Emile, thank you, now we can really try and see what is going on, and the "grave harm" we are talking about. By the way, if memory serves, the Mishna was written in the first 200 years of the Christian Era and the babylonian Talmud was completed close to about 500 of the Christian Era. I think this is quite important that in the early part of that period (before Christianity transited from one of the many different sects in Judaism, such as the Essene, and Pharisse, to a dominant religion outside the main stream of Judaism), Jesus is not mentioned in the Talmudic discussions.
Sanhedrin, 67a -- Jesus referred to as the son of Pandira, a soldier
Actually, I Believe it was Panthera, a Roman soldier. And this is cited in the name of Celsus (Contra Celsum 1:28,32), who supposedly said the he (Celsus) heard from a Jew that Miriam had been divorced by her Husband who suspected her of adultery, and that Jesus was born as the result of her secret affair with Panthera, the Roman Soldier. Of course, you can come and complain about washing dirty laundry in public, but if you know how talmudic discussions are structured, they always show multiple sides of every truth or situation, and the above was the "counter side" of another account that claimed that Jesus was the son of Pantira, as Epiphanus reports that Pantira was another name of Jacob, the father of Joseph, Father of Jesus (Adversus Haereses 3:78,7), and forgive me but I got lost in this argument as well. Now, in the Tosephta, there is nothing disparaging in the name Pantira, but it is found in the statement of a Third Century Babylonian amora (later days scholars vs the Tannais which were the earlier days scholars), I believe Rabenu Jacob ben Meir Tam, who suggest "tentatively" (and I should explain talmudic argument, where one advances a hypothesis just to negate it with a more powerful argument as Tam is doing below) that Ben Stada (the one mentioned in Sanh 67) was Jesus, and was hang in Lydda on the eve of passover. And it is this Ben Stada that was fathered by Pandira. However, Tam himself immediately negate the tentative assumption by pointing out that that Ben Stada must have lived 100 years after Jesus, and furthermore, Jesus dies in Jerusalem and not Lydda.
So by quoting one half of an argument which the advancer (Tam) himself claims to be "ridiculous" and prove to be unlikely, you plan to bring shame on a full nation?
Kallah, 1b. (18b) -- Illegitimate and conceived during menstruation.
I have not had time to research this one, but I will only say that it should be viewed as a rational argument as to the mystical origins of Jesus, nothing particularly derogatory nor inflamatory.
Sanhedrin, 67a -- Hanged on the eve of Passover. Toldath Jeschu.
Birth related in most shameful expressions
I believe this is the same Ben Stada (who, by the way, was apparently an Egyptian prophet a hundred years after Jesus trying to get his own ne religion started.
Abhodah Zarah II -- Referred to as the son of Pandira, a Roman
soldier.
Yes we discussed this, so What?
Schabbath XIV. Again referred to as the son of Pandira, the Roman. So what?
Schabbath, 104b -- Called a fool and no one pays attention to fools. Not only was he called a fool, in the very few time Jesus is mentioned in Talmudic studies, you would expect to see a critical review, after all, it was accepted that there would be no prophets after the destruction of the Temple and even "prophets like Jesus that appeared just before the fall the Hashmonaim house and the temple, as well as prophets like Ben Stada that appeared just after that would be looked upon with dubiety. I am surprised you did not cite the rare exact citation of Jesus name in the Talmud that states:
"May we produce no son or pupil who disgraces himself like Jesus of Nazarene" (Ber. 17 b; Sanh 103a). What did you expect them to embrace what they believed to be an heretic?
Finally your two citations on jewish "behavior"
Orach Chaiim, 113 -- Avoid appearance of paying respect to Jesus. and
Iore dea, 150,2 -- Do not appear to pay respect to Jesus by accident.
Since some of Jesus teaching appears to that Rabbinic Orthodoxy to be heretic, of course they would put a "Fence" around him and warn of not to "respect" his teachings nor even "appear" to do so by accident.
What is the big deal?
The fact of the matter is that jesus had very little significance to the mainstream of Persian and "Babylonian" Judaism at the time of the "closing" of the Talmud, and thus despite the fact that the two events (the writing of the Talmud and the establishment of Christianity as a major religion in the Eastern Empire (and possibly already in the western empire) are cotemporal, they are not "cogeographical" and there is surprisingly very little interaction between the two faiths during these first five hundred years.
The truth is that there is no need to see any contradiction between the two, both religion can easily leave side by side without any interference. By insisting on these inflamatory partial quotations from Judaic writings, you are forcing me to act in a way in which I might, inadvertantly offend the faith of other Christian, not having the nefarious motives that drive you. I may have probably done so in an earlier post when I brought up other "possibilities" for "rational explanation" for Immaculate conceptions, the truth is that for a believer, there is no need to expalin immaculate conception, it is taken on faith, because one believe. To those I may have offended in that post, I deeply apologize. I should have realized that when posting here to Emile, it is not Emile alone that read these lines but others as well, some of which may indeed, rightfully be offended at such statement. Forgive this breach, as it came from the momentary lapse of forgetting that not Emile alone reads these lines.
Zeev
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