Since the
Pharisees lacked a central authority, prior to the
destruction of the temple there was no fixed form or content
to the oral instruction communicated by each rabbi. Yet,
during the early 1st c. CE, two schools of interpretation
became influential among Judean Pharisees: the school of Shammai
& the school of Hillel.
After the destruction of Jerusalem
(70
CE), Johanan ben
Zakkai, the last of
Hillel's disciples established an Academy at the Judean
seaport of Jabneh
(Greek: Jamnia), with the aid of the remnants of the school
of Hillel & some Shammaites. Since the former chief
institutions of Judean religion, temple & Sanhedrin, were
no longer in existence, this rabbinic Academy acted as the
supreme authority for the regulation of Jewish life. Yet,
recognition of its authority by other Jews was neither
immediate nor universal prior to the end of the 1st c. CE.
The rabbinic
Academy underwent a major crisis during the bar Kochba
messianic uprising under Hadrian (135 CE), in which its
president [Aqiba ben Joseph]
& other leading rabbis were executed. In
the aftermath
Simeon II ben Gamaliel II
[a descendent of Hillel] was prevailed
upon to move the Academy from Judea to Usha in southwestern Galilee.
His son Judah
"the Prince"
[ha Nasi] relocated it further inland, first at Beth
Shearim & then (about 175 CE) at Sepphoris,
the ancient capital of Galilee. Thus,
from the middle of the 2nd c. CE, Galilee replaced Judea
as the center for the development of
rabbinic tradition. About 250 CE Johanan bar
Nappacha
moved the center of the Academy to Tiberias,
on the southwestern shore of the Sea of
Galilee.