name of
Jesus The earliest undisputed occurrences of the term Yeshu are found in five anecdotes in the
Tosefta (
c 200 AD) and
Babylonian Talmud (
c 500 AD). The anecdotes appear in the Babylonian Talmud during the course of broader discussions on various religious or legal topics. The Venice edition of the
Jerusalem Talmud contains the name Yeshu, but the
Leiden manuscript has a name deleted, and "Yeshu" added in a marginal gloss. writes that due to this, Neusner treats the name as a gloss and omitted it from his translation of the Jerusalem Talmud.
The Talmudic accounts in detail Yeshu ben Pandera In the Tosefta,
Chullin 2:22-24 there are two anecdotes about the
min (heretic) named
Jacob naming his mentor
Yeshu ben Pandera (Yeshu son of Pandera). •
Chullin 2:22-23 tells how Rabbi Eleazar ben Damma was bitten by a snake.
Jacob came to heal him (according to
Lieberman's text) "on behalf of Yeshu ben Pandera". (A variant text of the Tosefta considered by Herford reads "Yeshua" instead of "Yeshu". This together with anomalous spellings of Pandera were found by
Saul Lieberman who compared early manuscripts, to be erroneous attempts at correction by a copyist unfamiliar with the terms.) :The account is also mentioned in corresponding passages of the Jerusalem Talmud (
Avodah Zarah 2:2 IV.I) and Babylonian Talmud (
Avodah Zarah 27b) The name Yeshu is not mentioned in the Hebrew manuscripts of these passages but reference to "Jeshu ben Pandira" is interpolated by Herford's in his English paraphrasing of the Jerusalem Talmud text. Similarly the Rodkinson translation of the Babylonian Talmud account interpolates "with the name of Jesus". •
Chullin 2:24 tells how
Rabbi Eliezer was once arrested and charged with
minuth. When the chief judge (
hegemon) interrogated him, the rabbi answered that he "trusted the judge." Although Rabbi Eliezer was referring to God, the judge interpreted him to be referring to the judge himself, and freed the Rabbi. The remainder of the account concerns why Rabbi Eliezer was arrested in the first place. Rabbi Akiva suggests that perhaps one of the
minim had spoken a word of
minuth to him and that it had pleased him. Rabbi Eliezer recalls that this was indeed the case, he had met Jacob of the town of Sakhnin in the streets of Sepphoris who spoke to him a word of
minuth in the name of Yeshu ben Pandera, which had pleased him. (A variant reading used by Herford has
Pantiri instead of
Pandera.) •
Avodah Zarah, 16b-17a in the Babylonian Talmud essentially repeats the account of
Chullin 2:24 about Rabbi Eliezer and adds additional material. It tells that Jacob quoted Deuteronomy 23:19: "You shall not bring the fee of a whore or the price of a dog into the house of the Lord your God in fulfillment of any vow." Jacob says that he was taught this by Yeshu. Jacob then asked Eliezer whether it was permissible to use a whore's money to build a retiring place for the High Priest? (Who spent the whole night preceding the Day of Atonement in the precincts of the Temple, where due provision had to be made for all his conveniences.) When Rabbi Eliezer did not reply, Jacob quoted Micah 1:7, "For they were amassed from whores' fees and they shall become whores' fees again." This was the teaching that had pleased Rabbi Eliezer. The surname ben Pandera is not found in the Talmud account. (Rodkinson's translation drawing on the Tosefta account paraphrases the reference to Yeshu having taught Jacob by "so taught Jeshu b. Panthyra", in this case not translating "Yeshu" as "Jesus".) The name is found again in the
Midrashic text
Kohelet Rabba 10:5 where a healer of the grandson of Rabbi
Yehoshua ben Levi is described as being of ben Pandera. The source of this account is
Shabbat 14:4-8 and
Avodah Zarah 40 in the Jerusalem Talmud, but there ben Pandera is not mentioned. The word
Yeshu is however found as a secondary marginal gloss to the first passage in the Leiden manuscript which together with the Midrashic version show that the account was understood to be about a follower of Yeshu ben Pandera. (Herford again takes liberty and adds "in the name of Jeshu Pandera" to his translation of the Talmud passages despite these words not being in the original text. Schäfer similarly provides a paraphrased translation mentioning "Jesus son of Pandera" which he admittedly has constructed himself by combining the Talmudic and Midrashic texts and the marginal glosses.
Meaning and etymology of Pandera The meaning and etymology of this name are uncertain. Besides the form Pandera, variations have been found in different Tosefta manuscripts for example
Pantiri and
Pantera.
Origen (c. 248 AD) responded to Celsus' claim by saying that
Pantheras was the patronymic of
Joseph the husband of Mary on account of his father, Jacob, being called Panther. An alternative claim was made in the
Teaching of Jacob (634 AD) where Panther is said to be the grandfather of Mary.
Friedrich August Nitzsch (1840) suggested that the name may refer to a
panther being a lustful animal and thus have the meaning of "whore", additionally being a pun on
parthenos meaning virgin. The
Toledot Yeshu narratives contain elements resembling the story of Pandareus in Greek mythology, namely stealing from a temple and the presence of a bronze animal.
Robert Eisler considered the name to be derived from
Pandaros. He also argued that it may not have been a real name but instead as a generic name for a betrayer. He notes that in the
Iliad, Pandaros betrays the Greeks and breaks a truce confirmed by solemn oath. He argues that the name came to be used as a generic term for a betrayer and was borrowed by Hebrew. The name is indeed found in
Genesis Rabba 50 in the expression
qol Pandar (literally "voice of Pandaros" denoting false promises of a betrayer) used as a derogatory placeholder name for a judge of Sodom. The
-a at the end of the form Pandera can be understood to be the
Aramaic definite article. however the etymology of "Nazarene" is itself uncertain and one possibility is that it is derived from
Notzri and did not mean a person from Nazareth. In 1180 AD
Maimonides in his
Mishneh Torah,
Hilchos Melachim 11:4 briefly discusses
Jesus in a passage later censored by the Church. He uses the name
Yeshua for Jesus (an attested equivalent of the name unlike
Yeshu) and follows it with
HaNotzri showing that regardless of what meaning had been intended in the Talmudic occurrences of this term, Maimonides understood it as an equivalent of Nazarene. Late additions to the
Josippon also refer to Jesus as
Yeshua HaNotzri but not
Yeshu HaNotzri. Among other passages, the Talmud names
Yeshu HaNotzri (
Jesus the Nazarene) as a character who was sentenced by God to spend his afterlife in
boiling excrement for having “mocked the words” of the Jewish sages:
Yeshu the sorcerer Sanhedrin 43a relates the trial and execution of Yeshu and his five disciples. Here, Yeshu is a sorcerer who has enticed other Jews to apostasy. A
herald is sent to call for witnesses in his favour for forty days before his execution. No one comes forth and in the end he is stoned and hanged on the eve of
Passover. His five disciples, named Matai, Nekai, Netzer, Buni, and Todah, are then tried. Word play is made on each of their names, and they are executed. It is mentioned that excessive leniency was applied because of Yeshu's influence with the royal government (
malkhut). In the
Florence manuscript of the Talmud (1177 AD) an addition is made to
Sanhedrin 43a saying that Yeshu was hanged on the eve of the
Sabbath.
Yeshu summoned by Onkelos In
Gittin 56b, 57a a story is mentioned in which
Onkelos summons up the spirit of a Yeshu who sought to harm Israel. He describes his punishment in the afterlife as
boiling in excrement, but encourages Onkelos to convert to Judaism, prompting the Talmud to praise "the sinners of Israel." The current standard text does not name the individual Onkelos summons, but a footnote cites a textual variant that identifies the tormented spirit as
Yeshu.
Yeshu the son who burns his food in public Sanhedrin 103a and
Berachot 17b talk about a Yeshu who burns his food in public, possibly a reference to pagan sacrifices. The account is discussing
Manasseh the king of Judah, infamous for having turned to idolatry and having persecuted the Jews (2 Kings 21). It is part of a larger discussion about three kings and four commoners excluded from paradise. These are also discussed in the
Shulkhan Arukh where the son who burns his food is explicitly stated to be Manasseh.
Yeshu the student of Joshua ben Perachiah In
Sanhedrin 107b and
Sotah 47a a Yeshu is mentioned as a student of
Joshua ben Perachiah who was sent away for misinterpreting a word that in context should have been understood as referring to the inn; he instead understood it to mean the innkeeper's wife. His teacher said "Here is a nice inn", to which he replied "Her eyes are crooked", to which his teacher responded "Is this what you are occupied in?" (This happened during their period of refuge in
Egypt during the persecutions of
Pharisees 88–76 BC ordered by
Alexander Jannæus. The incident is also mentioned in the
Jerusalem Talmud in
Chagigah 2:2, but there the person in question is not given any name.) After several returns for forgiveness he mistook Perachiah's signal to wait a moment as a signal of final rejection, and so he turned to idolatry (described by the euphemism "worshipping a brick"). The story ends by invoking a
Mishnaic era teaching that Yeshu practised black magic, deceived and led Israel astray. This quote is seen by some as an explanation in general for the designation
Yeshu. According to Dr. Rubenstein, the account in
Sanhedrin 107b recognizes the kinship between Christians and Jews, since Jesus is presented as a disciple of a prominent rabbi. But it also reflects and speaks to an anxiety fundamental to
Rabbinic Judaism. Prior to the destruction of the Temple in 70, Jews were divided into different sects, each promoting different interpretations of the law. Rabbinic Judaism domesticated and internalized conflicts over the law, while vigorously condemning any sectarianism. In other words, rabbis are encouraged to disagree and argue with one another, but these activities must be carefully contained, or else they could lead to a schism. Although this story may not present a historically accurate account of Jesus' life, it does use a fiction about Jesus to communicate an important truth about the rabbis. Moreover, Rubenstein sees this story as a rebuke to overly harsh rabbis. Boyarin suggests that the rabbis were well aware of Christian views of the Pharisees and that this story acknowledges the Christian belief that Jesus was forgiving and the Pharisees were not (see Mark 2:1–2), while emphasizing forgiveness as a necessary rabbinic value. Other
Rishonim, namely Rabbi Jacob ben Meir (
Rabbeinu Tam),
Nachmanides, and
Yechiel of Paris In 1554 a
papal bull ordered the removal of all references from the
Talmud and other Jewish texts deemed offensive and blasphemous to Christians. Thus the
Yeshu passages were removed from subsequently published editions of the Talmud and Tosefta. Nevertheless, several church writers would refer to the passages as evidence of Jesus outside the Gospels.
Later Jewish commentators (Acharonim) Jehiel Heilprin held that Yeshu the student of Yehoshua ben Perachiah was not Jesus.
Jacob Emden's writings also show an understanding that the Yeshu of the Talmud was not Jesus.
Contemporary Orthodox scholars Rabbi
Adin Steinsaltz translates "Yeshu" as "Jesus" in his translation of the Talmud. Elsewhere he has pointed out that Talmudic passages referring to Jesus had been deleted by the Christian censor.
Theosophists and esotericists The interpretation of
Yeshu as a proto-Jesus first seen in Abraham ibn Daud's work would be revisited by Egyptologist
Gerald Massey in his essay
The Historical Jesus and Mythical Christ, and by
G. R. S. Mead in his work
Did Jesus Live 100 B.C.?. The same view was reiterated by Rabbi
Avraham Korman. These views reflect the theosophical stance and criticism of tradition popular at the time but was rejected by later scholars. It has been revived in recent times by
Alvar Ellegård.
Critical scholarship Modern critical scholars debate whether Yeshu does or does not refer to the historical Jesus, a view seen in several 20th-century encyclopedia articles including
The Jewish Encyclopedia, Joseph Dan in the
Encyclopaedia Judaica (1972, 1997). and the
Encyclopedia Hebraica (Israel). R. Travers Herford based his work on the understanding that the term refers to Jesus, and it was also the understanding of
Joseph Klausner. According to Jeffrey Rubenstein, the account in
Sanhedrin 107b recognizes the kinship between Christians and Jews, since Jesus is presented as a disciple of a prominent rabbi. But it also reflects and speaks to an anxiety fundamental to Rabbinic Judaism. Prior to the destruction of the Temple in 70, Jews were divided into different sects, each promoting different interpretations of the law. Rabbinic Judaism domesticated and internalized conflicts over the law, while vigorously condemning any sectarianism. In other words, rabbis are encouraged to disagree and argue with one another, but these activities must be carefully contained, or else they could lead to a schism. Although this story may not present a historically accurate account of Jesus' life, it does use a fiction about Jesus to communicate an important truth about the rabbis. Moreover, Rubenstein sees this story as a rebuke to overly harsh rabbis. Boyarin suggests that the rabbis were well aware of Christian views of the Pharisees and that this story acknowledges the Christian belief that Jesus was forgiving and the Pharisees were not (see Mark 2), while emphasizing forgiveness as a necessary rabbinic value. who argues that most of these stories were not originally about Jesus, but were incorporated into the Talmud in the belief that they were, as a response to Christian missionary activity.
Skeptical writers Dennis McKinsey has challenged the view that the term refers to Jesus at all and argues that Jewish tradition knew of no historical Jesus. Similar views have been expressed by skeptical science writer Frank R. Zindler in his polemical work
The Jesus the Jews Never Knew: Sepher Toldoth Yeshu and the Quest of the Historical Jesus in Jewish Sources, deliberately published outside the realm of Christian and Jewish scholarship.
Points on which writers have differed Writers have thus differed on several distinct but closely related questions: • whether Yeshu was intended to mean Jesus or not (e.g. Herford vs Nahmanides) • whether the core material in the accounts regardless of the name was originally about Jesus or not (e.g. Herford vs Klausner) • whether the core material is derivative of Christian accounts of Jesus, a forerunner of such accounts or unrelated (e.g. Herford vs Ibn Daud vs McKinsey) • whether Yeshu is a real name or an acronym (e.g. Flusser vs Kjaer-Hansen) • whether Yeshu is a genuine Hebrew equivalent for the name Jesus, a pun on the name Jesus or unrelated to the name Jesus (e.g. Klausner vs Eisenmenger vs McKinsey) ==The Toledot Yeshu==