Calzaer

I'm having a Historica Jesus vs Mythical Jesus debate with a friend of mine, and she brought up references to Jesus in the Talmud*. Since I'd rather not reinvent the wheel, how to Jesus Myticists deal with the Talmudic mentions?

*The sources she gave me:
http://www.markdroberts.com/htmfiles...us.htm#feb1904
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/jesus.htm (the third section, titled "Jesus in the Talmud")

Doctor X

Briefly, because I am sure others can quote the relevant passages, but the Talmud is late.

--J.D.

Gregg

You might better ask how Christians deal with those references, since they don't sound much like anything in the Gospels. But the Talmud references don't pose a problem for the mythicist case, because by the time they were written the Gospels were circulating and Christians were increasingly beginning to believe in an HJ. Talmud writers were taking their cues from Christian belief, not from historical memory.

Asha'man

The information you are looking for is in The Jesus the Jews Never Knew by Frank R. Zindler.
For the most part, Jesus was read into the early writings when he just wasn’t there. Later writings do mention Jesus specifically, but that was only after Christianity had spread for a few centuries.

The Mishna is the earliest set of writings, and was compiled around 220CE. The name Yeshu or Yeshua is not found in the Mishna. Zindler looked at all references in the Mishna that are pointed to as evidence, and shows that there is no reason to conclude any are references to Jesus.

The Tosefta does mention a Yeshua ben Pandira and a Ben Stada. But again, there is no good reason to conclude that these are references to Jesus.

The Babylonian Talmud does clearly mention Jesus, but these writings were finalized around 500CE. These references appear to re-interpret earlier references with full knowledge of Christian mythology, but add little historical weight. Even at this late date, however, they differ from the story told by the Gospels, showing a Jesus who was stoned rather than crucified.

Apikorus

One wouldn't expect Jesus to turn up in the Mishnah, since there's not much aggadic material there. I believe that most if not all of the Talmudic references to Jesus are late reactions to Christian tradition.

Toto

If the Talmud does mention Jesus, he lived 100 BC and was not crucified by Pontius Pilate.

Did Jesus Live 100 BC?