Ancient literature preserves two accounts of the death of Honi the Circle Maker. One is in Josephus, where Honi is murdered by Jews after failing to participate in the Hasmonean civil war; the other is found in B. Ta. 23a, where Honi prays for death when nobody recognizes him after he awakes from sleeping for seventy years. While these two accounts seem to have no relation to each other, upon comparing the Bavli story to other tales of saintly long sleepers it appears that the Bavli story is a negative twist on the classic plot. The Bavli story is now understood as an aggadic version of the Josephus story, in the same category as the Bar Kamtza story and other similar explanatory narratives meant to highlight the reasons for tragedies in Jewish history.

古代文学保留了有关造圈者霍尼之死的两个记载。一个是在约瑟夫斯，那里的霍尼（Honi）因未参加哈斯蒙尼亚内战而被犹太人谋杀；另一个在B. Ta中找到。23a，在霍尼（Honi）醒了70年后，没人能认出他来的时候，他在这里祈祷死亡。虽然这两个说法似乎没有任何关系，但将Bavli故事与其他圣徒长时间卧床的故事进行比较后，看来Bavli故事是经典情节的消极转折。Bavli故事现在被理解为约瑟夫斯故事的一个变种，与Bar Kamtza故事和其他类似的解释性叙事属于同一类别，意在强调犹太历史上悲剧的原因。