Jesus in the Talmud

Jesus’ Execution 73Jesus was close to the government (and therefore the herald went out fortydays before the execution to ask for other witnesses); this detail does notbelong to the Baraita but is the answer to Ulla’s (later) objection. In allfour Gospels, Pilate, the Roman governor, tries to save Jesus and to haveBarabbas crucified instead of him. 58 Thus, one can indeed get the impressionthat Jesus had no less powerful a protector than the governor himself.59 Pilate explicitly makes a great effort to convince the Jews that hehasn’t found any case against him and wants to release him, but the Jewswon’t give in. It is again the Gospel of John that is particularly specific inthis regard. There, when Pilate tries to release Jesus, the Jews cry out: “Ifyou release this man, you are no friend of the emperor. Everyone whoclaims to be a king sets himself against the emperor!” 60 So the Jews playthe Roman governor off against his master, the emperor—and that wasthe last thing in the world that Pilate needed: to be accused of disloyaltyto the emperor. Jesus does not gain time, as the Talmud has it, but is immediatelysentenced and executed.The very fact that the Talmud’s claim of Jesus’ closeness to the Romangovernment reflects some knowledge—certainly not of the historicalcourse of events 61 but of the New Testament narrative, particularly ofJohn’s version of it—does not come as a surprise anymore. What is moreamazing is that this detail exonerates the Roman government from theblame of Jesus’ condemnation and consequently, adopting the Gospels’message, puts the thrust of the accusation on the Jews. I have no definiteanswer to this rather odd conclusion, but it may well have to do with thefact that this element of our story is not part of the (early Palestinian?)Baraita 62 but of the fourth-century C.E. Babylonian discourse upon it.Could it be that the Babylonian Jews had a more relaxed attitude towardthe Roman government in Palestine than their Palestinian brethren, whosuffered increasingly from the Christian variety of Roman government?But the Jews in Babylonia must have known pretty well what was going onin Palestine in the early fourth century—Ulla, although a Babylonianamora, had moved from Palestine to Babylonia and frequently travelledback and forth between Babylonia and Palestine. Moreover, it is one thingto follow the New Testament version that Pilate tried very hard to rescueJesus, but it is quite another to accept the message that—therefore—theJews are to be blamed for his death. On the other hand, we should not