Jesus in the Talmud

[3][4][5] This apparent multiplicity of "Yeshu"s within the text has been used to defend the Talmud against Christian accusations of blaspheming Jesus since at least the 13th century.

Some editions of the Talmud, particularly those from the 13th century onward, are missing these references, removed either by Christian censors,[16] by Jews themselves out of fear of reprisals, or possibly lost through negligence or accident.

[18] An early work describing Jesus in the Talmud was Pugio Fidei ("Dagger of Faith") (c. 1280) by the Catalan Dominican Ramón Martí, a Jewish convert to Christianity.

[19] In 1681 Johann Christoph Wagenseil translated and published a collection of anti-Christian polemics from Jewish sources, with the title Tela Ignea Satanæ, sive Arcani et Horribiles Judæorum Adversus Christum, Deum, et Christianam Religionem Libri (Flaming Arrows of Satan, that is, the secret and horrible books of the Jews against Christ, God, and the Christian religion) which discussed Jesus in the Talmud.

[25] In 2007, Peter Schäfer wrote Jesus in the Talmud in which he tried to find a middle ground between "anti-Jewish Christian" and "apologetic Jewish" interpretations.

He concluded that the references to Jesus (as the messiah of Christianity) were included in the early (3rd and 4th century) versions of the Talmud, and that they were parodies of New Testament narratives.

[30] He asserts that the references in the Babylonian Talmud were "polemical counter-narratives that parody the New Testament stories, most notably the story of Jesus' birth and death"[31][full citation needed] and that the rabbinical authors were familiar with the Gospels (particularly the Gospel of John) in their form as the Diatessaron and the Peshitta, the New Testament of the Syrian Church.

Schäfer argues that the message conveyed in the Talmud was a "bold and self-confident" assertion of correctness of Judaism, maintaining that "there is no reason to feel ashamed because we rightfully executed a blasphemer and idolater.

"[32][full citation needed] By way of comparison the New Testament itself also documents conflict with rabbinical Judaism, for example in the John 8:41 charge "We are not born of fornication.

[36] Jeffrey Rubenstein has argued that the accounts in Chullin and Avodah Zarah ("Idolatry") reveal an ambivalent relationship between rabbis and Christianity.

In his view the tosefta account reveals that at least some Jews believed Christians were true healers, but that the rabbis saw this belief as a major threat.

Boyarin has suggested that this was the Jewish version of the Br'er Rabbit approach to domination, which he contrasts to the strategy of many early Christians, who proclaim their beliefs in spite of the consequences (i.e. martyrdom).

[44] Gustaf Dalman (1922),[45] Joachim Jeremias (1960),[46] Mark Allen Powell (1998)[47] and Roger T. Beckwith (2005)[48] were also favourable to the view the Yeshu references in the Talmud were not to Jesus.

Peter Schäfer compared several editions and documented some alterations as illustrated in the following table:[52] Bart Ehrman, and separately Mark Allan Powell, state that the Talmud references are quite late (hundreds of years) and give no historically reliable information about the teachings or actions of Jesus during his life.

I cannot satisfy myself that any of the suggested explanations solve the problem; and being unable to propose any other, I leave the two names Ben Stada and Ben Pandira as relics of ancient Jewish mockery against Jesus, the clue to whose meaning is now lost.” [55]The name "ben Stada", used for the same figure, is explained by Peter Schäfer as a reference to his mother's supposed adultery: His mother's true name was Miriam, and "Stada" is an epithet which derives from the Hebrew/Aramaic root sat.ah/sete' ("to deviate from the right path, to go astray, to be unfaithful").

"[63][74][75][76]There are still noticeable challenges to the identification of Yeshu as Jesus, as elsewhere in the Talmud his stepfather, Pappos ben Yehuda, is mentioned as being martyred with Rabbi Akiva[77] and is himself mentioned as being among the Pharisees returning to Israel following their persecution by John Hyrcanus,[67] which would place Yeshu's lifetime anywhere between 130 after and 70 years before the birth of Jesus.

[85] In addition, at the 1240 Disputation of Paris, Nicholas Donin presented the allegation that the Talmud was blasphemous towards Mary, the mother of Jesus (Miriam in Hebrew), and this criticism has been repeated by many Christian sources.

Rabbi Ishmael recited with regard to him: "Fortunate are you, ben Dama, as your body is pure and your soul departed in purity, and you did not transgress the statement of your colleagues, who would state the verse: ‘And who breaks through a fence, a snake shall bite him.’" Whereas in the Talmud Yerushalmi, the passage is the following: A story of Ribbi Eleazer ben Dama, who was bitten by a snake.

The full passage is: (Rabbi Eliezer) said to him: "Akiva, you have reminded me; once I was walking in the upper markets of Sepphoris, and I found a man of the students of Yeshu, and his name was Jacob, of the village Sekhanya.

And I derived pleasure from the statement, and due to this, I was arrested for heresy... Sanhedrin 103a and Berachot 17b talk about a Yeshu ha-Nosri (Jesus of Nazareth) who "burns his food in public", possibly a reference to pagan sacrifices or a metaphor for apostasy.

When peace was made, Simeon ben Shetach sent him (the following letter): "From me, Jerusalem the holy city, to you, Alexandria of Egypt, my sister.

The story ends by invoking a Mishnaic era teaching that Yeshu practised black magic, deceived and led Israel astray.

According to Dr. Rubenstein, the account in Sanhedrin 107b recognizes the kinship between Christians and Jews, since Jesus is presented as a disciple of a prominent Rabbi.

[37] In Gittin 56b–57a a story is recorded in which Onkelos, a nephew of the Roman emperor Titus who destroyed the Second Temple, intent on converting to Judaism, summons up the spirits of Yeshu the Nazarene and others to help make up his mind.

And a crier went out before him (for) forty days, (proclaiming): "Yeshu is to be stoned because he practiced sorcery, incited (idolatry), and lead the Jewish people astray.

The Talmud discusses whether the individual (the name Jesus is not present in these passages) is the son of Stada, or Pandera, and a suggestion is made that the mother Mary committed adultery.

[114] The Platonistic philosopher Celsus, writing circa 150 to 200 CE, wrote a narrative describing a Jew who discounts the story of the Virgin Birth of Jesus.

[115] Scholars have remarked on the parallels (adultery, father's name "Panthera", return from Egypt, magical powers) between Celsus' account and the Talmudic narratives.

[116][full citation needed] In Celsus' account, the Jew says: "... [Jesus] came from a Jewish village and from a poor country woman who earned her living by spinning.

He states that because he [Jesus] was poor he hired himself out as a workman in Egypt, and there tried his hand at certain magical powers on which the Egyptians pride themselves; he returned full of conceit, because of these powers, and on account of them gave himself the title of God ... the mother of Jesus is described as having been turned out by the carpenter who was betrothed to her, as she had been convicted of adultery and had a child by a certain soldier named Panthera.