The Pharisees, the sect that arose during the 400 year Greek occupation in order to stand firm against assimilation through idolatry and continued that with the later occupation of the Roman's attempts were the sect that survived the Roman destruction of the Temple and kept Judaism and Torah intact for us today. This is also the sect that created the title and position of Rabbi after the destruction of the Second Temple to be conferred upon learned sages who upheld Torah. This position was created essentially to replace the function of the judges of the now defunct Sanhedrin.
From the beginnings of the Pharisees a couple of hundred years prior to Jesus' day and until the destruction of the Temple, Rabbis did not exist. The title of *Rabban* was used contemporary with the beginnings of Christianity, but it was applied ONLY to the *LEADER* of the Sanhedrin, the court comprised of the most learned and respected men who displayed in their lives the most ethical and moral values of Torah. Talmud records that during the days of the Second Temple, this court became increasingly corrupt. Only a very few such men bore the title Rabban, the leader of the Sanhedrin, within a generation of Jesus. Prior to the title Rabbi, the members of the court were called dayanim, not Rabbis.
The Sanhedrin certainly did not confer to either Jesus or Paul this title of leadership of the Sanhedrin. There is also no record of either them in the many writings of the Pharisees of that generation. The root of the word Rabbi is rav or rab meaning "great". It is possible that followers of Jesus could have called him a Rav Moreh ( great teacher) in thinking him as one, but the word Rabbi does not mean teacher. For a male teacher, the Hebrew word MOREH is what would be used, for a female teacher, morah. A teacher is only one role of a Rabbi, and since Rabbis didn't exist then and Jesus was never conferred the title Rabbi..all of this is moot.
It is and remains anachronistic to refer to Jesus or anyone before about 90 CE as Rabbi in the sense of the type of Torah sage/religious teacher and leader they refer to when using that term. The assembly at Yavneh is the time that the first written usage of that term appears in any known Jewish writings.
The use of the term Rabbi in the New Testament indicates to scholars that the books in which it appears were written after 90CE. Some scholars suggest those texts were perhaps altered later in order to confer authority or title upon Jesus and Paul which did not exist in their lifetimes. Some speculate the title was placed there when it was written (after 90CE) to simply show respect by an author unfamiliar with the purpose of the title, unaware of the fact that Rabbi referred to a specific title conferred by certain rules and duties. Christian apologetics often claims that Jesus was the "first" Rabbi since they insist the NT was written before 90CE. However, the Jewish people know precisely who the first Rabbis were and their lineage was recorded contemporary to their lifetimes.
Copyright © 2008 mama_pajama_1.
There also exist Jewish writings that we know to have been put down after 100 CE that anachronistically refer to some Jewish sages living in prior generations of the writer as rabbi in respect, *this* is the contextual frame of reference that scholars use to note that the Christian Bible's writers perhaps also used this term to apply to Jesus and Paul in trying to tie to them, the status of rabbi even though they were not known by this during their lifetimes as the title did not exist then. Just as the Pseudepigrapha, Jewish writings, primarily in Greek, falsely attributed to biblical characters or times, sometimes anachronistic references were made in the centuries of Greek and Roman occupation.