Apikorus

M. Sanh. 6:1:

When sentence has been passed, they take him forth to stone him. The place of stoning was outside the court, as it is written, Bring forth him who cursed outside the camp. One stands at the door of the court with a towel in his hand, and another, mounted on a horse, far away from him (but where he is able) to see him. If one (in court) said, "I have something to argue in favor of his acquittal," that man waves the towel and the horse runs and stops him (the stoner). Even if he (the accused) himself said, "I have something to argue in favor of my acquittal," they must bring him back, be it four times or five, provided that there is any substance in his words. If they found him innocent, they set him free; otherwise he goes forth to be stoned. A herald goes out before him (announcing), "So-and-so, the son of so-and-so, is going forth to be stoned for that he committed thus and such an offense. So-and-so and so-and-so are witnesses against him. If any man knows anything in favor of his acquittal, come let him present it."

This passage is remarkable in the context of our modern system of capital punishment, calling to mind our own mechanisms of last minute appeals, and the governor's direct line to the execution chamber. At any rate, the gemara in B. Sanh. 43a says that yeshu was hanged (not stoned). In this context, M. Sanh. 6:4 is relevant:

The place of stoning was twice the height of a man. One of the witnesses knocked him down on his loins; if he turned over on his heart the witness turned him over again on his loins. If he then died that sufficed; but if not, the second took the the stone and dropped it on his heart. If he then died, that sufficed; but if not, he was stoned by all Israel, for it is written, The hand of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death and afterward all the hands of all the people. All who have been stoned must be hanged. So R. Eliezer. But the Sages say: None is hanged save the blasphemer and the idolater. A man is hanged with his face to the people and a woman with her face to the gallows. So R. Eliezer. But the Sages say: A man is hanged but a woman is not hanged. R. Eliezer said to them: Did not Simeon ben Shetah hang women in Ashkelon? They answered: He hanged eighty women, whereas two ought not to be judged in one day. How did they hang a man? They put a beam into the ground and a piece of wood juttted from it. The two hand were brought together and it was hanged. R. Jose days: The beam was made to lean against a wall and one hanged the corpse thereon as butchers do. And they let it down at once: if it remained there overnight a negative command is thereby transgressed, for it is is written, His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shall surely bury him the same day; for he that is hanged is a curse against God; as if to say, Why was this one hanged? Because he blessed the Name, and the Name of Heaven was found profaned.

There is no tradition of Jesus/yeshu's death in pereq 6 of Mishnah Sanhedrin (nor anywhere in the Mishnah). What we seem to have in the gemara of B. Sanh. 43a is a later story of Jesus' death described in terms of the Mishnah's system of capital punishment. As for Ulla, we can't be confident of the provenance of his alleged rejoinder. It may not have come from Ulla at all. And even if it did, it was 250 years after the death of Jesus.

By the way, I did not say that baraitot with no mishnaic parallels are "unlikely" to be early. I would say that they are problematic. The rabbinic literature is so homogenized and heavily redacted that it is of little use for historical purposes. As Neusner properly cautions, "what we cannot show, we do not know."

ynquirer

Right. That’s now clear to me.

That’s quite a different thing. Ulla b. Ishmael never got the title of Rabbi or Rab, though he was regarded as a distinguished teacher whose opinions and reports were often mentioned. In any event, he did not enjoy as high a reputation as, for instance, R. Elazar b. Pedath, who was the leading sage of the Palestinian Amoraim and the teacher of Ulla. Accordingly, if someone wished to upgrade an opinion issued by Ulla it would be rather understandable that such person ascribed authorship of the opinion, say, to Elazar, but not the other way around. On the other hand, who could be interested in downgrading one of Elazar’s opinions – or an opinion by any other Rabbi – by ascribing it to Ulla? If one does not like a statement by another person, the former just erases it but doesn’t downgrade it by ascribing it to less recognized an author.

That’s true, but I just need Ulla to establish a terminus ante quem. Actually, Ulla – as presumed a contemporary to the baraitot – is not the main witness to Yeshu. The five Christian names c. 130 CE rather are his witnesses.

What is the likelihood that 250 years after the death of Jesus, and 150 years after the death of those five convicts, the writer(s) of the baraitot would have guessed that those five men were followers of Jesus? For 250 years after the death of Jesus his name could still be remembered by Christians, and subsequently by Jews as rivals of Christians. Yet, it is almost impossible that the names of five practically unknown Christians were remembered by the Jews – and ascribed to “Yeshu’s disciples� – 150 years afterward unless there was a specific record of the case.

the_cave

Personally, I find it interesting due to the mention of "Nakkai/Nekai" (NQ'Y--I think that's right...please correct if it's wrong!) and its similiarity to Naqdimon of the Talmud, who would seem to be the same person as Nicodemus of the Gospel of John. Interesting parallels can be found with all five, as a matter of fact (Matai = Matthew or Matthias, Buni = Bannus?--I'm not the first to suggest this, Netzer = whatever Netzer/Notzri means--see related discussions here and elsewhere, and Todah = Thaddeus/Theudas.)

Two of these five names are possibly the same names as purported disciples of Jesus. At any rate, they are all names in the orbit of first- and second-century Christian and Jewish scripture and commentary. What's interesting to me, however, is that even if Matthew and Thaddeus are mentioned in this list, they're not among the most important disciples in the Christian tradition--which, combined with the fact that the other three don't appear to be disciples' names at all, suggests to me a couple of things. First, that these names are not here because they were gleaned from the central Christian tradition--and so if they relate to Christian tradition at all, the chances are that they are a source independent from that tradition. Secondly, the fact that they're mentioned at all (whoever they are) suggests that whoever wrote this passage had an axe to grind (as with many other Talmudic passages, so far as I can tell), not just with "Jeshu", but with the other five as well. "Jeshu" might just be a stand-in, as some have suggested, for "heretic". In any case, it's notable that the author of this passage linked these names together. There are some suggestive possibilities.

Apikorus

The gemara in B. Sanh. 43a contains several details which conflict with the traditional account of Jesus' death as described in the New Testament. The NT says that Jesus was crucified, and not stoned nor hung. The Talmud says that Jesus was hung, and presumably stoned, but not crucified. The NT reports that Jesus had twelve disciples. The Talmud says five:

Our Rabbis taught: Yeshu had five disciples, Matthai, Nakai, Netser, Buni and Todah.

I can believe Matthai=Matthew and Todah=Thaddeus. Who was Netser? Is Netser to be taken as a proper name at all, or is it a version of "Nazarene"? Who was Buni? Who was Nakai? Where are Peter, Mark, John, et al.? The gemara seems to further derogate Jesus by associating him with the government.

Your remarks concerning Ulla are coherent but not compelling. Perhaps by placing the question on Ulla's lips, the Talmudic redactors further derogated Jesus, i.e. his case was not worthy to be articulated by a rabbi of greater stature. We simply don't know.

I see nothing in this gemara which would mitigate against it being a 5th or even 6th century response of its Babylonian Jewish authors to a highly refracted image of Christian tradition.

cave, you are correct with your spelling of nakai. (And I should have checked netser before copying from an English translation.)

ynquirer

It is interesting to compare the Mishnah with the Gemara.

Mishnah:

If then they find him innocent, they discharge him; but if not, he goes forth to be stoned, and a herald precedes him [crying]: so and so, the son of so and so, is going forth to be stoned because he committed such and such an offence, and so and so are his witnesses. Whoever knows anything in his favour, let him come and state it.

Gemara:

On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, 'He is going forth to be stoned because he has practised sorcery and enticed Israel to apostacy. Any one who can say anything in his favour, let him come forward and plead on his behalf.' But since nothing was brought forward in his favour he was hanged on the eve of the Passover!

The Gemara is obviously inspired by the Mishnah. There is, however, one outstanding difference: while the Mishnah twice says that the convict “goes forth to be stoned,� the Gemara twice says that Yeshu “was hanged,� with no mention of the prescribed stoning. Would the writers of this text have failed to mention that Yeshu was stoned if he had actually been so?

Now, Apikorus, you say that Jesus, according to the Talmud, “was hung, and presumably stoned, but not crucified.� And it is obvious that according to B. Sanh. 43a Yeshu was hung, but why do you say that he was “presumably stoned�? The answer is that the Gemara is written so as to make the reader think that Yeshu was presumably stoned. To be sure, the Mishnah says that a herald will say that the convict is to be stoned and ask for witness to discharge him, while the Gemara says that a herald said that Yeshu was to be stoned and asked for witness to discharge him. Therefore, one is induced to think that Yeshu was stoned since the herald said he was going to be so and because both a right of appeal and stoning are written down in the Mishnah as sine qua non requirements in capital cases.

In other words, you are led to think that Yeshu was presumably stoned since otherwise Yeshu’s execution would have belied the herald as well as been in breech of the Jewish law, and you don’t think that the Talmud would have narrated such an execution if not in strict fulfilment of the Jewish law, do you?

But the fact remains that the Talmud twice says that he was hung without ever mentioning that he was stoned. It is quite clear that what the Talmud unmistakably implies is that Yeshu was hung, either from a cross or from a tree, while still alive. And this important detail, which the Talmud does not affirm but unmistakably implies, provides strong evidence that Yeshu and Jesus were the same person.

Apikorus

ynquirer, I say "presumably stoned" because the system of capital punishment described in the Mishnah first describes stoning and then hanging. According to the Sages, the blasphemer and idolater must be hung in addition to being stoned.

The terse language of the Talmud often demands its readers fill in details. In this case it seems likely to me that B. Sanh. 43a is saying that yeshu was hung because his crimes of sorcery and "leading Israel away from God" were tantamount to blasphemy and/or idolatry. We must fill in the fact that, as described in the mishnayot discussed in this and the preceding pereq, he was stoned first.

So I strongly disagree when you say that the Talmud "unmistakably implies" that yeshu was hung alive. B. Sanh. 43a says no such thing.

noah

ynquirer wrote:
What? Are you serious? You're trying to say that being hung from a cross or tree is the same as being crucified? Sure. Let's throw the dictionary right out of the window shall we.
This is patently absurd. You think that because you can stretch one word right out of its actual defintion that you have proved Yeshu is Jesus? All n that one little point?

In addition you have not addressed all the other reasons why Yeshu is not Jesus. A little reality check would be nice.
You ducked my thread on why Sanhedrin 43a is not talking about Jesus. So here it is again:

1) Sanhedrin 43a says that the five disciples were brought to trial. Is there any such claim in the GT? Answer? No.

2) Yeshua is a pretty common name (as is Mary and Joseph).

3) No herald went forth forty days before the execution.

3) JC was not stoned and hanged. He was crucified.

4) In the Synoptic Gospels is on Passover itself and not the eve of Passover.

5) As above, Yeshu lived a century before Jesus.
see http://talmud.faithweb.com/articles/jesusnarr.html

6) Jesus had no connection with the government. The word Malkut means kingdom or royalty. On another thread, a Christian tried to associate this word with JC as a way of proving that Sanhedrin 43a refers to JC. The Christian argued:


One of the problems here is that the Sanhedrin did not "know it", that is if we are talking about JC. JC was not desended from king David. He couldn't be. Mary was an Aaronite and women could not pass on rights of kingship. Inheritance through Joseph was impossible since

a) His line was cursed and
b) Adoption was not a legal means of passing on rights of kingship and establishing lineal continuity.

7) Nowhere in the New Testament was Jesus charged with sorcery or leading Israel astray.

BTW Christians don't believe in Jewish oral tradition so why cite it?
You are also ducking the issue of cherry picking from texts that contradict your beliefs. I see you are unwilling to cite those passages where salvation is achieved through following god's commandments and not repeat not through faith in a human blood sacrifice. You are also ducking those parts of Jewish tradition that contradict your belief in Original Sin, the Trinity, Jesus and so on. I notice by the way that you did not take me up on my offer to discuss these things. I make this offer to you again. Let's start with Torah shall we? It takes precedence over all other Jewish texts and traditons.
You can keep hiding in your little shell of willful ignorance but the reality of the traditions you are chery picking from will not go away.

Asha'man

Did you not read the Gemara paragraph that you just posted?

"...a herald went forth and cried, 'He is going forth to be stoned..."

Clearly, the Gemara does mention stoning.

If you take the second passage as being a commentary on the first, then there is no real need to say explicitly Yeshu was stoned, everybody knows that part. The passage is talking about the need to follow stoning with hanging for specific crimes, like blasphemy. It's a written shortcut: if the hanging happened on a specified day, then the stoning must have been completed before the hanging started (by law), and the strong implication is for both.

Apikorus

Asha'man, I think ynquirer's point is that the gemara does not explicitly say that Yeshu was stoned -- only that he was hung. As I remarked above, I think one has to fill in the detail that he was stoned. The fact that this section of gemara is commenting on (and quoting/paraphrasing) the mishnayot on capital punishment, which describe the sequence of stoning and then hanging, makes it clear. Moreover, as you point out, the gemara does in fact say that Yeshu was "to be stoned" even if it does not record the actual act.

ynquirer

Not always did Jewish judges abide by the law in their decisions. In your last but one post there is a good example of this from M. Sanh. 6:4:

But the Sages say: A man is hanged but a woman is not hanged. R. Eliezer said to them: Did not Simeon ben Shetah hang women in Ashkelon? They [the Sages] answered: He hanged eighty women, whereas two ought not to be judged in one day.

Thus, you here have that the law was to adjudge no more than one capital case in a day but an outstanding judge sentenced to death and had eighty women – convicted witches – executed in infringement of the rule.

If eighty women were executed while only one should have been so that day, why couldn’t Yeshu have been spared stoning and hanged alive instead?

You here fail to abide by your own rule: what we cannot show, we do not know. Actually, you cannot show that the Talmud says that Yeshu was stoned. You therefore do not know that the Talmud was intended to mean that he was so.

Yet, I have shown two spots in which the omission that Yeshu was stoned, while the natural redaction would have mentioned it, makes one seriously doubt that he was actually so.