Christianity in Jewish literature

[Duvduv]

It is convenient as a back handed criticism of Judaism to argue that Ben Pandera stories are a swipe at the Christian Jesus when in fact Ben Pandera had nothing to do with the NT Jesus.

[stephan happy huller]

But how did the second century Jewish source of Celsus get it wrong? He wrote a book against Christianity less than a hundred years after the first gospels were published. He cites Matthew at length and had access to good sources. It is unlikely that he was wrong about Panthera and certainly his sources indicated that Jesus was related to Panthera. How many other mamzers named Jesus could have been associated with someone with the name Panthera/Pandera. Very unlikely. And the fact that the rabbinic narrative also sounds Christian it is unlikely that Celsus's Jew 'made up' the association. There was a pre-existing tradition behind Celsus's Jew and the early rabbinic allusion.

[Duvduv]

Perhaps the Celsius scenario occurred later, after a Toldoth story came out or after the Talmud came out. Either way the Celsus exchange simply served as a back-handed swipe at the Jews, and even produced by "Origen" or other Christians themselves.
Back-handed to show the how the Jews hated the messiah, the divine Lord of the Christians. Besides, Contra Celsum itself is derived only from a single Vatican manuscript from the 13th or 14th century.

[stephan happy huller]

After the Talmud? Have you even read Against Celsus? What is driving your opinion? Let me guess ...

[avi]

See Tosefta Hullin 2:22-23 (Jacob of Kefer Sama offers to cure Eleazar b. Damah in the name of Jesus ben Pantera) and 2:24 (R Eliezer is arrested for association with Jacob of Kefer Sikhnin a disciple of Jesus ben Pantera.)

IMO Jesus ben Pantera is the Jesus of the NT although some have doubted this.

Interesting. Thanks, Andrew.

May I ask, why, if some folks, who cite a publication, ostensibly in Hebrew, imagine that jesus was a real human, i.e. a genuine jew, and if mary was this chap's mother, and if these same people imagine that mary was a devout jew, then, why didn't she name her son "immanuel", instead of jesus?

[semiopen2]

Jesus in the Talmud by Peter Shafer

http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Talmud-Pete ... sus+talmud

is a book I have.

I don't understand Duvi's claim that this is a different guy. There are more references than ben Pantera. I'm not sure if the relatively few references were brought up in one or more of the Medieval Talmud trials (or whatever they were called) - I haven't noticed Shafer mentioning this.

FWIW, religious Jews seem to have no problems with a historical Jesus, perhaps if this was disputed how much more open to dispute would be the existence of various Jewish Bible characters.

[semiopen2]

Jesus_in_the_Talmud

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_the_Talmud

During the Middle Ages a series of debates on Judaism were staged by the Roman Catholic – including the Disputation of Paris (1240), the Disputation of Barcelona (1263), and Disputation of Tortosa (1413–14)- and during those disputations, Jewish converts to Christianity, such as Nicholas Donin (in Paris) and Pablo Christiani (in Barcelona) claimed the Talmud contained insulting references to Jesus.[30][31][32]

During these disputations the representatives of the Jewish communities offered various defences to the charges of the Christian disputants. Notably influential on later Jewish responses was the defence of Yechiel of Paris (1240) that a passage about an individual named Yeshu in the Talmud was not a reference to the Christian Jesus, though at the same time Yechiel also conceded that another reference to Yeshu was. This has been described as the "theory of two Jesuses" though Berger (1998) notes that Yehiel in fact argues for three Jesuses.[33] This defence featured again in later Jewish defences during the medieval period, such as that of Nachmanides at the Disputation of Barcelona, though others such as Profiat Duran at the Disputation of Tortosa did not follow this argument.[34]

This seems pretty feeble, the folklore that I've been taught has the Jews winning these debates easily, and it was just the biased judges that made them technical losers. That seemed to make sense because, after all, they were debating with guys who converted to Christianity so how smart could they be? Presumably, there are academic experts on these debates... but to paraphrase a Simpson's quote -

I hate being lied to through folklore

[MrMacSon]

^ references 33 & 34 are the same -

Berger D. "On the Uses of History in Medieval Jewish Polemic against Christianity: The Search for the Historical Jesus".
In Jewish History and Jewish Memory: : essays in honor of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi 1998 p33

[rakovsky]

The presence of Jesus in Jewish literature--principally in the Babylonian Talmud under the name Yeshu ha-Notzri--is frequently mentioned in efforts to sustain the notion of the historicity of Jesus. It's a rather strange idea considering there are no references to Jesus in the Jerusalem Talmud,

Brewer writes that Yeshu ha Notzri is in Gemarra 43 of the Talmud and provides a passage and photocopy of the manuscript:

Jesus of Nazareth's trial in the uncensored talmud - Tyndale House
www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk
by D Instone-Brewer - ‎2011

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... AUO_pT8sDQ

Would you translate Yeshu ha Notzri differently than as Yeshua the Nazarene?

[rakovsky]

See Tosefta Hullin 2:22-23 (Jacob of Kefer Sama offers to cure Eleazar b. Damah in the name of Jesus ben Pantera) and 2:24 (R Eliezer is arrested for association with Jacob of Kefer Sikhnin a disciple of Jesus ben Pantera.)

IMO Jesus ben Pantera is the Jesus of the NT although some have doubted this.

Interesting. Thanks, Andrew.

May I ask, why, if some folks, who cite a publication, ostensibly in Hebrew, imagine that jesus was a real human, i.e. a genuine jew, and if mary was this chap's mother, and if these same people imagine that mary was a devout jew, then, why didn't she name her son "immanuel", instead of jesus?

Couldn't devout Jews name their offspring Yeshua, Immanuel, Yeshayahu, Zaharia, or a number of other things?