Originally Posted by sotted voice

But what was implied in contemporary Judaism, that Jesus condemned, was the idea of personal greatness that 'rabbi' implied. This was approaching putting a sinner in loco Dei. But, just as Abraham had no human mentor, but communed with God directly, neither did any Israelite rightly have a human mentor. The intention was very, very different from the absurd squabbling over idiotic minutiae that Jewish rabbis presented to the world. The Israelites had been intended to be a 'holy nation of priests', i.e. each individual was to be personal witness to the holy laws of YHWH, as king-priests, with absolutely no-one on earth to tell them what was permitted and what was not. This principle is made clear in the New Testament as being the modus operandi of the church, that the 'old church' of Moses could not attain.