Jesus in the Talmud

I heartily second the glowing reviews Jesus and the Talmud has received from the scholarly community across the board. This is an important book, ably described by many scholars in the "Editorial Reviews" section. I would like to add, in particular, to the praise toward the book's clear and very accessible style. I teach and write history for a living, and not all academics make things so easy on their readers.I suppose the David Dukes of the world will find ammunition in Schaefer's work as long as the people they appeal to don't read it. I suppose also that some Jewish readers who do not understand the world of the distant past or the Middle Ages might have bruised feelings. Such are the dangers when entering into waters that spill onto some very ugly history of the last hundred years.I find Schaefer's argument completely convincing. Considering the rapid spread of the "Jesus movement" in the 1st century (and especially when considering that Jesus' earliest followers, like Paul, came to the synagogues spread throughout the ancient Mediterranean,) it strikes me as naive to believe that many, perhaps most, Jews of the era never heard anything of the "good news" and that what they did hear they simply ignored. It also certainly makes sense that Jews in and around what is now Israel, whose rabbis compiled the Jerusalem Talmud, would have been much more circumspect when dealing with the new Christians than those living in the Mideast whose leaders created the Babylonian Talmud. It would be interesting to know what Jews thought of the early Christians during the Temple period, but other events were much closer and important. After the Jewish revolts against Rome in Judea (66-135 CE)Jews remaining in Roman territory had good reason to keep their heads down. Jews in the Fertile Crescent, however, were either at the fringe of the Roman Empire or, before Constantine, living under Sassanid Persian rule, a friendlier environment. There rabbis could write what they believed.And as Schaefer shows, the leaders of Rabbinic Judiasm, displayed no affection for the increasingly powerful Christian movement. How could they? Political and cultural pluralism were not commonly found outside the contemporary world. the Christians claimed that a Jew was the revealed son of God. With an issue like this it is hard to find grounds for polite disagreement. If the Christians were right, the foundations of Rabbinic Judaism were built on sand. In the event, the Christian message was rejected by most Jews. (And, although Schaefer's book by necessity deals with the writings of the Jewish religious elites, I think it a fair assumption that ordinary Jews understood their leaders and agreed with them.) It would be likewise difficult to believe that as Christianity became the biggest religion in the world that the guardians of the Torah and Talmud would or could ignore it. So, in disparate pieces, rabbis constructed an alternate narrative that struck not at Christianity itself but upon the figure of Christ. This narrative represented literal history no more than did the Gospels and like the Christian writings were filled with symbolism. No doubt this reflected deeply held and sincere feelings. It was also important to discourage Jews in Christian lands to solve a lot of problems and simply convert. So, what developed, according to Schaefer was a kind of counter-narrative to the Gospels that portrayed Jesus as illegitimate, a trickster, a monumental liar and a betrayer of his people. Naturally this implied Christians were, at best, dupes. So, if this led some rabbis to picture Jesus as sharing a particularly grisly corner of hell with Titus, destroyer of the Temple, it all made sense.In the long run, of course, this situation developed an ugly chemistry. Christians often viewed Jews as particularly nasty infidels and Jews responded with quiet contempt. Indeed, the segregation of the Jewish from the Christian communities in Europe was a reciprocal relationship. Jews lived in an often hostile environment. However, if isolation was not enforced inside the community, its leaders feared (with good reason I'd guess) that conversion would eat away at the heart of Judaism itself.This is the kind of subject that must be addressed if we are to understand fully the relationship that existed over nearly 2,000 years between Christians and Jews. As it stands the shadow of the 3rd Reich makes it very difficult to describe the full and complex web that made up this relationship over time. It has done so to the extent that recent accounts that have emphasized a series of outrages committed by Christians against the Jews have, in my view, obscured the superstitious, parochial and violent atmosphere that existed throughout Christian lands until the French Revolution. For instance, much has been made understandably about the murder of Jews along the Rhine and in Jerusalem during the First Crusade. However, it is almost certain that far more Christian Cathar "heretics" were killed during the Albigensian Crusade. And if Jews suffered pogroms and discrimination in Early Modern Europe, they were better off than eccentric women in rural Europe some 30,000 of which were killed as witches. I am not trying to compare horror stories here. But at some point and at some level we have to accept the past as it was, a fascinating but often crude and brutal place. And we should realize that this brutality was apportioned with a kind of ugly equality.The point to remember is that we do not live in the world of antiquity or the Middle Ages. And Hitler is dead and disgraced. Scholars of all stripes should continue "full steam ahead" in studying the intersection between the forces that shape history and religious faith as it played out in the past.Eric Bergerud

Abandoning the previous lens scholars used, namely looking into the Talmud for signs of an historical Jesus, author Schäfer interprets the available information as deliberate distortions and criticism of New Testament beliefs. Readers must accept that religious parties were political forces and counter-propaganda was an important tool. This book is a contribution to the partisan judgments that opposed a well-established ancient religion to an expanding new religious group issued from its ranks.Schäfer’s careful analysis of stories that seem so enigmatic before being laid out is remarkable. He writes clearly and goes in depth without losing the reader’s interest. His arguments are convincing and go beyond simple conjectures. The anti-Christian piques in the Talmud are not immediately intelligible, often written as riddles, and would have remained obscure without this clear investigation. Each chapter opens a new window on the Talmud editor's intention to portray Jesus as a the child of a Roman soldier with a whore, a heretic and magician attempting to lead Israel astray, a blasphemer punished with eternal damnation. His disciples are all executed, no resurrection for them either, meaning that Jesus' followers shared the same fate and the deceiver’s teachings have no future. Readers won't find the Jesus of the Gospels but a campaigning program aiming to discredit the competing religion.The anti-Jesus information being scattered throughout both the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmud possibly indicates that the early derisive propaganda (Schäfer traces it back to the second century) found refuge in later authoritative texts. (Just as pro-Christian references were squeezed out of context into Josephus’ Antiquities, into Suetonius and Tacitus) The Talmud additions, made when Christianity became a more politically significant and structured religion, preserved and updated the earlier arguments developed against a dissident side-branch of Judaism.Why be surprised that Rabbinic Judaism threw a few stink bombs addressing rivals? Nobody was left out of the merry-go-round of contending opinions. We already know from the late first century Pharisaic Jamnia Council that the Nazarenes were excluded as heretical. Reciting the benedictions, synagogue-attending Jews would not have ignored that the Jesus partisans had unauthorized claims. Jamnia, defending a cultural identity, also rejected the Greek translation of Scripture and discouraged any attempt to approach Greek culture. The segregation the Jamnia Council dictated offers an early historical context to Schäfer’s chapters on the Torah Teacher and healing in the name of Jesus. The Babylonian Talmud also declared that the Jews killed Jesus according to their own laws and not according to Roman jurisdiction. The story of Jesus’ execution according to Jewish law was probably the only known version of the trial around the mid second century. We find the same rejection of Roman intervention in Justin’s Dialogue, chapter 18. Speaking through Trypho, future church father Justin first gives us the point of view of a Jewish disbeliever, making his interlocutor Trypho consider that Jesus was certainly not crucified because it was a Roman torture, moreover used only for villains. Rejecting Jesus’ crucifixion Trypho excludes any Roman implication. Justin answers that all Israel's hardships resulted from the Jews having “slain the Just One, and His prophets before him.” Justin exclusively accuses the Jews. So however far back they believed the Jesus events had occurred, (I’m suggesting here that the Jesus events had not yet been placed in the early first century) neither Trypho nor Justin considered that the Romans intervened. On both sides of the discussion those outside the law played no part. It can be argued that the trial story initially narrated only a Sanhedrin confrontation and that the Pilate story was a latecomer to the Gospel's narrative that secondarily spread into all the important texts for the sake of harmonizing. Furthermore, the deicide accusation held against the Jews only developed when the Hellenistic theology supporting Jesus’ divinity permeated the Roman church in the later second century. Schäfer, analyzing Jesus' trial reported by the Talmud, considers, as most scholars do, that both parts of the trial story were early and simultaneous developments. I believe they weren’t.The Pharisees were not the only ones to openly oppose the Jesus claims. The Nazarenes were also divided: Ebionites did not accept the virgin birth, Christ’s divinity or the Eucharistic body and blood ritual. Second century Greco-Roman philosophers were also very critical toward the NT declarations that they read at face value and mocked what they called “the faith of fools”. Church fathers were poisonous against the Gnostic and Marcionite interpretations and vice-versa. Bubbling second century Christianity owes more to the heretics than to orthodoxy. With tensions in the background, Christianity siding and separating from Judaism was an intricate and virulent affaire. (Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho, Ezra 2 and Romans 9-11) Winning an important mid to late second century political battle against "heretical" Hellenistic Christianity, Rome’s initial centrist Church orthodoxy comprised the Judean legacies as indicated by Peter’s primacy. The initial orthodoxy, the golden age that transferred late events to an earlier date allowing to erase the agitated church history, was soon covered with a second layer of Hellenistic theology more conform to Greco-Roman ideology, traditionally attributed to Paul.During the first two centuries, and even beyond, nascent Christianity had constantly to face inside and outside rivals. Finding criticism and mockery in Jewish texts aiming the Gentile’s changing beliefs concerning a new Messiah from Israel can hardly surprise. Offense and its corollary of party polarization were on both sides. Schäfer’s investigation, that gives life to the corrosive declarations that the Talmud perpetuated, will certainly remain on our bookshelves.

Good and helpful

An excellent study into the reality of Jewish attitudes towards ChristianityThere is no such thing as 'Judeo-Christian' connection.The Talmud makes it clear that Judaism considers Jesus 'the son of a whore' and the Rabbis confirm that the Jews murdered Jesus.The only connection is hate for Christians and confirmation that it was not the Roman that murdered Jesus but the Rabbis!Every Christian should read this scholarly work written by a Jew.The facts on the ground in Israel today confirm the hate Jews have for Christians by the many incidents of attacks and spitting on Christian Priests .Too sad really

It's the product of those who rejected the divinity of Christ

L'auteur fait un relevé des principaux passages du Talmud où Jésus est mentionné. Selon lui, les scribes du Talmud auraient eu une connaissance précise des textes évangéliques et les passages mettant en scène Jésus seraient en fait des contre-narrations évangéliques savamment élaborées. Mais Schafer ne retient que les éléments qui paraissent aller dans le sens de son hypothèse. Une analyse plus approfondie des sources tend plutôt à montrer que les rabbins de Babylone n'avaient qu'une connaissance indirecte et très superficielle des textes évangéliques.

Peter Schafer has been one of my favorite writers and without doubt he delivers here again