Jesus in the Talmud

The Torah Teacher 51smitten: a third of the olive crop, a third of the wheat, and a third ofthe barley crop. Some say, even the dough in women’s handsswelled up.It has been taught: Great was the calamity that befell that day, foreverything at which [R. Eliezer] cast his eyes was burned up. 47Even in his defeat, R. Eliezer proved once more his magical power—andthat the rabbis were right in excommunicating him unless they wanted toyield their authority to miracle workers and magicians. R. Eliezer’s unrulymagical power, which threatened the authority of the rabbis and therefore(in this sequence) the existence of the world, needed to be kept incheck—and indeed was kept in check, until his death. 48 In portrayinghim as the dangerous arch-magician, the rabbis model R. Eliezer alongthe lines of the other arch-magician, who threatened their authority—Jesus. In other words: R. Eliezer becomes the rabbinic doppelgänger ofJesus. He combines in his person and life two major strands of the rabbinicperception of Jesus and his followers: sexual excesses and magicalpower. Hence, it is not just the painful process of the breaking-off of“Christianity” from “Judaism,” which becomes apparent here; rather, weget a glimpse at the weapons that the rabbinic Jews used in order not onlyto demarcate themselves from Christian Jews but to fight against themwith all the means at their disposal. And a fight to the death it was, becauseeven the Roman governor acquitted R. Eliezer of the charge of sexualorgies and even heaven approved of his use of magic against rabbinicreasoning, of anarchic and destructive power against sober interpretationof the Torah, of “Christianity” against the rabbinic version of “Judaism”!Indeed, “the Christians are us,” as Boyarin says, but, this is the message ofthe Eliezer story, they need to be unmasked and defeated once and for all.