Jesus in the Talmud: What Was Their Intent and Purpose?

If you were to google the phrase, "Jesus in the Talmud", you might be shocked by what you found. There are websites devoted to explaining away the visceral reactions regarding Jesus found in the Talmud. There are other websites who use the Talmudic diatribes as weapons to justify their anti-Semitic heart. There are still other websites which are confused by why the rabbis very so angry about Jesus' claim (truth) to be the Messiah for whom the Jewish people had been waiting for since the days of Moses. So just what was the rabbi's purpose in writing some pretty nasty things about Jesus? Well, I am glad you asked!

The Talmud does make some vicious claims about the Virgin Conception, his life, and his death and resurrection. We must admit this truth. However, I would propose that it is not out of vicious anger but out of a very real fear that those claims made in the early years after Jesus' resurrection and ascension were true!

The Talmud and Jewish scholars never respond to another religion in their writings; however, Jesus they mentioned. Why? I think for two reasons.

First, they did not see Jewish followers of Jesus as another religion but as a sect of Judaism. They were attempting to respond to what they viewed as heresy within Judaism. This is important because it goes to prove the argument that Christianity is not an offshoot but Judaism but a realization/fulfillment of it. This is important to the Jewish rabbis who state that you can't be Jewish and believe in Jesus. This is also important to those "Christian" folks who seem to want to forget that our Messiah was and is Jewish and the Gospel was for them ... FIRST!

There is so much more that I could write on this subject. However, I hope you will explore this issue yourself. I am finishing Peter Schäfer's Jesus in the Talmud and will seek to review it for you later.

However, let me give you one quote that I thought was fascinating and revealing - "Hence, the Palestinians sources are aimed at the origin of the Christian sect, emerging out of the common ground of Judaism." Something to think about!