Note 49 — Chapter V · THE FIRST VISIT TO THE TEMPLE, AND THE EDUCATION OF JESUS.

Whether or in what degree Jesus received the learned education of a rabbin, is also left untold in our canonical Gospels. From such passages as Matt. vii. 29, where it is said that Jesus taught not as the scribes, οὐχ ὡς οἱ γραμματεῖς, we can only infer that he did not adopt the method of the doctors of the law, and it does not follow that he had never enjoyed the education of a scribe (γραμματεὺς). On the other hand, not only was Jesus called ῥαββὶ and ῥαββουνὶ by his disciples (Matt. xxvi. 25, 49; Mark ix. 5, xi. 21, xiv. 45; John iv. 31, ix. 2, xi. 8, xx. 16: comp. i. 38, 40, 50), and by supplicating sufferers (Mark x. 5), but even the pharisaic ἄρχων Nicodemus (John iii. 2) did not refuse him this title. We cannot, however, conclude from hence that Jesus had received the scholastic instruction of a rabbin;49 for the salutation Rabbi, as also the privilege of reading in the synagogue (Luke iv. 16 ff.), a particular which has likewise been appealed to, belonged not only to graduated rabbins, but to every teacher who had given actual proof of his qualifications.50 The enemies of Jesus explicitly assert, and he does not contradict them, that he had never learned letters: πῶς οὗτος γράμματα οἶδε μὴ μεμαθηκὼς (John vii. 15); and the Nazarenes are astonished to find so much wisdom in him, whence we infer that he had not to their knowledge been a student. These facts cannot be neutralized by the discourse of Jesus in which he represents himself as the model of a scribe well instructed unto the kingdom of heaven51 (Matt. xiii. 52), for the word γραμματεὺς here means a doctor of the law in general, and not directly a doctor qualified in the schools. Lastly, the intimate acquaintance with the doctrinal traditions, and the abuses of the rabbins, which Jesus exhibits,52 especially in the sermon on the mount and the anti-pharisaic discourse Matt. xxiii. he might acquire from the numerous discourses of the Pharisees to the people, without going through a course of study under them. Thus the data on our present subject to be found in the Gospels, collectively yield the result that Jesus did not pass formally through a rabbinical school; on the other hand, the consideration that it must have been the interest of the Christian legend to represent Jesus as independent of human teachers, may induce a doubt with respect to these statements in the New Testament, and a conjecture that Jesus may not have been so entirely a stranger to the learned culture of his nation. But from the absence of authentic information we can arrive at no decision on this point.