Jesus in the Talmud

112 Chapter 9the emperors who claimed to have been taken up to heaven, the governorsof the provinces who persecuted the Christians, the philosophers,the poets, the tragedians, the wrestlers, and finally the Jews “whose furyvented itself against the Lord,” all burning in the fire of hell—then he willgive his triumphant answer to the Jews: 63This is he, I shall say,that carpenter’s or prostitute’s (quaestuaria) son,that Sabbath-breaker,that Samaritan and demon-possessed!This is he, whom you bought from Judas!This is he, who was struck with reed and fist,who was defiled with spittle,who was given gall and vinegar to drink!This is he, whom his disciples secretly stole away that it might be saidhe had risen,unless it was the gardener who removed him,lest his lettuces be damaged by the crowd of sightseers!Most of these polemical invectives are directly taken from the New Testament,64 with the exception of the Samaritan and the gardener: the formermay be an attempt to identify Jesus with Simon Magus, who was locatedin Samaria (again emphasizing Jesus as magician), 65 the latter may referto John 20:15, where Mary Magdalene mistakes the risen Jesus for thegardener who had carried Jesus’ body away. No doubt, the climax of allthe Jewish perversions of Jesus’ life and fate, beginning with the insinuationthat he was born as the son of a whore, is his disciples’ plot to steal hisbody from the tomb in order to feign his resurrection. Tertullian is thefirst author who surpasses and ironically intensifies this New Testamentmotif by introducing the gardener so concerned about his vegetables. 66The Eucharist, the other central element of Christian practice, is mentionedin our rabbinical sources only once, and also only in the Bavli. Interestinglyenough, the Talmud does not connect it with the nasty motif ofcannibalism that was so prominent in the pagan and Christian sources.But what the Talmud does relate, reveals no less a wicked sense of humor: