Jesus in the Talmud

6. Jesus’ ExecutionThat Jesus was condemned to death by the Roman governor PontiusPilate, subsequently tortured and crucified, and on the third day afterhis crucifixion was resurrected and ascended to heaven is the foundationnarrative of Christianity. His trial by the Roman authority and hisdeath on the cross are described in all four Gospels, albeit with considerablevariations (Mt. 27–28; Mk. 15–16; Lk. 22–24; John 18–21), and theologicallyinterpreted by the apostle Paul. What familiarity do the rabbis,the heroes of rabbinic Judaism, show with the evangelists’ interpretationsof this event, or rather, more carefully formulated: what do they care totell us about it in their literature?The immediate and unambiguous answer is: very little. Within the vastcorpus of rabbinic literature, we find but one reference to Jesus’ trial andexecution, and only in passing, as part of a broader halakhic discussionthat has nothing to do with Jesus as a historical figure. Hardly unexpectedly(after the evidence discussed so far), this reference is preserved onlyin the Bavli. There, the Mishna in tractate Sanhedrin is discussed, whichdeals with the procedure of the capital punishment. The Bible knowsfour legal modes of executing the death penalty; namely, stoning, burning,hanging (the latter is actually a postmortem hanging of the personstoned to death, a form of publication that a capital sentence has been