Chris Weimer

I didn't do that. I just administered cautions when working with the the Talmud. The Talmud is very late, so late that Christianity had become a true force. Then it was finalized much later.

If this was truly the case, then it would destroy Christianity. I did once find that appealing, but I do not do so now.

Oral transmissions are never very careful. Especially after 300 years of combative influence, facts become muddled, people become blurred, storylines are interchanged. What makes you think the Talmud is any different. Furthermore, if the Talmud did preserve it very accurately, then there goes any sign of Christianity. You can't have it both ways.

There is a misunderstanding here. I never said they outright forged it. But to think that this is the depiction of Jesus Christ in the Gospels is quite ludicrous. The complication and association probably arose when one finds a story similar to another. The names could be different, the stories could be different. Actually, your showing that some manuscripts contain the line "the nazarean" is exactly in accordance to what I'm saying and abolishes your claim. How else would that word creep in if someone hadn't put it there as a refutation of the Nazarean? Two stories become muddled together, even after the writing of it down.

This is riddled with presuppositions. First we are to assume that the date for this story is early enough to include Jesus, but not earlier, then it was carefully transmitted, but became corrupted enough so that it differed from the Christ story, then those after 888 auc were Sanhedrin judges (never mind the Sanhedrin had been destroyed already). Furthermore, I never said it was forged to win a debate. Win a debate? Not at all! How about defend their faith from attacking Christians?

ynquirer

Chris

You have the Talmud be an undifferentiated mass of writings written mainly for apologetic purposes. I believe this approach to be inappropriate, at least as regard Tractate Sanhedrin, for reasons I have extensively expounded in previous posts.

We have two independent sources for the HJ. This is twice as many the sources we have for most of the deeds of Alexander the Great. Now you say that information on the HJ is less reliable than information on Alexander because either the Jewish source is dependent on the Christian or the Jewish source belies the Christian to such a point that the latter becomes untenable or both. (BTW Alexander is in pretty huge advantage since the existence of one source renders any contradiction simply impossible.)

Accordingly, there are IMHO two different points at the stake. In the first place, whether contradictory accounts of the same fact or person render the fact or person hard to believe in. Secondly, whether the claim that one source is hypothetically dependent on another, on such general grounds as yours, renders it equally so.

At least, I hope you will grant me the following rule: We should not assess the Jesus case, and particularly his death subsequently to a sentence to capital punishment by the Sanhedrin, with a different yardstick from the one we use to assess any other historical man and a related fact. Such, for instance, as Pontius Pilate and the crisis of the standards.

Remember the case, don’t you? Pilate arrived in Judea in 26 CE – excuse me if I don’t follow you in using the Roman calendar, a usage that I deem a little snob however fashionable. With him, soldiers brought representations of the emperor into Jerusalem. There are three reports about the incident, written by only two people: one by Philo of Alexandria and the other two by Flavius Josephus. Let us examine all of them.

According to Philo, there were no actual images of the emperor but gilded shields with only two inscriptions: the name of the dedicator – Pilate – and the name of the person in whose honor the dedication was made – Tiberius. Annoyed indeed, the Jews chose as their spokesmen King Herod’s four sons. Pilate refused to yield and then the four ambassadors wrote a letter to Tiberius, who in receiving it wrote another one addressed to Pilate commanding him to withdraw the shields. The prefect then removed the shields from Jerusalem to Cesarea.

According to Josephus, there were either effigies of Caesar – in one account – or busts of Tiberius – in the other – in any event attached to the legionary standards. Enraged, the population of Jerusalem went to Cesarea – the prefect’s residence – to ask for remedy. Pilate refuse to yield but the people stayed stubbornly in the place. On the sixth day Pilate had the soldiers encircle the multitude, and then he spoke to threaten them. The people reacted by offering their necks to the soldiers. Shocked by such religious zeal, Pilate gave orders for the immediate removal of the standards from Jerusalem.

Now, what is in common in the accounts of both writers? Do they talk about the same crisis? One of them says that there were inscriptions while the other says they were images instead; one of them has the crisis solved by the benevolent actuation of the emperor, the other by a massive action of the population of Jerusalem; according to one, Pilate spoke to four ambassadors, according to the other he spoke to hundreds, possibly thousands of people; Philo has the crisis last for months, – the time for a letter from Judea to arrive in Rome and another letter from Rome to arrive in Cesarea, – while Josephus has it solved in six days.

Does one story belie the other? Yes and no. It belies the details but there is still a common set of facts: a military chief transgresses a local law and provokes a reaction; after an uncertain time span and as an effect of uncertain measures by the complainers, the wrong is redressed. This is enough for us to deem the fact history.

Now compare Jesus’ story with Yeshu’s. The Christian account has the man tried, convicted and sentenced by the Romans – yet, under the Jews’ instigation; the whole thing happens within 24 hours. The Jewish account has the man tried, convicted and sentenced by the Sanhedrin; a forty-day span lapses before execution. Still, there is a common set of facts: according to the Sanhedrin, the man has transgressed the law, and one way or another the Sanhedrin manages to have him put to death. Why isn’t this history?

I know your main objection: the Jewish account is dependent on the Christian and tailor-made to rebut it. Maybe it is true, maybe it is not. In any event, what you have as regard Philo and Josephus on the crisis of the standards is not much better. If you look carefully at Josephus’ story you perhaps will see a deliberate purpose to belie Philo’s details while accepting the basic truth of the fact. This time the purpose is not religious, but political – you will not, however, pretend that politicians are as a rule more ethical than priests, will you?

IMHO opinion, the stuff of the conflict was in all likelihood mere inscriptions – perhaps designed by Pilate not to grieve the Jews. It turned out that the Jews felt infuriated not only by images – which Pilate had avoided – but by simple inscriptions as well. Then, the four sons of Herod the Great took profit from the standoff so as to have the emperor realize that an intractable Roman prefect was less safe than a loyal Jewish king – finally, Herod Agrippa, a grandson of the Great, would eventually become King of the Jews some years afterward. Tiberius ascribed the crisis to inexperience on the side of a new Roman governor and surely wrote a friendly letter – after all, Pilate was to be prefect for another ten years under Tiberius. Philo, writing a few years after the crisis, was probably right.

Josephus, writing half a century after the crisis, probably had Philo’s account as a sole source. He just embellished the story. As such a revolt for only a couple inscriptions was hardly understandable after the bloodshed of the first Jewish War Josephus had the inscriptions replaced with effigies or even busts. As the four sons of Herod the Great were scarcely akin to the nationalism prevailing in the late first century, he had the four princes replaced with the Jewish people at large. All in all, he found an epic story like his more interesting than a story of intrigues like Philo’s.

Still, the basis for our acknowledging Philo’s account as history is nothing other than Josephus’ acknowledging it as history. Josephus is Philo's witness.

Likewise, Sanhedrin 43a is mutatis mutandis a witness for the gospels in exactly the same sense as Josephus is a witness for Philo. There is absolutely no reason for the writers of Tractate Sanhedrin to acknowledge the historicity of Jesus/Yeshu but their belief that he was historical.

You deny this on apologetic grounds. You seem to ignore that the main argument for the enemies of a religion is to downgrade the central character of such a religion to the condition of a mere product of the imagination of the believers. To acknowledge the reality of that character is a step backward that they only make whenever morally compelled – because they believe it to be true.

Chris Weimer

I do not think this is so. No where did I say this, nor even imply it to be. Please reread my post a little more carefully before drawing such hasty conclusions.

How is any of this relevant to the Talmud? Are we talking about an HJ or are we talking about the Talmud as a source for the HJ? If you wish to debate Alexander v. HJ, then start a new thread for it.

Pardon, but I had already stated this. In fact, this was the exact point I was making to rebut you. But oh well.

Because you're assuming that both of the stories tell the same basic story. This is an unproven assertion. None of the other details match up except for a) name and b) that he was executed.

If you're arguing by parallel here, then you've just disproved yourself. That Josephus used Philo as his sole source would be equivalent to the Talmud using the Christian message as its sole source. I'm not claiming this is what happened (Josephus/Philo) but it surely doesnt' help you at all.

Are you calling me an apologetic? Ad homines will not help your case.

Ancient authors didn't call other's central characters myths. It didn't happen like it does today. Celsus is a perfect example of what to do when rebutting a religion - don't accuse them of making it up - debase the character by attributing to it humiliating characteristics, such as being born a bastard. The mere lateness of the Talmud, though, has me express deep doubts whether it is actually doing this.

Amaleq13

Split posts are now in this new thread

ynquirer

I apologize.

No, I don’t want to start a new thread. Sorry that it seemed so.

The main evidence is neither the coincidence of name nor that he was executed. The main evidence is that Sanhedrin 43a identifies, by name, five Christians as of c. 130 CE as being followers of Yeshu.

That Josephus used Philo as his sole source while the Talmud used oral tradition as its main source is tantamount to saying that the Talmudic backing of the gospel is more reliable than Josephus’ backing Philo.

BTW I don’t think that Josephus did rely solely on Philo. Probably, there was also oral tradition from people that could still remember the fact. But Philo was quite surely his only written source.

It wasn’t my intention to call you apologetic. I must apologize again.

I think that Tractate Sanhedrin does a different thing. Through oral transmission, the writers got knowledge that one Yeshu/Jesus had caused some unrest during Pilate’s term and provided that he was an apostate the Sanhedrin had manage to put him to death. It was also known that this precedent had been used to have a decision at the trial of five of his disciples. Probably, the remaining details were lost.

When the Sanhedrin came to confront its version with that of the gospels, the most heinous detail quite surely was that the gospels have Sanhedrin condemn Jesus, but being deprived of a right to sentence to death as it allegedly was, the Sanhedrin managed to compel the Romans to crucify him. The writers of the Talmud then carried on their own research, to find that the right to sentence to capital punishment had been forfeited from the Sanhedrin forty years before the destruction of the Temple (Sanhedrin 41a), that is, about 30 CE, during Pilate’s term.

Therefore, the whole issue depended on whether Jesus had being executed either before or after 30 CE. If after 30 CE, the gospels were right and the Sanhedrin had instigated the Romans to crucify Jesus; if before 30 CE, Jesus would have been stoned and hanged from a tree according to the Jewish law.

The writers thus faced a moral hazard. If they believed the Christian account of the trial and crucifixion of Jesus, the Sanhedrin on the spot was not untainted. Nevertheless, if they thought the Christians – both Paul and the gospelers – to lie, the Sanhedrin would have behaved most appropriately. They thought what they ought to think, after all.

Apikorus

The issue of B. Sanh. 43a has been discussed in a previous thread.

Adducing the rabbinic literature is essentially of no value in the historical Jesus enterprise. The rabbinic literature is simply too difficult to date. There is no reason to believe that any of the sparse rabbinic references to Jesus are anything more than reaction to contemporary Christian dogma. I submit that there is not a single independent historical datum regarding Jesus to be gleaned from the entire rabbinic corpus.

Regarding B. Sanh. 43a itself, a major problem here is that the core baraita has no mishnaic parallel. Indeed, there is no reference to Jesus anywhere in the Mishnah (though some see an allusion in the reference to ploni (= "John Doe") in M. Yev. 4:13).

My understanding is that the Talmud is an exceedingly problematic source for historical matters. There are numerous example in which the sages retrojected rabbinic themes into the late 2nd Temple (or even biblical) periods. There is also ample evidence that sages simply made up material (see e.g. the chapter, "Sages made up sayings and stories" in J. Neusner, Rabbinic Literature and the New Testament: what we cannot show, we do not know).

Notsri

I don't understand, Apikorus: why does the absence of a mishnaic parallel seem problematic to you? The baraitot are by definition materials not contained within the Mishnah; so one shouldn't necessarily expect a mishnaic parallel.

Regards,
Notsri

Apikorus

Many baraitot have parallels within the mishnayot. These are the ones which are most securely identified as early (i.e. Tannaitic). The problem with the rabbinic literature as a whole is that we can't reliable date any of it. There is nothing that would mitigate against all of B. Sanh. 43a being composed in 500 CE, for example.

Thanks for inserting the link to amazon.com, Toto!

noah

From ynquirer's initial post:

I asked a Jewish associate of mine about this. He said:

Regards,

Noah

ynquirer

I’m not ready to refute your learned opinion that baraita with no mishnaic parallel is unlikely an early one. But M. Sanh. 6:1 almost exactly reproduces a sizeable part the baraita on Yeshu, without mentioning the name itself. Granted, it might be that the baraita replicated the mishnaic text while adding the name altogether. Yet, on the other hand, there is Ulla’s remark, which points at Yeshu’s case. It seems that Ulla belonged in the second generation of Amoraim (279-320 CE). If so, the baraita, though with no mishnaic parallel, would be rather early.

Thanks for link to a previous thread on the topic and reference to Neusner’s book.