Bernhard Pick

Jesus in the Talmud Bernhard Pick

Jesus as represented in the Talmud is a subject which must interest the Christian student. For what can be of profounder interest than to learn what the Jews have said concerning Jesus and Christianity. We naturally look to the Jewish historian Josephus, who described and witnessed the downfall of the Jewish commonwealth. But we are disappointed. True that in his "Antiquities" (XVIII, 3, 3) Josephus has reference to Christ, but scholars are now generally agreed1 that this passage is a later interpolation. Leaving then aside Josephus, we must turn to that encyclopaedia of "Jewish wisdom and unwisdom" which is known as the Talmud.