vid

I have found several claims that "Yeshu", name mentioned in Sahnedrin as guy hanged on passover, can be acronym for "May his name and memory be blotted out".

Is there any evidence for this acronym being used. Also if this is supposed to independently refer to christain Jesus, it AFAIK went through 200 years of oral passing before being written down - that poses a slight problem for acronym, doesn't it?

vid

Just adding that existence of this story is supported in pre-200AD by Celsus, who "heard it from Jew", as quoted by Origen. Anyway, how did such oral passing work for huge amount of data and sentenced criminals? Did they memorize it all or how?

Lugubert

First and almost always true hypothesis when a name/word is explained as an acronym: it's wrong. For example the theory that "spa" is a Latin acronym meaning "health through water". Spa is simply the name of a Belgian town which was (and is?) a well known resort.

A counterexample is "radar"...

Toto

I understand that the Talmud is full of puns and word games. Yeshu could have several layers of meanings.

andrewcriddle

The earliest solid evidence for the interpretation of Yeshu as "may his name etc be blotted out" comes in the version of the Toledoth Yeshu published by the Christian writer Wagenseil in 1681. (In which Jesus as an adolescent is condemned by the Jewish council and his name is changed from Yehoshua to Yeshu.) Wagenseil directly or indirectly is the source for most later mentions of this idea.

The Toledoth Yeshu (a hostle Jewish account of Jesus) probably goes back to the 700s CE although it is based on earlier traditions.

However modern critical texts of the TY don't have this passage See for example http://www.history.upenn.edu/~humm/T.../toledoth.html where we do, however, have This seems to relate to other Jewish claims that Jesus is called Yeshu not Yehoshua (Joshua) because for one reason or other he was not found worthy to be called Joshua/Yehoshua. It doesn't seem connected to making Yeshu into an acronym.

This whole idea of Yeshu as a derogatory acronym seems much later than the use of Yeshu for Jesus in rabbinic sources. It may be late medieval or even early modern.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

Looking into this further, this interpretation of Yeshu (as a derogatory acronym) is apparently found in a Christian Lexicon of Rabbinic Aramaic published in 1639; hence a few years before Wagenseil's version of the Toledoth Yeshu.

However, I can't (so far) find evidence of this idea before the 17th century.

Andrew Criddle

vid

Can you please comment more on Jerusalem and Babylonian talmud, and their dating? Were they doctrinal dispute, or just different copies?

Also a tiny bit to support Yeshu as literal name: This article argues too against Yeshu as acronym, noting Yeshu as common name in inscriptions: http://www.uhl.ac/blog/?p=333

Nice list of supposed refences to Jesus: http://talmud.faithweb.com/articles/jesusnarr.html

andrewcriddle

Both the Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud are formally commentaries on the Mishnah an early 3rd century CE code of Jewish Law.
Both combine detailed analysis of the Mishnah with a good deal of material only vaguely relevant to the Mishnah itself (eg exegesis of difficult passages of the Hebrew Bible, speculation about Heaven and Angels, various forms of legendary material etc).

Neither Talmud contains a full analysis of the entire Mishnah, there is considerable overlap, but some Mishnah tractates are treated only in the Jerusalem Talmud, some only in the Babylonian Talmud and some not treated in either. The Babylonian Talmud is much larger than the Jerusalem Talmud, partly because there is a fuller and more rigorous analysis of the Mishnah in the Babylonian Talmud, but mainly because the amount of material peripheral to the Mishnah itself is much larger in the Babylonian Talmud.

Both Talmuds are based on much earlier material but the Jerusalem Talmud was finalized in Palestine c 400 CE and the Babylonian Talmud was finalized in Babylon (ie modern Iraq) c 600 CE. Much of the themes of the Talmud are shared between the Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud, although some important doctrines are much more developed in the Babylonian Talmud.

Both Talmuds are intended as a source of halakah (halakhah), providing authoritative guidance about how to live a kosher life. In detail, their halakah sometimes differ and IIUC modern orthodox Jews regard the halakah of the Babylonian Talmud and not the Jerusalem Talmud as authoritative for Jewish life.

Andrew Criddle

vid

Thanks, Jewish scriptures were always maze for me.

So, I will try to summarize my understanding of Jewish scriptures, please correct it or fill missing pieces:

Torah = 5 books "of Moses"
Mishnah = Oral law, written down in 2nd century AD after Jerusalem Temple was destroyed, and oral passing didn't work so well anymore.
Talmud = Commentary on Mishnah. There were two commentaries that since some point developed independently, "Jerusalem Talmud" and "Babylonian Talmud".

Sanhedrim, Shabbat, Sotah, and Tosefta are all just parts of Talmud.

Correct?

andrewcriddle

Sanhedrim, Shabbat and Sotah are tractates of the Mishnah which are expanded in the Gemara (later commentaries) of the Talmud. So yes they are parts of the Talmud.

Tosefta is a somewhat post-Mishnaic (c 300 CE) collection of material, supposedly from the period of the Mishnah, which was not included in the Mishnah proper.
It is more or less parallel to the Mishnah but often requires to be studied alongside the Mishnah in order to understand the point it is making.

The Tosefta as such is not part of the Talmud, although most of it is cited somewhere or other in one or other (or both) of the Talmuds.

Andrew Criddle

PS I think, but am not sure, that one of the 17th century manuscripts of the Toledoth Yeshu has the derogatory acronym. (The 18th Codex Vindobona has it and there is a 17th century manuscript with supposedly similar text.)
I've confirmed that the 1639 Lexicon mentions the acronym but I still can't trace it before the 17th century.

Andrew Criddle