Simeon ben Eleazar

Simeon ben Eleazar (or Simeon b. Eleazar; Hebrew: שמעון בן אלעזר‎‎, read as Shimon ben Eleazar) was a Jewish Tanna sage of the fourth generation, and one of Rabbi Meir's disciples. He is cited in the Mishnah merely few times, but on the Tosefta and Baraitas' portions that are quoted in the Talmud his name is mentioned many times. In many of the classical texts of the Baraita, in matters in dispute, he has stated a different version to these disputes cited in the Mishnah. He is most likely the son of R. Eleazar ben Shammua.^[1] Maimonides, when he enumerated the generations of the Tannaim sages, had reversed the order, and placed R. Simeon ben Eleazar as a contemporary of R. Akiva, whereas placing R. Meir in the following generation. R. Yom Tov Asevilli claims that there were two different Tanna sages with the same name of Simeon ben Eleazar, one in the previous generation to R. Meir, and the other in the following generation to R. Meir, and in that he had resolved the maze of Maimonides' statement.^[2]

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