NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES
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H.W.Wilson Go
5 Feb. 191?-
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JESUS IN THE TALMUD
JESUS IN THE
TALMUD
HIS PERSONALITY, HIS DISCIPLES
AND HIS SAYINGS
BY
BERNHARD PICK, Ph.D. D.D.
CHICAGO LONDON
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY
1913
I
THE
PUBL
ASTC
TILD
R
COPYRIGHT BY
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY
1913
CONTENTS
PAGE
Publisher's Preface; Introduction vii-12
Part I. — Personality of Jesus . . 13-44
Personality of Jesus; Jesus Alleged to be
Born Out of Wedlock ; Jesus and His
Teacher; Jesus a Magician; Jesus an
Idolater; Claims of Jesus Denied;
Balaam-Jesus; The Age of Balaam
(Jesus) ; The Trial of Jesus; The Execu-
tion of Jesus; Jesus in Hell.
Part II. — The Disciples and Follow-
ers 07 Jesus % r - . . 47-69
The Five Disciples of Jesus; Jacob, the
Performer cj| , 7>lirades ; Jacob, the
Teacher, Another Miracle-Performer;
A Christian 7udge; Chiictians Study the
Scriptures"; Enactments Against Christian
Writings; Protests Against Christians;
Enactments.
Part III. — Sayings of Jesus . . . 73-101
Talmudic Parallels; Index.
PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.
The importance of the utterances in the Tal-
mud concerning Jesus must not be misunderstood
and still less must they be over-estimated. We
therefore call the reader's attention to the fact
that they are not based on contemporary evi-
dence and thus possess no historical value. They
are the expression of a non-Christian spirit
mostly hostile and sometimes positively offen-
sive.
In extenuation of the Talmud we must say,
first, that the animosity between Jew and Gen-
tile is deep and mutual. When the Gentile
blames the Jew for wrong thinking, the Jew may
equally blame the Gentile for wrong doing, for
the Jew has had to suffer persecution of the
crudest kind.
Further we must bear in mind that the Tal-
mud is not one book with a consistent tendency,
but a collection of innumerable writings, essays,
anecdotes, and what not. Side by side with noble
and deep thoughts we find worthless gossip. On
account of the latter we must not forget the for-
mer and therewith depreciate the entire Talmud.
For these reasons we wish the reader to use
the present pamphlet with discretion and to bear
in mind the conditions existing in the age in
which these utterances concerning Jesus were
written. The author has collected and collated
them for serious study of the facts in the case.
They are material for the scholar and must not
in any sense be considered as popular reading.
The Publishers.
Note by the Author. — The greater part of this work
was already in print when the interesting book of Prof.
Starck was published. Jesus Die Harstiker und die
Christen. Leipzig, 1910.
PART I.
PERSONALITY OF JESUS.
I.
THE TALMUD.
Introduction. — Jesus as represented in the
Talmud is a subject which must interest the
Christian student. For what can be of pro-
founder interest than to learn what the Jews
have said concerning Jesus and Christianity. We
naturally look to the Jewish historian Josephus,
who described and witnessed the downfall of the
Jewish commonwealth. But we are disappointed.
True that in his "Antiquities" (XVIII, 3, 3)
Josephus has reference to Christ, but scholars
are now generally agreed 1 that this passage is a
later interpolation. Leaving then aside Josephus,
we must turn to that encyclopedia of "Jewish
wisdom and unwisdom" which is known as the
Talmud. We cannot speak here of the origin
and contents of this voluminous work, of which
a complete translation into any modern language
does not yet exist. We must refer the reader to
1 See however among other defenders of the passage
in Josephus, Seitz, Christus-Zeugnisse ans dem klas~
sischen Altertiim, Cologne, 1906, 9 et. seq.
JESUS IN THE TALMUD
our article "Talmud." 2 But even this work does
not add anything to our knowledge, yea, it is
rather disappointing. For the Talmud as we now
have it contains not those Christian or rather an-
ti-Christian passages, which it originally had.
Modern Judaism complains of the intolerance
of the Church, which from the time of Justinian 3
persecuted and burned the Talmud. But it for-
gets that the Talmud only reaped what it has
sowed, and that the Church of Rome only acted
in accordance with the Talmud itself. For it
was the very Talmud which taught that in case
of a fire breaking out on the Sabbath, the Gos-
pels and other works of the minim (i. e., Chris-
tians) should not be rescued. "By the life of
my son," said the Rabbi Tarphon, "should they
(i. e., these writings) come into my hand I
would burn them together with the names of
God which they contained. Were I pursued, I
would rather take refuge in a temple of idols
than in their (i. e., the Christians') houses. For
the latter are wilful traitors, while the heathen
sinned in ignorance of the right way; and con-
cerning them the Scripture says: 'Behind the
doors, also, and the posts, hast thou set up thy
2 See McClintock & Strong's Tlieol. Enc, vol. X
(1881) s. v. "Talmud."
â– On February 13, 553, he issued a novella "concern-
ing the Jews."
4
INTRODUCTION
remembrance'" (Is. lvii. 8). 4 This fact should
not be forgotten.
The anti-Christian character of Jewish writ-
ings early attracted the attention of Christians,
and Agobard, bishop of Lyons (820-830) in his
De Judaicis Superstitionibus, and Hrabanus
Maurus, archbishop of Mayence, in his Contra
Jadacos, written about 847 A. D., betray ac-
quaintance with Jewish literature. The first at-
tack upon the Talmud was made in the thirteenth
century, when A. D. 1240 a conference was held
at Paris between Nicolas Donin and some Jew-
ish rabbis. When the question came up as to
Jesus in the Talmud, rabbi Jechiel, the most
prominent of the Jewish rabbis at that confer-
ence, would not admit that the Jesus spoken of in
the Talmud was Jesus of Nazareth, but another
Jesus, a discovery which was copied by some la-
ter writers. But modern Jews acknowledge the
failure of this argument, for says Dr. Levin in
his prize essay: "We must regard the attempt
of rabbi Jechiel to ascertain that there were two
by the name of Jesus as unfortunate, original as
the idea may be." 5 As the author of this essay
'Talmud, Shabbath, fol. 116, col. 1. This his ani-
mosity against Christianity induced some scholars to
maintain that this Rabbi Tarphon is the same Trypho
who is the interlocutor in Justin Martyr's Dialogue.
5 "Die Religionsdisputation des Rabbi Jechiel von
Paris," published in Graetz's Monatsschrift, Breslau,
1869, p. 193.
5
JESUS IN THE TALMUD
was a pupil of the rabbinical seminary at Bres-
lau, he certainly expressed the opinion of his
teachers. The result of the conference was that
the Talmud in wagon-loads was burned at Paris
in 1242.
In our days, such accusations against the Tal-
mud were impossible, because all these offensive
passages have been removed — not so much by
the hands of the Christian censor, as by the
Jews themselves — a fact very often overlooked
by controversialists. In the Jewish year 5391
(i. e., A. D. 1631) a Jewish synod held at Petri-
kau, in Poland, issued a circular letter 6 to the ef-
fect that all such passages in the Talmud which
refer to Jesus etc., should be omitted in the fu-
ture. This letter explains the absence of those
offensive passages from the editions of the Tal-
mud published since the publication of the Am-
sterdam edition in 1644. But happily or unhap-
pily the Jews themselves have taken care that
"the expurgated passages in the Talmud" did not
become lost to their coreligionists by publishing
them anonymously in pamphlets, of which Pro-
fessor Strack of Berlin mentions no less than
four such editions. 7 These collections, published
* The reader can find this circular letter in my article
"Talmud" in McClintock & Strong's Theol. Enc, vol.
x, p. 172.
T The present writer has also one of these collections,
published in Cracow, 1893.
INTRODUCTION
for the most part in Germany, are of a recent
date, and are probably intended for more than
a mere literary interest.
In order to give back to the Jews what the
censor has taken from them and to show them
that Christianity has nothing to fear from these
expurgated passages, Professor Dalman of Leip-
sic, one of the few Christian scholars who are en-
titled to be heard even in Talmudicis, has pub-
lished in a convenient form all these passages
contained in the oldest editions of the Talmud
and Midrash. To this collection of the censured
passages H. Laible appended an introductory es-
say, and the whole was published under the title
Jesus Christus im Talmud, Berlin, 1891, by the
missionary 'Tnstitutum Judaicum."
Before we enter into the debating club of the
rabbis, we shall make a few preliminary remarks
which can prepare us for the Talmudic state-
ments.
During the life-time of Jesus his miracles were
not denied but were traced back to Beelzebub,
the prince of the devils (Mark iii. 22). The
scribes would not recognize one who sought not
their company, but that of publicans and sinners
with whom he ate; who broke the Sabbath and
abolished the difference between clean and un-
clean. That the grave of Christ had been empty,
the Jews did not deny, but they thought that the
JESUS IN THE TALMUD
disciples had stolen the body (Matt, xxviii. 15).
They freely made use of the invective Beelzebub
(''master of the house") for the "master" of the
Christians as well as for his servants (Matt. x.
25). After his death, the crucified Messiah, as
Paul tells us, became unto them a stumbling
block (1 Cor. 1, 23). The destruction of Jeru-
salem had made no impression upon "these vil-
lains" and upon ''that ungodly generation," as Jo-
sephus calls his countrymen (War, v, 13, 6). But
if the sword of Judaism was perforce sheathed,
its tongues and pens were active. The apologetic
writings of the earliest centuries, show that the
Jews were busy throughout this whole era in
circulating calumnies against the Christians. Jus-
tin Martyr (died 163 A. D.) complains of the
Jewish blasphemies against Christ and the Chris-
tians. "The high priests of your nation and your
teachers," he says, "have caused that the name
of Jesus should be profaned and reviled through
the whole world" (Dialogue with TrypJio, 117).
"Nay, ye have added thereto, that Christ taught
those impious, unlawful, horrible actions, which
ye disseminate as charges above all against those
who acknowledge Christ as Teacher and as the
Son of God" (ibid, 108). "Your teachers ex-
hort you to permit yourselves no conversation
whatever with us" {ibid. 112). "The Jews re-
gard us as foes and opponents, and kill, and tor-
INTRODUCTION
ture us if they have the power. In the lately-
ended Jewish war, Bar Kokh'ba, the instigator of
the Jewish revolt, caused Christians alone to be
dragged to terrible tortures, whenever they would
not- deny and revile Jesus Christ" {Apology, I,
31). 'The Jews hate us, because we say that
Christ is already come, and because we point out
that He, as had been prophesied, was crucified by
them" {Dial 35). "Ye have killed the Just and
His prophets before Him. And now ye despise
those who hope in Him and in God, the King
over all and Creator of all things, who has sent
Jesus; ye despise and dishonor them, as much
as in you lies, in that in your synagogues ye
curse those who believe in Christ. Ye only lack
the power, on account of those who hold the
reins of government, to treat us with violence.
But as often as ye have had this power, ye have
also done this" (ibid. 16). "In your synagogues
ye curse all who have become Christians, and the
same is done by the other nations, who give a
practical turn to the curse, in that when any one
acknowledges himself a Christian, they put him
to death" (ibid. 96).
From the "True Word" of Celsus, which has
been answered by Origen, we already learn some
of the mean things which the Jews circulated
about Jesus. The Jew whom Celsus introduces
JESUS IN THE TALMUD
charges Jesus with having falsely proclaimed
himself to be born of a virgin; afterwards he
says that Jesus was born in a poor Jewish vil-
lage, and that his mother was a poor woman of
the country, who supported herself with spin-
ning and needlework ; that she was cast off by her
betrothed, a carpenter; and that after she was
rejected by her husband, she wandered about in
disgrace and misery till she secretly gave birth to
Jesus. Jesus himself was obliged from poverty
and necessity to go down as servant into Egypt,
where he learnt some of the secret sciences which
are in high honor among the Egyptians; and he
placed such confidence in these sciences that
on his return to his native land he gave himself
out to be a god (I, 28). The Jew of Celsus also
declares that the carpenter who was betrothed
to Mary, put the mother of Jesus from him, be-
cause she had broken faith with him, in favor of
a soldier named Panthera (I, 32).
Tertullian writing somewhere about 197-198
A. D. in his De Spectaculis, chap. 30, in which
he depicts the glorious spectacle of the second
coming says that he will turn to the Jews who
raged against the Lord and say unto them:
"This is your carpenter's son, your harlot's son;
your sabbath-breaker, you?. Samaritan, your de-
mon-possessed ! This is He whom ye bought
from Judas; this is He who was struck with
10
INTRODUCTION
reeds and fists, dishonored with spittle, and given
a draught of gall and vinegar ! This is He whom
His disciples have stolen secretly, that it may be
said He has risen, or the gardener abstracted that
his lettuces might not be damaged by the crowds
of visitors !"
Such is already the attitude of Judaism tow-
ards Jesus at a time when the Talmud was in a
state of formation. But if we wish to become
acquainted with the Rabbinical Jesus-tradition
we must examine the constituent parts of the
Talmud, namely the Mishna, Tosephta (i. e., ad-
dition or supplement to the Mishna), the Gem-
ara or commentary on the Mishna, and the Mid-
rashim or homiletic literature, especially the Mid-
rash Kohelet or Midrash on Ecclesiastes. The
Talmudic Jesus traditions continued themselves
even after the time of the completion of the Tal-
mud. They were further developed and en-
larged, and reached their full expression in the
Middle Ages. In that period the hatred of Jesus
which was never quite dormant, begat a liter-
ature, in comparison with which the Talmud must
be termed almost innocent. The Toldoth Jeshu
literature originated, which is still continued. In
the Toldoth Jeshu a detailed picture of the life
of Jesus was put together, of which the authors
of the Talmud had no anticipation. The three
consonants ;' s (shin) v, with which the name
11
JESUS IN THE TALMUD
Jeshu was written, are here explained as being
the first letters of the three words: / = jimmach,
sh = sh'mo, z> = v'zicliro, i. e., "may be blotted
out his name and his memory" ! The Toldoth
Jeshu is nothing but the offspring of low fanati-
cism, malicious delight in defamation, and vulgar
imagination which respectable Jews have always
despised.
After these preliminaries we now take up the
passages of the Talmud as given by Dalman, and
which are claimed to refer to Jesus.
12
II.
THE PERSONALITY OF JESUS.
Birth and Parentage of Jesus. — In the Tal-
mud Shabbath 104 & we read: "He who cuts
upon his flesh." It is a tradition that Rabbi Eli-
ezer said to the wise, Has not Ben Stada brought
magic spells from Egypt in a cut which was upon
his body? They answered him, He was a fool,
and we do not take proofs from fools. [Ben
Stada is Ben Pandira. Rab Hisda said, The
husband was Stada, the paramour was Pandira.
The husband was Paphos ben Jehudah, the mother
was Stada. The mother was Miriam the dresser
of women's hair, as we say in Pumbeditha, Such
a one has been false to her husband.] 8
The above passage occurs in a discussion upon
the words in the Mishnah which forbid all kinds
of writing to be done on the Sabbath. Several
'The passage in [] which also occurs in Sanhedrin
67a, is not found in modern editions. It is supplied
from Rabbinowicz Diqduqe Sopherim, on the authority
of the Munich and Oxford manuscripts, and the older
editions.
JESUS IN THE TALMUD
kinds are specified, and among them the making
of marks upon the flesh. The words at the be-
ginning of the translation, "he who cuts upon
his flesh/" are the text, so to speak, of the Mish-
nah which is discussed in what follows. To illus-
trate the practice of making marks on the skin,
the compilers of the Gemara introduce a tradi-
tion, according to which Rabbi Eliezer asked the
question, "Did not Ben Stada bring magical spells
from Egypt in a cut which was upon his body?"
His argument was that as Ben Stada had done
this, the practice might be allowable. The an-
swer was that Ben Stada was a fool, and his
case proved nothing. Upon the mention how-
ever of Ben Stada, a note is added to explain
who that person was, and it is for the sake of
this note that the passage is quoted.
The two names Ben Stada and Ben Pandera
evidently refer to the same person, and that that
person is Jesus is shown clearly by the fact that
we sometimes meet with the full name "Jeshu
son of Pandera," also Jeshu son of Stada." It
seems that the question was argued in the schools
which of the two familiar designations (son of
Stada, son of Pandera) was the correct one. One
of the two appellations appeared to be necessarily
false. Which was correct?
The subject treated was that the son of Stada
had brought charms with him out of Egypt in an
14
PERSONALITY OF JESUS
incision in his flesh. Thereupon some one ob-
jects; the designation Ben Stada is false; he was
the son of Pandera. No, says Rab Hisda (a
Babylonian teacher, A. D. 217-309), Stada was
the name of the husband (of his mother), Pan-
dira the name of her paramour. To call him
either the one or the other is therefore correct.
To this however is objected that this cannot be
true, because the husband is known to have been
called Paphos ben Jehudah. Stada must have
been not the father but the mother. But how
can that be, because the mother was called Mir-
iam the dresser of women's hair? As rejoinder
to this follows the conclusion : Of what we are
aware, but she is also called Stada, by her nick-
name. Insomuch as she had a paramour, she was
given the " sobriquet" Stada, which consists of
the words stath da, i. e., she has gone aside, from
her husband. Thus at least the word is explained
in the Babylonian Academy at Pumbeditha.
Various attempts have been made to explain
the two names Ben Stada and Ben Pandira (also
written Pandera or Pantira). But none of the
suggested explanations solves the problem. We
leave the two names as relics of ancient Jewish
mockery against Jesus, the clue to whose mean-
ing is now lost.
Mention has also been made of Miriam (of
which Mary is the equivalent). She is called
15
JESUS IN THE TALMUD
m'gaddla nashaia, i. e., a women's hairdresser.
How came the Talmud to bestow this epithet
upon the mother of Jesus, for whom elsewhere
it has the characteristic designation of adulteress?
That Jesus's mother was named Mary, was
known to the Jews ; that she had born Jesus out
of wedlock, was maintained by them. Then they
heard a noted Christian woman of Jesus's time
often spoken of, who was named Mary of Mag-
dala. What was more natural for those who had
already long ceased to ascertain more particularly
at the mouth of Christians the history of Jesus,
than by this Mary (of) Magdala simply to un-
derstand Jesus's mother, especially since their
knowledge was confined to one Mary? She was
reported to be a great sinner. This harmonized
in a twofold way with their assumption, for, that
Jesus's mother was a sinner, was maintained by
them with the utmost certainty, and now they ob-
tained, as they supposed, actual confirmation of
this from the Christians. Miriam (of) Magdala
was accordingly the mother of Jesus, and by a
name-play the Magdala was turned into m'gad-
dla nashaia, i. e., women's hairdresser.
In the Talmudic passage quoted above we are
told that Stada's (i. e., Mary's) lawful husband
was Paphos ben Jehudah. Now of this Paphos,
who lived a century after Jesus, the Talmud Git-
tin 90 a narrates the following:
16
PERSOXALITY OF JESUS
"There is a tradition. Rabbi Meir used to say ;
'Just as there are various kinds of taste as re-
gards eating, so there are also various dispositions
as regards women. There is a man into whose
cup a fly falls and he casts it out, but all the
same he does not drink it [the cup]. Such was
the manner of Paphos ben Jehudah, who used to
lock the door upon his wife, and go out.' ' :
All we learn from this passage directly with
regard to Paphos ben Jehudah, a contemporary
of Rabbi Akiba, is that he locked up his wife;
we are, however, led to conclude, indirectly, that
she ultimately proved unfaithful to her tyrannical
spouse. What, then, was more simple than for
a story-teller to connect this with the details of
unfaithfulness found in his Jeshu repertoire?
The erring wife was just like Miriam; before
long she actually became Miriam, and finally
Paphos ben Jehudah was confidently given as
Miriam's husband ! So they had it in later times,
and the great Talmudic commentator Rashi (died
A. D. 1105) comments thus upon our passage:
"Paphos ben Jehudah was the husband of Mary,
the women's hairdresser. Whenever he went out
of his house into the street, he locked the door
upon her, that no one might be able to speak
with her. And that is a course which became
him not ; for on this account there arose enmity
between them, and she in wantonness broke her
17
JESUS IN THE TALMUD
faith with her husband."
A Mary Legend. — In the Talmud Hagigah
4 b we read the following: "When Rab Joseph
came to this verse (Prov. xiii. 23), 'But there is
that is destroyed without judgment,' he wept.
He said : 'Is there really some one who is going
[away], when it is not his time?' None but this
[told] of Rab Bibi bar Abbai. The Angel of Death
was with him. The Angel said to his messenger,
'Go bring me Miriam the dresser of women's
hair.' He brought him Miriam the teacher of
children. He [the Angel] said, T told thee Mir-
iam the dresser of women's hair.' He said, 'If
so, I will take this one back.' He said, 'Since
thou has brought this one, let her be among the
number [of the dead].'"
In this narrative we have a monstrous anach-
ronism. Rab Joseph, who is mentioned here,
was born at Shiti, in Babylonia, A. D. 259 and
died in 325. Rab Bibi flourished in the fourth
century. The latter can neither have seen Mary
nor have been her contemporary. The Talmudic
commentary Tosaphoth remarks : "The Angel
of Death was with him: he related what had al-
ready happened, for this about Miriam the
dresser of women's hair took place in [the time
of] the second temple, for she was the mother
of that so and so [i. e.. Jesus], as it is said in
Shabbath 104V But the wording of the Tal-
is
PERSONALITY OF JESUS
mud says quite distinctly that Mary lived in the
very time of Rab Bibi, on which account the
Angel of Death spoke with him not of one who
had existed earlier, but of one actually living.
Further this angel, we may note, at that very
time in the presence of Rab Bibi commissions
his messenger, to bring her i. e., deliver her to
death. The Tosaphoth notes on Shabbath 104 &
seek needlessly to remove the anachronism by the
assumption that there were two women's hair-
dressers, named Mary. But this attempt is in
vain, for nothing is known of that second Mary.
Besides we must not forget that the Talmud, in
relation to Jesus, has no conception of chron-
ology, and indeed, the later the origin of notices
about Jesus, the more reckless are they in their
chronological lapses. The post-Talmudic Sec-
ond Targum on the Book of Esther actually
reckons Jesus among the ancestors of Haman,
an anachronism, which Levy in his Targumic
dictionary (I, 330) seeks in vain to justify. In
the face of such an unfathomable error what sig-
nifies the erroneous representation that Rab Bibi
lived in the time of Mary ?
19
III.
JESUS ALLEGED TO BE BORN OUT OF
WEDLOCK.
The Pretended Record. — It is said in Mish-
nah Jebamoth iv. 13° (Gemara 49 fr ) : "Simeon
ben Azai said, T have found in Jerusalem a book
of genealogies, and therein is written : That so
and so i0 is a mamzer 11 of a married woman, to
confirm the words of Rabbi Jehoshna.' "