Validating the ‘Jesus was a Sorcerer’ (Sanhedrin 43a) Babylonian Talmud Quote

Continuing on with my series of articles validating quotes from the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds we have one of the passages which state that Jesus of Nazareth was executed for ‘sorcery’/‘witchcraft’.

Rabbi Gil Student offers a translation of the relevant passage in Folio 43a of Tractate Sanhedrin of the Babylonian Talmud as follows:

‘It is taught: On the eve of Passover they hung Yeshu and the crier went forth for forty days beforehand declaring that "[Yeshu] is going to be stoned for practicing witchcraft, for enticing and leading Israel astray. Anyone who knows something to clear him should come forth and exonerate him." But no one had anything exonerating for him and they hung him on the eve of Passover.

Ulla said: Would one think that we should look for exonerating evidence for him? He was an enticer and G-d said (Deuteronomy 13:9) "Show him no pity or compassion, and do not shield him."

Yeshu was different because he was close to the government.’ (1)

However, Student clips the translation offer and translates terms to his advantage since Peter Schaefer offers a current and more complete academic translation as follows:

‘Abaye said: He [the herald] must also say: On such and such a day, on such and such an hour, and in such and such a place (the crime was committed), in case there are some who know (to the contrary, so that they can come forward and prove (the original witnesses) to be false witnesses (having deliberately given false testimony).

And the herald goes before him etc: indeed, before him, but not beforehand.

However, (in contradiction to this) it was taught (tanya):

On (Sabbath even and) the eve of Passover Jesus the Nazarene was hanged (tela’uhu). And a herald went forth before him 40 days (heralding): Jesus the Nazarene is going forth to be stoned because he practiced sorcery (kishshef) and instigated (hissit) and seduced (hiddiah) Israel (to idolatry). Whoever knows anything in his defence, may come and state it. But since they did not find anything in his defence, they hanged him on (Sabbath eve and) the eve of Passover.

Ulla said: Do you suppose that Jesus the Nazarene was one for whom a defence could be made? He was a mesit (someone who instigated Israel to idolatry), concerning whom the Merciful [God] says: Show him no compassion and do not shield him (Deut. 13:9).

With Jesus the Nazarene it was different, for he was close to the government (malkhut).’ (2)

This is a commentary on the following Mishnaic passage:

‘If they find him [the accused] innocent, they discharge him, and if not, he goes forth to be stoned. And a herald goes before him [heralding]:

So and so, the son of so and so, is going forth to be stoned because he committed such and such a crime, and so and so are his witnesses. Whoever knows anything in his defence, may come and state it.’ (3)

Schaefer is clear here that the ‘Yeshu’ that Student insists on translating as ‘Yeshu’ not as ‘Jesus’ – after all he is trying to maintain they are not the same person – should actually be translated ‘Jesus the Nazarene’ because that is who the passage is referring to not some nebulous other ‘Jesus’ who Student is trying to deflect it to.

Student’s summary of the passage is quite valid:

‘Here we have the story of the execution of Yeshu. Like Ben Stada, he was also executed on the eve of Passover. Before executing him, the court searched for any witnesses who could clear his name, as was normally done before any execution. Ulla, however, questioned this practice. An enticer, due to the biblical mandate not to be merciful, should not be afforded this normal consideration. The Talmud answers that Yeshu was different. Because of his government connections, the court tried to search for any reason not to execute him and upset the government.’ (4)

However, Student also lists a number of ‘problems’ with the text referring to Jesus:

‘1. As mentioned above with Ben Stada, the Synoptic Gospels have Jesus being executed on Passover itself and not the eve of Passover.

2. As above, Yeshu lived a century before Jesus.

3. Yeshu was executed by a Jewish court and not by the Romans. During Yeshu's time, the reign of Alexander Janneus, the Jewish courts had the power to execute but had to be careful because the courts were ruled by the Pharisees while the king was a Sadducee. It seems clear why the courts would not want to unneccesarily upset the monarch by executing a friend of his. During the Roman occupation of Jesus' time, there is no indication that the Jewish courts had the right to execute criminals.

4. There is no indication from the New Testament that Jesus had friends in the government.’ (5)

Student’s ‘problems’ are however not ‘problems’ because the Babylonian Talmud is being written as an ‘open text’ some 300-500 years after Jesus’ death outside Jerusalem and ‘problems’ 1, 3 and 4 are easily explicable by pointing out that the rabbis are writing in a different tradition well after the fact and saw – as Christine Hayes has pointed out – Christianity rightly or wrongly as a ‘dissident jewish movement’. (6)

This is why we have Rav Abaye and Rav Ulla discussing the relevant Mishnah passage because Rav Abaye is asking why as a jewish man accused of idolatry and sorcery Jesus the Nazarene was offered a chance to defend himself by bringing witnesses forward forty days before his execution when Rav Ulla responds that the Written Torah explicitly states no compassion should be shown for such crimes and being offered the chance to bring forward counter-witnesses is an act of compassion but that Jesus the Nazarene had ‘friends in government’ so the jews needed to act with caution.

Student’s ‘problems’ 1, 3 and 4 only come into play if we try to use this Talmud passage as outside evidence for the validity of the New Testament narrative about Jesus. His ‘problem’ 2 is also explicable in the sense that he is assigning ‘Yeshua’ to be ‘another Yeshua’ who lived a century or so before Jesus, but again this is hard to argue since ‘hanging’ is in this context means crucifixion which was a Roman punishment not a jewish one (7) and the actual Talmudic punishment for idolatry would be ‘strangulation’ not ‘hanging’. (8)

As Schaefer points out:

‘The Talmudic law drops hanging and adds strangling as an independent death penalty.’ (9)

The truth is remarkably simple despite what Student is desperate to claim in that Rav Abyae and Rav Ulla are using Jesus’ death as a means to discuss an issue of jewish religious law and whether certain formalities are to be undertaken or not.

As Schaefer writes:

‘The specification, which clearly conforms to the plain meaning of the Mishna, meets with a contradictory teaching which proves to be an early Baraita, introduced by the formula tanya: the precedent was set, it argues, of Jesus the Nazarene, in whose case the herald did not go out just before the execution but rather forty days beforehand (meaning either forty consecutive days before the day of his execution or just the fortieth day before the execution was carried out). Whatever the precise meaning of these forty days is (most likely the latter), it becomes clear that this Baraita contradicts the Mishna as it was understood by the anonymous author of the Balvi, allowing for a considerable interval between the announcement of the herald and actual execution. This tension between the Mishna/Bavli, and the Baraita is “solved” by an exchange between Ulla (also a Babylonian amora of the early fourth century) and his anonymous respondent(s): Since Jesus had friends in high places, the Jews took extra precautions before executing him: they went beyond the letter of the law so none of his powerful friends could accuse them of executing an innocent man. Accordingly, this exchange seems to conclude, his case was not a halakhically valid precedent bur rather a real exception; in other words, the Baraita does not contradict the Mishna.’ (10)

Schaefer’s point is well-taken in that the alleged objections of jews like Student do not hold water because the rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud are merely reciting their own traditions and beliefs which do not have to be consonant with history but rather merely believed by them to be true in order to make Sanhedrin 43a a valid statement.

It is also worth pointing out that historically many rabbis and rabbinical authorities have held that mentions of ‘Yeshu’ in the Talmud are in fact referring to Jesus of Nazareth despite what Student wants to claim! (11)

So yes, Sanhedrin 43a does indeed claim that Jesus Christ was executed because he was a ‘sorcerer’.

References

(1) https://www.angelfire.com/mt/talmud/jesusnarr.html

(2) Peter Schaefer, 2007, ‘Jesus in the Talmud‘, 1st Edition, Princeton University Press: Princeton, pp. 64-65

(3) Ibid., p. 64

(4) https://www.angelfire.com/mt/talmud/jesusnarr.html

(5) Ibid.

(6) Christine Hayes, 2007, ‘The “Other” in Rabbinic Literature’, p. 258 in Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert, Martin Jaffe (Eds.), 2007, ‘The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature’, 1st Edition, Cambridge University Press: New York

(7) For example: https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/4782-crucifixion

(8) Jacob Neusner, 1988, ‘The Mishnah: A New Translation’, 1st Edition, Yale University Press: New Haven, pp. 595-596, n. 8

(9) Schaefer, Op. Cit., p. 64

(10) Ibid., p. 65

(11) Daniel Lasker, 1977, ‘Jewish Philosophical Polemics against Christianity in the Middle Ages’, 1st Edition, Ktav: New York, pp. 175-176, n. 38