Christianity in Talmud and Midrash

Submitted by saltysteve on Sat, 05/30/2009 - 07:49

R. Travers Herford wrote what is probably the standard work on "Christianity in Talmud and Midrash" in 1903.

Extract: The passage in the Gemara which we are examining shows plainly enough that only a very dim and confused notion existed as to the parentage of Jesus in the time when the tradition was recorded. It rests, however, on some knowledge possessed at one time of the story related in the gospels. That story undoubtedly lays itself open to the coarse interpretation put upon it by enemies of Jesus, namely, that he was born out of wedlock. The Talmud knows that his mother was called Miriam, and knows also that Miriam of Magdala had some connection with the story of his life. Beyond that it knows nothing, not even the meaning of the names by which it refers to Jesus. The passge in the Talmud under examination cannot be earlier than the beginning of the fourth century, and is moreover a report of what was said in Babylonia, not Palestine. along such streets and alleys. This, by a legal fiction, made them 'a private dwelling,' so that everything was lawful there which a man might do on the Sabbath in his own house.

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