Nachshon Ben-zadok

Nachshon Ben-Zadok a Jewish writer of the early period in the development of post-Christian Judaism, was gaon at the academy of Sura or Sora, A.D. 890-898. He is the author of a great number of questions and answers (שַׁאֵלוֹת וּתַשׁוּבוֹת), and wrote explanations of difficult passages in the Talmud, which explanations are reprinted in the Responsa Gaonim (Berl. 1848), ed. Cassel. To Nachshon is also attributed the perpetual calendar (Iggul di R. Nachshon), founded upon a period of nineteen years, which was proved to be not quite correct by the learned Spaniards of the 10th and 11th centuries, but was, neverthelessn made the foundation of calendar tables (לוחות, from לוח, a table), by some later writers, as Jacob ben-Asher, at Toledo, and has retained a place in some works nearly to the present time. This same Nachshon is probably also the author of the chronicle entitled תנאים ואמוראים סדר, a treatise upon the Tanaim and Amoraim, critically edited by Luzzatto in Kerem chemed, (1839), 4:184 sq. See Gratz, Gesch. d. Juden, 5:280; Furst, Bibl. Judaica, 3:9; Steinschneider, Catalogus Libr. Hebr. in Biblioth. Bodleiana, p. 2020; Scaliger, De Emendatione Temporum, 2:132 sq.; Luzzatto, Calendario Ebraico per venti secoli; Schwarz, Der Jud. Kalender (Breslau, 1872), page 78. (B.P.)