known as the author of aggadic expositions of the Bible.
The controversies between Eliezer and Joshua refer to cosmology, to eschatology, comprising views on the period as well as on the world to come and the resurrection, and to the interpretation of various Biblical passages.
The controversies between Joshua ben Hananiah and Eleazar of Modi'im are found in the Mekhilta on Exodus, and they form at the same time a continuous double commentary on the sections concerning the stay of the Israelites at Marah, the miracle of the manna, the fight with Amalek, and the visit of Jethro.
[43] They fall into four groups: Eleven questions also were addressed to him concerning the special position of woman in physical, spiritual, social, and religious matters.
[46] With such arguments Joshua supported the efforts of his teacher to make the grief at the loss of the Temple, which until then had been the center of religious life, less bitter.
'His opposition to asceticism, however, was due also to his mild and temperate nature, which caused him to say in regard to the severe regulations which had been adopted by the school of Shammai shortly before the destruction of the sanctuary: "On that day they overstepped the boundary."
The following he calls "enemies of general prosperity": In his motto of life[49] he recommends temperance and the love of mankind as a security for individual happiness.
[50] Joshua ben Hananiah was regarded by posterity as a man always ready with an answer, and as the victorious representative of Jewish wit and wisdom.