ynquirer

This is untrue. The Talmud quite clearly states that “forty years before the destruction of the Temple the Sanhedrin were exiled,� from the Hall of the Hewn Stones – their traditional site – to Hanuth (Sanhedrin 41a).

Even though “forty years� may not be accepted as an exact time span – forty years the Israelite wandered through the wilderness – it starkly means that it happened during Pontius Pilate’s term (from 26 CE = 44 years before the destruction of the Temple to 37 CE = 33 years before the destruction of the Temple). And who else but the Romans could have removed the Sanhedrin from the traditional site?

andrewcriddle

I agree that it is possible that the passage did not exist in any form until say 400 CE, the absence of any trace of it in other sources such as the Palestinian Talmud makes this a real possibility.

However I tend to regard the quoted comments about the baraita by Ulla as genuine, and hence the baraita was IMO already traditional by his time (c 300 CE). This doesn't mean it has to be much older than Ulla but it causes difficulties for a date after the middle of the 3rd century.

On the other hand there is very little authentic rabbinic tradition about issues of crime and punishment surviving from before the late Tannaitic period, hence a date for this baraita before the late 2nd century seems improbable.

Together this makes IMO a date at the very end of the Tannaitic period 200 CE or slightly later the most probable date for the original form of the baraita.

Even if I'm right I don't think that the baraita is much help for study of the historical Jesus, its earliest form is almost certainly over a hundred years later than the events it refers to, probably around 175 years later and quite possibly much later than that. In any case we know from Celsus as quoted by Origen that Jewish traditions of Jesus as a sorcerer were already in existence by c 180 CE which is probably earlier than the earliest form of the baraita.

Andrew Criddle

Apikorus

I see no reason why the quote from Ulla, if genuine, is not from ca. 300 CE. The "original form of the baraita" is a will-o-the-wisp, IMHO.

Your remark about Celsus is well-taken. Clearly there was a relatively early Jewish tradition which viewed Jesus as a sorcerer. But I'm not ready to connect the dots between Celsus and B. Sanh. 43a. The Stammaim may have had their own reasons to redact the text as we now know it.

noah

The Talmud was written in the 2nd-3rd century CE, and then went through various periods of "adjustments" (inserting polemics, censorship and self-censorship, adding more commentary, such as Rashi, Toesfot, etc). It cannot be used to prove anything about Christianity since there is no first-hand speaking of Jesus or his buddies by anyone of that time. The Rabbis had opinions of the Christians of their day, but that was based on their feelings or observations of the non-Jews.

Also, the Talmud says that the Sanhedrin removed themselves from the Temple so that they would no long try capital cases since the Jews were immersed in idolatry, not that they were forced (the Romans could care less, and it is noted on a different page). Generally speaking, they (the Sanedrin) can only decide capital cases when they are in the Temple. Once removed, they could not decide on capital cases (in other words, they did that on purpose). Anyone who has learned a bit of Gemara knows this.
As for your time frame, the destruction of the temple occured around 68-69 CE (the cited year 70 is considered by many to be a rounding). As for the Chamber of Hewn Stones -- it was destroyed around 30 CE -- about 3 years shy of the crucifixion (or more). That places the removal of the Sanhedrin at around 28-29 CE.
Your quote is more interesting when you read the rest of it. It's a bit about Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai:


As an aside, it should be noted that when even numbers that are divisible by 10 are used, they may or may not refer to that number, but sometimes to a smaller one, to indicate something that was complete. For example, it is sometimes taught that 70 souls went down to Egypt, but there were really only 69 in the count. One commentator says, "Oh, one of the women were pregnant", but that doesn't really work. The other has to do with the way numbers were used. It is from this that we know that when someone is completely whipped, he gets not 40 lashes, but really 39.

In any case, that also was a side point and doesn't matter since even Christianity has different texts as to when the Jesus charachter was born, and if they cannot get the birth straight, how many years before the temple fell was Jesus supposed to have been 33? - Unknown.

Apikorus

There are two Talmuds to speak of: Babylonian (Bavli) and Palestinian (Yerushalmi). The Yerushalmi reached its final form toward the end of the 4th century CE. The Bavli, which is in general more complete (and which pursues a different agenda -- see Neusner), did not reach its final form until the late 7th century CE. Rashi and the tosafists were medieval rabbis, and their commentary and glosses are not part of the Talmud per se.

I believe that passages like B. Sanh. 43a are late rabbinic responses to a refracted understanding of Christian claims (remember the Bavli was composed outside the Christian sphere). Many Jewish scholars, including the very learned but rather uncritical (in his acceptance of the historicity of the Talmud) author of this website, insist that Yeshu in the Talmud cannot possibly refer to Jesus because he (Yeshu) lived a century too early or too late. Indeed, this was the approach of Nachmanides (aka RaMBaN) in his 13th century disputation with Paolo Cristiani. However, there are many reasons to doubt the historicity of the Talmud, and it is quite possible that stories about Jesus were woven into aggadot that did not accurately reflect their true date.

On the whole, the Talmud shows very little interest in Jesus. My view (again) is that there are no independent historical data in the entire rabbinic corpus which bear on the historical Jesus. At best we have late responses to refracted traditions.