Jesus in the Talmud

"שְׁפִילִית לְסֵיפֵיהּ דַּעֲווֹן גִּלְיוֹן, וּכְתִיב בֵּיהּ: אֲנָא לָא לְמִיפְחַת מִן אוֹרָיְיתָא דְּמֹשֶׁה אֲתֵיתִי [וְלָא] לְאוֹסֹפֵי עַל אוֹרָיְיתָא דְמֹשֶׁה אֲתֵיתִי}}"

"אֲזַל אַסְּקֵיהּ בִּנְגִידָא לְיֵשׁוּ הַנּוֹצְרִי, אֲמַר לֵיהּ: מַאן חֲשִׁיב בְּהָהוּא עָלְמָא? אֲמַר לֵיהּ: יִשְׂרָאֵל. מַהוּ לְאִדַּבּוֹקֵי בְּהוּ? אֲמַר לֵיהּ: טוֹבָתָם דְּרוֹשׁ, רָעָתָם לֹא תִּדְרוֹשׁ, כׇּל הַנּוֹגֵעַ בָּהֶן כְּאִילּוּ נוֹגֵעַ בְּבָבַת עֵינוֹ.}}"

"That the Talmud and other Jewish sources say nothing about Jesus which is not the distortion of Christian tradition is sufficiently explained by the date of these documents and the fact that those who compiled them were governed by entirely polemical considerations."

"These Talmud stories seem as though they are deliberately intended to contradict events recorded in the Gospels: the selfsame facts are perverted into bad and blameable acts."

"The Jesus or Jehoshua ben-Pandira (or ben-Stada) of the Gemara is a shady character who in the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (103–78 )—different versions give different dates—learns magic in Egypt, leads the people astray, and is stoned to death and hanged at Lydda. ... The character of Jesus is blackened, his miracles are explained by magic, his trial is made out to have been regular and fair, and so forth."

"It is now more than half a century since Renan put the question, "Has Jewish tradition anything to teach us concerning Jesus?" This question must be answered in the negative. ... The Jewish legend—a growth of those later centuries—gave him an aspect of its own, purely apocryphal in its character, neither meant nor ever taken by the Jews as real history."

"Some rabbis take the point of view—listen carefully—that yes, the true story of Jesus is in our Talmud, not in the Christian Bible. Meaning that when you have a problem of reconciling the Christian version of who Jesus was with the Jewish versions, some rabbis take the point of view: "Yeah, the Talmud gets it right. And the Christian scriptures? It's not accurate.""

"At the conclusion of a class at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2000, during which I quoted passages from the New Testament, a student approached me and asked whether I would be citing more quotes in future classes. I told her that I would give her two answers. The first: yes. The second: In all the 2,700 pages of the Babylonian Talmud, there is only one quotation from a non-Jewish book, namely from the New Testament (Babylonian Talmud Tractate Shabbat 116a-b). What is allowed to the Talmud is allowed also to a talmid (pupil). She never showed up in my classes again."