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Joshua ben Perachiah

Wikipedia's first sentence called it “nasi of the sanhedrin in the latter half of the second century bc”. Today it says “nasi of the sanhedrin in the latter half of the 2nd century bce”. Sections present on October 6, 2023 no longer exist: “With Nittai of Arbela, second of five pairs of scholars”.

Found by software in Wikipedia's own edit history. Not yet read by hand. The quoted words are Wikipedia's.

Compared with the live article on 2026-08-04.

We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2010 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since. Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now. ¹ tap a number or a side note to jump between them

The opening as it read in 2010

Joshua ben Perachya ( ) was Nasi of the Sanhedrin in the latter half of the second century BC.¹ He and his colleague Nittai of Arbela were the second of the five pairs ( Zugot ) of scholars who received and transmitted Jewish tradition ( Avot i.6; Haggigah 16a). 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 Men. 109b apparently allude. (According to the entry on Yeshu, it was Alexander Jannaeus , not John Hyrcanus whose persecution he fled. In Sanhedrin 107b and Sotah 47a a Yeshu is mentioned as a student of Joshua ben Perachiah who was sent away for judging a woman by her physical appearance. This happened during their period of refuge in Egypt during the persecutions of Pharisees 88-76 BCE ordered by Alexander Jannæus.) He fled to Alexandria, Egypt , but was recalled to Jerusalem when the persecutions ceased and the Pharisees again triumphed over the Sadducees ( Sotah 47a). The same passage refers to a pupil of Joshua's who according to some scholars may have been Jesus (comp. Only a single halakhah of Joshua's has been preserved (Tosef., Maksh. iii. 4), besides the following ethical maxim which shows his gentle judgment of his fellow men and his eagerness to spread knowledge among the people: "Get thee a teacher; win thee a friend; and in judging incline toward the side of innocence" (Avot i. 6).²

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 363335083.

Today

Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.
	2010	2015	2020	Oct '23	2025

What Wikipedia says this is

Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2010, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.

Then

nasi of the sanhedrin in the latter half of the second century bc

Now

nasi of the sanhedrin in the latter half of the 2nd century bce

Sections that no longer exist

This section existed on October 6, 2023. It is gone today. The current article has no similar heading in its place, and the article is shorter overall. So this is not a heading that got renamed, and it is not a topic that got folded into a bigger section. 1 section of 400 characters or more gone since October 6 2023, with the article 41 characters shorter.

With Nittai of Arbela, second of five pairs of scholars

Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.

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