Talk:Rabbinic Judaism
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This is material removed from Pharisees, and should be incorporated into this article as appropriate.
However, Neusner was only partially correct. All of the Patriarchs ("Av Beit Din" - Father of the Court) and some of the Exilarchs ("Reish Galuta" - lit. Head of the Exile) held the titles of Rabbi or Rav. In fact, Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, who compiled and redacted the Mishnah, was the first head of the Sanhedrin to be recognized by Rome with the title of "Patriarch", and was given authority as the hereditary leader of the Jewish people. Under the rule of the Patriarch, the Sanhedrin in the land of Israel was the supreme court of law for all the Jewish people. From the laws of shemitta and orlah regulating the activities of the plantation estates, orchards and vinyards in Israel and Babylonia, to the litigation of tort, property, and contract suits, to the administration of wills and estates, to the determination of the new moon, the Sanhedrin in Israel had the final word until the death of Rabbi Gamaliel IV in 425. Due to the pressure of Christian bishops, in 429, the Roman emperor abolished the office of Patriarch.
While constant Roman persecution caused the Jewish community in Roman Palestine to decline after the death of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, and Jewish scholarship in Israel to nearly end after the death of Rabbi Hillel HaNasi (circa 4th c. C.E.), the Jewish community in Babylonia continued to thrive and grow in scholarship and size. Unlike the situation in Roman Palestine, where the Patriarch was both the political leader and the head Rabbi of the Sanhedrin, Babylonia had dual political and religious/scholastic institutions, the Reish Galuta and the Rosh ha-Yeshiva. The Reish Galuta (commonly known as the "Exilarch"), a heriditary political office, claimed authority from being descendents of the House of David. According to the Bible, one of the last kings of Judah, Jehoiachin ("Yehoyachin"), was released by the king of babylonia and given a high seat in the Babylonian court. (2 Kings 25:27-29). This account bolstered the Exilarch family's claim that a descendent of David had sat on the throne in Babylon ever since the Exile from Judah. In turn, each of the highly influential academies ("yeshivas") of Babylonia was lead by its own Rosh ha-Yeshiva ("Head of the Academy") who was selected by the most prominent scholars and ratified by the Reish Galuta. Although the Reish Galuta had the power to appoint judges and was the final court of appeal, most of the judges were students of the academies of Nehardea, Pumpeditha, and Sura (i.e., Rabbis). The Babylonian Talumd records the details of many cases actually litigated in front of the Amoraim. Although the Academies as an institution did not have the governmental authority to compel the Jewish people to accept their rulings, in practice the law developed in the Academies became the law which governed the Jewish people, in Babylon and throughout the Diaspora.
What does this have to do with reverting my edit? Hiergargo 18:35, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Adelman's edits
This is getting a little tiresome: obviously, non-Conservative movements carry the conviction that their form of Judaism is more authentic than the others; to present one side as being "right" and others less so is clearly a biased presentation. --Leifern 18:40, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
