Talk:Judah ha-Nasi

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It's not appropriate to call jewish rabbis by their private names (Judah haNasi or just Judah). The common and right form is saying Rabbi Judah haNasi.

He is referred to as Yehuda Ha-Nasi without the apprended Rabbi in the Jewish world as a matter of course. After all, Nasi is a greater honorific than Rabbi. This isn't just contemporary practice. The honorific rabbi is frequently omitted in rabbinic and Talmudic literature when "Nasi" is used as well. He is also referred to simply as "Rebi" and "Rabbeinu HaKodesh." We need not pile lesser titles onto greater ones. Nasi is more than sufficient.

Jesus?!

I don't know, maybe this is just a really crazy coincidence, but I've seen Jesus' name in the Hebrew (one version) translate as "Yeshua Ha-Nasi (or Ha-Notsri/Ha-Nozri/Ha-Nosri)", so

Yeshua Ha-Nosri

Judah haNasi

Also, "Yeshua" is an old form of "Joshua". If anyone can tell me if I'm really wrong, and it's just a really weird coincidence (probably is, but...), please tell me. I'm at WAS 03:24, 6 January 2006 (UTC).

Jesus is mentioned as Yeshua Ha-Nostri in the surreal novel 'The Master and Margherita' by Mikhail Bulgarkov, written in the 1930s.

There's no connection, coincidental or otherwise. "ha-Nasi" means "the prince", so it could be applied to any number of individuals. Jesus' appellation "ha-Nosri" (really, "ha-Notzri") means simply "from Nazareth". the two phrases don't sound particularly similar in Hebrew . Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 16:18, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Judah = Yehudah

Nasi= President

Nasi in modern Hebrew (and perhaps in Mishnaic Hebrew, possibly even in Biblical Hebrew) means "President." Das Baz, aka Erudil 20:14, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Bulgakov and Margarita

The name is Mikhail Bulgakov and his great novel is The Master and Margarita. "Bulgarkov" and "Margherita" are misspellings. Das Baz, aka Erudil 20:14, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Nas\Notsri

Nasi means, leader or prince and Notsri means chirstian, in Hebrew. Im not would sure what your aims are with this comparison. Of these two very differnet historical figures, who lived one hundred years apart from one another. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.114.91.226 (talk) 08:52, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

As a native speaker of Hebrew, I'm sure that Nasi means "leader" in Mishnaic and Biblical Hebrew and so does sometimes in modern Hebrew. But in modern Hebrew it means most of the times "president" (and not "prince" in old and modern Hebrew; Nasikh means prince).

Nosri (pronounced in Hebrew and should be transliterated "Notsri") means in modern Hebrew "christian" because Jesus was called that, but the original meaning in his time's Hebrew was "from Nazareth". מתיא (talk) 19:35, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:09, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

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Judah ha-Nasi → Judah the Prince — per MOS - english usage. Chesdovi (talk) 16:55, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Support, per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English):

The title of an article should generally use the version of the name of the subject which is most common in the English language, as you would find it in reliable sources

. Chesdovi (talk) 18:07, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

• Weak oppose. Is it "most common", or merely "most anglicized"? We use Shimon bar Yochai, not Simon son of Yochai; we use Maimonides, not Moses son of Maimon, or even Rabbi Mosheh ben Maimon, because it is what English speakers usually use, although it is neither English nor Hebrew, but Greek. Searches suggest that they are about equally frequent in the whole corpus of English, and my recollection of reliable sources is that Judah ha-Nasi is the standard form. Evidence welcome. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:11, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Most other "Shimons" are currently "Simeon". Bar/ben is used instead of "son" becuase that's common usage. I can tell you that English Jewish speakers are more likely to use "Yehudah ha-nasi", not "Judah". Chesdovi (talk) 17:14, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Why then are you not proposing moving it to Yehudah ha-nasi? DMacks (talk) 09:33, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

• Weak Support, - I appreciate Chesdovi listing this, and I'm strongly in favour of WP:EN, but am constrained in pushing it too far here as this is a personal name, not a bland noun like the move I have proposed from covenant of Kehuna to priestly covenant. Taking WP:RS first, it's very finely balanced. Google books isn't as good a benchmark as JSTOR or one of the Athens searches but I don't have Athens access at the moment, and Google books, if read with one eyebrow raised, is often good enough.

∞ Judah the Prince 8,680 including Naomi E. Pasachoff, Robert J. Littman - 2005 A concise history of the Jewish people p99, and most of the texts of Jacob Neusner. I'm guessing most of these hits refer to the 1st Judah the Prince more than later Judah ha-Nasi II III IV.

∞ Judah the Nasi 307 - surprisingly low

∞ Judah ben Simeon ben Gamaliel - only 2, not surprising, as a bit of a mouthful

∞ Judah haNasi 2,560 - some overlap with below, due to Google search oddities

∞ Judah ha-Nasi 8,220 - somewhat inflated by quotations of Primary Sources of course, in the same books some of them also have "Judah the Prince". But most don't, per The New Jewish encyclopedia p251 1976

∞ And The Cambridge History of Judaism seems to yo-yo between the "ha Nasi" and "the Prince" in different volumes slightly more to Prince, but also Nasi eg.: The late Roman-Rabbinic period p49 William David Davies, Louis Finkelstein, Steven T. Katz - 2006 "And rabbinic literature has in fact little to say about patriarchs before Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi, who probably lived around 200"

∞ There's also the issue that while "nasi" did mean prince, it's one of those words (like kohen) where the meaning travelled a little, to the point where nasi was used for presidents of the Sanhedrin, and other bodies in modern Israel. We wouldn't amglicize Rabbi Judah Ha-Cohen, the author of Sefer Ha-Dinim, to "Judah the Priest" because beyond Tabernacle-Second Temple context the meaning of kohen/priest has shifted. On the other hand Judah the Prince does have a real easy-to-understand ring to it which is in keeping with his friendship with Antoninus and literally "princely" status. So if there was ever a case for "ha Nasi" being "the Prince", this would be it... In ictu oculi (talk) 13:52, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The page/wikipedia would benefit from using a single name

Other pages use Judah HaNasi. This one should adopt a consistent name and, if different from the others, the others should also be changed. (I'm not suggesting that alternative names should not be referenced, only that the main body should use one name.) Jsolinsky (talk) 17:57, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I know, I know...I don't have time either, but--

Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top.
The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). 71.87.23.22 (talk) 17:09, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Wrong picture of catacomb facade

The one in the picture is the so-called "Cave of the Coffins", not far from R. Judah's and with a very similar facade, but distinct from that one. Replace picture if you have access to the correct one. ArmindenArminden (talk) 20:58, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 18 October 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved to Judah ha-Nasi TonyBallioni (talk) 03:42, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

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Judah the Prince → Yehuda HaNasi – See below --geagea^Talk 02:48, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

What kind of name is this to a Rabbi? "Judah the Prince"? he was not a prince, He was a very important rabbi. In Hebrew the name of the article is: "רבי יהודה הנשיא" -> Rabbi Yehuda Hanassi. See the name on the sign: The cave of rabbi Yehuda Hanassi. Hanay (talk) 01:37, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

I support the rename. See his name in all the entries of VIAF her (VIAF:97441015) and her (VIAF:5736140). Non of them speaking about prince. See also all the differt name in BNF. --geagea^Talk 02:34, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

I prefer Rabbi Yehuda HaNassi Hanay (talk) 07:01, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Don't support the rename - although "Nasi" is not necessarily a prince, Google finds far more entries for "Judah the Prince" than for Yehuda Hanasi. Also, there are so many variations to the transliteration of יהודה הנשיא in English, such as Yehudah Hanasi, Yehuda HaNassi etc., that it would be difficult to come to a concensus about which spelling to choose for the title. Far more convenient to keep the accepted English translation and have redirects from the possible Hebrew transliterations. 238-Gdn (talk) 11:57, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Also, see "requested move" discussion above. 238-Gdn (talk) 12:05, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

See the English encyclopædia Britannica: Judah ha-Nasi. --geagea^Talk 22:36, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Also it can be mixed up with Judah (Jewish Prince) - jewishencyclopedia.com who was a real prince. --geagea^Talk 22:46, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Rabbi Yehudah HaNassi is called "The Nassi" because he was the Nasi (Hebrew title) of the Sanhedrin. He was its Head - no royalty there. Just as it says in the article Nasi (Hebrew title) in the chapter "Second Temple period": "the nasi was the highest-ranking member and president of the Sanhedrin". The Rabbi's title should consort with the title of the Sanhedrin's Head. Liadmalone (talk) 21:49, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

• Move back to Judah ha-Nasi, which was the previous title of this article and as noted above is good enough for Britannica. Jenks24 (talk) 10:14, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
• Support move back to Judah ha-Nasi per Jenks24.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:32, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
• Comment: I note that this reverses the #Requested move of 2011 above. Why has consensus changed, I wonder? Andrewa (talk) 23:07, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Youth

Ambiguous pronoun. This run-on sentence needs improvement:

In his youth he had close relations with most of the great students of Akiba; and as their student and in converse with other prominent men who gathered about his father at Usha and later at Shefar'am, he laid the foundations of that wide scholarship which enabled him to undertake his life-work, the redaction of the Mishnah.

In the above, I can't tell if "their" is an anaphoric pronoun referring to "the great students of Akiba" or if it is a cataphoric pronoun referring to the prominent men who gathered around his father. Replacing this with two or three declarative sentences would improve readability. Also, there is no reference that I can refer to to help understand with whom Judah ha-Nasi studied. — Preceding unsigned comment added by A.T.S. in Texas (talk • contribs) 00:50, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

The style as is looks to me pretty old and stale anyhow, so I'd say go ahead and improve the whole paragraph as you suggest. As for the missing source about "the great students of Akiba," it would have to be found somewhere. Maybe starting from the Rabbi Akiva page something about the subject could be found. I will also move this new section to the bottom of the page, where it should have been put to begin with. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 01:02, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the encouragement. After reading further into the article, I realized that much of what the original writer was trying to say is referenced in the next section pertaining to Judah ha-Nasi's teachers ("His teachers"). The final paragraph of "Youth" serves as an introduction to the list of teachers, so I simply cleaned up the paragraph to make it more readable and a better transition to the next section. A.T.S. in Texas (talk) 06:29, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for investing some work on it. It is certainly better than it was. If you see other opportunities for improvement, feel free to try your hand at it. I will be seeing your edits, and I will comment on them if I have enough time. Thanks, warshy ^(¥¥) 19:24, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Founder of religion?

I removed the category tag "Founder of religion" because there is no evidence that I know of that Judah ha-Nasi founded a new religion. Happy to be corrected if anyone has evidence to support that cagetory tag. Commontater (talk) 03:59, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Judah the Prince in the lede

I restored Judah the Prince to the lede. I understand from the discussions above that there is an argument that President is a better contemporary translation of Nasi, but Judah the Prince belongs in the lede because it is very common and in fact is used many times in the article. It also redirects here. A footnote on the translation issue might be appropriate.--agr (talk) 16:49, 1 December 2024 (UTC)