Jesus in the Talmud

Healing in the Name of Jesus 57New Testament. The fact that the Bavli version of our story does not mentionthe name by which Jacob attempted to heal Eleazar is conspicuousbut does not necessarily mean that another (earlier) version without thename of Jesus was circulating in Palestine and that it was this versionwhich reached Babylonia 34 —after all, the Bavli does know the name Jesusben Pandera, and there may have been other reasons for this particularomission. Moreover, Celsus’ reference explicitly mentions the connectionbetween Jesus and magical powers (acquired in Egypt) and concludesthat because of these powers Jesus was convinced to be God: “He[Jesus] hired himself out as a workman in Egypt, and there tried his handat certain magical powers on which the Egyptians pride themselves; hereturned full of conceit, because of these powers, and on account of themgave himself the title of God.” 35The identity of the magician with the god whom he conjures up is wellknown from Greek as well as from Jewish sources. In the Greek magicalpapyri from Greco-Roman Egypt(!), the magician secures for himself thepower of the god Hermes by saying: “For you are I, and I am you; yourname is mine, and mine is yours. For I am your image. ... I know you,Hermes, and you know me. I am you, and you are I. And so, do everythingfor me, and may you turn to me with Good Fortune and Good Daimon,immediately, immediately; quickly, quickly.” 36 Similarly, he invokesthe magical power of the heptagramm, the name consisting of seven letters(part of which is the name Iao, 37 a common abbreviation of the tetragrammatonYHWH): 38 “For you are I, and I, you. Whatever I say musthappen, for I have your name as a unique phylactery in my heart, and noflesh, although moved, will overpower me; no spirit will stand againstme—neither daimon nor visitation nor any other of the evil beings ofHades, because of your name, which I have in my soul and invoke.” 39In Jewish sources, it is above all the figure of the man-angel Enoch-Metatron, who is conspicuous for his close relationship with Godthrough the power of his name. The antediluvian hero Enoch, who accordingto the Hebrew Bible did not die but was taken up into heaven(Gen. 5:24: “Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, for God tookhim”), was in fact—as the Third (Hebrew) Book of Enoch, one of thetexts of Merkava mysticism, explains—physically transformed into thehighest angel Metatron, seated on a throne similar to God’s throne of