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RABBI

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Originally appearing in Volume V22, Page 767 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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RABBI , a See also:

Hebrew word meaning " my See also:master," " my teacher." It is derived from the See also:adjective See also:rab (in Aramaic, and frequently also in Hebrew, " See also:great "), which acquired in See also:modern Hebrew the signification of "See also:lord," in relation to servants or slaves, and of " teacher," " master," in relation to the See also:disciple. The master was addressed by his pupils with the word rabbi (" my teacher "), or rabbenu (" our teacher "). It became customary to speak of See also:Moses as Moshe rabbenu (" our teacher Moses "). Jesus makes it a reproach against the See also:scribes that they cause themselves to be entitled by the See also:people rabbi (pa/301, Matt. See also:xxiii. 7): and He Himself is saluted by the disciples of See also:John as rabbi (John i. 38, where the word is explained as See also:equivalent to SLSaaKake). As an honorary See also:title of the scribes, with whose name it was constantly linked, " Rabbi " only came into use during the last decades of the second See also:Temple. See also:Hillel and See also:Shammai, the contemporaries of See also:Herod, were mentioned without any title. See also:Gamaliel I., the See also:grandson of Hillel, was the first to whose name the appellation Rabban (the same asrabbon, and also pronounced as ribbon, cf. pa(S(3ovvi, See also:Mark x. 51; John xx. 16) was prefixed. This title, a higher distinction than that of rabbi, is in tradition See also:borne only by the descendants of Gamaliel I., the last being Gamaliel III., the son of Jehuda I.

(Aboth ii. 2), and by Jolianan b. Zaccai, the founder of the school of See also:

Jamnia (Jabneh). Otherwise all Tannaites (see See also:TANNA), the scholars of the Mishnah See also:period, were distinguished by the title of " rabbi." The Jehuda I. mentioned above, the redactor of the Mishnah, was honoured as the " Rabbi " See also:ear' E1 oxijv (" See also:par excellence "), and in the tradition of the houses of learning, if it was necessary to speak of him or to cite his opinions and utterances, he was simply referred to as " Rabbi," without the mention of any name. Scholars who were not definitely ordained—and among these were men of high distinction—were simply mentioned by their names without the Rabbi-title. In the See also:post-Talmudic See also:age the See also:Qaraites, who rejected the tradition of the See also:Talmud, designated the See also:Jews who adhered to that tradition as Rabbanites. Similarly the See also:term Rabbins, or Rabbis, is applied to modern Jewish See also:clergy. The plural rabbanim was employed to describe the later Jewish scholars (so, for example, in the historian See also:Abraham See also:Ibn Daud, 12th See also:century). By " rabbinical literature " is understood the post-Talmudic Jewish literature; in particular, so far as its subject is the literature of the tradition and its contents.

End of Article: RABBI

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