This post is about Jesus in the Talmud, an ancient text that was written between the 2nd and 5th centuries. The Talmud is a collection of legal discussions, stories and commentaries on Jewish law and tradition.
The Talmud contains many references to Jesus, but it does not refer to him as a real historical figure. It does, however, discuss in great detail his miraculous birth as well as his trial before Pontius Pilate.
In addition to these references, there are also several stories about Jesus in the Talmud that are not historically accurate. One such story involves Jesus’ attempt at stoning an adulteress; another talks about how he was born of a virgin mother but had no father because he was created by God himself.
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Jesus In The Talmud Verses
The Talmud is a collection of Jewish laws, traditions and stories. It was written by rabbis to preserve the oral tradition that had been passed down for centuries. The Talmud consists of two parts: the Mishnah (the law) and the Gemara (the commentary).
The Talmud is a very large work that was written over many centuries in many places around the world. It is difficult to know exactly when Jesus Christ was mentioned in the Talmud because it contains so many different things. There is some debate as to whether or not Jesus Christ was actually mentioned at all.
Two talmudic-era texts that explicitly associate Jesus as the son of Pantera/Pandera are:
- Tosefta Hullin 2:22f “Jacob … came to heal him in the name of Jesus son of Pantera”
- Qohelet Rabbah 1:8(3) “Jacob … came to heal him in the name of Jesus son of Pandera”
Some people believe that he was mentioned in one of these places:
What Does The Talmud Say About Jesus Miracles
There are several passages in the Talmud which are believed by
some scholars to be references to Jesus. The name used in the Talmud is
“Yeshu”, the Aramaic vocalization (although not spelling)
of the Hebrew name Yeshua.[1][2]
The identification of Jesus with any number of individuals named Yeshu has
numerous problems, as most of the individuals are said to have lived in time
periods far detached from that of Jesus; Yeshu the sorcerer is noted
for being executed by the Hasmonean government which lost legal
authority in 63 BC, Yeshu the student is described being among
the Pharisees who returned to Israel from Egypt in 74 BC,[3][4][5] and Yeshu
ben Pandera/ben Stada’s stepfather is noted as speaking with Rabbi Akiva shortly
before the rabbi’s execution, an event which occurred in c. 134 AD.[6][7][8] These
events would place the lifetime of any Yeshu decades before or after the birth
and death of Jesus.[9][10]
The first Christian censorship of the Talmud happened in the year 521.[11] However,
far better documented censorship began during the disputations of
the Middle Ages. Catholic authorities under Pope Gregory IX[12] [13] accused
the Talmud of containing blasphemous references to Jesus and his
mother, Mary. Jews responded to the disputations by saying there were no
references to Jesus in the Talmud. They asserted that Joshua was a common
Jewish name, along with its derivations, and that the citations referred to
individuals other than Jesus. The disputations led to many of the references
being removed (censored) from subsequent editions of the Talmud.
In the modern era, there has been a variance of views among scholars of the
possible references to Jesus in the Talmud, depending partly on presuppositions
as to the extent to which the ancient rabbis were preoccupied with Jesus and
Christianity.[14] This range of views among modern scholars on
the subject has been described as a range from “minimalists” who see
few passages with reference to Jesus, to “maximalists” who see many
passages having reference to Jesus.[15] These terms
“minimalist” and “maximalist” are not unique to discussion
of the Talmud text; they are also used in discussion of academic debate on
other aspects of Jewish vs. Christian and Christian vs. Jewish contact and
polemic in the early centuries of Christianity, such as the Adversus
Iudaeos genre.[16] “Minimalists”
include Jacob Z. Lauterbach (1951) (“who recognize[d] only
relatively few passages that actually have Jesus in mind”),[15] while
“maximalists” include Herford (1903) (who concluded that
most of the references related to Jesus, but were non-historical oral
traditions which circulated among Jews),[17][18] and Schäfer (2007)
(who concluded that the passages were parodies of parallel stories about Jesus
in the New Testament incorporated into the Talmud in the 3rd and 4th
centuries that illustrate the inter-sect rivalry between Judaism and
nascent Christianity).[19][page needed]
Some editions of the Talmud are missing some of the references, which were
removed either by Christian censors starting in the 13th century,[20] or
by Jews themselves due to fear of reprisals, or some were possibly lost by
negligence or accident.[21] However, most modern editions
published since the early 20th century have restored most of the references.