Jesus’ audience in John 10 would have been very familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures (the Talmud). Education of Jewish children began at age five or six, with girls’ education usually concluding at age twelve, while the boys continued their studies, becoming a religious adult at age thirteen, a tradition continuing today with the bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah celebrations. The best students continued to age fifteen, studying the Talmud half the day while apprenticing in a trade the other half. The best of the best would then be invited by a rabbi to be discipled, with a view to becoming just like the rabbi. The most successful would then become rabbis themselves generally around age thirty.
Jesus’ reference to the “good shepherd” would have brought several passages to mind for his hearers, the most obvious being continue reading…
