For the most part rabbis hailed from the ranks of ordinary folk

In the centuries prior to Jesus’s time, certain men distinguished themselves by their earnest desire to study and teach the Torah. In Jesus’s day, a person would honor one of these learned men by addressing him as “my master,” which in Hebrew is rabbi. Some decades after Jesus’s time, this became a formal title, and these teachers became known as “the rabbis.” For the most part these teachers did not hail from wealthy or priestly classes, but from the ranks of ordinary folk. They could be blacksmiths, tailors, farmers, tanners, shoemakers, woodcutters, and of course, carpenters. Many of them worked seasonally, traveling and teaching in the months when they were free.