[1] He and his colleague Nittai of Arbela were the second of the five pairs (Zugot) of scholars who received and transmitted Jewish tradition.
[2] At the time of the persecution of the Pharisees by John Hyrcanus (c. 134-104 BC), Joshua was deposed — a disgrace to which his words in Menachot 109b allude.
He fled to Alexandria, but returned to Jerusalem when the persecutions ceased and the Pharisees again triumphed over the Sadducees.
When peace was made between Yannai and the Sages, Shimon ben Shataḥ sent him the following letter: From myself, Jerusalem the holy city, to you, Alexandria of Egypt.
Jesus the Nazarene, one of his students, said to him: My teacher, but the eyes of the innkeeper’s wife are narrow [terutot].
[13]Dunn (1992) considers this to be a story of Jesus from the late Amoraic period, which contains old polemical elements that were already current in New Testament times.
[15] However: Gustaf Dalman, Joachim Jeremias (1935, 1960), and others do not consider the Yeshu mentioned as Joshua's pupil to be Jesus.