| JESUS IN THE LIGHT OF JEWISH SOURCES
The traditional Jewish attitude to Jesus is determined on the one hand by isolated statements in the Talmud, which were collated into a written form between the years 200-500 AD, and on the other hand by the polemic work Toldôth Yeshu, 'Accounts of Jesus'. The latter is also known by the name Ma'se Talui, roughly translated as 'The Acts of the Crucified'. The TOLDOTH YESHU came into being in the 5th century, at the earliest, and subsequently spread, in Hebrew and Yiddish versions, among the Jewish peasantry. Not even Jewish scholars claim any historical basis for it; from beginning to end it is pure legend. Most critics consider it a product of 8th century Italy and of the tumult of the Crusades in the 11th century, in which there was widespread persecution of the Jews. However, Aramaic papyrus fragments have been found in Cairo which could be considered more original versions of the legends.32 The Jewish professor Josef Klausner has done a great service to his people in testifying in his book Jesus von Nazareth, pp 58-66, that these polemical anecdotes have no historical value. Nevertheless, the renowned atheist Voltaire, among others, held them to be authentic accounts of Jesus' life.33 I had always thought that these legends were known only by the Jews of Eastern Europe until a man from an Arab background told me that he had heard of them in his childhood. Despite, however, the blasphemies they contain, their effect on him was that they ultimately led him into communion with a Christian church. The Toldôth Yeshu speaks of how John, a God-fearing man, skilled in the Torah and of the house of David, got engaged to a certain Miriam, originally from Bethlehem, the shy and honourable daughter of a neighbouring widow. However, the uncouth but outwardly handsome Pandera also took a fancy to Miriam. One Sabbath night he came to Miriam during her period and raped her. Miriam thought he was her husband-to-be and yielded to him after a hopeless struggle, greatly astonished at the behaviour of her hitherto pious fianc'. When the real bridegroom, John, came she made her anger clear to him. He immediately suspected Pandera and told Rabbi Shimon Ben Shetah the whole affair. Miriam became pregnant, and since John knew that the child was not his but that he was unable to prove who was guilty he fled to Babylon. The main theme of the story is that Yeshu is supposed to have stolen the Shem ha-Mephorash, the name of God "which must not be pronounced", from the Temple's Holiest of Holies, and by its agency to have performed miracles. But "Judas, the man from Kerioth", who offered to betray Yeshu to the national leaders, also stole the "unpronouncable name" in the same way and performed the same miracles. The Aramaic fragment from Cairo says that Yeshu and Judas "flew in the air". Judas flew higher than Yeshu and made him fall by "polluting him with his semen, at which both became unclean and fell to the ground". This nauseating anecdote relates to Balaam, who led Israel into immorality and whose punishment, according to the Talmud, was that "he was sentenced to be cast into a cauldron of boiling semen".34 The name 'Yeshu', by taking its root letters as the initial letters of other words, is explained as meaning Yimmah SHmô Vezichrô, "may his name and all memory of him be obliterated". We are then told of how Yeshu was imprisoned in Tiberias but escaped from there and fled to Antioch and Egypt to learn yet more witchcraft. On returning to Jerusalem he wished once more to steal the secret name of God which he had in the interim forgotten. Yehuda (Judas) informed the Wise of Jerusalem of this and said that he would kneel down before Yeshu so that they would know him from his disciples, who were dressed in the same colour of clothes. In this way Yeshu was taken captive and was sentenced to hanging on the day before the Passover, Friday. When he had been buried, the gardener Yehudi took his body and hid it in a ditch in his garden. When his disciples failed to find the body in the tomb they told Queen Helen that he had risen from the dead, and so she wished to put to death all the Sages of Israel. Rabbi Tanhuma (Bar Abba), however, with the help of the Holy Spirit, found the body, which was then tied to a horse's tail and dragged to where the Queen was. Nevertheless, Yeshu's disciples spread the gospel about him to the Gentiles. These disciples included 12 apostles who were fervent persecutors of the Jews. We can see that the Toldôth Yeshu in no way agrees with history. Rabbi Shimon Ben Shetah lived in the time of Alexander Janneus (126-76 BC). The Talmud shows him to have been a ruthless man, capable of ordering, in a single day in Ashkelon, 80 women accused of witchcraft to be crucified.35 Good reason, then, for making him the witness to Yeshu's magic powers. Rabbi Tanhuma, considered the "seal of the Midrashim", was active around 350-375 AD. 'Queen Helen' obviously refers to the Christian mother of Constantine the Great, who visited the Holy Land and who had a tremendous influence on her son. Miriam's fiancé John seems to reflect the activity of John the Baptist. The Talmud refers to Yeshu as Ben Pandera, the 'son of Pandera',36 and we also find in its pages the disgusting story of the "pollution" related by the Toldôth Yeshu: a similar punishment is to be the lot of those who "blaspheme the words of the Sages".37 In the old uncensored text "Yeshu" is mentioned in this context.38 Although the Talmud makes Yeshu a partaker of eternal life,39 the conflict between the Church and the Synagogue has often given rise to tasteless comments, found in the older writings of both sides: an anti-semitic tone is displayed by some Catholic writings, for example, and in the Orthodox prayer literature and Luther's polemic works. We should not attempt to prettify that of which Gentile as much as Jew is guilty. The mentions of Jesus in the TALMUD are few and far between. In order to compare the words of the New Testament and the traditions found in the Talmud it is neccessary to relate something of the Talmud's character and origin. One consequence of the destruction of the second Temple in AD 70 was the danger that the Jewish spiritual heritage might vanish. To avert this, Rabbi Johanan Ben Zakkai, who had been smuggled in a coffin out of the beseiged Jerusalem by his pupils, began immediately to gather learned Pharisees in Jabne, better known as Jamnia. He expounded the Torah in the tolerant spirit of Hillel the elder and Gamaliel. With the consent of the Romans they founded the Great Council which functioned in legal matters as High Court, and began simultaneously to compile the "traditional decrees of the Fathers". Soon after this came Rabbi Aqiba, who, right up to his death in AD 135, arranged this traditional material under different headings. His pupil Rabbi Meir continued the work until Rabbi Judah, who represents the fourth generation after Hillel, completed the compilation of the MISHNA.40 At the same time the TOSEPHTA was compiled, which "supplements" the pronouncements of the scholars of the first two Christian centuries. This Tannaim period was followed by the Amoraim, who lasted until 500 AD. In that period of 300 years the GEMARA, which "completes" and brings to its conclusion the collation of the traditions, was compiled in both Babylon and Palestine. The Mishna and the Gemara are known collectively as the Talmud, or 'teaching'. The Jerusalem Talmud, the teachings of the land of Israel, had been compiled by the year 350, whereas the gigantic 12 volume Babylonian Talmud was not completed until 500 AD. When we compare the words of the Talmudic scholars with the teachings of Christ we must always ascertain which period each scholar represents. The Talmud speaks comparatively little of Jesus. It prefers to give copious instructions as to how to approach "those who believe in Jesus the Nazarene" -- this is the general interpretation of the word Min, which is taken to be an abbreviation of Ma'aminei Jeshûa ha-Notsri. The Talmud speaks of how "the Nazarene Yeshu" performed miracles and deceived the people; he blasphemed the learned who expounded the Torah in the manner of the Pharisees; he had five disciples;41 he said that he had come to destroy the Law, not to fulfil it;42 he was crucified on the eve of the Passover as an inciter of national unrest;43 his disciples healed the sick in his name.44 The gospels are referred to in the Talmud as avôn gilyon or âven gilyon, both of which mean 'sinful writing'. Some Rabbis were of the opinion that they should be burnt; others felt that the name of God ought to be removed before burning.45 Jewish scholars stress that the Talmud's criticism is not usually levelled at the person of Jesus: He is considered a Jew, and even in discussion of his crucifixion it is owned that he was "near to the kingdom of God".46 The Talmud does not doubt that Jesus and his disciples performed miracles, it merely forbids accepting help from the Minim even when one's life is in danger. From the end of the second Christian century onwards this attitude became more and more deeply entrenched. We can well understand the Talmud's endeavour to forbid all communication with Jewish Christians. A serious problem had arisen; how should a Jewish Christian be answered? There was a desire to take refuge from the influence of Christianity. There are many examples of this. The most illustrative may be the two discussions in the Talmud of the 'Son of Man' from the book of Daniel, a passage of great importance to Christians since it appears 84 times in the gospels and speaks of the divine and human nature of the Messiah. Daniel says:
Once a man came to Rabbi Aqiba and asked him why Daniel 7:9 says in the plural, "As I looked, thrones were set in place". "One is for God", replied Aqiba, "and the other for David", that is, the Messiah. At that R. Josi rebuked him and said, "Aqiba, for how long will you grieve the spirit of God? No. Rather, one is reserved for Justice and the other for Righteousness."47 The Talmud strives to avoid any Messianic interpretation by explaining this passage as referring to "Metatron", who has the same name as God and who often is actually identified with the Messiah. R. Aqiba's good friend and brother-in-law R. Eliezer, known also as a pupil of R. Johanan Ben Zakkai, was ultimately banished to Lydda for life when he was found guilt of being a Min, a Christian Jew. He was also excommunicated from the Great Council at Jabne. It would seem that R. Josi feared Aqiba too might find his way into Christian fellowship. It may be, however, that Aqiba merely added his own interpretation to the passage in Ps 110 which speaks of the Messiah as sitting at the right hand of God, an interpretation generally acceptable to the Rabbis, as we saw in the first volume of our roots study. We can see in many Talmudic passages how the Synagogue shielded itself from the influence of Christianity. ISRAEL'S SCHOOLBOOKS of today give, for the first time since the destruction of the Temple, the official stance regarding Judaism's most noble exemplar, Jesus. Professor Pinhas E. Lapide made a study of the relationship to Christianity and to Jesus of ten of the main school books.48 Five of them begin by presenting John the Baptist as some kind of national hero and teacher who was active before Jesus. In seven books the teachings of Jesus are set alongside the words of the OT prophets. Three of them give Jesus' name in the full form of Yeshûa, as do Jewish Christians and as RaMBaM also referred to him -- the shortened form Yeshu is actually a derisory slant, as we have seen. In all of these books Jesus' "Jewishness" is emphasised and it is made clear that he is not the same as the "Jesus" of the Church. All ten of these schoolbooks argue that St Paul "split off" the Church from Judaism by his teaching of the Torah and thus made a "sect" into a "religion" -- in Hebrew this is something of a play on words; a kat, 'sect' became le-dat, a 'religion'. As regards Jesus' teachings, seven of the books stress that he proclaimed the imminence of the "kingdom of God"; five point out his faithfulness to the Torah; three state that he was one of the Pharisees; only one of them claims that he opposed the learned men of his day. Jesus preached social righteousness and brotherly love; he said we should even love our enemies; in particular he spoke up against hypocrisy and outward show. Only one says that he believed himself to be the Messiah. Quantitatively speaking, one of these books gives no more than two lines to its mention of Jesus, although it devotes four and a half pages to the description of the Messianic expectation in the time of the second Temple. The most extensive treatment of Jesus covers four full pages. Altogether the books quote 18 separate New Testament verses, the Sermon on the Mount being granted most attention. A Talmudic discussion of Jesus is referred to only once,49 and the Toldôth Yeshu is not even mentioned. In 1970 the Israeli Ministry of Education published guidlines as to how this material should be taught. This pamphlet on "Early Christianity" deals with the following subjects: a) 'Jesus and the first Christians', approx. 8 pages; b) 'How Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire', 12pp; c) 'Christianity and the Church', 10pp; d) the 'Church and the Jews', 5pp. These instructions were given for the teaching of children of around 12-13 years old. Professor Lapide states at the end of his study that Israel's schoolbooks
"paint a more positive picture of Jesus than Jewish children have ever
before had from their teachers". Perhaps we might also add here that the
New Testament has been read in Jerusalem University as Jewish literature
since the 1930's. Furthermore, Israel is the only country in the Near East
in which there is a multi-party system and which attempts, at least formally,
to observe the principle of freedom of speech. This makes open discussion
between Jews and Christians possible, and it may heal relations which for
centuries have been badly warped.
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