Elementary schools: Jewish education in the time of Christ was of the orthodox traditional type and in the hands of scribes, Pharisees and learned rabbis. The home was still the chief institution for the dispensation of elementary instruction, although synagogues, with attached schools for the young were to be found in every important Jewish community. Public elementary schools, other than those connected with the synagogues were of slower growth and do not seem to have been common until, some time after Joshua ben Gamala, high priest from 63-65 AD, ordered that teachers be appointed in every province and city to instruct children having attained the age of 6-7 years. In the synagogue schools the chazzan, or attendant, not infrequently served as schoolmaster (compare SCHOOL; SCHOOLMASTER).
1. Subject Matter of Instruction:
As in earlier times the Torah, connoting now the sacred Old Testament writings as a whole, though with emphasis still upon the law, furnished the subject-matter of instruction. To this were added, in the secondary schools (colleges) of the rabbis, the illustrative and parabolical rabbinical interpretation of the law (the haggadhah) and its application to daily life in the form of concise precept or rule of conduct (the halakhah). Together the haggadhah and halakhah furnish the content of the Talmud (or Talmuds), as the voluminous collections of orthodox Jewish teachings of later centuries came to be known.
2. Method and Aims:
As regards teaching method the scribes and rabbis of New Testament times did not improve much upon the practice of the copherim and sages of earlier centuries. Memorization, the exact reproduction by the pupil of the master's teaching, rather than general knowledge or culture, was the main objective. Since the voice of prophecy had become silent and the canon of revealed truth was considered closed, the intellectual mastery and interpretation of this sacred revelation of the past was the only aim that education on its intellectual side could have. On its practical side it sought, as formerly, the inculcation of habits of strict ritualistic observance, obedience to the letter of the law as a condition of association and fellowship with the selected company of true Israelites to which scribes and Pharisees considered themselves to belong. The success with which the teachings of the scribes and rabbis were accompanied is an evidence of their devotion to their work, and more still of the psychological insight manifested by them in utilizing every subtle means and method for securing and holding the attention of their pupils, and making their memories the trained and obedient servants of an educational ideal. The defects in their work were largely the defects in that ideal. Their theory and philosophy of education were narrow. "Their eyes were turned too much to the past rather than the present and future." They failed to distinguish clearly the gold from the dross in their inherited teachings, or to adapt these to the vital urgent needs of the common people. In its struggle against foreign cults and foreign culture, Judaism had encased itself in a shell of stereotyped orthodoxy, the attempt to adapt which to new conditions and to a constantly changing social order resulted in an insincere and shallow casuistry of which the fantastic conglomerate mass of Talmudic wisdom of the 4th and 6th centuries is the lasting memorial.
3. Valuable Results of Jewish Education:
Nevertheless, "Jewish education, though defective both in matter and in method, and tending to fetter rather than to free the mind, achieved four valuable results: (1) it developed a taste for close, critical study; (2) it sharpened the wits, even to the point of perversity; (3) it encouraged a reverence for law and produced desirable social conduct; and (4) it formed a powerful bond of union among the Jewish people." To these four points of excellence enumerated by Davidson (Historia Ecclesiastica, 80) must be added a fifth which, briefly stated, is this: (5) Jewish education by its consistent teaching of lofty monotheism, and its emphasis, sometimes incidental add sometimes outstanding, upon righteousness and holiness of life as a condition of participation in a future Messianic kingdom, prepared the way for the Christian view of God and the world, set forth in its original distinctness of outline and incomparable simplicity in the teachings of Jesus.
4. The Preeminence of Jesus as a Teacher:
Jesus was more than a teacher; but He was a teacher first. To His contemporaries he appeared as a Jewish rabbi of exceptional influence and popularity. He used the teaching methods of the rabbis; gathered about Him, as did they, a group of chosen disciples (learners) whom He trained and taught more explicitly with a view to perpetuating through them His own influence and work. His followers called Him Rabbi and Master, and the scribes and Pharisees conceded His popularity and power. He taught, as did the rabbis of His time, in the temple courts, in the synagogue, in private, and on the public highway as the exigencies of the case demanded. His textbook, so far as He used any, was the same as theirs; His form of speech (parable and connected discourse), manner of life and methods of instruction were theirs. Yet into His message and method He put a new note of authority that challenged attention and inspired confidence. Breaking with the traditions of the past He substituted for devotion to the letter of the law an interest in men, with boundless sympathy for their misfortune, abiding faith in their worth and high destiny and earnest solicitude for their regeneration and perfection. To say that Jesus was the world's greatest and foremost example as a teacher is to state a fact borne out by every inquiry, test and comparison that modern educational science can apply to the work and influence of its great creative geniuses of the past. Where His contemporaries and even His own followers saw only "as in a glass, darkly," He saw clearly; and His view of God and the world, of human life and human destiny, has come down through the ages as a Divine revelation vouchsafed the world in Him. Viewed from the intellectual side, it was the life philosophy of Jesus that made His teachings imperishable; esthetically it was the compassionate tenderness and solicitude of His message that drew the multitudes to Him; judged from the standpoint of will, it was the example of His life, its purpose, its purity, its helpfulness, that caused men to follow Him; and tested by its immediate and lasting social influence, it was the doctrine, the ideal and example of the human brotherliness and Divine sonship, that made Jesus the pattern of the great teachers of mankind in every age and generation. With a keen, penetrating insight into the ultimate meaning of life, He reached out, as it were, over the conflicting opinions of men and the mingling social and cultural currents of His time backward to the fundamental truths uttered by the ancient prophets of His race and forward to the ultimate goal of the race. Then with simple directness of speech He addressed Himself to the consciences and wills of men, setting before them the ideal of the higher life, and with infinite patience sought to lift them to the plane of fellowship with Himself in thought and action.
5. Educational Work of the Early Disciples:
It remained for the disciples of Jesus to perpetuate His teaching ministry and to organize the new forces making for human betterment. In this work, which was distinctly religious-educational in character, some found a field of labor among their own Jewish kinsmen, and others, like Paul, among the needy Gentiles (Ga 1:16; 2:7; 1Ti 2:7). As regards a division of labor in the apostolic church, we read of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers ( 1Co 12:28; Eph 4:11). The apostles were the itinerant leaders and missionaries of the entire church. Their work was largely that of teaching, Paul insisting on calling himself a teacher as well as an apostle (2Ti 1:11; 1Co 4:17). The prophets were men with a special message like that of Agabus (Ac 21:10-11). The evangelists were itinerant preachers, as was Philip (Ac 8:40), while the pastors, also called bishops, had permanent charge of individual churches. The professional teachers included both laymen and those ordained by the laying on of hands. Their work was regarded with highest honor in the church and community. In contrast with the itinerant church officers, apostles and evangelists, they, like the pastors, resided permanently in local communities. With this class the author of the Epistle of Jas identifies himself, and there can be little doubt that the epistle which he wrote reflects both the content and form of the instruction which these earliest Christian teachers gave to their pupils. Before the close of the 1st century the religious educational work of the church had been organized into a more systematic form, out of which there developed gradually the catechumenate of the early post-apostolic period (see CATECHIST). In the Didache, or Teachings of the Apostles, there has been reserved for us a textbook of religious instruction from this earlier period (Kent, GTJC). Necessarily, the entire missionary and evangelistic work of the apostolic church was educational in character, and throughout this earliest period of church history we must think of the work of apostles, evangelists and pastors, as well as that of professional teachers, as including a certain amount of systematic religious instruction.
See further SCHOOL;TEACHER ; TUTOR.
LITERATURE.
Ames, Psychology of Religious Experience, chapter x; Box, article "Education," in Encyclopedia Biblica; Butler, The Meaning of Education; Davidson, History of Education; Dewey, article "Education," in Monroe's Cyclopedia of Education; Edersheim, "The Upbringing of Jewish Children," in SJSL, and Life and Times of Jesus, I, 225 f; Fairweather, Background of the Gospels; Felten, "Schriftgelehrten, Synagogen u. Schulen," in Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, I; Ginsburg, article "Education," in Kitto's Biblical Cyclopedia; Hiegemoser u. Bock, Quellenbuch u. Uberblick d. Geschichte d. Padagogik; Katzer, articles "Jesus als Lehrer" and "Judenchristenturn," in Rein's Encyklopadisches Handbuch d. Padagogik; Kennedy, article "Education," in HDB, I; Kohler and Gudemann, article "Education" in Jew Encyclopedia, V; Kent, Great Teachers of Judaism and Christianity and Makers and Teachers of Judaism; Laurie, Historical Survey of Pre-Christian Education; Lewit, Darstellung d. theoretischen u. praktischen Padagogik im jud. Altertume; Oehler, article "Padagogik d. Alten Testaments," in Schmid's Encyclopadie d. Gesammten Erziehungs-u. Unterrichtswesen; Schurer, "Schriftgelehrsamkeit, Schule u. Synagoge," in Geschichte d. jud. Volkes (ed 1907); W. R. Smith, Religion of the Semites; Straussburger, Geschichte d. Unterrichts bei d. Israeliten; von Rohden, article "Katechetik" in Rein's EHP.
H. H. Meyer