person · P0293
Rav Richumai II רב ריחומאי
One of the rabbanan savorai named in the Iggeret's death-roll of the generation after hora'ah ended — a second bearer of the name (with the same Nichumai variant) after the Pumbedita head who died in 449 CE (Rav Richumai). Sherira records for the first savoraim little beyond their deaths — most of them 'within a few years' — and this entry preserves exactly that.
I. Who
- Hebrew
- רב ריחומאי
- Era
- savoraim
II. When
- Traditional
- d. 4266 AM (Seleucid 817, per the Iggeret)
- Academic
- d. 506 CE
- Lifespan (traditional)
- ≈60 years
- Precision
- approximate
V. How do we know
| Claim | Evidence | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Iggeret's savoraic death-roll records that he died in Nisan of the year 817 of the Seleucid era (506 CE).
The Iggeret again records the manuscript variant Nichumai.
|
tradition | ★★★★☆ | |
| A Rav Rechumei "who would commonly study before Rava at Machoza" and died when the roof collapsed under him on the eve of Yom Kippur is the subject of the famous Ketubot narrative, and some later lists identify the savoraic Richumai with him. The identification fails on the Iggeret's own dates: Rava died in 4112 AM (352 CE), and this Richumai in Nisan — not Tishrei — of 4266 (506 CE), a century and a half later. Scholarship accordingly distinguishes several bearers of the name, the Ketubot figure being the earliest.
Identification presented with its dispute and judged indefensible here: no received_from_inferred edge to Rava is drawn, since the dotted line would contradict the very death-roll this entry rests on. The Pumbedita head Rav Richumai (Rav Richumai, d. 449 CE) is likewise too late for the Ketubot scene.
|
rabbinic reconstruction | ★★☆☆☆ |