Jesus and the Talmud

by Bob Johnson

Last week’s attackon a Christian monastery by Jews in occupied Palestine who painted anti-Christian graffiti, in this case they wrote “Jesus is a monkey,” on the walls of the monastery and who tried to burn the door down gives us a look behind the curtain of Judaism and one of its “sacred” guiding instruction manuals, the Talmud.The Talmud is a collection of writings by Jewish “holy” men and is often placed as being second only to the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament), although the Oral Torah is considered part of the Talmud. So, based on this fact, it appears Judaism teaches the Talmud is of equal importance to the Torah.

One unnatural and disgusting practice taught by the Talmud is metzitzah b’peh. This Jewish ritual calls for the rabbi/mohel who performs a circumcision on an infant boy to use his mouth to directly suck on the freshly cut and bleeding penis of the circumcised victim in order to remove blood. This repulsive Talmudic ritual has recently caused several infants to contract herpes from the rabbi/mohel and caused the death of at least one infant.

I don’t know enough about the Talmud to know if, like the Torah, it calls for Jewish superiority and for Israel to “be on high above all the nations of the earth” (Deuteronomy 28:1).  However, I’d be very shocked if it did not.

Regarding Jesus, who was the main target in the anti-Christian Jewish graffiti painted on the monastery, an enlightening book on the subject, Jesus in the Talmud, makes clear the anti-Jesus ideas found on the wall of the monastery are deeply rooted in the Talmud.

Peter Schafer, the author of Jesus in the Talmud, states in this book which sheds light on just how deep “revealed”/hearsay religions have sunk humanity in depravity, that the Talmud is “the most influential literary product of rabbinic Judaism . . .” Schafer points out that there are two Talmuds, a Jerusalem or Palestinian Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud and that Jesus is referred to in both. However, the Babylonian Talmud is the only one that deals with Jesus as a person and these writings about Jesus were written in “the late third — early fourth century C.E.” It seems the rabbis who wrote the Talmud looked at Jesus as “a failed and insubordinate rabbinical student” and as a heretical Jew.

In the largely esoteric Babylonian Talmud Jesus is not usually mentioned as Jesus but as “Ben Stada” and “Ben Pandera/Pantera.” Even though rabbis attempt to deny Ben Stada and Ben Pandera/Pantera actually represent Jesus, in Jesus in the Talmud Peter Schafer shows they are wrong.

The Babylonian Talmud states that Jesus was a bastard who was conceived by his mother who was cheating on her fiancee. As Schafer points out this is only mentioned “in the uncensored manuscripts and printed edition of the Bavli” (Babylonian Talmud). It is found at “Ms. Munich 95 (written 1342 in Paris), with some variations in the footnotes.”

It’s interesting that the Babylonian Talmud says that Jesus was not crucified by the Romans, but that he was, according to Jewish law, stoned to death and that his dead body was then hung on a tree by the Jews as the Jews had found Jesus guilty of sorcery and attempting to mislead Israel into idolatry. If this is correct, shouldn’t Christians be wearing stones around their necks instead of crosses and crucifixions?

Jesus is not the only target for the hatred of Judaism in the Talmud. The Roman leader Titus who was responsible for the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish temple is also attacked by the rabbis. According to the Talmud and the rabbis who wrote it, Titus is in the Netherworld being burned to ashes, then reassembled and then burned again with this going on for eternity!

According to the Talmud, the fate of Jesus is that he must sit for eternity in boiling excrement! The kind of god that would have the mentality to do things like these is beyond God-given reason. As the Deist and American founder Thomas Paine wrote in The Age of Reason, The Complete Edition (for Kindle version click here), “Belief in a cruel god makes a cruel man.”

If the Jewish teachings about Jesus found in the Talmud were more widely known it is very probable that the Christian Zionists like Pat Robertson and John Hagee, who are doing all they can to promote Israel and its desire for a US war with Iran, would lose millions of supporters. It’s time to get the word out!

Bob Johnson

Bob Johnson is a freelance writer in the Tampa area of Florida. He was raised Roman Catholic, but after a stint in Marine Corps infantry and reading Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason he became a Deist.

In 1993 he founded the World Union of Deists, and in 1996 he launched the first website devoted to Deism. He is the author of God Gave Us Reason, Not Religion, Deism: A Revolution in Religion, A Revolution in You and An Answer to C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. He has also written the introduction to Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason, The Complete Edition and Principles of Nature by Elihu Palmer.