you are here: > Key Founders of Rabbinical Judaism > Chapter 02
 
Chapter 2  
     
1.
 Judaism as it is today, including all the various groups such as orthodox, conservative and reform owe their beliefs, sacred texts to one school and in particular one family of Jews, known as the Hillel school, or House of Hillel after Hillel the Elder, also known as Hillel the Babylonian.
  
2.
 The exact year of birth of Hillel the Babylonian is unclear but given his claimed age of at least 100, it is possible the date was as early as 80 BCE to 60 BCE. Certainly, his most famous period of prominence was around was 20 BCE - 20 CE a period of forty years in which modern Rabbinical scholars claim him to be the true nasci (President of the Sanhedrin) instead of the various High Priests.
  
3.
 While this is a total fraud, it is more likely during this period Hillel the Babylonian was regarded as a spiritual patriarch and expert of Jewish law, and may well have been seen as a more “real” leader than the High Priests.
 
4.
 But officially there is no reality to the claim of Hillel, nor his succesors holding a more senior position than High priest, a position during the time of Herod until the destruction of Jerusalem held mostly by Sadducees and by one family in particular (Ananus).  
5.
 As a native of Babylon, and a major figure of Jewish scripture, Hillel shares a distinct historic context with Jeremiah six hundred years earlier and then Nehemiah four hundred years earlier.
  
6.
 Given both of these great Jewish prophets were given clear commissions and tasks by the Persians, it is possible Hillel himself might also have been given some mission by the Magi priests of the Zoroastrians.
  
7.
 At any rate, Hillel devoted himself to established a pre-eminent school of Jewish study, the first effective “university of Judaism”. By about 10 CE onwards, many of the sons of the wealthiest Sadducee families from around the Roman world were being sent to the Hillel school to be taught Jewish scripture, language and history.
  
8.
 About the same time as Hillel the Babylonian a second major Pharisee figure camed to prominence, by the name of Shammai (50 BCE–30 CE).
  
9.
 With the House of Hillel, Shammai is an important and historic figure in Judaism's core work of rabbinic literature, the Mishnah.
  
10.
 Shammai was the most eminent contemporary and direct competitor of Hillel in terms of Pharisee interpretation, recruiting new students, and is almost almost always mentioned along with him.
  
11.
 Shammai's school of thought became known as the House of Shammai (in Hebrew: Beit Shammai), while Hillel's was known as the House of Hillel (Beit Hillel).
  
12.
 Even the children of the House of Ananus, the reigning High Priests of the Jews during the period and originally from Syria, attended the School of Hillel or Shammai.
 
13.
 However, it was under the management of the grandson of Hillel from Babylon, Gamaliel the Elder, or Rabbi Gamaliel I from around 10- 15 CE to his death in 63 CE that made the Hillel School the most famous centre of Jewish learning in ancient history that surpassed Shammai.
  
14.
 Gamaliel the Elder, is historically the first Pharisee to be given the official title of Rabbi, in contrast to its general use by modern Rabbinical scholars to denote various holy people throughout history.
  
15.
 And it was Gamaliel the Elder who was the spiritual expert of Jewish law during the Sanhedrin trial of Jesus before being handed across to the Romans because Jesus’s father was the most senior Sadducee and a Roman citizen.
  
16.
 Gamaliel the Elder is also a key biblical figure through his mentoring of two of the most important founders of Christianity being Josephus ben Matthias, also known as St Luke, the son of a High Priest and grandson of Ananus the Elder and Paul of Tarsus.
  
17.
 There is no question that Gamaliel the Elder and his son Shimon ben Gamliel played an important part in guiding and advising both Josephus (St Luke) and Paul of Tarsus in their theological architecture of Christianity against the Nazarenes.
  
18.
 The Gnostic texts and preaching of Jesus was the single greatest enemy to Pharisee teaching. The claims that the Babylonian Talmud was a fraud created firstly by Jeremiah and Baruch and then Ezra and Behemiah two hundred years later was a claim that could no go unanswered.
  
19.
 At stake was the future of Judaism as it had been carefully constructed by the Persians and in particular by the Magi of the Zoroastrians.
  
20.
 But the further claim of Jesus to be the Son of God and therefore the true Pharaoh of Egypt only magnified the pressure. For one day Jesus would be the crown prince in exile and heir to the throne if the ancient Kings of Israel were ever returned.
  
21.
 Furthermore, through the marriage of his father to a daughter of Aaron, Jesus was also the legitimate heir to the High Priests.
  
22.
 Therefore Gamaliel the Elder, his sons along with Paul of Tarsus and his star pupil Josephus ben Matthias (St Luke) would have spent many a long night plotting not only how to rid themselves of the House of Joseph and the Nazarenes, but their religion of truth and exposure of Judaism.
  
23.
 One more clue as to the pro active role of Gamaliel the Elder in the murder of James the Just, a Roman citizen and blood brother of Jesus is his murder a few months later, presumably at the hands of the Sicarii (Iscariots), the Zealot warriors.
  

 
 
 

Copyright © 2010 One-Faith-Of-God.Org. All rights reserved.