Talk:Quotations about Jesus in the Talmud

I removed the piece by user:Jesus Saves! because it, too, was incorrect. For anyone who can read Hebrew/Talmudic Aramaic, the actual quote is found here: [1]. It distinctly says ישו הנוצרי (Jesus Christ). Danny 14:13, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I'm delighted by your freedom to delete others' content, Danny. Does everybody have this power? If I think something is incorrect, say, in Creationism, can I just delete it? Dbabbitt 14:20, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

If you encounter an article on a controversial subject that you would like to edit, first read the comments on the talk page and view the Page history to get a sense of how the article came into being and what its current status is. Then, if you want to change or delete anything substantial in the text, you should either:

1. Move it to the Talk page, if it is a sentence or so, and list your objections.
2. Only list your objections to the section on the Talk page if it is longer.

You did just that. Dbabbitt

Thus, legends referring to Balaam are sometimes understood to be referring to Jesus.

I am deleting this, because it's definitely incorrect. Some "uncensored editions" of Talmud do mention Jesus in connection with Balaam (Gittin 57a). However, far from being identified with Balaam, Jesus is contrasted with Balaam there: whereas Balaam, in hell, continues to advise the cursing of Israel, Jesus ("sinners of Israel" in most "censored" editions), in hell, gives advice regarded as sound: "Seek their welfare, seek not their harm." That a favorable comparison is intended is made clear by the sentence: "Observe the difference between the sinners of Israel and the prophets of the other nations who worship idols." See article "Balaam" in Encyclopedia Judaica.

Danny, I agree with your original deletion of my new material. As written, it mistakenly implied that the specific above quote was not about the Christian Jesus. The quote, of course, clearly was about the Christian Jesus. I only meant to say something about the many other "Jesus" quotes. If this article continues and does not get deleted, it will eventually discuss a number of these quotes. As this happens, I want people to know that some historians believe that many of these quotes (some believe most of them) are not really about Jesus. The rabbis just took any and all examples (real or legendary) and stuck the name "Jesus" in front of them. The person "Jesus" in the Talmud has become like the legendary trouble trouble makers "Reuven" and "Simon" in the responsa literature, who seem to be the only two people ever involved in legal disputes. I think they are probably all related to the same ancestor, the famous Ploni ben Ploni. RK 14:41, Jan 3, 2004 (UTC)

Another Talmudic scholar on the loose ... "Many" and "most" are rhetorical devices. Identify those scholars with reference to specific quotes, and we have room for discussion. Aggadata (Jewish legends) uses certain terminologies and identifies names for specific reasons. To compare them to Reuven and Shimon, the equivalent of x and y in English (xs ox gored ys ox = Reuven's ox gored Shimon's ox) is hardly the same. Danny 14:52, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Danny, I am trying to work with you in good faith. You are a very smart man, and can be a great contributor to Wikipedia when you aren't in flaming mode. Chill out. In regards to your specific point, you initially cited Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz as an authority, yet you attribute his view to me and then mock me. Please don't do this. Please consider this article from The Jewish Week, entitled Jesus Death Now Debated By Jews: AJCommittee scholar cites Talmudic passage, by Eric J. Greenberg, 10/03/03

• Jesus's death now debated by Jews

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, whose Talmud edition has been translated into English, Russian and Spanish, said he believed the Talmudic Jesus is probably not the Christian Jesus. “It could very well be somebody else” who lived 100 or 200 years earlier because the stories don’t match the Gospel account, he said. Rabbi Steinsaltz noted that the Hebrew name Yeshu was popular back then and that “stories about the resurrection of dead leaders are a dime a dozen, before Jesus and after him. This is not a historical issue.”

Also, I have come across a number of others who share his view. RK 15:09, Jan 3, 2004 (UTC)

I want to question the last paragraph, which I'll copy here for convenience:

Summing up, there are many quotes which deal with false messiahs named Yeshu or Yeshuva; interestingly, in the Talmud the name "Yeshua" became a stand-in for many people considered to be false Jewish messiahs in early rabbinic Judaism, both real people and legendary. Many of the stories are far removed from anything writtem in the New Testament; many scholars are convinced that some of these people, often identified as "Jesus", cannot be about the Christian Jesus. Instead, they are a conflation of views about early Christianity, views of previous Jewish messiah claimiants, and legend.

First, how can the "many quotes" and "many people" be correct when there are actually rather few passages involved? Second, as Danny points out at the top of this Talk page, the text actually says "Yeshu ha-Notzeri" (Jesus the Nazarene) which is the expression used for Jesus Christ in countless Jewish texts ever since Talmudic times and still today. (But does the Talmud say "the Nazarene" each time, or just some of the time?) Third, there is no reason that Chazal was required to accept the New Testament account of Jesus, even the basic chronology, so the fact that they wrote things contradicting the NT account is not a reason in itself to dismiss the identification. Fourth, how did the great Talmudic commentators interpret the Talmudic Yeshu? --Zero 12:51, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hi. I didn't write that paragraph so I can't vouch for everything in it. On the other hand, I think that there is a misunderstanding in the basic assumption of this page. The Talmud is one corpus of writing, but there are many others that are contemporary to this text, such as the Midrash. I distinctly remember other stories, but I cannot find sources for them (Jesus was a student of Rabban Gamaliel, he used the Tetragrammaton to fly, etc.). All of these probably appear in other texts. Like I originally wrote, there is little about Jesus in the Talmud per se. Frankly, he wasn't that important to the authors. As for the Talmudic commentators, it is hard to tell, since the texts mentioned in the article (and any others like them) were all censored, so they either did not see them, or their commentaries were lost. Danny 00:04, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)