-Jay-

A while back, I heard a story from a friend who recounted a story told in his church by one of the elders about how Jesus was so remarkable that he had twelve students when all the other rabbis only had one or two. The story had some other details, regarding how Jesus often answers questions with other questions in the mold of a rabbi, but the main point was the number of students and how that was evidence that Jesus was something special. At the time, I thought the story had something of an urban legend character about it, so I went hunting.

I managed to trace the story back to an account published in Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith (or via: amazon.co.uk). Bell, IIRC, credits the story to one of his sources. I don't believe that he actually gave a verifiable citation. (I no longer have access to the book, so I can't easily confirm this.) I got distracted by other issues before I ran the matter to ground, and eventually forgot about it.

Anyway, this popped back into my head after reading some of the other currently active threads and led me to wonder:

At what point in Jewish history did the concept of "Rabbi", as it is often applied to Jesus, emerge? Does the story above really make sense in the context of what a Jewish teacher in the 1^st century would do, or is this just a completely fabricated comparison intended to rally the troops?

Any thoughts?

regards,

NinJay

Sarai

Well, you're going back a ways for me, but as I recall it taught in Hebrew School, the term Rabbi (or Rabban) began to be used as a title after the establishment of the Yavneh school by ben Zakkai, et. al. Granted, this is just what was taught to us, there may be someone more authoritative than my old Hebrew School teacher come along and shed more light on the subject! Hope this helps...

Sarai

yalla

Ther was considerable discussion of this recently here. Maybe you can find it.
In the meantime this from the online Jewish Encyclopedia.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/vi...id=30&letter=R

""Rabbi" in the Gospels.

Sherira's statement shows clearly that at the time of Jesus there were no titles; and Grätz ("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).

No Robots

Here.

My own position is that of Catherine Heszer (The Social Structure of the Rabbinic Movement in Roman Palestine):

While S.Zeitlin maintained that the term "Rabbi" is anachronistic in the Gospels and came into use only after the destruction of the Temple, almost all almost all scholars nowadays agree with Ferdinand Hahn that that the term is applied to Jesus "in an old stratum of the traditions behind the gospels of Mark and John" and may well reflect actual practice [Hahn, Ferdinand, The Titles of Jesus in Christology. Their History in Early Christianity. London, 1969 (= German ed. Gottingen, 1963) See also Lohse (1968) 964; Vermes 30; Hengel (1968) 46; Norman 23; Riesner 247; Shanks (1963) 342: "Why would the Gospel writers or later editors insert a Jewish title for Jesus when at the time they wrote the principle [sic] missionary activities of the new religion were already directed to Gentiles?"].--p. 56

and:

The editors [of the Mishnah] wanted to create the impression that "rabbinic Judaism" was a new entity that was not split by its practitioners' sectarian past.--p. 64

yalla

In "The Changing Faces Of Jesus" Geza Vermes [who is cited in your post above] wrote in 2000 CE, page 26...."Nor was he [Jesus] a 'rabbi' in the technical sense......It is even questionable whether the term 'rabbi' in the specialized meaning was curent in the early decades of the first century AD. The great Jewish masters who lived in the age of Jesus, Hillel, Shammai, Galaliel are all called 'elders'. not 'rabbis'"

Hyam Macoby in "The Mythmaker", written in 1986, says on page 21..."Thus the assemblies of the sages [as the Pharisee leaders were called before the destruction of the Jewish Temple in AD 70 after which they became known as 'rabbis' ] ......"

No Robots

The title of rabbi does not seem to have acquired by Jesus' lifetime the meaning attached to it in later ages of a fully trained exponent of scripture and tradition. None of his predecessors or contemporaries, not even the great Hillel or Shammai, or the elder Gamaliel, are referred to as rabbi in the Mishnah or the Talmud. Rabbi, signifying literally 'my great man', must be taken here in its broader sense, without prejudging the type and style of either the teacher or his teaching.--Jesus in His Jewish Context By Geza Vermes Jesus in His Jewish Context (Fortress Press - 2003), p. 27.