ynquirer

Good point. Note, however, that my argument does not say that the baraitot must be read straight. Either reading is a reasonable one: this is precisely my point.

B. Sanh. 46b

Our Rabbis taught: Had it been written, 'If he has sinned, then thou shalt hang him,' I should have said that he is hanged and then put to death, as the State does. Therefore Scripture says, And he be put to death, then thou shalt hang him — he is first put to death and afterwards hanged.

is probably an old baraitot, the reason being that is was written in Babylon yet it speaks of a situation – the Roman state and its way to put to death – that was prevalent in Palestine. Now, if that be so, B. Sanh. 43a

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 apostasy. 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.

was, in all likelihood, written later than B. Sanh. 46b. The writer of 43a ought to have had an eye on 46b. He should have been realized that 46b might be read either straight or counterfactual. To avoid the straight reading, the simplest way was to write “since nothing was brought forward in his favour he was stoned and hanged.� He didn’t do this, though. He left open the possibility of my straight reading. Why?

I’ve found only an answer, that the straight reading was the right reading because Yeshu had actually been hung alive. Still he tried to conceal this basic truth, which was – in his concept – damaging Judaism by inserting the story of the forty-day parading by a herald, which performs a smoke-screen role.

Ecrasez L'infame

Your argument is ingenious, snaky... and unconvincing. You need to assume too many things, not least a) that in this one case strict Law was broken; b) that someone recorded it anyhow in a book which might be used as precedent, albeit with the herald smokescreen. You also (IIUC) seem to be working in a model in which the Jewish authorities were primarily responsible for the execution of an HJ. The current consensus is that the Gospels played up the Jewish part and played down to Roman, although the sentence and punishment was actually completely Roman. If you are trying to prove that it was the other way round, you have an extremely large project on your hands - a lifetime's worth, probably. All this is besides Apikorus's detailed arguments, many of which (to my layman's eye) are pretty much on target. Moreover, the counterfactual in 46b is the normal reading - at least in the English you present. I wouldn't even say that a straight reading was an alternative, except by really torturing the words.

Sure, it's a funny old world, you could be right. I once met an old guy in a bar in Corsica who claimed to have been JFK's assassin. He was in Dallas that day on secondment from the French army, he said. It was a good story - he got a drink out of me for it. Ynquirer, what're you having?

Apikorus

You mean "an old baraita". Baraitot is plural.

ynquirer

That’s what I meant, yes. Thank you for the correction.

ynquirer

It is not a mere one case. Tractate Sanhedrin records several cases in which strict Law was broken. In reference to this, Yeshu’s would simply be one among others.

That there was a book with recorded cases – as usual in high courts – would be really helpful but by no means necessary for the argument. What would be really necessary is oral tradition, however inaccurate in minute details, which tradition is usually taken for granted in the making of the Talmud.

May you note that the forty-day heralding smokescreen does not really belong in the precedent, but in the rather extraordinary case in which the convict is “close to the royalty� or “the government.�

B. Sanh. 43a acknowledges that the Jewish authorities tried and put to death one Yeshu that according to later Jewish literature – Toldot Yeshu, for instance – was the HJ.

Whose consensus? The historicists’? I don’t think you’re on the mark. The mythicists’? Your consensus would sound nonsense to them.

Non sequitur.

Ordinary speech almost always mixes propositions of the so-called natural language – your counterfactual reading – and of the meta-language – my reading the proposition as an interpretive rule. This is why ordinary language, in contradistinction to formal languages, as formal logic and maths, quite frequently incurs in paradoxes. You cannot suppress the possibility of reading a proposition as meta-language by just saying that plain English is so and so, and that the alternative is “really torturing the words.� Any logical analyst would say that the use of such terms as “stoning,� “hanging,� “I should say,� “first stoning, “ and “first hanging� arise the opportunity for a paradoxical reading, which is my reading. I don’t think that the writers of the Talmud were such poor logicians as to overlook the opportunity.

Am I supposed to endorse this story as having any bearing on the issue at hand? Please educate me on it.

ynquirer

Yet if my reading that Yeshu was hung alive prevails, that would be internal evidence that his execution was illegal, wouldn’t it?

That would be another illegal aspect of the process, that Yeshu was sentenced by the Sanhedrin though executed by the state. Both live-hanging and execution by the state would hold together should my reading prevail.

Ben Stada as a character lacks a modicum of coherence. On the one hand, he might be the one that according to Toldot Yeshu brought the secret of sorcery by making incisions upon his flesh (B. Shab. 104b). But, on the other hand, Toldot Yeshu says that Yeshu got the secret by illegally entering the Temple, while B. Shab. 104b claims that ben Stada brought the secret from Egypt. Why do you say he might be the same person?

Psychobabble? Nope. I was simply abiding by Neusner’s advice: “we cannot believe everything we read except as evidence of what was in the mind of the person who wrote up the passage.� I just tried to figured out what was in the mind of the writers of so awkward a passage as B. Sanh. 43a.

By the way, your own assessment of what was in their mind, as allegedly determined by material comfort, sounds rather poor.

Here you are exceedingly optimistic. Your remark is in reference to the proposition that the writers of the Tractate Sanhedrin were judges of the Great Sanhedrin. This is my evidence:

1) This Talmudic book bears the name of the Jewish high court – mere happenstance?

2) A “Synopsis of Subjects of Tractate Sanhedrin,� to be found in a Jewish-American website (here, begins:

CHAPTER I. MISHNA I. To which cases judges are needed to decide, and to which commoners;

(You probably think that so important an issue was settled by commoners, don’t you?)

3) In “Bet Midrash Virtually,� of the Rabbinical Assembly of Israel, the commentator of T. Sanh. 1:1 (here) begins with the following disclaimer (my emphasis):

First, a word of exculpation. I am a rabbi and not a lawyer. So if I use any terms from systems of law other than the halakhic one there is no guarantee that I might not misuse them. Your forgiveness in advance - and your corrections via private e-mail - are earnestly solicited.

Now, what is your evidence that the writers of Tractate Sanhedrin might be commoners instead of judges?

Apikorus

Your "reading" has not prevailed. I have shown that it is untenable. You are starting with the answer you want and working backward.

There's nothing awkward about it.

So you think the tractate beitzah was written by an egg?

Tractate Sanhedrin was written by rabbis (not commoners) -- the same tradents who produced the rest of the Talmud. There is no difference in the forms and rhetorical structures used which would lead one to believe otherwise.

The Talmud is a vast synthetic debate arranged out of snippets of rabbinic opinion. Its organization is highly associative, and you can find matters relating to court cases in almost every tractate. Conversely, there is much in tractate Sanhedrin which has nothing to do with the court (virtually the entire eleventh pereq, for example).

I find that your views on the Talmud are a mishmash of precritical naivete and wild speculation.

Steven Avery

Was he one of the fellows who was exposed on the History Channel program in late 2003 ?

http://www.doaskdotell.com/movies/vken.htm
"Evidence of a cover-up still continues to surface. The Turner film presents considerable eyewitness evidence that Mafia elements, particularly in Marseille, France and Corsica, could have been involved (and were involved in a frontal shot from the Grassy Knoll). "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucien_Sarti
Lucien Sarti (died April 27, 1972) was an assassin from Corsica named on the televison series The Men Who Killed Kennedy as one of the men who shot former U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

ynquirer

You think so, really? Not a surprise, since you seem to believe that ceaseless repeating that Yeshu was stoned, though the text does not say that, will make the wonder to have it written down there.

Not surprising either. See below.

Is it a joke or an argument?

Wrong. The rabbi I’ve quoted from here disclaims for being a rabbi, not a lawyer. Being a lawyer is a requisite for being a judge; therefore, rabbis may be judges, but many of them are commoners.

Labelling the other’s position, as you have extensively done in this thread, is a no way-out. To speak frankly, yours is precritical, not mine, and one only appropriate for a candid believer that is unable to find anything odd in a holy text.

Apikorus

The text does not say that Yeshu was bigger than two feet tall either. Some things we can reasonably infer. In this case, the fact that the herald explicitly states that Yeshu was to be stoned, the fact that rabbinic law specifies stoning before hanging, and the fact that other figures which represent Jesus were reportedly stoned, all kill your "theory." But you are welcome to peddle it further. It doesn't seem to have attracted any supporters, though.

LOL. You are only 1500 years out of context. 6th century rabbinic academies didn't hand out law degrees.

You claimed that tractate Sanhedrin is "a book written by judges of the Great Sanhedrin", based on the mere title of the book. There is no evidence for this claim. Indeed, it is imbecilic. There were two Sanhedrins to speak of. The "Great Sanhedrin" ceased to function after the Temple was destroyed in 70 CE. Tractate Sanhedrin was completed/redacted in the 6th-7th centuries CE.

You consistently read into the Talmud what you want to see. You claim that B. Sanh. 43a implies that Yeshu was abandoned by his disciples, when there is zero evidence to back this up. You say that "both Yeshu and Jesus were connected with royalty" when again the Talmud says no such thing. You assert that the trial of Yeshu was reconstructed in the Talmud from detailed records, when there is absolutely no evidence of such records existing.

Ata yodea shum davar, chaver. Lama kotev harbeh?