Jesus in the Talmud

20 Chapter 1These congruencies make it highly probable that both the Talmud andCelsus draw on common sources (most likely originally Jewish sources)that relate that Jesus of Nazareth was a bastard because his mother was anadulteress (Miriam) 31 and his father was her lover (Pandera/Panthera).Some scholars, most radically among them Johann Maier, want to concludefrom the fact that the name Panthera is relatively common in Latininscriptions 32 and that the spelling of its equivalent in the Hebrew sourcesvaries considerably, that there must have been some different Jesus withthe patronymic Panthera/Pandera/Pantiri (or similar forms) who cannotand should not be traced back to the one and only Jesus of Nazareth. 33 Althoughsuch a possibility cannot be excluded, it does not seem very likely.The different versions of the name Panthera are still similar enough to beattributed to the same person, and such an attribution certainly does notrequire that all of the various forms of the name be philologically tracedback to one ur-form (Panthera). 34 Moreover, and more important, thename is not common at all in Hebrew or Aramaic, and this fact alonemakes the connection with Celsus’ Panthera obvious.Celsus’ Jew in the late second century C.E. and the Babylonian Talmudin a presumably early fourth-century tradition refer to the samecounternarrative of Jesus’ family background, which evidently is an inversionof and polemic against the New Testament narrative of Jesus’ birth.Several motifs are characteristic:1. Jesus “returns” from Egypt as a magician. In the New Testament, Jesus’parents Mary and Joseph flee to Egypt with the newborn infant becauseKing Herod threatens to kill the child (Mt. 2:13ff.). Herod hadheard about Jesus from the magicians who came from the East to pay tributeto Jesus as the newborn King of the Jews (Mt. 2:2). Egypt was regardedin antiquity as the classical land of magic, 35 and Jesus is portrayed in theNew Testament 36 as well as in rabbinic sources 37 as someone with supernaturalpowers (healing, commanding the demons, etc.). That Jesus is labeleda magician in a derogatory sense is, therefore, an inversion of theNew Testament, which connects him (positively) with magicians, withEgypt, and with healing powers.2. Celsus portrays Jesus’ parents as poor: his father was a carpenter andhis mother a poor countrywoman who earned her living by spinning. The