Jesus in the Talmud

2. The Son/Disciple Who Turned out BadlyThe next stage in Jesus’ “career,” of which we find an echo in the Talmud,is his appearance as a quite grown-up son or disciple. To besure, the Talmud does not convey any information about Jesus’ growingup in his family or his youth, let alone about his education and his teachers;it just mentions him, again in passing, as an example of a son or a disciplewho turns out badly—the nightmare of any decent parent. Interestinglyenough, the New Testament, too, does not tell us much about Jesus’childhood: Matthew moves directly from his return from Egypt with hisparents after Herod’s death to his baptism as an adult in the Jordan byJohn the Baptist, his temptation in the desert, and then to his first publicappearance in Galilee; Mark starts with his baptism, temptation, and firstpublic appearance; and John opens his narrative with John the Baptist’stestimony about Jesus’ mission and his first disciples. It is only Luke whorelates the story about the twelve-year-old Jesus who, instead of joining hisparents on their trip back from Jerusalem to Nazareth, prefers to staycalmly in the Temple among the teachers in order to listen to them and toask them questions (Lk. 2:46).The talmudic story about the wicked son/disciple is preserved in twodifferent contexts. The first, in Bavli Sanhedrin 103a, presents itself as anexegesis of Psalm 91:10: 1