Jesus in the Talmud

Jesus’ Family 17This is a typical discourse of the Bavli, which tries to clarify the contradictionbetween two traditions: according to one received tradition, thefool/magician is called “son of Stada” and according to another one he iscalled “son of Pandera.” 15 What, then, is his correct name? 16 In otherwords, the Talmud is concerned about the problem that the same personis called by two different names and not about the question of who thisperson is (the answer to this latter question is obviously presupposed:everybody seems to know it). Two different answers are provided.First, Rav Hisda (a Babylonian amora of the third generation and an importantteacher at the academy of Sura; d. 309 C.E.) suggests that the personin question had, as it were, two “fathers” because his mother had a husbandand a lover, 17 and that he was called “son of Stada,” when referring tothe husband and “son of Pandera,” when referring to the lover. Against this,an anonymous author comes up with a different solution: No, he argues,his mother’s husband was not some “Stada” but rather Pappos b. Yehuda, aPalestinian scholar (not portrayed as a sage and without the title “Rabbi”)of the first half of the second century C.E., and in fact it was his motherwho was called “Stada.” 18 If this is so, the last step of the mini-discourse inthe Bavli continues, we need to explain this strange name “Stada” for hismother. The answer: His mother’s true name was Miriam, and “Stada” isan epithet which derives from the Hebrew/Aramaic root saṭah/seṭe> (“to deviatefrom the right path, to go astray, to be unfaithful”). In other words, hismother Miriam was also called “Stada” because she was a soṭah, a womansuspected, or rather convicted, of adultery. This anonymous explanation islocated in Pumbeditha, Sura’s rival academy in Babylonia.Hence, it becomes clear that both explanations begin with the assumptionthat our hero’s mother had both a husband and a lover, and that theyonly disagree about the name of the husband (Stada versus Pappos b.Yehuda). The name Pandera for the lover is made explicit only by RavHisda but seems to be accepted in the Pumbeditha explanation as well, becauseit presupposes the mother’s adultery and does not suggest anothername for the lover. That Pappos b. Yehuda is identified as the husbandoriginates from another story in the Bavli, transmitted in the name ofR. Meir, that Pappos b. Yehuda, when he went out, used to lock his wife intheir house—obviously because he had reason to doubt her fidelity (b Git90a). This behavior on the part of Pappos b. Yehuda is quite drastically