Scattered throughout the Talmud, the founding document of rabbinic Judaism in late antiquity, can be found quite a few references to Jesus--and they're not flattering. In this lucid, richly detailed, and accessible book, Peter Schäfer examines how the rabbis of the Talmud read, understood, and used the New Testament Jesus narrative to assert, ultimately, Judaism's superiority over Christianity.
The Talmudic stories make fun of Jesus' birth from a virgin, fervently contest his claim to be the Messiah and Son of God, and maintain that he was rightfully executed as a blasphemer and idolater. They subvert the Christian idea of Jesus' resurrection and insist he got the punishment he deserved in hell--and that a similar fate awaits his followers.
Schäfer contends that these stories betray a remarkable familiarity with the Gospels--especially Matthew and John--and represent a deliberate and sophisticated anti-Christian polemic that parodies the New Testament narratives. He carefully distinguishes between Babylonian and Palestinian sources, arguing that the rabbis' proud and self-confident countermessage to that of the evangelists was possible only in the unique historical setting of Persian Babylonia, in a Jewish community that lived in relative freedom. The same could not be said of Roman and Byzantine Palestine, where the Christians aggressively consolidated their political power and the Jews therefore suffered.
A departure from past scholarship, which has played down the stories as unreliable distortions of the historical Jesus, Jesus in the Talmud posits a much more deliberate agenda behind these narratives.
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A Provocative Analysis of Jesus in the Talmud that Offers Some New Insight.:
There have traditionally been three schools of thought about references to Jesus in rabbinic literature: The rabbis had early source material and therefore have insight to offer on the historical Jesus; the references are not in any way historical and therefore of no value; or, they refer to another Jesus, not the founder of the Christian faith. Peter Schafer has combed the Mishnah, Tosefta, midrashim, and Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmudim to learn how Jesus was perceived by Judaism of late antiquity and... more info
....."Jesus punished in Hell in boiling excrement".....:
This book undermines a widespread assumption that, of Judaism's and Christianity's respective sacred texts, only the Christian Gospels go out of their way to assail the rival faith, whereas Judaism's classical texts refrain from similar attacks. It seems fair to say now, however, that the Talmud is every bit as offensive to Christians as the Gospels are to Jews. What exactly is so scandalous? How about Jesus punished in Hell for eternity by being made to sit in a cauldron of boiling... more info
Opens your heart to understand jewishness:
Traditionally most Christians are taught that Jews were a significant part of, if not protagonists, of Jesus crucifixion. From here spawns a breath of negative opinions ranging from hatred to distrust. Tolerance, or better acceptance, is very difficult to reach if we start from this obscure initial teaching.
This book opens the doors and windows for a new generation of Christians to correct the negative bias of intolerance and ignorance against Judaism. Within this pages lies the initial framework of... more info
Is there Jesus in the Talmud?:
The person Jesus is not found in the Babylonian Talmud - at least not in the standard Vilna edition. But he was mentioned by name in tractate Sanhedrin mentioning his trial. This part was edited out but it remains in manuscripts and editions other than the Vilna edition. So far so good. Peter Schafer has found other passages that seem to hint at Jesus, even though he is called by different names. Peter Schafer managed to write a scholarly book with loads of sources and manuscript variences mentioned... more info
