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Jesus the rabbi ?

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ConsequentAtheist
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Message 5 of 42 (45137)
07-05-2003 10:31 AM

I also would be interested in the book title. According to both the Catholic Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia Judaica, the use of the term Rabbi as 'master' or 'my lord' goes back as far as Hillel. See, for example, Rabbi and Rabbinism.
  
ConsequentAtheist
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Message 8 of 42 (45336)
07-07-2003 10:21 PM

I'll see if I can get a photocopy of the Encyclopedia Judaica this Friday. Unfortunately, I do not own a copy (although I am eyeing the CD greedily). I find the fact that it tends to support what is found in the Catholic Encyclopedia somewhat compelling.
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ConsequentAtheist
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Posts: 392
Joined: 05-28-2003

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Message 31 of 42 (65366)
11-09-2003 3:35 PM 		Reply to: Message 30 by jes
11-09-2003 8:51 AM

Re: Jesus the rabb?
The great Jewish masters who lived in the age of Jesus Christ,Hillel,Shammai,Gamaliel,are all called "elders" not "rabbis'. I suspect anachronism!
Perhaps you mean "Rabban Gamaliel the Elder"? I found the following of interest: Rabbi
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ConsequentAtheist
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Message 36 of 42 (66793)
11-16-2003 6:34 AM 		Reply to: Message 35 by RebWlmJames
11-16-2003 5:02 AM

Re: Jesus as rabbi
Again, the Catholic Encyclopaedia referenced above notes:
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Evidently the scribe in his own estimation belonged to a higher caste. And so it was understood by the people who, after the time of Hillel introduced the custom of saluting them "Rabbi". The word, derived from the Hebrew Rab, "great", originally seems to have been equivalent to "my lord"; when it became the distinctive title of the scribes the specific force of its pronoun was lost, and "Rabbi" was used very much like our "Doctor". That this title was far from unpleasant in the ears of the scribes we know from Matt., xxiii, 7. In point of fact a pupil never would omit it when speaking to or of his teacher (Berach., xxvii, 1), and it became a universal usage never to mention the name of a doctor of the Law without prefixing "Rabbi". Nay more, in order to show the person greater honour, this title was intensified into "Rabban", "Rabboni", so that in the course of time custom established a kind of hierarchy among these various forms: "Rabbi", the doctors said, "is more than Rab, Rabban more than Rabbi, and the proper name more than Rabban." The latter part of this traditional regulation has particularly in view the two great Doctors Hillel and Shammai, always designated by their unqualified proper names; the successors of Hillel, as Gamaliel were titled Rabban, and so also was by exception Johanan ben Zakkai; Palestinian doctors are commonly known as Rabbi So-and-so, yet Rabbi Judas the Saint, who composed the Mishna, is not infrequently called merely Rabbi (par excellence); in the same manner, Rab, without the proper name, designates Abba Arika (died A. D. 247), the founder of the School of Sora, while Rab is the title prefixed to the names of the Amoras of Babylon. [emphasis added - CA]
gMat's use of the term 'Rabbi' may well be an anachronism, but the case is hardly certain. To argue that a term in use after 70 CE was unknown in 30 CE seems pretty week.
​
[This message has been edited by ConsequentAtheist, 11-16-2003]
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ConsequentAtheist
Member (Idle past 6259 days)
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Message 38 of 42 (67007)
11-17-2003 6:13 AM 		Reply to: Message 37 by RebWlmJames
11-17-2003 1:18 AM

Re: Jesus as rabbi
I doubt that Jesus would have allowed himself to be called Rabbi, had he not been granted semikha, like Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, etc. And if he had been granted semikha, one would think that he would have been called Rabbi throughout the New Testament.
I suspect that the term was used to denote "master" long before it became institutionalized. It is this sense of the term that is found in Matthew 23:8 and John 1:38. Talk of semikha is irrelevant.
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ConsequentAtheist
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Message 39 of 42 (67210)
11-17-2003 7:01 PM

I had promised earlier that I would post the following ...
​
quote:
RABBI, RABBINATE. The title rabbi is derived from the noun rav, which in biblical Hebrew means "great" and does not occur in the Bible; in its later sense in mishnaic Hebrew, however, the word rav means a master as opposed to a slave (e.g., "does a slave rebel against his rav"Ber. 10a; "It is like a slave who filled a cup for his rav and he poured the water over his face"Suk. 2:9). It was only during the tannaitic period, in the generation after Hillel, that it was employed as a title for the sages. The passage in the New Testament (Matt. 23:7) in which the Scribes and Pharisees are criticized because they "love... to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi" probably reflects the fact of its recent introduction.
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[also]
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HILLEL (the Elder; end of first century B.C.E. and beginning of first century C.E.), the greatest of the sages of the Second Temple period. ... It is stated that Hillel was appointed nasi a century before the destruction of the Temple (Shab. 15a), i.e., in 30 B.C.E., and held office for 40 years, that is, until the year 10 C.E. (Sif. Deut. 357; according to this source he lived 120 years). These are only approximate figures, however, and it is more likely that the period of Hillel's activity is to be placed at the end of Herod's reign, from about the year 10 B.C.E. to about 10 C.E.
​
- see The Encyclopaedia Judaica
​
So, according to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, the introduction of term Rabbi "employed as a title" is to be dated to "the generation after Hillel", i.e., the generation of the Jesus cult.
​
Conversely, the Jewish Encyclopedia notes:
​
quote:
Sherira's statement shows clearly that at the time of Jesus there were no titles; and Grtz ("Gesch." iv. 431), therefore, regards as anachronisms the title "Rabbi" as given in the gospels to John the Baptist and Jesus, Jesus' disapprobation of the ambition of the Jewish doctors who love to be called by this title, and his admonition to his disciples not to suffer themselves to be so styled (Matt. xxiii. 7, 8).
​
Given the above, the best that can be said, in my opinion, is that the case for anachronism is unsettled and unproven.
  
ConsequentAtheist
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Message 41 of 42 (81815)
01-31-2004 1:47 PM 		Reply to: Message 40 by jes
01-31-2004 12:38 PM

The Jewish Encyclopaedia suggests that the period runs from 10-220 CE.
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