Jesus in the Talmud

The Frivolous Disciple 35“From Jerusalem, the Holy City, to you, Alexandria in Egypt. Omy sister, my husband dwells in your midst, and I remain desolate!”He [Yehoshua b. Perahya] arose, went and found himself in a certaininn. They paid him great respect. He said: “How beautiful isthis inn/innkeeper (akhsanya)!” He [one of his disciples/Jesus] 5 said:“Rabbi, her eyes are narrow.” 6 He [Yehoshua b. Perahya] replied:“(You) wicked (student), do you occupy yourself with such (athought)?!” He sounded 400 Shofar blasts and excommunicated him.He [the disciple] came before him [the rabbi] several times (and)said to him: “Receive me!”, but he [Yehoshua b. Perahya] refused totake notice. One day, while he [Yehoshua b. Perahya] was reciting theShema, he [the disciple] came (again) before him. (This time) he[Yehoshua b. Perahya] wanted to receive him (and) made a sign tohim with his hand. But he [the disciple] thought that he [Yehoshua b.Perahya] was again repelling him. He [the disciple] went, set up abrick and worshipped it. He [Yehoshua b. Perahya] said to him [thestudent]: “Repent!”, (but) he answered him: “Thus have I learnedfrom you: Whoever sins and causes others to sin, is deprived of thepower of doing penitence.”The master said: “Jesus the Nazarene 7 practiced magic and deceivedand led Israel astray.”This story 8 is situated during the reign of the Hasmonean king (Alexander)Yannai, who ruled from 103 until 76 B.C.E. and who became entangledin a bloody conflict with the Pharisees. The Pharisees, who opposedhis rule, instigated an open rebellion against the king that climaxed in acivil war. When the king finally succeeded in suppressing the rebellion,his opponents were either executed or forced to leave the country. Theseevents are reported in detail by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, 9and the rabbinic story is a faint echo thereof, anachronistically identifyingthe Pharisees with the much later rabbis. The hero of the rabbinic narrative,of which our story is a part, is Shimon b. Shetah.Both Yehoshua b. Perahya and Shimon b. Shetah belong to the enigmatic“pairs” (zugot) that are affiliated with the famous “chain of tradition,”connecting the leaders of rabbinic Judaism with the revelation of