Jesus in the Talmud

128 Chapter 9Jesus, the Son of God, with his followers, the children of God, versus theJews, the children not of Abraham but of Satan—this is the message ofthe Gospel of John (which, not surprisingly, is concordant with the Bookof Revelation—attributed also to John—where those who claim to beJews are exposed as the “synagogue of Satan”). 112 Accordingly, the Jewsnot only try to stop Jesus, the deceiver of their people, and to kill him;they moreover begin the process of eliminating his followers from theirsynagogue. 113The resurrection of the dead Lazarus was to become the last straw inJesus’ encounter with “the Jews” according to John. When they hear ofthis new provocation, the Pharisees and the High Priests gather and discussthe situation, which threatens to get out of control. Whereas the majorityfears that “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him,and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place [the Temple]and our nation,” Caiaphas, the incumbent High Priest, rebukes them:“You know nothing at all! You do not understand that it is better for you tohave one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed”(11:48–50). This was the death sentence, and Jesus’ fate should take itscourse: “So from that day on they planned to put him to death” (11:53).Jesus must and will die because he is a blasphemer and “has claimed tobe the Son of God” (19:7).There exists hardly any other New Testament text that is more unambiguousand firm in Jesus’ mission on earth and his divine origin, indeedhis identification with God, 114 and that is sterner in its attitude toward theJews than the Gospel of John. Having been written in the Jewish Diasporaof Asia Minor, it bears all the characteristics of a bitter struggle betweenthe established Jewish and the emerging Christian communities, a strugglemoreover that was waged by both sides with the gloves off. The Christiansare unsparing with nasty invectives (the Jews have Satan as father),and the Jews answer with the last and most cruel resort at their disposal:they persecute the “would-be God” and force the Roman governor to executehim against the evidence and against the governor’s own will. Thereis every reason to believe that the Gospel of John was spread and wellknown in Babylonia, if not separately then in the version of Tatian’s Diatessaronwith its predilection for John. 115 With its strongly anti-Jewishbias it presents the perfect Christian narrative against which another