Was Jesus really a Jewish rabbi?

[Harel13]

A rabbi was a Jewish pastor. Priest isn't the best term to describe a rabbi because it has connotations of a mediator.

Evidence?
And "priest" in Judaism, on the other hand, means something else entirely.

 

[Skywalker]

It's true that by Jesus's time there were multiple sects within Judaism. But just a couple of centuries later, authority was re-centralized under what used to be the Pharisee sect. If for nothing else, it's for this reason that it would be absolutely senseless for a Christian to come up to a Jew and say: "Jesus was a Jewish rabbi". Why? Because it is highly unlikely that he received any sort of ordination from the Pharisees, who are the spiritual ancestors of the vast majority of modern-day Judaism (probably excluding the Karaites). And that is the point I am trying to make in this thread.

As to why within the Pharisee sect, the Talmudic-era teachings were more authoritative than Jesus? That's essentially the same as asking "Why is SCOTUS more authoritative than the Average Joe Schmoe on the street?" Answer: Because of traditions of authority. In the US's case, when the country was founded, it was decided by the elected officials at the time that SCOTUS would have more authority than old Joe. Likewise, within the Jewish people, there was a tradition that authority was granted to the sages via an unbroken chain of authority all the way back to Moses who received his authority from God at Mt. Sinai. And Jesus, on the other hand, didn't qualify for the receiving of this authority from the elder sages in his time.

Jesus wasn't a rabbi by the definition of the Pharisees because they didn't agree with his teachings. It goes against our nature to believe that Jesus is God.

Jesus wasn't necessarily not a rabbi because of Jewish tradition. Not all Jewish tradition comes from the law of Moses or the Old Testament holidays.

 

[Wandering Monk]

Jesus wasn't a rabbi by the definition of the Pharisees because they didn't agree with his teachings. It goes against our nature to believe that Jesus is God.

Jesus wasn't necessarily not a rabbi because of Jewish tradition. Not all Jewish tradition comes from the law of Moses or the Old Testament holidays.

Not only does it go against our nature to believe that Jesus is God, it goes against the Torah.

 

[Skywalker]

Evidence?
And "priest" in Judaism, on the other hand, means something else entirely.

The Bible and Tanakh teach that there are no mediators between God and people. Cohenim were like mediators. Rabbis don't have that function. Priest - Wikipedia

Historical
In ancient Israel, the priests were required by the Law of Moses to be of direct patrilineal descent from Aaron, Moses' elder brother. In Exodus 30:22–25 God instructs Moses to make a holy anointing oil to consecrate the priests "for all of eternity." During the times of the two Jewish Temples in Jerusalem, the Aaronic priests were responsible for the daily and special Jewish holiday offerings and sacrifices within the temples, these offerings are known as the korbanot.

 

[Skywalker]

Not only does it go against our nature to believe that Jesus is God, it goes against the Torah.

It goes against certain interpretations of the Torah to believe that Jesus was a rabbi, but it doesn't go against the Torah itself.

Why do you think believing Jesus is God goes against our nature?

 

[Harel13]

Jesus wasn't necessarily not a rabbi because of Jewish tradition.

What else would have made him a rabbi? You have yet to provide evidence that there were non-Pharisee rabbis and that they were defined as "pastors".

The Bible and Tanakh teach that there are no mediators between God and people. Cohenim were like mediators. Rabbis don't have that function. Priest - Wikipedia

This does not provide evidence...

 

[Wandering Monk]

The Bible and Tanakh teach that there are no mediators between God and people. Cohenim were like mediators. Rabbis don't have that function. Priest - Wikipedia

I was referring to your assertion in that post that he was God.

 

[Skywalker]

I was referring to your assertion in that post that he was God.

The Torah says that there is no mediator between God and man, but the priests had almost a mediator-like function. Priest - Wikipedia

The word comes from the root KWN/KON כ-ו-ן 'to stand, to be ready, established'[13] in the sense of someone who stands ready before God[14], and is common with other Semitic languages, e.g. Phoenician KHN 'priest'.

 

[Wandering Monk]

The Torah says that there is no mediator between God and man, but the priests had almost a mediator-like function. Priest - Wikipedia

The 'mediator between God and man' comes from the NT, not the Torah.

 

[Skywalker]

What else would have made him a rabbi? You have yet to provide evidence that there were non-Pharisee rabbis and that they were defined as "pastors".

This does not provide evidence...

Rabbis existed in a certain scope before the Pharisees and the Talmud. Rabbi - Wikipedia

The basic form of the rabbi developed in the Pharisaic and Talmudic era, when learned teachers assembled to codify Judaism's written and oral laws. The title "rabbi" was first used in the first century CE. In more recent centuries, the duties of a rabbi became increasingly influenced by the duties of the Protestant Christian minister, hence the title "pulpit rabbis", and in 19th-century Germany and the United States rabbinic activities including sermons, pastoral counseling, and representing the community to the outside, all increased in importance.

 

[Harel13]

Rabbis existed in a certain scope before the Pharisees and the Talmud. Rabbi - Wikipedia

Yes, I mentioned that in my OP.
So, evidence for your view?

 

[Skywalker]

The 'mediator between God and man' comes from the NT, not the Torah.

The Torah disagrees with the concept of there being a mediator. But Jesus had a function similar to the priests of the Old Testament, not like pagan priests. Do Jewish People Need (Jesus as) a Mediator? - ONE FOR ISRAEL Ministry

The Old Testament teaches that because of the sin that entered the world, there is no longer a direct relationship between human-beings and God, as there was in the beginning. The sin in us separates us from God. The prophet Isaiah described the situation very well: “Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.” (Is. 59:1-2)
In the Pentateuch we learn that when God gave the Law, only the high priests were allowed to enter the Holy of Holies, and only after they offered a sacrifice in order to first purify themselves. The priests are the ones who mediated between the people of Israel and God. Generally it is true that every Jew could cry out to God and beg for His mercy. But, without the atoning sacrifice offered by the high priest, no Jew could come directly into the presence of God. Therefore, one of the roles of the Messiah (as foretold by the Old Testament prophets) is also to be a High Priest for us.

 

[Skywalker]

Yes, I mentioned that in my OP.
So, evidence for your view?

Jesus not being a rabbi by the definition of the Talmud and the Pharisees doesn't mean he wasn't a rabbi.

 

[Skywalker]

But in other instances went against the sages.
He seemed to be inconsistent...

Similar to pastors, rabbis are human beings. The Pharisees were not infallible. Jesus disagreeing with clergy doesn't mean he was inconsistent.

 

[Harel13]

Jesus not being a rabbi by the definition of the Talmud and the Pharisees doesn't mean he wasn't a rabbi.

You're going in circles now. I simply wanted to know based on what evidence you believe that non-Pharisee sects had authoritative figures known as "rabbis" and how do you know that they served as "pastors"?

 

[Skywalker]

You're going in circles now. I simply wanted to know based on what evidence you believe that non-Pharisee sects had authoritative figures known as "rabbis" and how do you know that they served as "pastors"?

Rabbinic Judaism is based on the Pharisees. A lot of people believe that the Pharisees were the first rabbis. Pharisees and Rabbinic Judaism

Since the Middle Ages, Jews and Christians generally have assumed that the first rabbis were Pharisees. That assumption is supported by a good deal of evidence. Like the Pharisees, the rabbis claimed to maintain a sacred tradition of scriptural exegesis. The Mishnah, the earliest record of the rabbinic legal tradition known as halakhah, approvingly cites select opinions ascribed to the Pharisees (m. Yadayim 4:6-8). Later rabbinic sages espoused teachings on fate, free will, and the afterlife ascribed to the Pharisees in the New Testament and by the contemporary Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. They even recalled Pharisaic personalities of the first century C.E. such as Gamaliel and his son Shimon as founders of the rabbinic discipline (m. Avot 1:16-18; see Acts 5:34-39; Josephus, Life 190-91).

 

[Skywalker]

It's true that by Jesus's time there were multiple sects within Judaism. But just a couple of centuries later, authority was re-centralized under what used to be the Pharisee sect. If for nothing else, it's for this reason that it would be absolutely senseless for a Christian to come up to a Jew and say: "Jesus was a Jewish rabbi". Why? Because it is highly unlikely that he received any sort of ordination from the Pharisees, who are the spiritual ancestors of the vast majority of modern-day Judaism (probably excluding the Karaites). And that is the point I am trying to make in this thread.

As to why within the Pharisee sect, the Talmudic-era teachings were more authoritative than Jesus? That's essentially the same as asking "Why is SCOTUS more authoritative than the Average Joe Schmoe on the street?" Answer: Because of traditions of authority. In the US's case, when the country was founded, it was decided by the elected officials at the time that SCOTUS would have more authority than old Joe. Likewise, within the Jewish people, there was a tradition that authority was granted to the sages via an unbroken chain of authority all the way back to Moses who received his authority from God at Mt. Sinai. And Jesus, on the other hand, didn't qualify for the receiving of this authority from the elder sages in his time.

I don't agree with what SCOTUS did in Roe Vs. wade, so their education and qualification doesn't necessarily mean that Jesus wasn't a rabbi. Even leaders with the most education and qualifications are fallible.

 

[oldbadger]

Likely because most rabbis at the time lived in Judea or Babylon and not in the Galilee. There's a story in the Jerusalem Talmud that I've brought on RF a couple of times recently about Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai, a 1st century rabbi, going to the Galilee to serve as their posek (the person who decides the various rulings of Jewish law) and he leaves after 18 years, lamenting that he was only ever asked two questions...in other words, Judaism was not very strong in the Galilee at the time. More evidence that Jesus could have easily based himself as a freelance scholar doing as he pleased in the area. I'm not great with the NT, but it seems that he only really started getting into hot water the more he went into Judea and Jerusalem in particular.

It was only after the destruction of the Temple that the Sanhedrin moved to Yavneh and sometime around the 2nd century they moved to Usha, in the Galilee. At the same time, the Galilean cities of Tiberias and Zippori started to become major centers of Torah.

I must copy all that.
That moves me forwards.
By the way. Mark's Gospel only tells of Jesus being in an 11-12 month campaign after the Baptist was arrested, and he only went to Jerusalem once in all that time, during his last week.
The three year campaign popping up and down to the Temple is all G-John who had no clue at all about any time line, he was not the disciple John, as @Vouthon has previously shown.

I have heard many times that Galileans were recent Jews from the time of Babylon. I've also read that they didn't attend the Temple as frequently as laid down..... The Baptist's dunk n redemption offer was very very popular with the Northern Jews who could keep their savings. There's more about all that.

It begins to look as if there were meeting places back then in the North, later called synagogues by the gospel writers. Possible?

Jesus was no rabbi, nor non-Levite Pharisee .... Just a working man who had a voice and some charisma, pushing for his own for a few months which failed and ending in a last attempt in Jerusalem to raise a rebellion. That's the G-Mark story. Honest.

 

[Skywalker]

I must copy all that.
That moves me forwards.
By the way. Mark's Gospel only tells of Jesus being in an 11-12 month campaign after the Baptist was arrested, and he only went to Jerusalem once in all that time, during his last week.
The three year campaign popping up and down to the Temple is all G-John who had no clue at all about any time line, he was not the disciple John, as @Vouthon has previously shown.

I have heard many times that Galileans were recent Jews from the time of Babylon. I've also read that they didn't attend the Temple as frequently as laid down..... The Baptist's dunk n redemption offer was very very popular with the Northern Jews who could keep their savings. There's more about all that.

It begins to look as if there were meeting places back then in the North, later called synagogues by the gospel writers. Possible?

Jesus was no rabbi, nor non-Levite Pharisee .... Just a working man who had a voice and some charisma, pushing for his own for a few months which failed and ending in a last attempt in Jerusalem to raise a rebellion. That's the G-Mark story. Honest.

Jesus didn't attempt to raise a rebellion. He said that his kingdom is not of the world.

 

[oldbadger]

I don't think his father's name is ever mentioned anywhere. He's usually referred to just as Hillel or Hillel the Elder or the Sage: Hillel the Elder - Wikipedia

OK. I was seeking to discover if he was a Levite.

Wasn't Herod a military general?

Surely, but he got up there by being very bad, very dangerous, very successful, or so I have gathered.
Then the Romans elevated him because he was the most useful client King.
No blood there, just ruthless badness.

He's usually just plain Rabbi Yehoshua in the Talmud, but his full name is Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananyah.

Thank you! So he was a Levite.
Figures. Most leaders were Levites. The Ba-ba-bar speaking (eastern aramaic) Jews were peasant the classes. The Romans took the Mickey out of the way they spoke just as they did with some European tribes. Bar ba bar Barbarians! Barnabus,
Barnabus. Bartolomey. BarJonah etc.

While that may be true for some, in the Talmudic story from which we learn that he was a coal maker and merchant, he defines it as the sort of work that is not respectable and does not earn him a lot of money.

Ok, but Western Aramaic or Hebrew was the southern language of the superior Levites.

Yes, I wrote that in my OP:
"Revering their teacher, the disciples, who it seems were not too learned, chose the popular title without really understanding what it truly meant in Judaic terms, past basic Aramaic vocabulary skills."

Yes! Absolutely!
Ten boatmen and a couple of publicans, all very hard men, not the weakly wailing softies depicted in some stories.
A Zealot (from Sepphoris/Zippori uprising?), An ex hired blade, two sons of violence, brothers hard as anchors (rocks), two publicans (I reckon) and you might see the picture. Disciples were 'well-hard' .