The Jewish community of Alexandria was enormous — perhaps the largest outside Judea in the first century CE — and its scholars were known for asking difficult questions. Once, they sent twelve to Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah.
The questions came in four bundles of three, covering the full range of Jewish learning.
Three concerned halakhah — practical legal rulings where the answer would affect daily observance. Three concerned aggadah — narrative and theological questions, the kind that open onto the character of God and the meaning of history. Three concerned the commonplace — questions of ordinary wisdom, the texture of daily life. And three concerned ethics — matters of the inner life and the right use of character.
Every question, the Alexandrians had taken care to frame, rested on what appeared to be a contradiction in the Bible itself. Two verses that seemed to pull against each other. The test was not merely to answer. The test was to show how the contradictions resolved.
Rabbi Joshua took them in order. He answered all twelve satisfactorily.
Gaster's Exempla #261 and Niddah 69b–71a preserve the episode. The Rabbis loved these apparent contradictions precisely because they loved what resolution revealed. Torah is written in a way that invites argument. A sage is someone who can hear twelve apparent contradictions and not feel his faith shaken — only his welcome extended to the next twelve.