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This article is about a name found in Jewish literature. See Yeshua (name) for the similar sounding Hebrew name. See Jesus in the Talmud for references to the messiah of Christiainty in the Talmud.
Yeshu (ישו in Hebrew) is a name that appears in a few anecdotes in the Tosefta and the Talmud. The pagan writer Celsus knew of one of the accounts independently and equated it with the story of Jesus. In the Middle Ages, disputations were staged by the Christian church and allegations were made that the passages were insulting references to Jesus. In response, Jewish authorities such as Nahmanides and Jehiel ben Joseph asserted that the references to Yeshu in the Talmud were entirely unrelated to Jesus. Several modern scholars understand the passages to be references to Jesus , while others are skeptical. Yeshu is also the name used in Toledot Yeshu narratives as the name of the central Hashmonean era character who is partly based on Jesus. In Modern Hebrew, Yeshu means Jesus.
Etymology
Early 20th century writers such as Herford and Klausner assume without explanation that
Yeshu is an equivalent of
Jesus. McKinsey points out that the names are not identical and cannot simply be assumed to be equivalent and notes furthermore that even if equivalent one cannot assume that the Jesus of Christianity is intended as "Jesus" was a common name. Indeed in the
Septuagint and Greek language Jewish texts such as the writings of
Josephus and
Philo of Alexandria,
Jesus is the standard Greek translation of the common Hebrew name
Yehoshua (Joshua), Greek having lost the
h sound, as well as of the shortened form
Yeshua which originated in the Second Temple period. (
Jesus was also used for the name
Hoshea in the Septuagint in one of the three places where it referred to Joshua son of Nun.) The term "Yeshu" is not undisputedly attested prior to the Talmud and Tosefta, let alone as a Hebrew original for "Jesus". (In the case of the Jesus of Christianity,
Clement of Alexandria and
St. Cyril of Jerusalem claimed that the Greek form itself was his original name and that it was not a transliteration of a Hebrew form.)
Adolf Neubauer (19th century), aware of the problem but believing the term to be a reference to Jesus, argued that it was a shortened form of Yeshua resulting from the final letter ayin no longer being pronounced. Hugh J. Schonfield argued in a similar fashion that it was the northern pronunciation resulting from a silent ayin. pp.?? This view was shared by Joachim Jeremias and David Flusser pp. ??
Indeed the term may not be a name at all let alone a form of the name "Jesus". Christian missionary Kai Kjaer-Hansen points out that its letters correspond to the abbreviation (יש"ו) for the Hebrew expression ימח שמו וזכרו (yimmach shemo vezikhro), meaning "May his name and memory be blotted out", pp. ?? an expression used for deceased enemies of the Jewish people. pp.?? The term is explained as such in the medieval Toldoth Yeshu narratives. pp.?? This has led to the accusation first voiced by anti-Jewish writer Johann Andreas Eisenmenger (17th century) in his Entdecktes Judenthum that "Yeshu" was always such a deliberately insulting term for Jesus.
Disputed early occurrences
Letters spelling out the term were found on the 1st century CE
ossuary of a certain
Yeshua bar Yehoseph, published by
E.L. Sukenik in 1931. Although Sukenik considered the possibility that this was the same as the term in the Talmud, the letters instead appear to be those of the name
Yeshua with the final letter
ayin having been left out due to lack of space between the decorations between which it was inscribed. The fully spelled out name
Yeshua and the
patronymic are also found on the ossuary.
The letters of the term have also been found in a fragment of the Jerusalem Talmud from the Cairo Genizah, a depository for holy texts which are not usable due to age, damage or errors. The fragment seemingly mentions a Rabbi Yeshu. David Flusser takes this as evidence of the term being a name, however the standard text of the Jerusalem Talmud refers to one of the numerous Rabbi Yehoshuas of the Talmud and moreover the fragment has the latter name at other points in the text.
Talmud and Tosefta
The earliest undisputed occurrences of the term Yeshu are found in five anecdotes in the
Babylonian Talmud (
c 500
CE) and
Tosefta (
c 200 CE). The anecdotes appear in the Babylonian Talmud during the course of broader discussions on various religious or legal topics. The Venice edition of the
Jerusalem Talmud contains the name, but the Leiden manuscript (the only remaining manuscript of the four manuscripts upon which the Venice edition is based) has a name deleted, and "Yeshu" added in a marginal gloss. Neusner thus treats the name as a gloss, ommitting it from his translation of the Jerusalem Talmud.
Occurrences
Yeshu ben Pandera, cited as the teacher of a 2nd century CE heretic (Chullin 2:22-24, Avodah Zarah 16b-17a)
A sorcerer who had been stoned on the eve of one Passover. (Sanhedrin 43a)
An example of a "son who burns his food in public" (Sanhedrin 103a, Berakhot 17b) identified as Manasseh of Judah son of Hezekiah in the passages as well as in a corresponding account in the Shulchan Arukh.
An idolatrous former student of the early 1st century BCE rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachiah. (Sanhedrin 107b).
The spirit of a foreign enemy of Israel summoned by Onkelos (Gittin 56b, 57a)
Interpretations of the term
The
Tannaim and
Amoraim who recorded the accounts in the Talmud and Tosefta use the term
Yeshu as a designation in
Sanhedrin 103a and
Berakhot 17b in place of King
Manasseh's real name.
Sanhedrin 107b uses it for a Hasmonean era individual who in an earlier account (Jerusalem Talmud
Chagigah 2:2) is anonymous. In
Gittin 56b, 57a it is used for one of three foreign enemies of Israel, the other two being from past and present with
Yeshu representing a third not identified with any past or present event. No explicit explanation is given for the term. The earliest explicit explanation comes instead from the mediaeval
Toldoth Yeshu narratives which explain it as an acronym for the curse formula
yimmach shemo vezikhro meaning "may his name and memory be obliterated" used for enemies of the Jewish people.
Celsus
A long tradition of interpreting the term as a reference to Jesus exists outside normative Jewish commentary. This interpretation is first seen in the writing of
Celsus who provided an account of Jesus which he claimed he obtained from a Jew. In this account Jesus is said to be the illegitimate child of Mary and a soldier named Panthera. The Jewish tale that Celsus refers to is recognized as relating to
Yeshu ben Pandera mentioned in the Tosefta .
Other Rishonim, namely Rabbi Jacob ben Meir (Rabbeinu Tam) (12th century), Nahmanides (13th century) and Jehiel ben Joseph of Paris (13th century) explicitly repudiated the equation of the Yeshu of the Talmud and Jesus. Menachem Meiri (13th century) observed that the epithet Ha-Notzri attached to Yeshu in many instances was a late gloss.
The Church
The 13th century friar
Raymond Martini in his anti-Jewish polemical treatise
Pugio Fidei began an accusation echoed in numerous subsequent anti-Jewish pamphlets that the
Yeshu passages were derogatory accounts of Jesus.
In 1554 a papal bull ordered the removal of all references from the Talmud and other Jewish texts deemed offensive and blasphemous to Christians. Thus theYeshu passages were removed from subsequently published editions of the Talmud and Tosefta. Nevertheless several church writers would refer to the passages as evidence of Jesus outside the Gospels.
Later Jewish commentators (Acharonim)
Jehiel Heilprin (17th century) held that Yeshu the student of Yehoshua ben Perachiah was not Jesus.
Jacob Emden's writings (18th century) also show an understanding that the Yeshu of the Talmud was not Jesus. More recently Rabbi
Adin Steinsaltz, author of a prominent new Talmud commentary, holds that Yeshu is not a reference to the Christian Jesus.
Theosophists and esotericists
The interpretation of
Yeshu as a proto-Jesus first seen in Abraham ibn Daud's work would be revisited by Egyptologist
Gerald Massey in his essay
The historical Jesus and Mythical Christ (1886) and by
G.R.S. Mead in his work
Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.? (1903). The same view was reiterated by Rabbi
Avraham Korman (1927) . These views reflect the theosophical stance and criticism of tradition popular at the time but was rejected by later scholars. It has been revived in recent times by
Alvar Ellegård.
Critical scholarship
Modern liberal scholars debate whether Yeshu does or does not refer to the historical Jesus. Thiessen and Merz draw on Dalman (1893), Maier (1982), and Thoma (1990) in reaching this conclusion. a view seen in several 20th century encyclopedia articles including
The Jewish Encyclopedia (1901–1906), Joseph Dan in the
Encyclopaedia Judaica (1972, 1997). and the
Encyclopedia Hebraica (Israel). The early 20th century Christian historian R. Travers Herford, author of
Christianity in Talmud and Midrash (1903) based his work on the understanding that the term refers to Jesus. It was also the understanding of
Joseph Klausner, a Jewish scholar of early Christian history. They agree that the accounts offer little independent or accurate historical evidence about Jesus. Herford argues that writers of the Talmud and Tosefta had only vague knowledge of Jesus and embellished the accounts to discredit him while disregarding chronology. Klausner distinguishes between core material in the accounts which he argues are not about Jesus and the references to "Yeshu" which he sees as additions spuriously associating the accounts with Jesus. Recent scholars in the same vein include Peter Schäfer Professor of Judaic Studies at Princeton University
An intermediate view is that of Hyam Maccoby, who argues that most of these stories were not originally about Jesus, but were incorporated into the Talmud in the belief that they were, as a response to Christian missionary activity.
Skeptical writers
Skeptical science writer
Dennis McKinsey has challenged the view that the term refers to Jesus at all and argues that Jewish tradition knew of no historical Jesus. Like Klausner he views the accounts as finally understood to be at most spurious legends combining Jesus with other individuals. Similar views have been expressed by skepical science writer Frank R. Zindler in his polemical work
The Jesus the Jews Never Knew: Sepher Toldoth Yeshu and the Quest of the Historical Jesus in Jewish Sources deliberately published outside the realm of Christian and Jewish scholarship.
The skeptical view that Yeshu does not refer to Jesus echoes that of the majority of traditional Jewish commentators and has also been promoted by Rabbi Gil Student in his online series defending the Talmud The Real Truth About The Talmud.
Yehoshua Ha-Notzri
In the surviving pre-censorship Talmud manuscripts,
Yehoshua is followed by the epithet
Ha-Notzri in most occurrences. Herford and Klausner translated it as "the Nazarene." The term does not appear consistently in the manuscripts and
Menachem Meiri (1249 – c. 1310) in his commentary on the Talmud
Beit HaBechirah regarded it as a late interpolation.
Klausner noted objections by other scholars on grammatical and phonetic grounds to the translation of Notzri as "Nazarene" meaning a person from Nazareth (Hebrew Natzrat),
In 1180 CE Maimonides in his Mishneh Torah, Hilchos Melachim 11:4 briefly discusses Jesus in a passage later censored by the Church. He uses the name Yehoshua for Jesus (an attested equivalent of the name unlike Yeshu) and follows it with Ha-Notzri showing that regardless of what meaning had been intended in the Talmudic occurrences of this term, Maimonides understood it as an equivalent of Nazarene. Late additions to the Josippon also refer to Jesus as Yeshua Ha-Notzri but not Yeshu Ha-Notzri.
The Toldoth Yeshu narratives
Toldoth Yeshu is not part of rabbinic literature and are not considered canonical or normative.. There is no one authoritative
Toldoth Yeshu story; various medieval versions existed that differ in attitudes towards the central characters and in story details; it is considered unlikely that any one person wrote it. Each version seems to be from a different set of storytellers.. The story has also been described a "romance about the tragic fate of a young man mistaken in his ways" ) "on behalf of
Yeshu ben Pandera". (A variant text of the Tosefta considered by Herford reads "Yeshua" instead of "Yeshu". This together with anomalous spellings of Pandera were found by
Saul Lieberman who compared early manuscripts, to be erroneous attempts at correction by a copyist unfamiliar with the terms.)
The account is also mentioned in corresponding passages of the Jerusalem Talmud (Avodah Zarah 2:2 IV.I) and Babylonian Talmud (Avodah Zarah 27b) The name Yeshu is not mentioned in the Hebrew manuscripts of these passages but reference to "Jeshu ben Pandira" is interpolated by Herford's in his English paraphrasing of the Jerusalem Talmud text. Similarly the Rodkinson translation of the Babylonian Talmud account interpolates "with the name of Jesus".
Chullin 2:24 tells how Rabbi Eliezer was once arrested and charged with minuth. When the chief judge (hegemon) interrogated him, the rabbi answered that he "trusted the judge." Although Rabbi Eliezer was referring to God, the judge interpreted him to be referring to the judge himself, and freed the Rabbi. The remainder of the account concerns why Rabbi Eliezer was arrested in the first place. Rabbi Akiva suggests that perhaps one of the minim had spoken a word of minuth to him and that it had pleased him. Rabbi Eliezer recalls that this was indeed the case, he had met Jacob of the town of Sakhnin in the streets of Sepphoris who spoke to him a word of minuth in the name of Yeshu ben Pandera, which had pleased him. (A variant reading used by Herford has Pantiri instead of Pandera.)
Avodah Zarah, 16b-17a in the Babylonian Talmud essentially repeats the account of Chullin 2:24 about Rabbi Eliezer and adds additional material. It tells that Jacob quoted Deuteronomy 23:19: "You shall not bring the fee of a whore or the price of a dog into the house of the Lord your God in fulfillment of any vow." Jacob says that he was taught this by Yeshu. Jacob then asked Eliezer whether it was permissible to use a whore's money to build a retiring place for the High Priest? (Who spent the whole night preceding the Day of Atonement in the precincts of the Temple, where due provision had to be made for all his conveniences.) When Rabbi Eliezer did not reply, Jacob quoted Micah 1:7, "For they were amassed from whores' fees and they shall become whores' fees again." This was the teaching that had pleased Rabbi Eliezer.
The surname ben Pandera is not found in the Talmud account. (Rodkinson's translation drawing on the Tosefta account paraphrases the reference to Yeshu having taught Jacob by "so taught Jeshu b. Panthyra", in this case not translating "Yeshu" as "Jesus".) The name is found again in the Midrashic text Kohelet Rabba 10:5 where a healer of the grandson of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi is described as being of ben Pandera. The source of this account is Shabbat 14:4-8 and Avodah Zarah 40 in the Jerusalem Talmud, but there ben Pandera is not mentioned. The word Yeshu is however found as a secondary marginal gloss to the first passage in the Leiden manuscript which together with the Midrashic version show that the account was understood to be about a follower of Yeshu ben Pandera. (Herford again takes liberty and adds "in the name of Jeshu Pandera" to his translation of the Talmud passages despite these words not being in the original text. Schäfer similarly provides a paraphrased translation mentioning "Jesus son of Pandera" which he admittedly has constructed himself by combining the Talmudic and Midrashic texts and the marginal glosses.. Origen (c. 248 CE) responded to Celsus' claim by saying that Pantheras was the patronymic of Joseph the husband of Mary on account of his father, Jacob, being called Panther. An alternative claim was made in the Teaching of Jacob (634 CE) where Panther is said to be the grandfather of Mary. Friedrich August Nitzsch (1840) suggested that the name may refer to a panther being a lustful animal and thus have the meaning of "whore", additionally being a pun on parthenos meaning virgin. The Toldoth Yeshu narratives contain elements resembling the story of Pandareus in Greek mythology, namely stealing from a temple and the presence of a bronze animal.
Robert Eisler considered the name to be derived from Pandaros. He also argued that it may not have been a real name but instead as a generic name for a betrayer. He notes that in the Iliad, Pandaros betrays the Greeks and breaks a truce confirmed by solemn oath. He argues that the name came to be used as a generic term for a betrayer and was borrowed by Hebrew. The name is indeed found in Genesis Rabba 50 in the expression qol Pandar (literally "voice of Pandaros" denoting false promises of a betrayer) used as a derogatory placeholder name for a judge of Sodom. The -a at the end of the form Pandera can be understood to be the Aramaic definite article
Yeshu the sorcerer
Sanhedrin 43a relates the trial and execution of Yeshu and his five disciples. Here, Yeshu is a sorcerer who has enticed other Jews to apostasy. A
herald is sent to call for witnesses in his favour for forty days before his execution. No one comes forth and in the end he is stoned and hanged on the Eve of
Passover. His five disciples, named Matai, Nekai, Netzer, Buni, and Todah are then tried. Word play is made on each of their names, and they are executed. It is mentioned that leniency could not be applied because of Yeshu's influence with the royal government (
malkhut).
In the Florence manuscript of the Talmud (1177 CE) an addition is made to Sanhedrin 43a saying that Yeshu was hanged on the eve of the Sabbath.
Yeshu summoned by Onkelos
In
Gittin 56b, 57a a story is mentioned in which
Onkelos summons up the spirit of a Yeshu who sought to harm Israel. He describes his punishment in the afterlife as boiling in excrement.
Yeshu the son who burns his food in public
Sanhedrin 103a and
Berachot 17b talk about a Yeshu who burns his food in public, possibly a reference to pagan sacrifices. The account is discussing
Manasseh the king of Judah infamous for having turned to idolatry and having persecuted the Jews (2
Kings 21). It is part of a larger discussion about three kings and four commoners excluded from paradise. These are also discussed in the
Shulkhan Arukh where the son who burns his food is explicitly stated to be Manasseh.
Yeshu the student of Joshua ben Perachiah
In
Sanhedrin 107b and
Sotah 47a a Yeshu is mentioned as a student of
Joshua ben Perachiah who was sent away for misinterpreting a word that in context should have been understood as referring to the Inn, he instead understood it to mean the inkeeper's wife. His teacher said "Here is a nice Inn", to which he replied "Her eyes are crooked", to which his teacher responded "Is this what your are occupied in?" (This happened during their period of refuge in
Egypt during the persecutions of
Pharisees 88-76 BCE ordered by
Alexander Jannæus. The incident is also mentioned in the
Jerusalem Talmud in
Chagigah 2:2 but there the person in question is not given any name.) After several returns for forgiveness he mistook Perachiah's signal to wait a moment as a signal of final rejection, and so he turned to idolatry (described by the euphemism "worshipping a brick"). The story ends by invoking a
Mishnaic era teaching that Yeshu practised black magic, deceived and led Israel astray. This quote is seen by some as an explanation in general for the designation
Yeshu.
According to Dr. Rubenstein, the account in Sanhedrin 107b recognizes the kinship between Christians and Jews, since Jesus is presented as a disciple of a prominent Rabbi. But it also reflects and speaks to an anxiety fundamental to Rabbinic Judaism. Prior to the destruction of the Temple in 70, Jews were divided into different sects, each promoting different interpretations of the law. Rabbinic Judaism domesticated and internalized conflicts over the law, while vigorously condemning any sectarianism. In other words, rabbis are encouraged to disagree and argue with one another, but these activities must be carefully contained, or else they could lead to a schism. Although this story may not present a historically accurate account of Jesus' life, it does use a fiction about Jesus to communicate an important truth about the Rabbis. Moreover, Rubenstein sees this story as a rebuke to overly harsh Rabbis. Boyarin suggests that the Rabbis were well aware of Christian views of the Pharisees and that this story acknowledges the Christian belief that Jesus was forgiving and the Pharisees were not (see Mark 2:1-2), while emphasizing forgiveness as a necessary Rabbinic value.
Ben Pandera and ben Stada
Another title found in the Tosefta and
Talmud is
ben Stada (son of Stada). However in
Shabbat 104b and
Sanhedrin 67a in the Babylonian Talmud, a passage is found that some have interpreted as equating ben Pandera with ben Stada. The passage is in the form a Talmudic debate in which various voices make statements, each refuting the previous statement. In such debates the various statements and their refutations are often of a Midrashic nature, sometimes incorporating subtle humour and should not always be taken at face value. The purpose of the passage is to arrive at a Midrashic meaning for the term Stada.
Shabbat 104b relates that a ben Stada brought magic from Egypt in incisions in his flesh. Sanhedrin 67a relates that a ben-Stada was caught by hidden observers and hanged in the town of Lod on the Eve of Passover. The debate then follows. It begins by asking if this was not ben Pandera rather than ben Stada. This is refuted by the claim that it is both, his mother's husband was Stada but her lover was Pandera. This is countered with the claim the husband was Pappos ben Yehuda (a 2nd century figure elsewhere remembered as having locked up his unfaithful wife and visiting R. Akiva in jail after the Bar-Kokhba revolt) and that the mother was named Stada. This is then refuted by the claim that the mother was named Miriam, the dresser of women's hair, but that she had gone astray from her husband (a Miriam the daughter of Bilgah, is mentioned elsewhere as having had an affair with a Roman soldier). In Aramaic, "gone astray" is satat da, thus a Midrashic meaning for the term Stada is obtained. Real historical relationships between the figures mentioned cannot be inferred due to the Midrashic nature of the debate. Pappos and Miriam might have been introduced simply as a result of their being remembered in connection with a theme of a woman having gone astray.
The character of Miriam the dresser of woman's hair is of interest. (Her name is also mentioned briefly in Chagigah 4b in the Babylonian Talmud where it is used together with Miriam the teacher of children simply as an arbitrary choice of names in illustrating a point.) Some suggest that the expression "dresser of women's hair" is a euphemism for a woman of ill repute. The original Aramaic for her name is Miriam megadela neshaya in which many see Mary Magdalene. Some have thus identified her with Mary Magdalene while others are more cautious merely suggesting dresser of women's hair as a possible meaning of Magdalene alternate to the traditional understanding of the name as a toponymic surname (Migdolit, from the town of Migdol).
Ben-Stada is also mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud. In Shabbat 12:4 III he is mentioned as having learnt by cutting marks in his flesh. In Sanhedrin 7:12 I he is mentioned as an example of someone caught by hidden observers and subsequently stoned. This information is paralleled in the Tosefta in Shabbat 11:15 and Sanhedrin 10:11 respectively.
The literal meaning of the term Stada is no longer known. It does not correspond to any known name, suggesting that son of Stada might also be a designation of a class of individuals rather an a patronymic, or perhaps an invented title like that of the Jewish general Bar Kochba (son of the star). The only known parallel to the term is found in the apocryphal Christian text the Acts of Peter where the villain Simon Magus describes himself as `uios `o stadios - the son who remains standing. The Toldoth Yeshu narratives combine elements from the Talmud about ben-Stada with elements resembling the account of Simon Magus in the Acts of Peter suggesting that there is indeed a connection. As a result of the difficulty in understanding the name some attempt to explain it by focusing on variant spellings in certain manuscripts containing an r (resh) instead of the d (daleth), however these variants are generally regarded as copyist errors.
See also
Toldoth Yeshu
Jacob the Min
Criticism of the Talmud#Insults directed at Jesus Christ
References
Additional reading
Steven Bayme, Understanding Jewish History (KTAV), 1997
Daniel Boyarin, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999
Robert Goldenberg, The Nations Know Ye Not: Ancient Jewish Attitudes towards Other Religions New York: New York University Press 1998
Mark Hirshman, A Rivalry of Genius: Jewish and Christian Biblical Interpretation in Late Antiquity trans. Baya Stein. Albany: SUNY PRess 1996
Joseph Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth (Beacon Books), 1964
Jacob Neusner, Judaism in the Matrix of Christianity Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1986
Jeffrey Rubenstein Rabbinic Stories (The Classics of Western Spirituality) New York: The Paulist Press, 2002
R. Travers Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash (KTAV), 1975
Peter Schäfer, Jesus in the Talmud, Princeton University Press, 2007
Dennis McKinsey, Biblical Errancy, A Reference Guide, Prometheus Books, (2000)
Frank R. Zindler, The Jesus the Jews Never Knew: Sepher Toldoth Yeshu and the Quest of the Historical Jesus in Jewish Sources, American Atheist Press, 2003
External links
The Sepher Toldoth Yeshu and it's Links to the Gospel Jesus
(Refutations about) Jesus in the Talmud by Gil Student
The (alleged) Jesus Narrative In The Talmud by Gil Student
Did Jesus of Nazareth Exist? (The Talmud) by Dennis McKinsey
Toldoth Yeshu One version of the Toldoth Yeshu commonly dated to approximately the 6th century.
Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.? By G. R. S. Mead, a classic work dedicated to this topic
Jesus' Death Now Debated by Jews by Eric J. Greenberg, The Jewish Week, USA, October 3, 2003
Category:Judeo-Christian topics
Category:Talmud people
Category:Christ myth
Category:Jesus
Category:Jewish views
Category:Hebrew-language names
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