person · P0073
Choni HaMe'agel חוני המעגל
Choni HaMe'agel is remembered as a wonder-working pietist whose prayer brought rain. The Mishnah preserves Shimon ben Shatach's mixture of rebuke and admiration, while the Bavli expands his portrait with the seventy-year sleep story. Josephus describes a righteous rainmaker named Onias killed during Hasmonean civil conflict, commonly but not certainly identified with Choni.
I. Who
- Hebrew
- חוני המעגל
- Also known as
- Honi the Circle-Drawer, Onias the Circle-Drawer
- Era
- zugot
- Colleagues
- Shimon ben Shatach
II. When
- Traditional
- c. 3690–3720 AM, in the late Hasmonean period
- Academic
- fl. 1st century BCE; Josephus's Onias was killed during the Hasmonean civil war in the 60s BCE.
- Lifespan (traditional)
- ≈30 years
- Precision
- approximate
III. Where
- Places
- Jerusalem
V. How do we know
| Claim | Evidence | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| During a drought Choni drew a circle, stood inside it, and vowed not to leave until God showed mercy; rain ultimately fell in abundance.
Directly stated in the cited source. |
rabbinic | ★★★★★ | |
| Shimon ben Shatach told Choni that another person behaving so presumptuously would deserve excommunication, but compared Choni to a son who importunes his father and obtains what he asks.
Directly stated in the cited source. |
rabbinic | ★★★★★ | |
| The Bavli tells that Choni slept for seventy years after questioning the possibility of Psalm 126's dreamlike seventy-year restoration, awoke to a changed world, and found that his identity was not accepted.
Aggadic narrative; confidence concerns what the Bavli reports, not historical verification.
|
rabbinic | ★★★☆☆ | |
| Josephus reports that a righteous man named Onias, famous for prayers that ended drought, was killed after refusing to curse either side in the Hasmonean civil war.
Identification of Josephus's Onias with Choni is widely accepted but inferential.
|
external | ★★★★☆ | |
| The traditional placement c. 3690–3720 AM, in the late Hasmonean period, is a schematic Mesorah Atlas reconstruction from his contemporaneity with Shimon ben Shatach and the possible external anchor supplied by Josephus's Onias; the cited sources do not state an absolute AM range.
The cited sources establish relative chronology or regnal duration; they do not state the absolute AM range.
|
tradition reconstruction | ★★☆☆☆ |