Over the first eight centuries of the Current Era, the religious cultures of Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and many European lands were transformed by the worship of YHWH and the development from Judaism to Christianity and Islam. What Were the Early Rabbis? explores the changes wrought after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE, and the impact of this on the new 'masters' of law, life, and practice, the 'rabbis'. Offering the reader an introduction to the earliest rabbinic movement near and soon after its initial movement, Jack N. Lightstone separates the book into two parts that consider early Rabbinic self-definition and how the Rabbis may have thought of themselves or were perceived.
What views did these rabbis promote about their emerging authority? What in the surrounding and antecedent sociocultural context lent legitimacy to this profile? Addressing these and other questions, What Were the Early Rabbis? sheds light on this social and religious phenomenon for the non-specialist reader.