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Research atlas for early Christianity. Claims are tagged attested, traditional, or disputed. Copyrighted full texts, including CCEL editions, are not included.

Person

Yeshu in the Babylonian Talmud (b. Sanhedrin 43a)

redacted c. 500-600; traditions older

rabbinic text tradition

Hostile source. HOSTILE: polemical rabbinic tradition.

Disputed. Texts attested; date and reference DISPUTED.

Yeshu in the Babylonian Talmud (b. Sanhedrin 43a)

Stand-in

HONEST STAND-IN for 'the Talmud' as a physical book. This is the opening leaf of tractate Kiddushin in Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Codex Hebraicus 95 (Munich 95), copied by Solomon ben Samson in France in 1342 — the only complete manuscript of the Babylonian Talmud. It is NOT the leaf that contains b. Sanhedrin 43a (the Yeshu passage in the heroes record). A Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin leaf (Leiden Or. 4720, 1289) exists on Commons but was not used, because the Atlas record concerns the Babylonian, not the Jerusalem, Talmud. No freely licensed Sanhedrin 43a leaf of Munich 95 was located on Commons this turn.Babylonian Talmud, Munich Codex Hebraicus 95 (1342), opening of tractate Kiddushin. Scribe: Solomon ben Samson. Public domain. Source image: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek digital (bsb00003409, page 405), via Wikimedia Commons. Public domainSource page

Passages in uncensored manuscripts of the Babylonian Talmud speak of Yeshu, hanged on the eve of Passover after a herald sought defenders for 40 days. Censorship removed many of these passages from printed editions.

Bases

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Do these passages preserve independent memory of Jesus?

  • A late Babylonian counter-narrative that knowingly parodies the Gospels; not independent history

    • Peter Schäfer (2007)
  • Most passages were not originally about Jesus of Nazareth at all

    • Johann Maier (1978)
  • Of little or no value for the historical Jesus

    • John P. Meier

Places

    Councils

    No council in this list names them as a participant.

    Sources

    Catalog editions

    No edition in the preview catalog is linked.

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    DeChurched Atlas — Early Christianity as history, from every source