Jesus in the Talmud

The Torah Teacher 47second century C.E. 28 They assume that Jacob, the disciple of Jesus,could have been either Jesus’ brother James (Mk. 6:3; Mt. 13:55) or Jesus’disciple James, the son of Alphaeus (Mk. 3:18; Mt. 10:3; Lk. 6:15; Acts1:13; 15:13) and that Eliezer’s trial has to do with persecutions of theChristians in the early second century C.E. 29 This, however, presupposesquite a chronological stretch because the encounter with Jacob/James inSepphoris must have taken place much earlier than the trial (if Jacob isJames, the son of Alphaeus, the latter was stoned around 62 C.E.): notonly must much time have passed between the heretical conspiracy inSepphoris and the trial, but R. Eliezer must have lived to a very old agewhen he finally was put on trial (not to mention the fact that it took theRoman authorities unseemly long to prosecute his crime).Such a historical reconstruction of R. Eliezer’s heresy and inclinationtoward Christianity is not very likely and an easy victim for Maier’s scholarlyacumen. 30 It is highly improbable that our story reflects an encounterbetween the historical R. Eliezer and a historical disciple of Jesus in thecity of Sepphoris in Galilee, let alone that the halakhic decision with regardto the hire of the harlot refers to an authentic saying of Jesus. Butagain, this is not what is at stake here. The refutation of such crude andpositivistic historicity does not mean that the story does not reflect somekind of reality, more precisely some rabbinic awareness of Jesus andChristianity. The name of Jesus (Jesus ben Pandera/Jesus the Nazarene) iswell attested in the manuscripts, and Maier’s attempts to throw it out ofthe text or to declare it as later additions 31 are rather forced. It is thereforeplausible to argue that the story has indeed something to do with Jesus(Jesus’ teachings) and that R. Eliezer’s heresy does refer to Christianity.The real question, therefore, is: what precisely is this reality with regardto Christianity that the rabbinic sources reveal? According to Boyarin—who boldly and without further ado takes it for granted that R. Eliezer wasarrested for Christianity 32 —our story reflects the early rabbinic discoursewith the emerging Christianity (which was still regarded as part of Judaism),its simultaneous attraction to and repulsion from Christianity. 33R. Eliezer is the “very figure of liminality,” who personifies the tension betweenrabbinic Judaism and Christianity; through him the rabbis are“both recognizing and denying at one and the same time that Christians areus, marking out the virtual identity between themselves and the Christians