Jesus in the Talmud, Part 1

The Talmud is a Jewish document that was composed around AD 200 from earlier oral traditions. This, of course, was when Christianity was just getting going and distancing itself from Judaism, so there were several references to Jesus, most unfavourable (more on that in part 2).

It has been modified numerous times, usually by a Rabbi adding a comment (or "gloss") that makes an existing point clearer. There are several versions, many of which got significantly censored at the hands of both Catholics and Jews, the Catholics because they took offence at mention of Jesus and the Jews to avoid repercussions from Christians who took offence at mention of Jesus.

Is the Talmud evidence for the Gospels

The Talmud does seem to agree with the gospels on several points, but it also disagrees on significant points. More importantly, it is - in my view - more likely to be a reaction to the gospels, and so derived from them, rather than an independent source.

There is an interesting paper on this subject by Dr David Instone-Brewer. From it:

The censored passages are almost all late anti-Christian polemics. They have been collected and analysed by Herford and more recently in great detail by Schaefer. The passage about Jesus’ trial at b.San.43a is unique among them because it appears to contain a tradition which dates back to the time of Jesus.

If Instone-Brewer is correct that all the mentions of Jesus in the Talmud that were later censored are "late", which I would take to mean are later than the gospels, and so dependent on them, except for one. There is just one passage that seems to date back to the time of the events in question, a note about Jesus trial

Jesus was stoned to death

The curious thing about that passage is that it says Jesus was sentenced to be stoned to death - though it does say he was actually hung (which is consistent with crucifixion):

It was taught:
On the Eve of Passover they hung Yeshu the Notzarine. And the herald went out before him for 40 days [saying]: “Yeshu the Notzarine will go out to be stoned for sorcery and misleading and enticing Israel [to idolatry]. Any who knows [anything] in his defence must come and declare concerning him.” But no-one came to his defence so they hung him on the Eve of Passover.

It is possible the herald was saying what should happen, but the text then records what the Romans actually did. It could otherwise be there were two authors here with different ideas of what happened (or should have happened).

The Herald

The herald going out for 40 days is note-worthy as it contradicts the gospel accounts, which indicate less than 24 hours from arrest to death on the cross, but also because the Talmud else - indeed just a few lines earlier - says this should be for just one day, while the condemned is taken to the place of execution.

There is no resolution to this. In fact, it seems possible the passage is here only because of the 40 day tradition (but see also the core tradition). The passage, then, is one Rabbi responding to the previous and older comment about the one day tradition, pointing out that it is not as universal as might be supposed.

Misleading vs Enticing

The charge of misleading refers to leading an individual to idolatry, whilst enticing indicates leading a large group, say a town, to idolatry. It is likely "misleading" is a later addition, given other texts in the Talmud.

Core Tradition

Instone-Brewer boils all this down to a fairly brief core tradition: "On the Eve of Passover they hung Yeshu for sorcery and enticing Israel". This is not without problems, as he relates, but it does fit the gospel accounts, if we assume the Romans were in charge and they choose when and how (the Sanhedrin would not choose to execute someone the day before Passover as they would be too busy themselves).

Instone-Brewer's conclusion

He concludes:

The least difficult explanation is therefore that the earliest core of the censored tradition of Jesus' trial came from the actual court records from the time of Jesus which succeeding generations felt they could not change, despite the difficulties presented by the wording. Instead, later editors added explanatory phrases during the latter half of the second century.

If this was a proper trial, it would be conducted during the day, and, as it is a capital offence, over two days. This pushes the last supper back to Tuesday at the latest, arrested in the evening, tried on the Wednesday and Thursday, and executed on the Friday. This still gives little time for the Romans, and leaves the problem that they chose to schedule the execution for the day before Passover, when they could as easily not hand Jesus over to the Romans until after Passover.

On the other hand, if the gospel accounts are right, the Sanhedrin met at night, so it cannot have been a proper trial, and there would be no court records. Is it possible they still kept records, and these were later mistakenly understood to be proper count records?

Personally, I still think the meeting with the Sanhedrin was made up. There may have been a meeting with a handful of officials, but no more than that. either way, it was the Roman's who were the driving force behind Jesus' arrest.