Jesus in the Talmud

The Son/Disciple Who Turned out Badly 33commoners in history who are bound together in the horrible destiny ofbeing categorically excluded from the world to come. Now the very factthat our talmudic text puts Jesus (instead of Balaam) in this company canonly have the purpose of having him share the destiny of his companions,namely to have no portion in the world to come. This, however, is anythingbut an innocent statement. To be denied an afterlife is bad enough,but to deprive Jesus, of all persons, an afterlife reveals quite a wickedsense of humor. Did not his followers claim that he was resurrected(Rom. 8:34) and that the people of the new Israel would be saved onlythrough him (Rom. 6:3–11)? By including Jesus among the very few of Israelwho are categorically and on principle denied access to the world tocome, the Talmud makes a very forceful and bold argument. It is difficultto imagine that such a statement is coincidental and not, on the contrary,a deliberate response to the New Testament’s claim of Jesus’ resurrectionand his followers’ participation in his destiny. Hence, what the talmudicpassage wants to convey in reality is the message that not only Jesus is excludedfrom the world to come but that all of his followers in the ChristianChurch share this devastating verdict with him.In transferring the dictum about Jesus publicly spoiling his food to thetradition of those who have no share in the world to come (and in replacingBalaam with Jesus) the Talmud considerably changes its meaning.The originally sexual connotation recedes into the background; instead, ifwe take the Balaam connection seriously, the accusation of idolatry becomesprominent—although, to be sure, the idolatry of Baal-Peor, intowhich Balaam enticed Israel, is clearly sexually oriented. Jesus-Balaam isnow the paragon of an idolater, who spoiled his food by enticing all of Israelinto idolatry. He did it “in our streets,” that is, as the Talmud explains,publicly and unabashedly—just as Balaam did, his “master” and model.