Yeshu
Encyclopedia
Yeshu is the name of an individual or individuals mentioned in Rabbinic literature
Rabbinic literature
Rabbinic literature, in its broadest sense, can mean the entire spectrum of rabbinic writings throughout Jewish history. However, the term often refers specifically to literature from the Talmudic era, as opposed to medieval and modern rabbinic writing, and thus corresponds with the Hebrew term...

. The oldest works in which references to Yeshu occur are the Tosefta
Tosefta
The Tosefta is a compilation of the Jewish oral law from the period of the Mishnah.-Overview:...

 and the Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....

, although some scholars consider the references to Yeshu to be post-Talmudic additions.

During the Middle Ages, Christian authorities forced Ashkenazic Jewish authorities to interpret these passages in relation to their beliefs about Jesus of Nazareth. As historian David Berger observed,
Whatever one thinks of the number of Jesuses in antiquity, no one can question the multiplicity of Jesuses in Medieval Jewish polemic. Many Jews with no interest at all in history were forced to confront a historical/biographical question that bedevils historians to this day.


In 1240 Nicholas Donin
Nicholas Donin
Nicholas Donin of La Rochelle, a Jewish convert to Christianity in early thirteenth-century Paris, is known for his role in the 1240 Disputation of Paris, which resulted in a decree to publicly burn all available manuscripts of the Talmud....

, with the support of Pope Gregory IX, referred to Yeshu narratives to support his accusation that the Jewish community had attacked the Virginity of Mary and the divinity of Jesus. In the Disputation of Paris
Disputation of Paris
The Disputation of Paris took place in 1240 in the court of the reigning king of France, Louis IX . The disputation had four rabbis defending the Talmud against the accusations of a Franciscan Order member.-Disputers:...

, Yechiel of Paris
Yechiel of Paris
Yechiel ben Joseph of Paris was a major Talmudic scholar and Tosafist from northern France, father-in-law of Isaac ben Joseph of Corbeil. He was a disciple of Rabbi Judah Messer Leon, and succeeded him in 1225 as head of the Yeshiva of Paris, which then boasted some 300 students; his best known...

 conceded that one of the Yeshu stories in the Talmud referred to Jesus of Nazareth, but that the other passages referred to other people. In 1372, John of Valladolid
John of Valladolid
John of Valladolid was a Spanish Jewish convert to Christianity.An able speaker, and possessed of some knowledge of rabbinical literature, he persuaded King Henry II of Castile that he could convince the Jews of the truth of Christianity if they were obliged to listen to him and to answer his...

, with the support of the Archbishop of Toldeo, made a similar accusation against the Jewish community; Moses ha-Kohen de Tordesillas
Moses ha-Kohen de Tordesillas
Moses ha-Kohen de Tordesillas was a Spanish Jewish controversialist of the fourteenth century.An attempt was made to convert him to Christianity by force. Despite persecution, he remained true to his convictions, although he was robbed of his possessions and reduced to poverty...

 argued that the Yeshu narratives referred to different people and could not have referred to Jesus of Nazareth. Asher ben Jehiel
Asher ben Jehiel
Asher ben Jehiel- Ashkenazi was an eminent rabbi and Talmudist best known for his abstract of Talmudic law. He is often referred to as Rabbenu Asher, “our Rabbi Asher” or by the Hebrew acronym for this title, the ROSH...

 also asserted that the Yeshu of the Talmud is unrelated to the Christian Jesus.

There are some modern scholars who understand these passages to be references to Christianity and the Christian figure of Jesus, and others who see references to Jesus only in later rabbinic literature. Johann Maier
Johann Maier (talmudic scholar)
Johann Maier is an Austrian scholar of Judaism, and was founder and for thirty years director of the Martin Buber Institute for Jewish Studies at the University of Cologne....

 argued that neither the Mishnah
Mishnah
The Mishnah or Mishna is the first major written redaction of the Jewish oral traditions called the "Oral Torah". It is also the first major work of Rabbinic Judaism. It was redacted c...

 nor the two Talmuds refer to Jesus.

Talmud and Tosefta

The earliest undisputed occurrences of the term Yeshu are found in five anecdotes in the Tosefta
Tosefta
The Tosefta is a compilation of the Jewish oral law from the period of the Mishnah.-Overview:...

 (c 200 CE
Common Era
Common Era ,abbreviated as CE, is an alternative designation for the calendar era originally introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, traditionally identified with Anno Domini .Dates before the year 1 CE are indicated by the usage of BCE, short for Before the Common Era Common Era...

) and Babylonian Talmud (c 500 CE). The anecdotes appear in the Babylonian Talmud during the course of broader discussions on various religious or legal topics. The Venice edition of the Jerusalem Talmud
Jerusalem Talmud
The Jerusalem Talmud, talmud meaning "instruction", "learning", , is a collection of Rabbinic notes on the 2nd-century Mishnah which was compiled in the Land of Israel during the 4th-5th century. The voluminous text is also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmud de-Eretz Yisrael...

 contains the name Yeshu, but the Leiden manuscript
Leiden Jerusalem Talmud
The Leiden Jerusalem Talmud also known as the Leiden Talmud is a medieval copy of the Jerusalem Talmud. The manuscript was written in 1289 C.E, meaning it is the oldest complete manuscript of the Jerusalem Talmud in the world. The manuscript is also the only surviving complete manuscript of the...

 has a name deleted, and "Yeshu" added in a marginal gloss. writes that due to this, Neusner treats the name as a gloss and omitted it from his translation of the Jerusalem Talmud.

Occurrences

  • Yeshu ben Pandera, cited as the teacher of a 2nd century CE heretic (Chullin 2:22-24, Avodah Zarah 16b-17a)
  • A sorcerer who had been stoned on the eve of one Passover. (Sanhedrin 43a)
  • An example of a "son who burns his food in public" (Sanhedrin 103a, Berakhot 17b) identified as Manasseh of Judah
    Manasseh of Judah
    Manasseh was a king of the Kingdom of Judah. He was the only son of Hezekiah with Hephzi-bah. He became king at an age 12 years and reigned for 55 years. Edwin Thiele has concluded that he commenced his reign as co-regent with his father Hezekiah in 697/696 BC, with his sole reign beginning in...

     son of Hezekiah
    Hezekiah
    Hezekiah was the son of Ahaz and the 14th king of Judah. Edwin Thiele has concluded that his reign was between c. 715 and 686 BC. He is also one of the most prominent kings of Judah mentioned in the Hebrew Bible....

     in the passages as well as in a corresponding account in the Shulchan Arukh.
  • An idolatrous former student of the early 1st century BCE rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachiah. (Sanhedrin 107b).
  • The spirit of a foreign enemy of Israel summoned by Onkelos
    Onkelos
    Onkelos is the name of a famous convert to Judaism in Tannaic times . He is considered to be the author of the famous Targum Onkelos .-Onkelos in the Talmud:...

     (Gittin 56b, 57a)


The name Yeshu has also been found on the 1st century CE ossuary
Ossuary
An ossuary is a chest, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the skeletal remains are removed and placed in an ossuary...

 of a Yeshua bar Yehoseph, published by E.L. Sukenik in 1931, and catalogued by L.Y. Rahmani in 1994. Although Sukenik considered this the same as the term in the Talmud, he also entertained the possibility that the final letter ayin was left out due to lack of space between the decorations between which it was inscribed. The fully spelled out name Yeshua and the patronymic
Patronymic
A patronym, or patronymic, is a component of a personal name based on the name of one's father, grandfather or an even earlier male ancestor. A component of a name based on the name of one's mother or a female ancestor is a matronymic. Each is a means of conveying lineage.In many areas patronyms...

 are also found on the ossuary.ʻAtiqot: 29-30 Israel. Rashut ha-ʻatiḳot - 1996 "The name yeshua (Yeshua = Jesus), a derivative of Yehoshua (Joshua), has been found on five ossuaries in the Israel State Collections, yeshu (Yeshu) on one, yehoshua (Yehoshua) on one,..(Rahmani 1994:293-295)." Richard Bauckham
Richard Bauckham
Richard Bauckham is a widely published scholar in theology, historical theology and New Testament. He is currently working on New Testament Christology and the Gospel of John as a Senior Scholar at Ridley Hall, Cambridge....

 considers this a legitimate, if rare, form of the name in use at the time, and writes that this ossuary shows that the name Yeshu "was not in invented by the rabbis as a way of avoiding pronouncing the real name of Jesus of Nazareth…."

The name Yeshu has also been found in a fragment of the Jerusalem Talmud
Jerusalem Talmud
The Jerusalem Talmud, talmud meaning "instruction", "learning", , is a collection of Rabbinic notes on the 2nd-century Mishnah which was compiled in the Land of Israel during the 4th-5th century. The voluminous text is also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmud de-Eretz Yisrael...

 from the Cairo Genizah
Genizah
A genizah is the store-room or depository in a Jewish synagogue , usually specifically for worn-out Hebrew-language books and papers on religious topics that were stored there before they could receive a proper cemetery burial, it being forbidden to throw away writings...

, a depository for holy texts which are not usable due to age, damage or errors. Flusser takes this as evidence of the term being a name; however, the standard text of the Jerusalem Talmud refers to one of the numerous Rabbi Yehoshuas of the Talmud and moreover the fragment has the latter name at other points in the text.

Etymology

notes that the spelling Yeshu is found on one ossuary, Rahmani 9, which supports that the name Yeshu was not invented as a way of avoiding pronouncing the name Yeshua or Yehoshua in relation to Jesus, but that it may still be that rabbinical use of Yeshu was intended to distinguish Jesus from rabbis bearing the biblical name "Joshua," Yehoshua. Foote
George William Foote
George William Foote was a British secularist and journal editor.He was born in Plymouth, England and brought up in the Anglican tradition...

 and Wheeler considered that the name "Yeshu" was simply a shortened form the name "Yehoshua" or Joshua.

Another explanation given is that the name "Yeshu" is actually an acronym for the formula meaning "may his name and memory be obliterated". The earliest known example of this theory comes from medieval Toldoth Yeshu narratives. This has led to the accusation, first voiced by the anti-Semitic writer Johann Andreas Eisenmenger
Johann Andreas Eisenmenger
Johann Andreas Eisenmenger was a German Orientalist, now best known as the author of the anti-Semitic polemic, Entdecktes Judenthum .-Studies rabbinical literature:...

 in his Entdecktes Judenthum, that "Yeshu" was always such a deliberately insulting term for Jesus. Eisenmenger claimed that Jews believed that they were forbidden to mention names of false gods and instead were commanded to change and defame them and did so with Jesus' name as they considered him a false god. He argued that Jesus' original name was "Yeshua" and as Jews did not recognize him as saviour (moshia`) or that he had even saved (hoshia`) himself, they left out the ayin from the root meaning "to save". Eisenmenger's book against Judaism was denounced by the Jews as malicious libel, and was the subject of a number of refutations.

Early 20th century writers such as and Klausner assume that references to Yeshu and Yeshu ha Notzri in the Talmud relate to Jesus. Indeed in the Septuagint and Greek language Jewish texts such as the writings of Josephus
Josephus
Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...

 and Philo of Alexandria, Jesus is the standard Greek translation of the common Hebrew name Yehoshua (Joshua), Greek having lost the h sound, as well as of the shortened form Yeshua which originated in the Second Temple period. Jesus was also used for the name Hoshea in the Septuagint in one of the three places where it referred to Joshua son of Nun.) The term "Yeshu" is not undisputedly attested prior to the Talmud and Tosefta, let alone as a Hebrew original for "Jesus". (In the case of the Jesus of Christianity, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria
Titus Flavius Clemens , known as Clement of Alexandria , was a Christian theologian and the head of the noted Catechetical School of Alexandria. Clement is best remembered as the teacher of Origen...

 and St. Cyril of Jerusalem claimed that the Greek form itself was his original name and that it was not a transliteration of a Hebrew form.) Adolf Neubauer
Adolf Neubauer
Adolf Neubauer was sublibrarian at the Bodleian Library and reader in Rabbinic Hebrew at Oxford University....

 (19th century), aware of the problem but believing the term to be a reference to Jesus, argued that it was a shortened form of Yeshua resulting from the final letter ayin no longer being pronounced. Hugh J. Schonfield
Hugh J. Schonfield
Hugh Joseph Schonfield was a British Bible scholar specializing in the New Testament and the early development of the Christian religion and church. He was born in London, and educated there at St Paul's School and King's College, doing postgraduate religious studies in Glasgow, Doctor of Sacred...

 argued in a similar fashion that it was the northern pronunciation resulting from a silent ayin. This view was shared by Joachim Jeremias
Joachim Jeremias
Joachim Jeremias was a German Lutheran theologian, scholar of Near Eastern Studies and university professor for New Testament studies. He was abbot of Bursfelde, 1968–1971....

 and who argue that it was the Galilean pronunciation. The views of these theological scholars however are contradicted by the studies of Hebrew and Aramaic philologist E. Y. Kutscher,
Professor of Hebrew Philology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and member of the Hebrew Language Academy, who noted that the although the ayin became a silent letter it is never dropped from written forms nor is its effect on the preceding vowel lost (the change of the "u" to the diphthong "ua") as would have had to occur if Yeshu were derived from Yeshua in such a manner. Kutscher noted moreover that the guttural ayin was still pronounced in most parts of Galilee.
Tannaim and Amoraim

The Tannaim
Tannaim
The Tannaim were the Rabbinic sages whose views are recorded in the Mishnah, from approximately 70-200 CE. The period of the Tannaim, also referred to as the Mishnaic period, lasted about 130 years...

 and Amoraim who recorded the accounts in the Talmud and Tosefta use the term Yeshu as a designation in Sanhedrin 103a and Berakhot 17b in place of King Manasseh
Manasseh of Judah
Manasseh was a king of the Kingdom of Judah. He was the only son of Hezekiah with Hephzi-bah. He became king at an age 12 years and reigned for 55 years. Edwin Thiele has concluded that he commenced his reign as co-regent with his father Hezekiah in 697/696 BC, with his sole reign beginning in...

's real name. Sanhedrin 107b uses it for a Hasmonean era individual who in an earlier account (Jerusalem Talmud Chagigah 2:2) is anonymous. In Gittin 56b, 57a it is used for one of three foreign enemies of Israel, the other two being from past and present with Yeshu representing a third not identified with any past or present event.
Early Jewish commentators (Rishonim)

These accounts of Celsus and the Toldoth Yeshu do not form part of Orthodox Jewish interpretation. The only classical Jewish commentator to equate Yeshu with Jesus was the Rishon
Rishonim
"Rishon" redirects here. For the preon model in particle physics, see Harari Rishon Model. For the Israeli town, see Rishon LeZion.Rishonim were the leading Rabbis and Poskim who lived approximately during the 11th to 15th centuries, in the era before the writing of the Shulkhan Arukh and...

 (early commentator) Abraham Ibn Daud
Abraham ibn Daud
Abraham ibn Daud was a Spanish-Jewish astronomer, historian, and philosopher; born at Toledo, Spain about 1110; died, according to common report, a martyr about 1180. He is sometimes known by the abbreviation Rabad I or Ravad I. His mother belonged to a family famed for its learning...

 who held the view that the Jesus of Christianity had been derived from the figure of Yeshu the student of ben Perachiah. Ibn Daud was nevertheless aware that such an equation contradicted known chronology but argued that the Gospel accounts were in error.

Other Rishonim
Rishonim
"Rishon" redirects here. For the preon model in particle physics, see Harari Rishon Model. For the Israeli town, see Rishon LeZion.Rishonim were the leading Rabbis and Poskim who lived approximately during the 11th to 15th centuries, in the era before the writing of the Shulkhan Arukh and...

, namely Rabbi Jacob ben Meir (Rabbeinu Tam
Rabbeinu Tam
Rabbeinu Tam , born Jacob ben Meir, was one of the most renowned French Tosafists and a foremost halachic authority of his generation...

), Nahmanides
Nahmanides
Nahmanides, also known as Rabbi Moses ben Naḥman Girondi, Bonastruc ça Porta and by his acronym Ramban, , was a leading medieval Jewish scholar, Catalan rabbi, philosopher, physician, kabbalist, and biblical commentator.-Name:"Nahmanides" is a Greek-influenced formation meaning "son of Naḥman"...

, and Jehiel ben Joseph of Paris explicitly repudiated the equation of the Yeshu of the Talmud and Jesus. Menachem Meiri
Menachem Meiri
Rabbi Menachem Meiri was a famous Catalan rabbi, Talmudist and Maimonidean.-Early life:Menachem Meiri was born in 1249 in Perpignan, which then formed part of the County of Barcelona...

 observed that the epithet Ha-Notzri attached to Yeshu in many instances was a late gloss.
The Church

Friar Raymond Martini, in his anti-Jewish polemical treatise Pugio Fidei, began the accusation echoed in numerous subsequent anti-Jewish pamphlets that the Yeshu passages were derogatory accounts of Jesus.

In 1554 a papal bull
Papal bull
A Papal bull is a particular type of letters patent or charter issued by a Pope of the Catholic Church. It is named after the bulla that was appended to the end in order to authenticate it....

 ordered the removal of all references from the Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....

 and other Jewish texts deemed offensive and blasphemous to Christians. Thus the Yeshu passages were removed from subsequently published editions of the Talmud and Tosefta. Nevertheless several church writers would refer to the passages as evidence of Jesus outside the Gospels.
Later Jewish commentators (Acharonim)

Jehiel Heilprin held that Yeshu the student of Yehoshua ben Perachiah was not Jesus. Jacob Emden
Jacob Emden
Jacob Emden also known as Ya'avetz, , was a leading German rabbi and talmudist who championed Orthodox Judaism in the face of the growing influence of the Sabbatean movement...

's writings also show an understanding that the Yeshu of the Talmud was not Jesus.
Contemporary Orthodox scholars

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
Adin Steinsaltz
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz or Adin Even Yisrael is a teacher, philosopher, social critic, and spiritual mentor, who has been hailed by Time magazine as a "once-in-a-millennium scholar". He has devoted his life to making the Talmud accessible to all Jews...

 translates "Yeshu" as "Jesus" in his translation of the Talmud. Elsewhere he has pointed out that Talmudic passages referring to Jesus had been deleted by the Christian censor.
Theosophists and esotericists

The interpretation of Yeshu as a proto-Jesus first seen in Abraham ibn Daud's work would be revisited by Egyptologist Gerald Massey
Gerald Massey
Gerald Massey was an English poet and self-educated Egyptologist. He was born near Tring, Hertfordshire in England.-Biography:...

 in his essay The historical Jesus and Mythical Christ, and by G.R.S. Mead in his work Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.?. The same view was reiterated by Rabbi Avraham Korman. These views reflect the theosophical stance and criticism of tradition popular at the time but was rejected by later scholars. It has been revived in recent times by Alvar Ellegård.
Critical scholarship

Modern critical scholars debate whether Yeshu does or does not refer to the historical Jesus, a view seen in several 20th century encyclopedia articles including The Jewish Encyclopedia, Joseph Dan in the Encyclopaedia Judaica (1972, 1997). and the Encyclopedia Hebraica (Israel). R. Travers based his work on the understanding that the term refers to Jesus, and it was also the understanding of Joseph Klausner
Joseph Klausner
Joseph Gedaliah Klausner , , was a Jewish historian and professor of Hebrew Literature. He was the chief redactor of The Hebrew Encyclopedia...

. They agree that the accounts offer little independent or accurate historical evidence about Jesus. Herford argues that writers of the Talmud and Tosefta had only vague knowledge of Jesus and embellished the accounts to discredit him while disregarding chronology. Klausner distinguishes between core material in the accounts which he argues are not about Jesus and the references to "Yeshu" which he sees as additions spuriously associating the accounts with Jesus. Recent scholars in the same vein include Peter Schäfer,

Recently, some scholars have argued that Yeshu is a literary device, and that the Yeshu stories provide a more complex view of early Rabbinic-Christian interactions. Whereas the Pharisees
Pharisees
The Pharisees were at various times a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought among Jews during the Second Temple period beginning under the Hasmonean dynasty in the wake of...

 were one sect among several others in the Second Temple era, the Amora
Amora
Amoraim , were renowned Jewish scholars who "said" or "told over" the teachings of the Oral law, from about 200 to 500 CE in Babylonia and the Land of Israel. Their legal discussions and debates were eventually codified in the Gemara...

im and Tannaim
Tannaim
The Tannaim were the Rabbinic sages whose views are recorded in the Mishnah, from approximately 70-200 CE. The period of the Tannaim, also referred to as the Mishnaic period, lasted about 130 years...

 sought to establish Rabbinic Judaism as the normative form of Judaism. Like the Rabbis, early Christians claimed to be working within Biblical traditions to provide new interpretations of Jewish laws and values. The sometimes blurry boundary between the Rabbis and early Christians provided an important site for distinguishing between legitimate debate and heresy. Scholars like Jeffrey Rubenstein and Daniel Boyarin
Daniel Boyarin
Daniel Boyarin is an historian of religion. Born in Asbury Park, New Jersey, he holds dual United States and Israeli citizenship. Trained as a Talmudic scholar, in 1990 he was appointed Professor of Talmudic Culture, Departments of Near Eastern Studies and Rhetoric, University of California,...

 argue that it was through the Yeshu narratives that Rabbis confronted this blurry boundary.

Jeffrey Rubenstein has argued that the accounts in Chullin and Avodah Zarah 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. Concerning the Babylonian Talmud account in Avoda Zarah, Dr. Boyarin views Jacob of Sechania as a Christian preacher and understands Rabbi Eliezer's arrest for minuth as an arrest by the Romans for practising Christianity (the text uses the word for heretic). Although Rabbi Eliezer was referring to God, the Governor interpreted him to be referring to the Governor himself, and freed the Rabbi. According to them the account also reveals that there was greater contact between Christians and Jews in the 2nd century than commonly believed. They view the account of the teaching of Yeshu as an attempt to mock Christianity. According to Dr. Rubenstein, the structure of this teaching, in which a Biblical prooftext is used to answer a question about Biblical law, is common to both the Rabbis and early Christians. The vulgar content, however, may have been used to parody Christian values. Dr. Boyarin considers the text to be an acknowledgment that Rabbis often interacted with Christians, despite their doctrinal antipathy.

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. But it also reflects and speaks to an anxiety fundamental to Rabbinic Judaism. Prior to the destruction of the Temple in 70, Jews were divided into different sects, each promoting different interpretations of the law. Rabbinic Judaism domesticated and internalized conflicts over the law, while vigorously condemning any sectarianism. In other words, rabbis are encouraged to disagree and argue with one another, but these activities must be carefully contained, or else they could lead to a schism. Although this story may not present a historically accurate account of Jesus' life, it does use a fiction about Jesus to communicate an important truth about the Rabbis (see Jeffrey Rubenstein, Rabbinic Stories). Moreover, Rubenstein sees this story as a rebuke to overly harsh Rabbis. Boyarin suggests that the Rabbis were well aware of Christian views of the Pharisees and that this story acknowledges the Christian belief that Jesus was forgiving and the Pharisees were not (see Mark 2), while emphasizing forgiveness as a necessary Rabbinic value.

An intermediate view is that of Hyam Maccoby
Hyam Maccoby
Hyam Maccoby was a British Jewish scholar and dramatist specializing in the study of the Jewish and Christian religious tradition. His grandfather and namesake was Rabbi Hyam Maccoby , better known as the "Kamenitzer Maggid," a passionate religious Zionist and advocate of vegetarianism and animal...

, who argues that most of these stories were not originally about Jesus, but were incorporated into the Talmud in the belief that they were, as a response to Christian missionary activity.
Skeptical writers

Skeptical science
Skeptical Science
Skeptical Science is a climate science blog and information resource created in 2007 by Australian blogger and author John Cook...

 writer Dennis McKinsey
Dennis McKinsey
Claud Dennis McKinsey was an American Atheist and author of works on the subject of Biblical inerrancy from a critical perspective, most notably The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy and Biblical Errancy: A Reference Guide...

 has challenged the view that the term refers to Jesus at all and argues that Jewish tradition knew of no historical Jesus. Similar views have been expressed by skepical science writer Frank R. Zindler in his polemical work The Jesus the Jews Never Knew: Sepher Toldoth Yeshu and the Quest of the Historical Jesus in Jewish Sources deliberately published outside the realm of Christian and Jewish scholarship.

Points on which writers have differed

Writers have thus differed on several distinct but closely related questions:
  • whether Yeshu was intended to mean Jesus or not (e.g. Herford vs Nahmanides)
  • whether the core material in the accounts regardless of the name was originally about Jesus or not (e.g. Herford vs Klausner)
  • whether the core material is derivative of Christian accounts of Jesus, a forerunner of such accounts or unrelated (e.g. Herford vs Ibn Daud vs McKinsey)
  • whether Yeshu is a real name or an acronym (e.g. Flusser vs Kjaer-Hansen)
  • whether Yeshu is a genuine Hebrew equivalent for the name Jesus, a pun on the name Jesus or unrelated to the name Jesus (e.g. Klausner vs Eisenmenger vs McKinsey)

Yeshu Ha-Notzri

In the surviving pre-censorship Talmud manuscripts, Yeshu is followed by the epithet Ha-Notzri in most occurrences. R. Travers Herford
R. Travers Herford
R. Travers Herford was a British Unitarian minister and scholar of rabbinical literature.He was the grandson of John Gooch Robberds and brother of Professor C. H. Herford, of Manchester University. Herford was educated at Owens College, Manchester, and Manchester New College, London . Then as a...

, Joseph Klausner
Joseph Klausner
Joseph Gedaliah Klausner , , was a Jewish historian and professor of Hebrew Literature. He was the chief redactor of The Hebrew Encyclopedia...

 and others translated it as "the Nazarene." The term does not appear consistently in the manuscripts and Menachem Meiri
Menachem Meiri
Rabbi Menachem Meiri was a famous Catalan rabbi, Talmudist and Maimonidean.-Early life:Menachem Meiri was born in 1249 in Perpignan, which then formed part of the County of Barcelona...

 (1249 – c. 1310) in his commentary on the Talmud Beit HaBechirah regarded it as a late interpolation.

Klausner noted objections by other scholars on grammatical and phonetic grounds to the translation of Notzri
Nazarene (title)
Nazarene is a title applied to Jesus , who grew up in Nazareth, a town in Galilee, now in northern Israel. The word is used to translate two related words that appear in the Greek New Testament: the adjective Nazarēnos and the Nazōraios...

 as "Nazarene" meaning a person from Nazareth (Hebrew Natzrat), however the etymology of "Nazarene" is itself uncertain and one possibility is that it is derived from Notzri and did not mean a person from Nazareth.

In 1180 CE Maimonides
Maimonides
Moses ben-Maimon, called Maimonides and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn in Arabic, or Rambam , was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages...

 in his Mishneh Torah
Mishneh Torah
The Mishneh Torah subtitled Sefer Yad ha-Hazaka is a code of Jewish religious law authored by Maimonides , one of history's foremost rabbis...

, Hilchos Melachim 11:4 briefly discusses Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

 in a passage later censored by the Church. He uses the name Yeshua for Jesus (an attested equivalent of the name unlike Yeshu) and follows it with HaNotzri showing that regardless of what meaning had been intended in the Talmudic occurrences of this term, Maimonides understood it as an equivalent of Nazarene. Late additions to the Josippon
Josippon
Josippon is the name usually given to a popular chronicle of Jewish history from Adam to the age of Titus, attributed to an author Josippon or Joseph ben Gorion....

 also refer to Jesus as Yeshua HaNotzri but not Yeshu HaNotzri.

The Toldoth Yeshu narratives

The Toldoth Yeshu are not part of rabbinic literature and are considered neither canonical nor normative. There is no one authoritative Toldoth Yeshu story; rather, various medieval versions existed that differ in attitudes towards the central characters and in story details. It is considered unlikely that any one person wrote it, and each version seems to be from a different set of storytellers. In these manuscripts, the name "Yeshu" is used as designation of the central character. Due to the Gospel parallels, the story of Toldoth Yeshu narratives is typically viewed as a derogatory account of the life of Jesus resulting from Jewish reaction to persecution by Christians.

Use in modern Hebrew as a name for Jesus

The term Yeshu was used in Hebrew texts in the middle ages then through Rahabi Ezekiel
Rahabi Ezekiel
Rabbi Rahabi Ezekiel, or Ezekiel Rahabi, was a rabbinical writer known only through his polemical Hebrew translation of the New Testament - The Book of the Gospel Belonging to the Followers of Jesus ....

 (1750) and Elias Soloweyczyk
Elias Soloweyczyk
Elias Soloweyczyk was a Lithuanian rabbi, author and translator from Slutzk.Soloweyczyk was a grandson of Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin ....

 (1869) who identified Jesus with the character of the Toledoth Yeshu narratives. Likewise Yeshu Ha-Notzri is the modern Hebrew equivalent for "Jesus the Nazarene" though in Christian texts the spellings Yeshua and Yeshua Ha-Notzri are preferred, as per the Hebrew New Testaments of Franz Delitzsch
Franz Delitzsch
Franz Delitzsch was a German Lutheran theologian and Hebraist. Born in Leipzig, he held the professorship of theology at the University of Rostock from 1846 to 1850, at the University of Erlangen until 1867, and after that at the University of Leipzig until his death...

 (BFBS 1875) and Isaac Salkinsohn (TBS 1886).

Danish missionary Kjaer-Hansen argues that this modern Israeli usage of Yeshu resulted from the influence of Klausner who used the term for Jesus in his Hebrew works believing it to be a correct Hebrew equivalent. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda
Eliezer Ben‑Yehuda was a Jewish lexicographer and newspaper editor. He was the driving spirit behind the revival of the Hebrew language in the modern era.-Biography:...

, the "father of modern Hebrew", had instead used Yeshua for Jesus (the name used in Maimonides and the expanded Josippon) but, Kjaer-Hansen argues, this choice lost out to Yeshu as a result of Klausner's influential Hebrew work on Jesus titled Yeshu HaNotzri published in 1922. Kjaer-Hansen, notes that many Jewish writers have assumed that "Yeshu" is a correct Hebrew name for Jesus and have used it without intending any disparagement, but advises against its usage due to its probable origin as a derogatory term.

The Talmudic accounts in detail

Tosefta and Talmud references

In the Tosefta, Chullin 2:22-24 there are two anecdotes about the min (heretic) named Jacob naming his mentor Yeshu ben Pandera (Yeshu son of Pandera).
  • Chullin 2:22-23 tells how Rabbi Eleazar ben Damma was bitten by a snake. Jacob came to heal him (according to Lieberman
    Saul Lieberman
    Saul Lieberman , also known as Rabbi Shaul Lieberman or The Gra"sh , was a rabbi and a scholar of Talmud...

    's text) "on behalf of Yeshu ben Pandera". (A variant text of the Tosefta considered by Herford reads "Yeshua" instead of "Yeshu". This together with anomalous spellings of Pandera were found by Saul Lieberman
    Saul Lieberman
    Saul Lieberman , also known as Rabbi Shaul Lieberman or The Gra"sh , was a rabbi and a scholar of Talmud...

     who compared early manuscripts, to be erroneous attempts at correction by a copyist unfamiliar with the terms.)


The account is also mentioned in corresponding passages of the Jerusalem Talmud (Avodah Zarah 2:2 IV.I) and Babylonian Talmud (Avodah Zarah 27b) The name Yeshu is not mentioned in the Hebrew manuscripts of these passages but reference to "Jeshu ben Pandira" is interpolated by Herford's in his English paraphrasing of the Jerusalem Talmud text. Similarly the Rodkinson translation of the Babylonian Talmud account interpolates "with the name of Jesus".
  • Chullin 2:24 tells how Rabbi Eliezer was once arrested and charged with minuth. When the chief judge (hegemon) interrogated him, the rabbi answered that he "trusted the judge." Although Rabbi Eliezer was referring to God, the judge interpreted him to be referring to the judge himself, and freed the Rabbi. The remainder of the account concerns why Rabbi Eliezer was arrested in the first place. Rabbi Akiva suggests that perhaps one of the minim had spoken a word of minuth to him and that it had pleased him. Rabbi Eliezer recalls that this was indeed the case, he had met Jacob of the town of Sakhnin in the streets of Sepphoris who spoke to him a word of minuth in the name of Yeshu ben Pandera, which had pleased him. (A variant reading used by Herford has Pantiri instead of Pandera.)

  • Avodah Zarah, 16b-17a in the Babylonian Talmud essentially repeats the account of Chullin 2:24 about Rabbi Eliezer and adds additional material. It tells that Jacob quoted Deuteronomy 23:19: "You shall not bring the fee of a whore or the price of a dog into the house of the Lord your God in fulfillment of any vow." Jacob says that he was taught this by Yeshu. Jacob then asked Eliezer whether it was permissible to use a whore's money to build a retiring place for the High Priest? (Who spent the whole night preceding the Day of Atonement in the precincts of the Temple, where due provision had to be made for all his conveniences.) When Rabbi Eliezer did not reply, Jacob quoted Micah 1:7, "For they were amassed from whores' fees and they shall become whores' fees again." This was the teaching that had pleased Rabbi Eliezer.


The surname ben Pandera is not found in the Talmud account. (Rodkinson's translation drawing on the Tosefta account paraphrases the reference to Yeshu having taught Jacob by "so taught Jeshu b. Panthyra", in this case not translating "Yeshu" as "Jesus".) The name is found again in the Midrash
Midrash
The Hebrew term Midrash is a homiletic method of biblical exegesis. The term also refers to the whole compilation of homiletic teachings on the Bible....

ic text Kohelet Rabba 10:5 where a healer of the grandson of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi is described as being of ben Pandera. The source of this account is Shabbat 14:4-8 and Avodah Zarah 40 in the Jerusalem Talmud, but there ben Pandera is not mentioned. The word Yeshu is however found as a secondary marginal gloss to the first passage in the Leiden manuscript which together with the Midrashic version show that the account was understood to be about a follower of Yeshu ben Pandera. (Herford again takes liberty and adds "in the name of Jeshu Pandera" to his translation of the Talmud passages despite these words not being in the original text. Schäfer similarly provides a paraphrased translation mentioning "Jesus son of Pandera" which he admittedly has constructed himself by combining the Talmudic and Midrashic texts and the marginal glosses.) Kohelet Rabba also relates the account of Rabbi Eliezer (Kohelet Rabba 1:24) in this case some copies mention Yeshu ben Pandera as in the Tosefta passage but others instead read peloni a placeholder name
Placeholder name
Placeholder names are words that can refer to objects or people whose names are either temporarily forgotten, irrelevant, or unknown in the context in which they are being discussed...

 equivalent to English "so-and-so".

Jeffrey Rubenstein has argued that the accounts in Chullin and Avodah Zarah 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. Concerning the Babylonian Talmud account in Avoda Zarah, Dr. Boyarin views Jacob of Sechania as a Christian preacher and understands Rabbi Eliezer's arrest for minuth as an arrest by the Romans for practising Christianity (the text uses the word for heretic). When the Governor (the text uses the word for chief judge) interrogated him, the Rabbi answered that he "trusted the judge." Boyarin has suggested that this was the Jewish version of the Br'er Rabbit
Br'er Rabbit
Br'er Rabbit is a central figure in the Uncle Remus stories of the Southern United States. He is a trickster character who succeeds by his wits rather than by brawn, tweaking authority figures and bending social mores as he sees fit...

 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). Although Rabbi Eliezer was referring to God, the Governor interpreted him to be referring to the Governor himself, and freed the Rabbi. According to them the account also reveals that there was greater contact between Christians and Jews in the 2nd century than commonly believed. They view the account of the teaching of Yeshu as an attempt to mock Christianity. According to Dr. Rubenstein, the structure of this teaching, in which a Biblical prooftext is used to answer a question about Biblical law, is common to both the Rabbis and early Christians. The vulgar content, however, may have been used to parody Christian values. Dr. Boyarin considers the text to be an acknowledgment that Rabbis often interacted with Christians, despite their doctrinal antipathy.

Meaning and etymology of Pandera

The meaning and etymology of this name are uncertain:

Besides the form Pandera, variations have been found in different Tosefta manuscripts for example Pantiri and Pantera. Saul Lieberman's investigation of Tosefta variations revealed Pandera to be the original form. (Some authors such as Herford spell it Pandira in English.)

Celsus in his discourse The True Word
The True Word
The True Word is a treatise in which Celsus addressed many principal points of Early Christianity and refuted or argued against their validity...

 gives the name as Panthera in Greek. This name is not known from any graves or inscriptions, but the surname Pantera (a Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 rendering) is known from the 1st century tombstone of Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera
Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera
Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera was a Roman solder whose tombstone was found in Bingerbrück, Germany in 1859.Historically, the name Pantera is not an unusual name and had been in use among Roman soldiers in the second century....

. Origen
Origen
Origen , or Origen Adamantius, 184/5–253/4, was an early Christian Alexandrian scholar and theologian, and one of the most distinguished writers of the early Church. As early as the fourth century, his orthodoxy was suspect, in part because he believed in the pre-existence of souls...

 (c. 248 CE) responded to Celsus' claim by saying that Pantheras was the patronymic of Joseph
Saint Joseph
Saint Joseph is a figure in the Gospels, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the earthly father of Jesus Christ ....

 the husband of Mary on account of his father, Jacob, being called Panther. An alternative claim was made in the Teaching of Jacob (634 CE) where Panther is said to be the grandfather of Mary. Friedrich August Nitzsch
Friedrich August Nitzsch
Friedrich August Berthold Nitzsch was a German theologian.The son of Karl Immanuel Nitzsch, he became professor ordinarius of theology at Gießen in 1868 and at Kiel in 1872. He was the author of Das System des Boethius and Grundriss der christl. Dogmengeschichte , amongst other texts....

 (1840) suggested that the name may refer to a panther
Panthera
Panthera is a genus of the family Felidae , which contains four well-known living species: the tiger, the lion, the jaguar, and the leopard. The genus comprises about half of the Pantherinae subfamily, the big cats...

 being a lustful animal and thus have the meaning of "whore", additionally being a pun on parthenos meaning virgin. Herford also considered the Greek pentheros meaning son-in-law, however he dismissed all of these forms including Celsus' Panthera as spurious explanations of the Hebrew Pandera as they do not match phonetically. He noted that Hebrew would have represented the sounds correctly if any of these were the origin. The interpolated form Panthyra appearing in the Rodkinson translation of the Talmud suffers the same problem.

Neubauer understand the name to be Pandareus
Pandareus
In Greek mythology, Pandareus was the son of Merops and a nymph. His residence was given as either Ephesus or Miletus. He was said to have been favored by Demeter, who conferred upon him the benefit of never suffering from indigestion, however much food he should eat...

. The Toldoth Yeshu narratives contain elements resembling the story of Pandareus in Greek mythology, namely stealing from a temple and the presence of a bronze animal.

Robert Eisler
Robert Eisler
Robert Eisler was an Austrian Jewish art historian and Biblical scholar. He was a follower of the psychology of Carl Jung. His writings cover a great range of topics, from cosmic kingship and astrology to werewolves....

  considered the name to be derived from Pandaros. He also argued that it may not have been a real name but instead as a generic name for a betrayer. He notes that in the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...

, Pandaros betrays the Greeks and breaks a truce confirmed by solemn oath. He argues that the name came to be used as a generic term for a betrayer and was borrowed by Hebrew. The name is indeed found in Genesis Rabba
Genesis Rabba
Genesis Rabba is a religious text from Judaism's classical period. It is a midrash comprising a collection of ancient rabbinical homiletical interpretations of the Book of Genesis ....

 50 in the expression qol Pandar (literally "voice of Pandaros" denoting false promises of a betrayer) used as a derogatory placeholder name for a judge of Sodom. The -a at the end of the form Pandera can be understood to be the Aramaic
Aramaic language
Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...

 definite article.

Yeshu the sorcerer

Sanhedrin 43a relates the trial and execution of Yeshu and his five disciples. Here, Yeshu is a sorcerer who has enticed other Jews to apostasy. A herald
Herald
A herald, or, more correctly, a herald of arms, is an officer of arms, ranking between pursuivant and king of arms. The title is often applied erroneously to all officers of arms....

 is sent to call for witnesses in his favour for forty days before his execution. No one comes forth and in the end he is stoned and hanged on the Eve of Passover
Passover
Passover is a Jewish holiday and festival. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt...

. His five disciples, named Matai, Nekai, Netzer, Buni, and Todah are then tried. Word play is made on each of their names, and they are executed. It is mentioned that leniency could not be applied because of Yeshu's influence with the royal government (malkhut).

In the Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

 manuscript of the Talmud (1177 CE) an addition is made to Sanhedrin 43a saying that Yeshu was hanged on the eve of the Sabbath
Shabbat
Shabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until a few minutes after when one would expect to be able to see three stars in the sky on Saturday night. The exact times, therefore, differ from...

.

Yeshu summoned by Onkelos

In Gittin 56b, 57a a story is mentioned in which Onkelos
Onkelos
Onkelos is the name of a famous convert to Judaism in Tannaic times . He is considered to be the author of the famous Targum Onkelos .-Onkelos in the Talmud:...

 summons up the spirit of a Yeshu who sought to harm Israel. He describes his punishment in the afterlife as boiling in excrement.

Yeshu the son who burns his food in public

Sanhedrin 103a and Berachot 17b talk about a Yeshu who burns his food in public, possibly a reference to pagan sacrifices. The account is discussing Manasseh
Manasseh of Judah
Manasseh was a king of the Kingdom of Judah. He was the only son of Hezekiah with Hephzi-bah. He became king at an age 12 years and reigned for 55 years. Edwin Thiele has concluded that he commenced his reign as co-regent with his father Hezekiah in 697/696 BC, with his sole reign beginning in...

 the king of Judah infamous for having turned to idolatry and having persecuted the Jews (2 Kings 21). It is part of a larger discussion about three kings and four commoners excluded from paradise. These are also discussed in the Shulkhan Arukh where the son who burns his food is explicitly stated to be Manasseh.

Yeshu the student of Joshua ben Perachiah

In Sanhedrin 107b and Sotah 47a a Yeshu is mentioned as a student of Joshua ben Perachiah who was sent away for misinterpreting a word that in context should have been understood as referring to the Inn, he instead understood it to mean the inkeeper's wife. His teacher said "Here is a nice Inn", to which he replied "Her eyes are crooked", to which his teacher responded "Is this what your are occupied in?" (This happened during their period of refuge in Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

 during the persecutions of Pharisees
Pharisees
The Pharisees were at various times a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought among Jews during the Second Temple period beginning under the Hasmonean dynasty in the wake of...

 88-76 BCE ordered by Alexander Jannæus. The incident is also mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud
Jerusalem Talmud
The Jerusalem Talmud, talmud meaning "instruction", "learning", , is a collection of Rabbinic notes on the 2nd-century Mishnah which was compiled in the Land of Israel during the 4th-5th century. The voluminous text is also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmud de-Eretz Yisrael...

 in Chagigah 2:2 but there the person in question is not given any name.) After several returns for forgiveness he mistook Perachiah's signal to wait a moment as a signal of final rejection, and so he turned to idolatry (described by the euphemism "worshipping a brick"). The story ends by invoking a Mishnaic era teaching that Yeshu practised black magic, deceived and led Israel astray. This quote is seen by some as an explanation in general for the designation Yeshu.

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. But it also reflects and speaks to an anxiety fundamental to Rabbinic Judaism. Prior to the destruction of the Temple in 70, Jews were divided into different sects, each promoting different interpretations of the law. Rabbinic Judaism domesticated and internalized conflicts over the law, while vigorously condemning any sectarianism. In other words, rabbis are encouraged to disagree and argue with one another, but these activities must be carefully contained, or else they could lead to a schism. Although this story may not present a historically accurate account of Jesus' life, it does use a fiction about Jesus to communicate an important truth about the Rabbis. Moreover, Rubenstein sees this story as a rebuke to overly harsh Rabbis. Boyarin suggests that the Rabbis were well aware of Christian views of the Pharisees and that this story acknowledges the Christian belief that Jesus was forgiving and the Pharisees were not (see Mark 2:1-2), while emphasizing forgiveness as a necessary Rabbinic value.

Ben Pandera and ben Stada

Another title found in the Tosefta and Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....

 is ben Stada (son of Stada). However in Shabbat 104b and Sanhedrin 67a in the Babylonian Talmud, a passage is found that some have interpreted as equating ben Pandera with ben Stada. The passage is in the form a Talmudic debate in which various voices make statements, each refuting the previous statement. In such debates the various statements and their refutations are often of a Midrashic nature, sometimes incorporating subtle humour and should not always be taken at face value. The purpose of the passage is to arrive at a Midrashic meaning for the term Stada.

Shabbat 104b relates that a ben Stada brought magic from Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

 in incisions in his flesh. Sanhedrin 67a relates that a ben-Stada was caught by hidden observers and hanged in the town of Lod on the Eve of Passover
Passover
Passover is a Jewish holiday and festival. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt...

. The debate then follows. It begins by asking if this was not ben Pandera rather than ben Stada. This is refuted by the claim that it is both, his mother's husband was Stada but her lover was Pandera. This is countered with the claim the husband was Pappos ben Yehuda (a 2nd century figure elsewhere remembered as having locked up his unfaithful wife and visiting R. Akiva in jail after the Bar-Kokhba revolt) and that the mother was named Stada. This is then refuted by the claim that the mother was named Miriam, the dresser of women's hair, but that she had gone astray from her husband (a Miriam the daughter of Bilgah, is mentioned elsewhere as having had an affair with a Roman soldier). In Aramaic, "gone astray" is satat da, thus a Midrashic meaning for the term Stada is obtained. Real historical relationships between the figures mentioned cannot be inferred due to the Midrashic nature of the debate. Pappos and Miriam might have been introduced simply as a result of their being remembered in connection with a theme of a woman having gone astray.

Ben-Stada is also mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud. In Shabbat 12:4 III he is mentioned as having learnt by cutting marks in his flesh. In Sanhedrin 7:12 I he is mentioned as an example of someone caught by hidden observers and subsequently stoned. This information is paralleled in the Tosefta in Shabbat 11:15 and Sanhedrin 10:11 respectively.

Additional reading

  • Steven Bayme, Understanding Jewish History (KTAV), 1997
  • Daniel Boyarin, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999
  • Robert Goldenberg, The Nations Know Ye Not: Ancient Jewish Attitudes towards Other Religions New York: New York University Press 1998
  • Mark Hirshman, A Rivalry of Genius: Jewish and Christian Biblical Interpretation in Late Antiquity trans. Baya Stein. Albany: SUNY PRess 1996
  • Joseph Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth (Beacon Books), 1964
  • Jacob Neusner, Judaism in the Matrix of Christianity Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1986
  • Jeffrey Rubenstein Rabbinic Stories (The Classics of Western Spirituality) New York: The Paulist Press, 2002
  • R. Travers Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash (KTAV), 1975
  • Peter Schäfer, Jesus in the Talmud, Princeton University Press, 2007
  • Dennis McKinsey, Biblical Errancy, A Reference Guide, Prometheus Books, (2000)
  • Frank R. Zindler, The Jesus the Jews Never Knew: Sepher Toldoth Yeshu and the Quest of the Historical Jesus in Jewish Sources, American Atheist Press, 2003

External links

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