Jesus in the Talmud

132 AppendixVatican ebr. 130: square Ashkenazi, 1381Vatican ebr. 140: square Ashkenazi, 14th centuryOxford Opp. Add. fol. 23: square Sephardic, 14th–15th centuryParis heb. 1337: square Sephardic, 14th–15th centuryParis heb. 671/4: Byzantine, 15th centuryHerzog 1: Yemenite, after 1565Soncino printed edition: printed in Soncino, Barco, and Pesaro between1484 and 1519Vilna printed edition: 1880–1886According to this list, the earliest available evidence for our Jesus textsis the Firenze manuscript from the late twelfth century. The latest manuscriptis a Yemenite manuscript from the second half of the sixteenthcentury. Altogether, the transmission history of the Bavli text is hamperedby the fact that many of the earlier manuscripts are lost because ofthe aggressive policy of the Catholic Church against the Talmud, whichculminated in many burnings of the Talmud ordered by the Church (atfirst 1242 in Paris). Moreover, after the (in)famous Christian-Jewish disputationof Barcelona in 1263, the Church began (often relying on the“expertise” of Jewish converts) to censor the Talmud text and to eliminate(erase, blacken, etc.) all the passages that the experts found objectionableor offensive to the Christian doctrine. It goes without saying thatpassages referring to Jesus became the prime victim of such activity. Inlater printed editions, many such supposedly incriminating passageswere left out by the Jewish printers themselves in order not to jeopardizethe publication of the Talmud (or of other Hebrew books).In the following charts, I have summarized the references about Jesus asthey appear in the manuscripts and some printed editions, arranged accordingto the topics and the sequence in which they are discussed in thebook.