Certain great figures from Jewish history have the title, including Judah ha-Nasi,[1] who was the chief redactor of the Mishnah as well as nasi of the Sanhedrin.
The noun nasi (including its grammatical variations) occurs 132 times in the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible and is usually translated "prince", or occasionally "captain."
In Numbers 34:16–29, occurring 38 years later in the Biblical story, the nǝśiʾim (נְשִׂיאִים, plural) of each tribe are listed again, as the leaders responsible for apportioning tribal inheritances.
[2] During the Second Temple period (c. 530 BCE – 70 CE), the nasi was the highest-ranking member and leader of the Sanhedrin (סַנְהֶדְרִין from Koinē Greek: Συνέδριον, romanized: sunédrion, lit.
The position was created in c. 191 BCE when the Sanhedrin lost confidence in the ability of the High Priest of Israel to serve as its head.
Under Jewish law, the intercalary thirteenth month in the Hebrew calendar, Adar Bet, was announced by the nasi.
[6] The last nasi of the Judean Sanhedrin was Gamaliel VI (d. 425); the Byzantine Empire subsequently issued an edict recorded in the legal code of the Codex Theodosianus of 426 that transformed the nasi tax into an imperial tax deposited into the Aerarium, or Roman treasury.
[7] According to ethnologist Erich Brauer, among the Jews of Yemen, the title of nasi was conferred upon a man belonging to the community's most noble and richest family.
He was also entrusted with the duty of collecting the annual jizya or poll-tax, as well as settling disputes arising between members of the community.
Much more recently, Adin Steinsaltz took the title nasi in an attempt to reestablish the Sanhedrin in its judicial capacity as the supreme court of Judaism.
The title rabban was restricted in usage to the descendants of Hillel the Elder, the sole exception being Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai (c. 30–90 CE), the leader in Jerusalem during the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE and who safeguarded the future of the Jewish people after the Great Revolt by pleading with the Emperor Vespasian.
[13] Jeremy Cohen, "The Nasi of Narbonne: A Problem in Medieval Historiography," AJS Review, 2 (1977): pp.