ynquirer

You couldn’t be more mistaken here. Precisely, in rendering since nothing was brought in his favour he was hung as meaning “since nothing was brought in his favour he was hung to death,� I don’t construe the statement from the perspective of modern legal documents, as you say, but from the perspective of R. Ishmael’s dictum: “The Torah speaks in the language of men� (Sifre Numbers 112).

What is the discussion about, then?

Nope. They inserted references to Yeshu in B. Sanh. 107b in an effort to re-date Yeshu’s trial and execution in B. Sanh. 43a, from the early-to-mid first century CE to the early first century BCE, thus rendering the identity Yeshu ha-Notzri = Jesus the Nazarene a factual impossibility.

There follows a series of assessments on my understanding of the Talmud, which I deem to be tangent to the stuff at the stake. Your last point is:

This is relevant, and a direct answer to a question of mine a few posts above. Thank you.

Yet my main point is not that records of cases tried before the Sanhedrin were kept in written. I have always spoken of oral transmission as paramount to convey the history of the court. This conveyance was, of course, of the internal description, not to lay people, but to later members of the court instead.

I still think that a high court mightn’t have existed without such oral transmission in default of written records. The concrete mention, hundreds of years afterwards, of the names of five disciples of Jesus – some of them possibly unknown to Christians themselves – is evidence that such “oral records� did exist. And the felt necessity to written down such oral tradition, as regard Tractate Sanhedrin, is additional evidence thereof.

Apikorus

Yes, hung after he was stoned, as the Mishnah says. The Mishnah is part of the Talmud as well, by the way. What you need to make your point is a notice of exception in the gemara, just like the detail regarding the 40 days. It isn't there.

B. Sanh. 46b on hanging (emphasis mine):

Our rabbis taught: had it been written, 'If he has sinned, then thou shalt hang him,' I should have said that he is hanged and then put to death, as the state does. Therefore scripture says, And he be put to death, then thou shalt hang him — he is first put to death and afterwards hanged. And how is this done? It [the verdict] is delayed until just before sunset. Then they pronounce judgment and [immediately] put him to death, after which they hang him. One ties him up and another unties, in order to fulfill the precept of hanging.

Indeed. Just not in the language of 21st century English men. Incidentally, R. Ishmael was referring to the Torah, which within his worldview was dictated by God himself. He was a contemporary of Rabbi Akiva, which is to say he lived before the writing of the Mishnah. The Talmud is a different kettle of fish, and if you think, as do many dilettantes who adduce the Talmud only for historical Jesus purposes, that the Talmud is a straightforward read, I would say you are quite mistaken. (Incidentally, R. Ishmael was also wrong about the Torah. Sometimes the peshat is not so simply identified.)

This is yet more speculation, with no basis in textual support. First of all, there is no indication in B. Sanh. 43a as to the date of the Yeshu pericope. It could be set at any time before Ulla. Second, the very fact that the Talmud was censored (and even burned) proves that the strategy you attribute to the medieval rabbis was completely ineffective. As they weren't stupid men, this scenario strikes me as unlikely. Third, if the rabbis wanted to insulate themselves against Christian antisemitism, they could have inserted positive or neutral statements about Jesus, for example, and/or they could have more assiduously redacted the Talmud to remove all potentially offending references to ben Stada et al. At the very least, they could have assigned a different date to the events within B. Sanh. 43a itself.

By the way, when do you figure these notional alterations of yours to have taken place?

Why not? How much information was transmitted, do you figure? Given the level of detail in seder nezikin alone regarding business law, I would presume that the rabbinic courts were quite busy. Yet as I've shown, there is absolutely no evidence that court decisions were documented. Indeed, the Tosefta seems to suggest just the opposite. So just how much information could have been transmitted under these conditions, and what fidelity would you assign to it?


No, it isn't. By itself, it might just be evidence that a week before the text was written, a visitor from Palestine came to visit the Babylonian academy where this particular Talmudic redactor worked, and he related some sketchy details from an argument he had with a Christian three months earlier. He might have even been drunk at the time. Again, there is no way to identify the provenance of the information here. All we know is that while the gemara knows about the tradition of Jesus having disciples, the number of disciples disagrees with Christian tradition, and some of their names are wrong or unknown. The paragraph describing their fate is full of associative wordplay. That's not much on which to build a case for the historicity of these alleged "oral records."

The paragraph I quoted from Neusner goes to the heart of your argument as well. Ignore it at your own peril!

ynquirer

It may not be there. Notice of exception does not work as you say. Unless you endorse that the writers were really inspired, they did their best, which sometimes might fall short of thorough explanation. Have the detail regarding the 40-day delay in the execution. No one gave an explanation until Ulla did. As it seemed accurate, it was inserted. Yet, what if nobody could find an acceptable explanation of Yeshu’s being hung alive? Its place would be as it is: empty.

Why not? The language of men means plain language of any men in any place at any time, doesn’t it?

That’s correct. You know, of course, that there was a written Torah and an oral Torah, which the Mishnah was supposed to replicate in writing. Therefore, Ishmael was right on the mark.

No, it’s not. The Talmud – Mishnah plus Gemara – is supposed to be as exact a reproduction and further commentary of the oral Torah, as possible.

I beg your pardon? Do you mean that whoever uses the Talmud for historical purposes is a dilettante? Or else, perhaps, that the historical Jesus is object of research only for dilettantes?

Really? It’s interesting that you think of yourself as being a better expert on the Torah than one of the most reputed Rabbis ever.

Still, a dating of the story in B. Sanh. 43a isn’t really necessary. A presumption that most Christian would date Yeshu’s pericope in Pilate’s prefecture would be quite enough. The omission of any date within the pericope would foster the presumption rather than not.

Many strategies that proved ineffective ex post factum were nevertheless tried.

Yet they choose a strategy to multiply the number of Jesus’ clons in the Talmud. The strategy was determined by a famous dialogue between R. Yechiel and King Louis IX of France. Here is how it is narrated in a Jewish website:

[W]hen four sages were forced to debate the apostate Nicholas Donin in 1240 in front of Louis IX, R. Yechiel of Paris (one of the Tosafists) swore to the queen that the Talmud could not have been speaking of the Christian Jesus. (An incredulous monarch asked, Do you really mean to say that there was not one, but two or more Yeshus around in the ancient world? R. Yechiel responded, And is every Louis the King of France?)

The previous story answers your question.

Well, I’ve followed your learned advice and selected this section, which in my opinion contains the core of Neusner’s argument:

Considerations of historical fact did not impede the search for religious truth: the norms of belief and behavior. That is why, if all we want are historical facts, we cannot believe everything we read except as evidence of what was in the mind of the person who wrote up the passage: opinion held at the time of the closure of a document. That is the sole given, the datum we do not have to demonstrate.

That’s what I try to do. I don’t believe that Yeshu was stoned in spite of the façade that he was so. I’ve tried to ascertain what the mind of the person who wrote up the passage was, that is, their opinion at the time of closure of the document, and found that they probably knew quite well that Yeshu/Jesus had been convicted of breech of the Jewish law in a trial before the Sanhedrin; that they were hesitant as to whether he was stoned or hung alive. Being as they were the utmost faithful to what they interpreted to be religious truth, they cast the whole story upon the template of an admirable application of the Jewish law – though they couldn’t avoid inconsistencies in writing, since they weren’t absolutely non-respectful of considerations of historical fact.

A very interesting quotation, indeed.

Apikorus

More speculation. More likely is that the Talmudic authors would simply have fabricated the details to serve their own agenda. And perhaps you missed B. Sanh. 46b on hanging (emphasis mine):

Our rabbis taught: had it been written, 'If he has sinned, then thou shalt hang him,' I should have said that he is hanged and then put to death, as the state does. Therefore scripture says, And he be put to death, then thou shalt hang him — he is first put to death and afterwards hanged. And how is this done? It [the verdict] is delayed until just before sunset. Then they pronounce judgment and [immediately] put him to death, after which they hang him. One ties him up and another unties, in order to fulfill the precept of hanging.

What is your evidence that these regulations did not apply in the Yeshu pericope 3 folios earlier? What's more, T. Sanh. 10:11, Y. Sanh. 7:16, and B. Sanh. 67a all state that the deceiver ben Stada was stoned, and ben Stada seems to be another code word for "Jesus" (had been in Egypt, practiced witchcraft, executed the day before Passover).

If you think that the lexical, dialectical, political, social, etc. structures of the Talmud are the same as those of the Torah, you are again laboring under a misconception.

I respect the intellect of many of the rabbinic sages, and as a Jew I even confess a certain irrational pride in their accomplishments. But they had an agenda different than that of modern scholars, and their approach was invariably precritical. I'm more inclined to believe the arguments of Frank Moore Cross, Jeffrey Tigay, Baruch Levine, Joseph Blenkinsopp, Moshe Weinfeld, Marc Zvi Brettler, Jacob Milgrom, Jacob Neusner, David Kraemer, et al. (I also have great respect for clear-thinking medieval pashtanut like the RaShBaM, whose quest for truth sometimes led them to rise above the benighted worldview of their time.)

The vast majority of "historical Jesus" scholars who adduce the Talmud for evidence are dilettantes with respect to the rabbinic literature. A great authority, Jacob Neusner, has already taken that community to task for their credulous application of the Talmud (see here).

I suppose leaving in the passage from B. Gittin where Yeshu is called up from the dead to reveal his punishment of being immersed in boiling excrement was, on second thought, a bit insensitive.

I'm quite familiar with R. Yechiel's quip. For other such details, you can read Hyam Maccoby's book. But you did not answer my question -- you only provided a terminus ad quem.

Apikorus

Here is a summary of my views:

• We know from Celsus (through Origen) that Jewish apologists had a ready response to Christian dogma regarding Jesus' birth as early as ca. 180 CE.
• Generally the rabbinic literature shows little interest in Christianity. The earliest reference appears to be T. Chullin 2:22-24, ca. 300 CE. There are apparent references sprinkled throughout the Talmud. I believe that Yeshu, ben Stada, ben Pandera, and other unnamed figures all are used to represent Jesus at some level.
• Unfortunately, due to the homogenization and heavy redaction of the rabbinic literature, it is impossible to identify the provenance of any of these stories. The name ben Pandera appears in the earliest relevant rabbinic excerpt, and is known from Celsus/Origen. That would seem to have the best chance of being authentically early, i.e. of Tannaitic provenance. But the transmission history of the ben Pandera story remains obscure.
• There is no evidence that the authors/redactors of the Bavli had access to written historical documents from the time of Jesus, such as court records. Indeed, as I've shown, evidence from the Mishnah and Tosefta points to the conclusion that in general no such records were kept. There is also no evidence whatsoever that the Talmud is a textual witness to the New Testament or any other early Christian documents. The Babylonian Talmud was written and edited in Sassanian Iran, which lay outside the Christian sphere.
• The agenda of the rabbis was not to write history, but rather to create and preserve religious, legal, and social systems for contemporary Jewish communities. It is wrongheaded to naively read the Talmud as an historical document.
• In the end, we cannot tell that a passage such as B. Sanh. 43a is early or late - whether it documents a meticulously transmitted tannaitic oral tradition, was the work of an amoraic tradent, or was inserted by a 6th or 7th century stammaic redactor.
• In all cases, there is no evidence that any of the alleged rabbinic references to Jesus represent anything more than a rabbinic reaction to emerging or established Christian dogma. The value of the rabbinic literature to the historical Jesus enterprise is therefore nil. (Neusner's criticism of HJ scholars is broader-based -- he rebukes them for credulously accepting rabbinic reconstructions of first century Palestinian Judaism at all levels, be they legal, social, or religious.)

ynquirer

The Talmudic authors did simply fabricate the details to serve their own agenda? All the details or only a fraction of them? I guess that you mean that all the details might have been fabricated, so that if there ever were a few “authentic,� not fabricated details one has no means to ascertain which details are authentic and which are fabricated. Is that a fair summary of your position?

As I understand this paragraph it is a rule of interpretation of what is eventually written. Two cases are at the stake. In the first case, the stoning is not mentioned [‘if he has sinned, then you shall hang him’]: this is to be interpreted as meaning that the convict is hung alive [‘hanged and then put to death’]; the gemara adds: ‘as the state does’. What does this mean? Either the Persians hanged the convicts alive or ‘the state’ means the Roman Empire so that ‘hanged and then put to death’ means crucifixion and the text might qualify as being contemplated in the Babylonian Talmud albeit originated in Palestine, that is, as being Tannaitic.

In the second case the stoning is explicitly mentioned [‘he be put to death, then you shall hang him’]: this means ‘he is first put to death and then hanged’. This is what the scripture says, that is, the Jewish method of execution.

Thus, the paragraph mergers two different issues, namely, a definition of the Jewish way of putting someone to death as distinguished from the way of the state – whether Roman or Sassanid: this is the issue you seem to have seen alone. Yet alongside that there is another issue, one of interpretation of propositions about how someone is put to death. And here the gemara quite clear says that should it be written “someone sinned, then was hung,� it would mean “he was hung alive.� Which is the rule of interpretation I’ve consistently been proposing since the beginning of this thread.

Therefore, I deem this important paragraph to be strong internal evidence favorable to the theory that Yeshu is implied in B. Sanh. 43a as being hung alive.

No, I don’t think so. Sorry if I’ve looked otherwise.

It seems odd that you so heavily rely on Neusner, while he hardly supports your position in the present debate. He warns candid researchers about the risks of taking on everything in the Talmud as a historical truth, but on the other hand he seems to believe that rigorous historiography may exact authentic details from the magma of undistinguished data.

This is quite different from what you have been contending here, that is, that no historical truth – whether on the Historical Jesus or on anything else: if on anything else, why not on the HJ? – may be exacted from the Talmud, either because all details are fabricated or more likely because authentic details and fabricated ones are so intricately intermingled and dating is so difficult as to render it practically impossible to separate the authentic from the fabricated.

I have serious doubts that either Neusner or another historian shared so extreme a position.

Bearing in mind that R. Yechiel reportedly was one of the Tosafists, I’d surmise that he represents both a terminus ad quem and a terminus post quem, and that the additions occurred in the mid-thirteenth century. Yet this in only a working hypothesis, not revealed truth.

Apikorus

When it comes to aggadot, we can't be sure at all. Neusner gives some examples of how stories evolved during their transmission. You do understand the function of aggadah vis-a-vis halakha, no? Here's Neusner again:

Ample evidence in virtually every document of rabbinic literature sustains the proposition that it was quite common for sages to make up sayings and stories and attribute the sayings to, or tell the stories about, other prior authorities.

As the gemara comments on the Mishnah, I presume "the state" here was Rome, but it could be a stand-in for any state. You are confusing mishnah and gemara here.

As applied to non-Jewish capital punishment described in a non-Jewish text, you would be correct. But as applied to the Mishnah, it specifically says no live hanging. Your interpretation requires that the gemara contradict itself in the space of 3 folios, which is untenable.

Again, if you were familiar with the economy of Talmudic exposition this would not seem a problem. Here's an analog from the English language:

Pseudo-mishnah 0.1: Before a person's organs are donated, the supervising physician first alerts the transplant coordinator.

Pseudo-gemara: There is a story about how Mr. Smith's organs were donated on New Year's Eve. Dr. Jones had called up the transplant coordinator and said, "barring a miraculous recovery, Mr. Smith is to be pronounced dead imminently." But since no miraculous recovery occurred, Mr. Smith's organs were donated on the night before New Year's Day.

Pseudo-mishnah 0.2: Anyone who is a valid organ donor must first be pronounced dead.

The pseudo-talmudic text does not explicitly state that Smith was declared dead prior to the transplant team ripping out his organs, but it is a pretty safe bet.

It seems to me that you want there to be evidence for "live hanging" so you are imposing that reading on the text of the Talmud, even when all the evidence from both the Mishnah and Talmud says precisely the opposite.

Perhaps you should read the paragraph from Neusner again, particularly the sentence,

That is why, if all we want are historical facts, we cannot believe everything we read except as evidence of what was in the mind of the person who wrote up the passage: opinion held at the time of the closure of a document.

Well, so there is your hypothesis. Now all you need is some textual evidence.

Notsri

The B. Sanh. 107b story, reference to Yeshu included, is probably attested in at least the mid- to late-twelfth century.

Abraham ibn Daud wrote in his Sefer haQabbalah:

"[W]e have it as an authentic tradition from the Mishnah (!) and the Talmud, which did not distort anything, that R. Yehoshua b. Perachyah fled to Egypt in the days of Alexander, that is, Yannai, and with him fled Yeshu haNotsri."

Apikorus

Another 12th century Jewish author, Maimonides, in an uncensored edition of Hilchot Melakhim, refers to Yeshu HaNotzri, though not in the same context as B. Sanh. 107b.

By the way, ynquirer, one can also adduce Toldot Yeshu to help us interpret B. Sanh. 43a:

Yeshu was put to death on the sixth hour on the eve of the Passover and of the Sabbath. When they tried to hang him on a tree it broke, for when he had possessed the power he had pronounced by the Ineffable Name that no tree should hold him. He had failed to pronounce the prohibition over the carob-stalk, for it was a plant more than a tree, and on it he was hanged until the hour for afternoon prayer, for it is written in Scripture, "His body shall not remain all night upon the tree." They buried him outside the city.

Yeshu was put to death and then hung.

ynquirer

Toldot Yeshu is a conspicuous example that warrants Neusner’s warning – “we cannot believe everything we read except as evidence of what was in the mind of the person who wrote up the passage: opinion held at the time of the closure of a document.� Here is another passage from it (my emphasis):

After King Jannaeus, his wife Helene ruled over all Israel. In the Temple was to be found the Foundation Stone on which were engraved the letters of God's Ineffable Name. Whoever learned the secret of the Name and its use would be able to do whatever he wished. Therefore, the Sages took measures so that no one should gain this knowledge. Lions of brass were bound to two iron pillars at the gate of the place of burnt offerings. Should anyone enter and learn the Name, when he left the lions would roar at him and immediately the valuable secret would be forgotten. Yeshu came and learned the letters of the Name; he wrote them upon the parchment which he placed in an open cut on his thigh and then drew the flesh over the parchment. As he left, the lions roared and he forgot the secret. But when he came to his house he reopened the cut in his flesh with a knife and lifted out the writing. Then he remembered and obtained the use of the letters. He gathered about himself three hundred and ten young men of Israel and accused those who spoke ill of his birth of being people who desired greatness and power for themselves. Yeshu proclaimed, "I am the Messiah; and concerning me Isaiah prophesied and said, 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.'" He quoted other messianic texts, insisting, "David my ancestor prophesied concerning me: 'The Lord said to me, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.'" The insurgents with him replied that if Yeshu was the Messiah he should give them a convincing sign. They therefore, brought to him a lame man, who had never walked. Yeshu spoke over the man the letters of the Ineffable Name, and the leper was healed. Thereupon, they worshipped him as the Messiah, Son of the Highest.

The passage reflects the concerns of the writer at the time of writing, those being a desire to explain Yeshu’s reputation as a wonder-maker, which by the way must have been widespread among the Jews in mediaeval Europe. The author does not belie the reputation, but deflects it to sorcery instead. In this there is no departure from B. Sanh. 43a.

It is interesting, however, how the writer explains Yeshu’s acquiring his magic power by learning the letters of the Ineffable Name as well as how he overcame the security barriers set up by the priests to take such knowledge out of the Temple. His power accompanied him till the very moment of death – as shown in the passage you quote, Apikorus. Your passage serves the writer to depict, quite graphically, the imperfect nature of Yeshu’ power: he was able to curse every tree from which he might eventually be hung, yet he couldn’t guess that smart hangmen would hang him from a plant, not a tree, which he hadn’t curse.

It is clear to me that the writer had no more information on Jesus’ execution that the writer of B. Sanh. 43a did have. What the former does is more or less what you yourself do, namely, to presume that Yeshu was first stoned and then hung. Such a presumption hardly affords confirmation of itself.

Still, my passage gives a clue why the Rabbis believed that Yeshu was a sorcerer besides an idolater – the Sanhedrin could have put him to death on the latter charge, why credit him with any extraordinary powers? The healing of a leper is mentioned – of course, a healing accomplished courtesy of Yeshu’s illegitimate knowledge and use of the Ineffable Name. It is noteworthy that this miracle alone is mentioned, though.

Funkenstein deemed Toldot Yeshu to be an outstanding example of what he called ‘counter-history’ – an exceedingly activist branch of apologetics. I, however, am prone to think that even in so polemic a writing as Toldot Yeshu there is a bit of historical information. Or rather two bits: one is a Rabbi’s concern at the time of writing. This is how I exact my second bit of information:

The healing of a Samaritan leper is the only miracle by Jesus of which the priests had straightforward evidence, according to Luke 17:11-19:

11: On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Sama'ria and Galilee.
12: And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance
13: and lifted up their voices and said, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us."
14: When he saw them he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went they were cleansed.
15: Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice;
16: and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan.
17: Then said Jesus, "Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?
18: Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?"
19: And he said to him, "Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well."

And this is my own analysis of the pericope in a thread of this same forum a few weeks ago:

Leviticus includes two whole chapters – 13 and 14 – that are devoted to what is called “the law for a leprous disease,� which is nothing other than a very detailed protocol of the ritual procedures a priest must follow whenever a leper comes to him. Such a protocol is intended to allow the priest finally decide whether the ritual procedures have cleansed the leper, that is, healed him, or the leper still is a leper.

Now, if nine Jewish lepers plus a Samaritan one came to a Jewish priest, he would undoubtedly apply the “law for a leprous disease� to the former nine. The nine Jews being healed, both all them and the priest(s) involved in the business would be led naturally to think that it is the law of Moses that has healed them. The miracle is not Jesus’.

Yet we don’t know what the Jewish priest(s) did as regard the Samaritan leper, although this is immaterial to Luke’s point. They probably rejected him on account of the law of Moses not having been laid down law for a non Jew. Still he was cleansed! The miracle is unmistakably Jesus’.

My conclusion is: Either the writer of Toldot Yeshu had an eye on Luke 17, and on it alone, – why?, – or he reflected a thousand-year oral tradition conveyed by Second Temple priest onto the Rabbis, according to which they had sure evidence of the healing of a leper that could not be ascribed to the law of Moses but to illegitimate knowledge and use of the Ineffable Name.