JSQ

Jewish
Studies
Quarterly

Volume 22 (2015) No. 4

Yair Furstenberg
The Midrash of Jesus and the Bavlis Counter-Gospel
Martha Himmelfarb
The Mother of the Seven Sons in Lamentations Rabbah
and the Virgin Mary
Arnon Atzmon
From Census to Atonement: Parshat Shekalim
in Pesikta de Rav Kahana and Pesikta Rabbati
Ayelet Seidler
Literary Devices in the Psalms:
The Commentary of Ibn Ezra Revisited

Mohr Siebeck

The Midrash of Jesus

and the Bavlis Counter-Gospel
Yair Furstenberg

Introduction
Palestinian rabbinic law strictly forbids handling books of heretics in
general and the Gospels in particular. Rather, any such book must be
destroyed. Thus in Tosefta Shabbat we read: The gilyonim and books
of the minim (heretics) are not saved from fire (on Shabbat). R.Yose
the Galilean says: On weekdays, one cuts out the divine names in them,
stores them away and burns the rest. Said R.Tarfon: May I bury my
sons if they (heretical books) come into my hand and I shall not burn
them and the divine names that are in them. If a murderer was running
after me, I would enter into a house of idolatry but not their house, for
idol-worshippers do not recognize Him and therefore deny Him, but they
recognize Him, yet they deny Him.1
The rare term gilyonim stands for a specific group of heretical books,
the Gospels (euangelion), and not fragments of parchments as some
scholars have interpreted.2 The Palestinian rabbis are unanimous in their
1Tosefta

Shabbat 13:5 (ed. Lieberman, 2:5859).

The Babylonian Talmud (BT Shabbat 116a) appends to this source the comments
of both R.Meir and R.Yohanan, who add the prefix awon/awen to gilayon, thus creating the word euangalion. Following comes the story of a philosopher/judge who
explicitly quotes the euangalion. In all probability, then, this section (in contrast to the
previous talmudic section that identifies gilayion as the margins of the scrolls) understands that gilyonim parallels the books of heretics. In fact, in this form the word is
mentioned only with the books of heretics and should therefore be interpreted accordingly (compare gilayon, margins, in Tosefta Yadayim 2:13 and 2:11). In addition,
the version of the Tosefta in the Palestinian Talmud (PT Shabbat 13:1 [15c]) implies
that the gilyonim include divine names and therefore cannot mean blank parchment. Lieberman therefore concludes that this is the simple meaning of the Tosefta
(Tosefta Kifshuta, 4:206). See further, S.Pines, Notes on the Parallelism between
Syriac Terminology and Mishnaic Hebrew (Hebrew), in Yaakov Friedman Memorial
Volume (Jerusalem: Institute for Jewish Studies, 1974) 2069. A.Schremer, Brothers
Estranged: Heresy, Christianity and Jewish Identity in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford
2

Jewish Studies Quarterly 22, 303324 DOI 10.1628/094457015X14437790456122

ISSN 09445706 Mohr Siebeck 2015
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strict banning of books of heretics. It is therefore not surprising that we

find no evidence of Palestinian rabbis having any direct knowledge of
the New Testament.3 Their experience of Christianity relates primarily
to their rivalry over Israel, the coming of the Messiah and the nature of
the divine through the interpretation of the Old Testament, rather than
the quality and meaning of the Christian textual heritage. Both rabbinic
and Christian sources locate the intra-religious disputes within the realm
of Old Testament exegesis.4
Babylonian material, however, suggests a new self-confident attitude
towards Christianity in general and the knowledge of Christian texts
in particular.5 From this position, the talmudic rabbis generated new
venues for disputation, turning to an offensive mode through the formulation of counter-narratives to the Gospel.6 Scholars have pointed out
University Press, 2010) 8486, challenged this interpretation and understands both
gilyonim and gilayon to mean fragments of parchment. One should note, however, that
while the Tosefta links the books of the heretics and the gilyonim, the Tannaim themselves (R.Tarfon and R.Ishmael) mention only books of heretics (compare also Sifre
on Numbers, sect. 16., ed. Horowitz, pp. 21).
3P.Schfer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007)
115116, discusses the relative (in his view) lack of reference to the New Testament in
Palestinian sources, but he offers a political explanation for this regional difference.
He assumes that under the direct and growing dominance of Christianity in Palestine
from the fourth century on, religious freedom was increasingly restricted by anti-Jewish legislation. Alternatively, H.M. Zellentin, Rabbinic Parodies of Jewish and Christian Literature (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011) 170, understands this phenomenon in
light of the heavily Romanized context of earlier rabbinic traditions, adopted by later
redactors. Consequently, they attempted to discredit Christianity by regarding it as a
variation on Pagan Roman practices. However, while the scope of allusion to Christianity in Palestinian sources in general is quite elusive, and therefore its significance is
hard to assess, the absolute silence with respect to the New Testament is unmistakable.
4The exegetical nature of the Jewish Christian exchange in Palestine is explicitly
acknowledged by the rabbis and demonstrated in the statement of R.Abahu, resident
of Caesarea. In reply to Christian officials, inquiring for the ability of Palestinian
rabbis to interpret Scripture, he explains, We who live in your midst make sure to
study it thoroughly (BT Avodah Zarah 4a). Justins Dialogue is a clear case of a Scripture-based dispute limited to Old Testament material. Trypho admits to have read the
Gospels (10:2) but is sorry that he did not listen to the Jewish teachers who warned
against such interaction with the heretics (38:1). See further M.Hirshman, A Rivalry
of Genius: Jewish and Christian Biblical Interpretation (Albany: State University of
New York Press, 1996).
5For example, Aphrahat (Demonstration 21:1 [On Persecution]) is greatly troubled by the reproach of a Jewish sage who sought to disprove Christianity with Gospel
verses; see J.Neusner, Aphrahat and Judaism: The Jewish Christian Argument in
Fourth Century Iran (Leiden: Brill, 1971) 97 (interestingly, Neusner, p.129, takes
care to distinguish between the Jewish sage and the talmudic rabbis concerning their
knowledge of the Gospels) and N.Koltun-Fromm, A Jewish Christian Conversation
in Fourth-Century Persian Mesopotamia, JJS 47 (1996) 4563.
6Schfer, Jesus in the Talmud, 89, claims that the allusions to Jesus in the Talmud

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The Midrash of Jesus and the Bavlis Counter-Gospel 

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the presence of both biographical facts about Jesus and references to

the New Testament that appear exclusively in the Babylonian Talmud.
Significantly, while an explicit quotation of the Sermon on the Mount
appears in the Babylonian Talmud (BT Shabbat 116b),7 I find no convincing example for the knowledge of the Gospels in rabbinic Palestine.8 Whereas earlier scholarship marginalized the significance of the
anti-Christian polemic in the Babylonian Talmud in comparison to its
Palestinian counterparts,9 scholars now ask not whether the Babylonian Talmud was mindful of Christianity, but what significance it held for
rabbinic culture in Babylonia.10
counter the major elements of Jesus biography in the Gospels rather than attempting to preserve pieces of information about the historical Jesus. Notwithstanding
the validity of the general argument, one should note that not all chapters are equally
convincing. Some talmudic depictions have no Gospel counterpart (such as Jesus as
a frivolous disciple of the rabbis), and some of the parallels suggested are somewhat
hard-pressed. For example, despite Schfers argument to the contrary, it is hard to
substantiate the claim that the accusation of sorcery and idolatry directly corresponds
to the Gospels claim for divine Sonship. We must therefore take into account the possibility that some parts of the talmudic biography of Jesus developed independently,
not as counter-narratives, owing to other traditions and interests.
7
O n the literary context of the Gospel quotation, see L.Wallach, The Textual
History of an Aramaic Proverb (Traces of the Ebionean Gospel), JBL 60 (1941) 403
415; E.E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, trans. I.Abrahams (2 vols.;
Jerusalem: Magnes, 1975) 1:302303 [ch. 12 n.50]; Zellentin, Rabbinic Parodies, 143
167; B.Visotzky, Overturning the Lamp, JJS 38 (1987) 7280.
8Zellentin, Rabbinic Parodies, dedicates chapters 5 and conclusion to Palestinian parodies of the New Testament. The story of Rasbhi (Bereshit Rabbah 79.56; ed.
Theodor and Albeck, 940945) demonstrates divine providence over each individual
bird and is reminiscent of Jesus saying in Matt 10:29. R.Eliezer moves a tree to prove
his halakhic view regarding the famous Oven of Achnai and may remind us of the
notion that with true faith one can uproot a tree (Luke 17:6, or a mountain according to
Mark 11:23 and Matt 21:21). However, one may doubt whether these sources directly
respond to the Gospels. The saying regarding the birds appears to be a popular proverb
both sources manipulate for their own needs, and the similarity with respect to the
miracles is somewhat superficial, since they reflect different concerns. In both cases,
the narrative as a whole hardly corresponds to the Christian counterpart, despite some
sporadic allusions to Christianity. For another attempt to identify a Gospel parody in
the Palestinian Talmud, see D.Stoekel Ben-Ezra, Parody and Polemics on Pentecost:
Talmud Yerushalmi Pesahim on Acts 2, in Jewish and Christian Liturgy and Worship: New Insights into Its History and Interaction, ed. A.Gerhards and C.Leonhard
(Leiden: Brill, 2007) 279294.
9See, for example, E.E. Urbach, The Repentance of the People of Nineveh and
the Discussions between Jews and Christians (Hebrew), Tarbiz 20 (1949) 118122.
According to Urbach, the Babylonian rabbis, in contrast to their Palestinian counterparts, were not concerned to degrade the value of the Ninevehs repenting, due to the
relative unimportance of Christianity in their region.
10M.Bar-Asher Siegal, Early Christian Monastic Literature and the Babylonian
Talmud (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013) 125. This tendency seems
to counter the explicit testimony of the Talmud concerning the difference between

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In this article I wish to follow in these footsteps and call attention to

a hitherto unnoticed case of textual allusion to the New Testament in a
Babylonian reformulation of an earlier Palestinian source.11 This case is
unique in two respects. First, whereas the relationship between the Gospel
narrative and the talmudic retelling of it is usually somewhat obscure, and
textual interdependency is admittedly not conclusive, the combination of
elements from a specific textual context serve to establish a strong case
for textual dependency. Second, through a sophisticated recasting of the
Gospel teaching, this case expands beyond parodying the image of Jesus
and select details in his biography, and constitutes an attempt to capture
the very root and essence of the Christian heresy. I argue that we should
understand this case, more than any other allusion to Jesus in the Talmud,
not merely as countering some element in the Gospel narrative, but rather
as encapsulating what we may term a counter-Gospel. The midrash the
Talmud puts in the mouth of Jesus is intended to invert the very meaning of Jesus salvific death. While it maintains the specific structure of
the symbolic system offered by the Gospel for messaging Jesus life and
death, the Talmud succeeds in overturning its meaning.

A Teaching of Heresy: Between Palestine and Babylonia

A short literary unit in Tosefta Hullin (2:1924), including the Laws
of the minim,12 reflects rabbinic unease with their close proximity to
Christ-followers in the fuzzy fabric of second-third century CE Palestinian society. As the text makes clear, this group posed a concrete and
R.Abahu the Palestinian and Rav Safra the Babylonian. Scholars have consequently
suggested reading this story more as a rhetorical device rather than a straightforward
depiction of the nature of the relations with Christians in both centers (see Bar-Asher
Siegal, 512 and n.63). However, the conclusion seems to still be valid: Babylonian
rabbis shifted the anti-Christian polemic to their opponents field and therefore were
less careful to study biblical exegesis.
11Recent scholarship has uncovered more encrypted satires of the Gospels in the
Babylonian Talmud. See for example, M.Halbertal and S.Naeh, Springs of Salvation: Exegetical Satire and Response to the Heretics (Hebrew), in Higayon LYona:
New Aspects in the Study of Midrash Aggadah and Piyut in Honor of Professor Yona
Frenkel, ed. J.Levinson etal. (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2006) 179198; and A.Amit, A
Rabbinic Satire on the Last Judgment, JBL 129 (2010) 679697. D.Boyarin, Socrates
and the Fat Rabbis (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2009) 253254, has suggested
that the story of R.Meir in BT Avodah Zarah 18ab includes a parody of the Aramaic
of Jesuss cry on the cross. As may be expected in such cases, not all suggestions are
equally persuasive, as the degree of correspondence between the two sets of motifs in
the two corpora is to a great degree a matter of judgment.
12Schremer, Brothers, 6986, coins this term in his analysis of the unit.

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immediate threat to which the rabbis responded through a discourse of

exclusion and the erection of artificial social boundaries. In order to safeguard their followers from the dangerous temptation of heresy, the rabbis
demanded complete seclusion of the minim, comparable to sectarian laws
of separation and even more severe than seclusion from Gentiles.13 The
difficulty of distinguishing the Jewish-Christians who lived amongst
the Jewish community and participated in prayer and ritual from all
others prompted a harsh secluding policy. This is, therefore, the starting
point for any discussion of the rabbinic attitude towards Christ-followers
in Palestine, who are explicitly identified here as minim.14
After it specifies how to identify a min and how to stay away from
him, the Tosefta employs two stories of rabbinic encounters with Christfollowers to demonstrate the danger of any such contact. The first of
these is closely related to the previous list of prohibitions, which include
the prohibition of being healed by a min. R.Eleazar ben Dama requests
that a Jesus-follower heal him in the name of Jesus (Son of Pantiri),15 but
dies before he can justify his request. In response, R.Ishmael praises
his death for saving him from breaking the rabbinic fences of separation
13
Despite the similarity to sectarian laws, Schremer, Brothers, 76, points to the
fundamental difference between the rhetoric of sectarian separation from the rest of
society and the Toseftas self-confident rhetoric of seclusion with respect the heretics.
See further, Schremer, Seclusion and Exclusion: The Rhetoric of Separation in
Qumran and Tannaitic Literature, in Rabbinic Perspectives: Rabbinic Literature and
the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium of the Orion
Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 79 January,
2003, ed. S.D. Fraade etal. (Leiden: Brill, 2006) 12745. See also D.Boyarin, Border
Lines: The Partition of Judeo-Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2004) 5467.
14Note, however, that while the editor of this unit in the Tosefta clearly identifies
Christians as minim, and therefore appends stories about Christ-followers to the laws
of minim, other references to minim in Tannaitic sources do not necessarily relate to
Christians and may represent other, maybe earlier groups. Thus, for example, some
of the ideas identified with minim in m. Megillah 4:7 closely resonate with Qumran
heretical notions.
15
T his appellation of Jesus alludes to the popular accusation of him being born
of a Roman solider, Panthera. See the quote from Origen, Contra Celsum, 1.32 in
Schfer, Jesus in the Talmud, 19. Only in the Babylonian Talmud he is named Yeshu
Ha-Notzri, Jesus of Nazereth, (as in the New Testament, e.g. Matt 2:23) and his followers Notzrim (as in Acts 25:5). See R.Kimelman, Birkat Haminim and the Lack
of Evidence for an Anti-Christian Prayer in Late Antiquity, in Jewish and Christian
Self Definition, ed. E.P. Sanders etal. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981) 226244. Signifi
cantly, also in Syriac sources non-Christians and Persian authorities name Christians
nasraya, similar to the usage in the Babylonian Talmud; see S.Brock, Some Aspects
of Greek Words in Syriac, in idem, Syriac Perspectives on Late Antiquity (London:
Variorum, 1984) 9195.

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from heretics. The second of these stories concerns R.Eliezer and sets
an even higher standard of caution from the threat of heresy:
There was a case with R.Eliezer, who was arrested on account ofminut
(heresy), and they brought him up to thetribunal for judgment. The governor said to him: Should an elder of your standing occupy himself in these
matters?! He said to him: I consider the Judge as trustworthy. That judgesupposed that he referred to him, but he referred only to his Father in heaven. He
said to him: Since you have deemed me reliable for yourself, I too have said
[to myself]: Is it possible that these gray hairs should err in such matters?!
[Surely not!]Dimissus,lo, you are released.
And when he left the court he was distressed to have been arrested on
account of matters ofminut.His disciples came in to comfort him, but he
was not convinced. R.Akiva entered and said to him: Rabbi, may I say something to you so that you will not be distressed? He said to him: Speak! He
said to him: Perhaps some one of theminimtold you a teaching ofminutthat
pleased you? He said to him: By Heaven, you have reminded me! Once I was
strolling in the street of Sepphoris, I bumped into Jacob of Kefar Sikhnin,
and he said a teaching ofminutin the name of Jesus son of Pantiri, and it
pleased me. I was therefore arrested on account of matters ofminut,for I
transgressed the teachings of Torah, Keep your way far from her and do not
go near the door of her house (Prov 5:8). For R.Eliezer would teach: One
should always flee from what is ugly and from whatever appears to be ugly.16

This illuminating story reveals the complexity of Palestinian social reality in the second and third centuries CE. Not only could a prominent
rabbinic figure be confused with a Christian and brought to trial before
a Roman court, but he is unable to dismiss such an accusation and must
admit to having associated to some degree with Christ-followers.17 However, our current point of interest lies not in the reconstruction of this
reality, but rather in R.Eliezers understanding of this unfortunate event,
which he takes to indicate his actual and dangerous slip towards Christianity. He has been justly punished for somehow partaking in minut,
however briefly, and not keeping away from the seductive woman
alluded to in his reference to the Proverbs verse. It is noteworthy that
whereas in the previous story it was only a matter of breaking the hedge
erected by the sages, R.Eliezer himself derives the commandment of
separation directly from Scripture: for I transgressed the teachings of
Torah. Beyond the verse quoted from Proverbs, he may be alluding in
this statement to another midrashic warning against the seduction of
minut: Do not follow after your own heart (Num 15:39). This refers to
minut, as Scripture says: And I find more bitter than death, the woman
16Tosefta
17See

Hullin 2:24 (trans. based on Schremer, Brothers, 88).

D.Boyarin, Dying for God (Stanford: Stanford University, 1999) 2641.

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whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He who
pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her (Eccl 7:26).18
What do we know of the seductiveness of heresy? What are the exact
teachings of minut that pleased R.Eliezer? The reader of the story in
the Tosefta obviously cannot expect to find an actual citation of Jesus
teaching, for the very point of the story is that exposure to these teachings and ideas is extremely dangerous. The rabbis would not want to provide a platform for these ideas, and therefore the integrity of the story is
in no way disrupted by the absence of Jesus teaching.
Yet, if we ask what was the nature of this teaching, we would probably be correct to associate it with the heretic involvement in scriptural activity, especially verses prone to Christological interpretation.
This assumed meaning of teaching of minut corresponds to Christian
Contra Judaeos literature, such as Justin Martyrs dialogue, but it also
emerges from the actual disputes with minim concerning biblical exegesis recorded in rabbinic literature.19 In other cases the heretical reading of Scripture is undermined by the favored rabbinic interpretation,
whereas here R.Eliezer fails to dismiss the attractive line of interpretation put forward by the followers of Jesus.
However, as we turn to the Babylonian version of the story in BT
Avodah Zarah 17a, a new meaning of the teaching of minut emerges:
Jesus dangerous teaching is transformed from the expected biblical
context into a rabbinic midrash. Following is R.Eliezers recollection
of his meeting with Yaakov of Kfar Sekhania according to the Babylonian Talmud:
R.Akiva entered and said to him: Rabbi, may I say something that you
have taught me? He said to him: Speak! He said to him: Perhaps you have
encountered some sort of minut, and it pleased you? He replied: Akiva, you
have reminded me. I was once walking in the upper market of Sepphoris
when I came across one of the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth [Yeshu HaNotzri], called Jacob of Kefar-Sekaniah, and he said to me: It is written in
your Torah,You shall not bring the hire of a harlot into the house of the
Lord your God (Deut 23:19) may such money be applied for building a
latrine for the High Priest? To which I made no reply. He went on and said
to me:Thus was I taught by Jesus: For of the hire of a harlot she gathered
them, and to the hire of a harlot shall they return (Mic 1:7) they came from
a place of filth, let them go to a place of filth. This teaching pleased me very
much, and that is why I was arrested for minut; for thereby I transgressed the
18Sifre

on Num 1:15 (ed. Horowitz, 126).

a list of such disputes, see R.T. Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash
(London: Williams and Norgate, 1903) 211291.
19For

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JSQ 22

words of the Torah, Keep your way far from her that is minut and do not
go near the door of her house that is the authorities.

This talmudic rendering of the story puts in Jesus mouth what seems to
be a particularly strange teaching, concerning despised issues such as
prostitution money and latrines. It therefore received opposing scholarly
assessments. Some have assumed that such a teaching can only be understood as an attempt to ridicule Jesus by means of toilet humor.20 Others,
on the other hand, have claimed this to be an acceptable form of rabbinic
discussion. After all, no topic is too bizarre or inappropriate for this
group. The teaching pleased R.Eliezer, who himself discussed the use
of prostitution money for various Temple needs, including the purchase
of the red heifer.21 Kalmin discounts the specific content of the teaching
and underscores the unique Babylonian tendency to depict Jesus as a
full-fledged rabbi.22 On this understanding, the Babylonian version of
the story does not ridicule Jesus, but rather credits him with the ability to
derive laws from Scripture in a rabbinic manner.
In the same vein, Schwartz and Tomson assert that Jesus quotes an
authentic rabbinic midrash chosen primarily to please R.Eliezer, as it
concurs with his halakhic stance.23 They assume this teaching may well
have been included in the original Palestinian version of the story, but
the Tosefta omitted it since its specific content was not crucial for conveying its main point. In their view, there was nothing heretical in this
teaching as such; the story simply warns us of the danger of associating with this group even if they hold to innocent-appearing Torah.24
Although the teaching is clearly the most remarkable difference between

20J.P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (vol. 1; New York:
Doubleday, 1991) 97.
21
Tosefta Parah 2:2. Since the red heifer is not slaughtered in the Temple but outside the camp, the rabbis dispute whether this case constituted the biblical prohibition
of bringing prostitution money to the House of the Lord (Deut 23:19).
22R.Kalmin, Christians and Heretics in Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity,
HTR 87 (1994) 157158. Compare BT Sanhedrin 107b, where Jesus is depicted as a
disciple of R.Joshua b. Perahya.
23
J.Schwartz and P.Tomson, When R.Eliezer Was Arrested for Heresy, JSIJ
10 (2012) 1214. Herford, Christianity in Talmud, 145, assumes as well that this is an
authentic teaching that circulated in Jewish-Christians circles during the second century (at the same time he doubts its attribution to Jesus himself).
24
T his view is also endorsed by Schfer, Jesus in the Talmud, 4446: It is not
important what has been said ... but rather who did it. However, unsatisfied with this
assumption, Schfer further suggests that R.Eliezer was in fact involved in prostitution (although the connection between R.Eliezers alleged actions and the teaching
remains unclear).

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the two versions of the story, its content plays no role in Schwartz and
Tomsons comparative analysis.
Boyarin offers a more sophisticated explanation for the later inclusion
of the midrash by the editors of the talmudic version. Although he too
holds that it is an appropriate discussion within rabbinic parameters, he
contends that it was created by the talmudic editor to symbolically convey
the nature of heretical seductiveness.25 The use of prostitution money
was a living question within eastern Christianity of the fourth century,
and therefore the editors of the Talmud employed this issue for setting
discursive boundaries between the communities. Heresy is homologous
with prostitution, and as one may not take the hire of the prostitute for
anything connected to holiness, one may not be pleased by the Torah of
the heretic, since its source is in impurity. The neutral appearance of the
teaching, like that of money, cannot disguise its debased nature.
The quality of a midrash on prostitution money and latrines may be
a matter of taste, and the oddity of many rabbinic exegetical interpretations may encourage us to see this case as just another example of
rabbinic legal discourse. Yet this begs the question: in what sense is
it appropriate to designate this teaching as heresy? As we have seen,
scholars have attempted to dismiss this question by assuming that the
content was legitimate and only its source dangerous.
At the same time, considering the talmudic ingenuity of fabricating a
teaching of Jesus (the only one in the Talmud), it seems appropriate to
attempt a more rigorous interpretation of the details, including the ostensibly unnecessary and demeaning reference to the High Priests latrine.
Notably, scholars who have analyzed this story downplay this reference by preferring the version found in Qohelet Rabbah, where Jesus
addresses the possibility of using the money for charitable public building in general.26 This rendering, however, is clearly a later attempt of the
25Boyarin,

Dying for God, 97100.

See Boyarin, Dying for God, 100; Schfer, Jesus in the Talmud, 44. The Qohelet Rabbah version runs as follows: Once I went along the paved road of Sepphoris
where a man called Yaakov from Kfar Sekhnia came up to me and told me something
in the name of Jesus ben Pandera, which pleased me. This is what it was: It is written
in your Torah, You shall not bring a hire of a harlot or the wage of a dog. What is to
be done with them? I said to him: They are forbidden. He said to me: They are forbidden for offerings, but are allowed for disposal. I asked: Then what can they be used
for? He said to me: They can be used to make bathhouses and privies. I said: You have
spoken well, and the law escaped my memory at the time. When he saw that I acknowledged his explanation, he added: Thus said Ben Pandera, From excrement they came
and to excrement they shall go, for it is written For of the hire of a harlot she gathered them and to the hire of a harlot shall they return, privies for the public (Qohelet
Rabbah 1:24, on Eccl 1:8, trans. M.G. Hirshman, Midrash Qohelet Rabbah: Chapters
26

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Midrash to soften the original talmudic version.27 Furthermore, the main

conclusion i.e., what comes from a place of filth must go to a place of
filth seems purposeless if the mere intention of the teaching is to demonstrate the prohibition of accepting Torah from heretics.
In light of these questions, I would like to offer an interpretive key
for understanding the strange midrash attributed to Jesus. Since the reference to teaching of heresy is an opportunity for the talmudic editors to encapsulate their understanding of Christianity in its founders
own words, we may ask whether in some way this teaching represents
the essence of heresy in rabbinic eyes. My contention is that it is specifically here in the Talmuds most striking addition that we find its main
point of innovation and get a glimpse into the nature of the Babylonian
response to the New Testament. The teaching is no less than a subversive
rendering of the Gospel, and the most distinctive expression of a talmudic counter-Gospel.

The Babylonian Biography of Jesus

Jesus asks whether prostitution money consecrated to the Temple may
be used for building a latrine for the High Priest and provides the answer
that whatever comes from a place of filth is bound to find its way back to
a place of filth, that is, the latrine.

14 Commentary [ch. 1] and Introduction (PhD diss., Jewish Theological Seminary,

1983) pt.3, pp. 7981.
27
Scholars have debated the extent of Babylonian materials in Qohelet Rabbah. In
his work Hirshman established the claim that even when there seems to be a Babylonian parallel, the midrash represents an independent Palestinian tradition; Midrash
Qohelet Rabbah, pt.1, pp.105107. Since many of these cases are presented within a
Palestinian framework, Hirshman understands this to be a proof of their Palestinian
provenance. However, in our case there can hardly be any doubt that the Midrash is
drawing both on Palestinian and on Babylonian materials. Hirshman admits that the
story as it stands in Qohelet Rabbah is composed of two sources (pt.2, p.55). There
is a clear transition in the text, from the Tosefta version to the Bavlis addition. First
comes the Palestinian version (Yaakov from Kfar Sekhnia came up to me and told
me something in the name of Jesus ben Pandera, which pleased me); then comes the
transitional phrase (This is what he told me), which is followed by a teaching parallel to the Bavli. Furthermore, immediately following this story comes a saying of
Rav Hisda, the Babylonian Amora, who comments on the story in the Bavlis version.
Clearly then the midrash is using the Bavli, although some of the details of exchange
between R.Eliezer and Jesus follower are revised. See D.Rokeakh, Ben Stara Is Ben
Panthera: Towards the Clarification of a Philological Historical Problem (Hebrew),
Tarbiz 39 (1969) 918.

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The first key for unlocking the meaning of this teaching appears in
the surprising correlation between all these details and the biographical facts about Jesus in the Babylonian Talmud. In other words, in his
teaching Jesus is talking about himself, his roots and his fate. The talmudic teaching links together into one overarching narrative facts about
Jesus that are spread in the Talmud, thus uncovering the very nature of
heresy. The destination of the money represents the fate of Jesus and the
meaning of his death.
Early sources attest to a popular accusation about Jesus origin. Celsus,
quoted by Origen, claims that Jesus mother was convicted of adultery and
driven out by her husband; she wandered around in a disgraceful way and
bore a child by a certain solider named Panthera.28 Although the Baby
lonian Talmud does not supply a coherent account of Jesus pedigree, it
adopts the slandering description of Marys adulterous behavior. In its
discussion of the prohibition of scratching/tattooing on Shabbat,29 the
Talmud mentions a tradition about a son of Stada who brought witchcraft
from Egypt by means of scratches in his flesh. The Talmud assumed this
story refers to Jesus, and therefore asked: Was the son of Stada not the
son of Panthera? and Rav Hisda replies: The husband was Stada, and
the cohabiter was Panthera. Later the Talmud adds that his mother was
Miriam who braids women (megadla neshayya), which may hint, as
Schfer has suggested, to her indecent occupation.30 Finally, the Talmud
concludes that Stada was not his fathers name but rather the appellation
of the mother Miriam, denoting her adulterous ways (sotah). Although
this source does not go as far as to explicitly blame Mary for prostitution,
the assertion that Jesus was a mamzer, born of an adulterous mother with
dubious occupation and a Roman soldier, is close enough.
In the Babylonian Talmud, Jesus not only originated from indecency,
but he also ended up in a place of filth. Befitting the destiny of prostitution money, Jesus finds himself in what may be aptly labelled the latrine
28Origen,

Contra Celcum 1:2832. See Schfer, Jesus in the Talmud, 19.

BT Shabbat 104b; BT Sanhedrin 67a.
Jesus in the Talmud, 1821. The phrase megadla neshaya with respect
to Miriam is regularly understood to denote her profession as a hairdresser, since the
verb g-d-l may stand for plaiting the hair. Notably, however, the Talmud manuscripts
rarely refer to the hair explicitly (megadla sear neshaya). At the same time, the verb
also means to rear, as we find in another story about Miriam in BT Hagigah 4b. The
Angel of Death ordered his messenger to bring Miriam Megadla Neshaya, and instead
he brought Miriam Megadla Dardeke, i.e. Miriam the nursemaid (lit., who brings up
children). It is suggestive therefore that the word megadla would have the same sense
in both phrases, and therefore possibly the Angel of Death requested to bring the sinful
woman who nurtured women (as prostitutes).
29

30Schfer,

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of the High Priest. The story of the Temple destruction in the Bavli concludes with a graphic description of Jesus fate in the afterlife.31 Following the tormented death of Titus, despised destroyer of the Temple, the
Talmud introduces his nephew, Onqelos, who wanted to convert to Judaism. To help him out with the decision, he raises from the dead the ghosts
of three of his heroes: his uncle Titus,32 the prophet Balaam, and Jesus.
The first two, who suffer great punishments worthy of their bad deeds in
this world, advise him not to convert, although they admit that the Jews
hold a higher status in the afterlife. Unsatisfied with their answers,
He (Onqelos) then went and raised by incantations Jesus of Nazareth. He
asked him: Who is in repute in the netherworld? He replied: Israel. What
about joining them? He replied: Seek their welfare; seek not their harm.
Whoever touches them touches the apple of His eye.

In contrast to the advice of (the Gentile) Titus and Balaam, (the Jewish)
Jesus encourages Onqelos to convert.
Onqelos then proceeds to his second question, regarding punishment
in the world to come. The previous dialogues with Titus and Balaam
made it clear that they are punished measure for measure, or in the
words of the Talmud, as they have ruled upon themselves. Titus, who
burned the Temple and asked that his body be burnt and his ashes scattered upon the seven seas so the God of the Jews would not lay hold of
him, is punished in an endless cycle of burning, dispersing and re-gathering. Balaam, who enticed the Israelites into sexual transgression with
the Moabite women (Num 31:16), is punished with boiling hot semen: the
same substance through which he sought to harm the Israelites becomes
the cause of his suffering. The reader then expects the same kind of
retributive punishment with respect to Jesus. The story continues: He
(Onqelos) said:What is your punishment?He replied:With boiling hot
excrement, since it has been taught:Whoever mocks the words of the
sages is punished with boiling hot excrement.The Talmud finally adds:
Observe the difference between the sinners of Israel and the prophets of the other nations who worship idols. Thus in his afterlife Jesus
suffers in boiling excrement for mocking the words of the sages. Besides
31BT

Gittin 56b57a.
the possible anti-Christian undertones of the Titus story immediately preceding the Onqelos narrative and the legends of the destruction in general, see Y.Y.
Yuval, Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California, 2006) 3855. Compare
J.Levinson, Tragedies Naturally Performed: Fatal Charades, Parodia Sacra and the
Death of Titus, in Jewish Culture and Society under the Christian Roman Empire, ed.
R.Kalmin and S.Schwartz (Louvain: Peeters, 2003) 349382.
32For

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this being an especially cruel and repulsive punishment, the logic of the
story requires as Schfer has correctly pointed out33 that the specific
punishment fit the nature of the sin, as in the case of Titus and Balaam.
On what grounds does the Bavli blame Jesus for mocking the words
of the sages, and why did he deserve this specific punishment? The story
of Onqelos and Jesus does not supply much of a background. However,
the statement, Whoever mocks the words of the sages is punished with
boiling hot excrement, also appears in BT Eruvin 21b within a long discussion on rabbinic authority and discloses the larger framework of the
talmudic treatment of Jesus. Shaye Cohen has recently suggested understanding the elaborate discussion in Eruvin as a developed response to
the attack against the authority of the Pharisees and their tradition in
Mark 7/Matthew 15.34 I would further claim that the story of the afterlife of Jesus in Gittin and the discussion on rabbinic authority in Eruvin
represent different sides of one comprehensive response to those arguments in the Gospels. These sources complement each other and cannot
be understood separately.35
The Eruvin text strings together [A] a warning against mocking the
words of the rabbis, [B] praise of R.Akiva for his willingness to die
rather than transgress the decree of hand washing, and [C] heavenly
approval of Solomons enactment of hand washing before a meal:
[A] And much study is a weariness of flesh (Eccl 12:12). R.Papa, son
of R.Aha b. Adda, stated in the name of R.Aha b. Ulla: This teaches that
whoever mocks the words of the sages is condemned to boiling excrement.
Rava objected: Is it written mock? Rather, what is written is study.
Hence, he who studies them [the words of the sages] feels the taste of meat.
[B] Our rabbis taught: R.Akiva was once confined in a prison-house, and
Joshua the grits-maker was attending him. Every day they would bring him
a specific quantity of water. One day the prison keeper met him and said to
him, Your water today is rather much; do you perhaps require it for undermining the prison? He poured out half of it and handed him the other half.
When he came to R.Akiva, the latter said to him, Joshua, do you not know
33

Schfer, Jesus in the Talmud, 9091.

Antipodal Texts: B.Eruvin 21b22a and Mark 7:123 on the Tradition of the Elders and the Commandment of God, in Envisioning Judaism: Studies
in Honor of Peter Schfer on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, ed. R.S. Boustan etal. (3 vols.; Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013) 965983.
35My understanding of the textual relationship between the two texts differs from
that of both Cohen and Schfer. While they seek to determine the original context of
the shared saying, thus determining the primacy of that sugya, I propose examining
the shared roots of the two discussions as a whole. In this case, neither of the contexts
can be considered as original or secondary, since they both point towards the same
background required for understanding them.
34S.J.D.Cohen,

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that I am an old man and my life depends on yours? When the latter told
him all that had happened, he said to him, Give me some water so that I may
wash my hands. It will not suffice for drinking, the other complained; will it
suffice for washing your hands? What can I do, R.Akiva replied, when for
(neglecting) it (hand washing) one deserves death? It is better that I should
bring about my own death rather than transgress the opinion of my colleagues. They said he (Akiva) tasted nothing until he (Joshua) had brought
him water and he washed his hands.36 When the sages heard of this incident,
they said: If he was so (scrupulous) in his old age, how much more must he
have been so in his youth; and if he (behaved) so in prison, how much more
(so must he have behaved) when not in prison.
[C] R.Judah stated in the name of Samuel: When Solomon enacted eruv
and the washing of hands, a heavenly voice issued and proclaimed: My son,
if your heart be wise, my heart too will be glad (Prov 23:15), and furthermore, it is said in Scripture: My son, be wise, and make my heart glad, that I
may answer him who taunts me (Prov 27:11).

Hand washing is the cornerstone of the talmudic apology for rabbinic

non-scriptural decrees. This association, however, is hardly a talmudic
innovation. The role of hand washing as the ultimate manifestation of
rabbinic deviance from Scripture is expressed already in the refutation
of the Pharisees tradition in Mark 7/Matthew 15.37 It is hardly a coincidence that both antipodal texts concerning non-scriptural rabbinic/
Pharisaic law focus primarily on hand washing. The Talmuds attempt to
elevate the status of hand washing and adduce divine validation of this
decree echoes Jesus first complaint against this custom in Mark:
[1] Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from
Jerusalem gathered around him, [2] they noticed that some of his disciples
were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. . [5] So the
Pharisees and the scribes asked him, Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands? [6] He said to
them, Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, This
people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; [7] in vain
do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines. (Isa 29:13) [8]
You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.
36
T his story appears only in the Bavli; however, a parallel story (and a possible
source for this one) appears in Tosefta Berachot 2:13 (ed. Lieberman, 89). R.Meir
mentions an incident of studying with R.Akiva during the period of persecution,
while a Roman quaesitor (investigator) was standing outside the door, and (as appears
from the context) they were unable to purify adequately for the reciting of the Shema.
37
In addition, any disproval of hand washing carries the harshest of consequences.
This is the background for the brief and enigmatic reference to the excommunication
of an otherwise unknown Eliezar ben Hind/Hanach (?) who undermined hand purification, and when he died the bet din put a stone on his coffin, for anyone who is
excommunicated, his coffin is stoned (M.Eduyot 5:9).

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Jesus goes on to attack the human traditions of the Pharisees with respect
to vows; he also proceeds to dismiss the value of hand washing as means
for purification.38 However, the core issue concerns the invalidity of
human additions to the Torah such as hand washing, and this is the very
claim the Eruvin text seeks to undermine. Is it possible then to establish a connection between the two opposing texts? Does the Eruvin text
know Mark 7/Matthew 15? Shaye Cohen, who called attention to the
thematic affinity between the two texts, found no decisive evidence for
textual interdependency and chose to leave this question unresolved.39
However, talmudic attention to Mark 7 is not limited to the above issues.
Schfer has pointed to another possible connection between Mark7/Matthew 15 and the talmudic discussion Jesus punishment for mocking the
words of the sages in the Onqelos narrative.40 Schfer suggests that Jesus
is punished in boiling excrement for mocking the Pharisees for their hand
washing in Mark 7/Matthew 15. After attacking Pharisaic tradition in
general, Jesus returns to challenge this specific practice:
[14] Then he called the crowd again and said to them, Listen to me, all of
you, and understand: [15] there is nothing outside a person that by going in
can defile, but the things that come out are what defile. [17] When he had
left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. [18] He said to them, Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not
see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, [19] since it
enters not the heart but the stomach and goes out into the latrine?41 Thus he
declared all foods clean.

The Pharisaic concern with the purity of what enters the body is futile,
Jesus claims, since this impurity has no real effect on the person. What
we should really worry about is what comes out of our hearts, such as evil
intentions, fornication, pride and folly (Mark 7:2123/Matthew 1819).
In face of this refutation, the rabbinic imagination bestows upon Jesus
a punishment that overturns his own teaching and derides him through
his own argument. Since Jesus claims that hand washing is unnecessary because impure food transformed into excrement is of no consequence, he is punished by continually experiencing its revolting effect.
By employing such disdainful language and unpleasant associations in
38For a detailed analysis of Jesus argument, see Y.Furstenberg, Defilement Penetrating the Body: A New Understanding of Contamination in Mark 7:15, NTS 54
(2008) 176200.
39Cohen, Antipodal Texts, 980982 (and n.82).
40Schfer, Jesus in the Talmud, 91.
41Notably, the same word, latrine (aphedrn), appears also in the Matthean parallel (15:17). In most Syriac versions the word is translated as excrement.

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his reference to the Pharisaic tradition, Jesus has brought upon himself
this very same imagery. The rabbinic description of Jesus fate is not
only grotesque and nasty, it is also a pointed response to his own dismissal of bodily functions.
In fact Schfer does not hold fast to the explanation he himself raised
and suggests a different line of interpretation. He concludes that the talmudic punishment responds to Jesus call to his followers to eat his body
and drink his blood (Matt 26:2628), as if the excrement represents the
result of this blasphemous meal. Schfer admits this to be quite speculative, as the textual association is indirect and imageries quite remote
at best. However, alongside his preference for an image of the talmudic Jesus as a heretic rather than a mere scorner of rabbinic teachings, Schfer claims that the reference to Jesus mockery of the words
of the rabbis seems to be a secondary addition into the narrative from
the Eruvin text. After the punishment is given as boiling hot excrement, the Talmud adds since it has been taught:Whoever mocks the
words of the sages is punished with boiling hot excrement. Possibly
then, Schfer suggests, the original reason for this punishment was different, and only the quotation of the saying from the Eruvin text created
this association.42 However, the overall picture surveyed here suggests a
strong inherent connection between the two talmudic sources.
Read separately, each of the two talmudic sources suggests a possible
point of confluence with Mark 7/Matthew 15, but the extent of literary
dependency remains obscure. The Eruvin text focuses on hand washing
in justification of rabbinic decrees, and the Onqelos narrative hints at an
acquaintance with the latter part of Mark 7, specifically v.19. Indeed,
as the works of Schfer and Cohen show, each of these sources in itself
does not supply conclusive evidence for the Talmuds familiarity with
the Gospel text. However, the two rabbinic sources are inseparably intertwined; they comprise different parts of one talmudic argumentation and
neither cannot be fully understood on its own. The punishment for scorning rabbinic teachings quoted in the Onqelos narrative is only roughly
linked to the Ecclesiastes verse and remains inexplicable in the Eruvin
text, while it makes sense primarily with respect to specific sayings of
Jesus. At the same time, the issue of hand washing is not explicitly mentioned with respect to the punishment of Jesus, while standing at the
heart of the Eruvin apology for rabbinic decrees. The juxtaposition of the
explicit reference to Jesus and his punishment and the justification of the
rabbinic decree of hand washing creates a cluster of notions included in
42Schfer,

Jesus in the Talmud, 9294.

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the thematic composition of Mark 7/Matthew 15, which suggests a comprehensive response to the Christian text.
While the discussion in Eruvin presents a full-fledged response to
Jesus critique, the story of Jesus punishment in the underworld proves
the Talmuds close knowledge of specificities and undertones of this
same Gospel pericope. To his general claims against Pharisaic tradition,
Jesus adds an insulting reference to the latrine, demeaning the value
of hand washing. In response, the Talmud, besides assigning divine
approval to hand washing, condemns Jesus to spend his afterlife in the
latrine. In other words, Jesus ends up in what may aptly be considered as
the latrine of the High Priest.
This multifaceted response to the arguments of Jesus in Mark 7/Matthew 15 is therefore one of the most revealing expressions of the Bavlis
knowledge of the New Testament as a textual composition, beyond the
general themes associated with Jesus and Christianity alluded to in rabbinic literature. Considering this background, we may now return to the
textual foundations of the heretical teaching put in the mouth of Jesus
by the editors of the Babylonian Talmud, which dangerously delighted
R.Eliezer.

The Price of the Precious One

In rabbinic imagery, he who came from filth and returned to filth, originated from prostitution and was hurled into the High Priests latrine is
of course none other than Jesus. In other words, the teaching that pleased
R.Eliezer is not merely a random example of heretical thought and
exegesis, but rather an encapsulation of the root of heresy, represented in
the subversive image of Jesus biography. Like money from prostitution,
he is worthy only of impure functions and condemned to a repulsive
fate. This concealed meaning of the midrash of Jesus was surely grasped
by R.Eliezer (of the Bavlis version), and it offers new meaning to his
pleasure from the teaching. Whereas in its original Palestinian context
R.Eliezer admits his appreciation of heretical ideas and exegesis, the
Babylonian version removes any trace of such fault. R.Eliezer hears the
teaching of heresy and enjoys the unconscious recognition on the part of
Jesus and his disciples of the nature of their heresy, its roots and fate. The
editor of the Babylonian version devises a teaching about heresy based
on a knowledge of its textual foundations.
However, the encoded meaning of the teaching as a symbol of Jesus
biography and nature is only one of two keys for unlocking this teaching.

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In what follows, I argue for a direct New Testament counterpart against

which the talmudic teaching was devised. As we have seen, scholars
have discussed whether this halakhic issue is characteristic of the rabbis,
but have overlooked the direct source of this issue in the Christian canon.
I claim that the Gospel of Matthew has already addressed this very question and offered a surprisingly similar solution to this halakhic issue. In
light of our previous discussion, the talmudic revision of the heretical
teaching seems to suggest an inverted alternative to the Gospel teaching.
The halakhic question concerning the consecration of sin money,
which stands for the value of Jesus himself, is strikingly close to the case
brought before the high priests concerning Jesuss blood money consecrated by Judas. In Matthew 27 we read:
[3] When Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he repented
and brought back the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. [4]
He said, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. But they said, What
is that to us? See to it yourself. [5] Throwing down the pieces of silver in
the temple, he departed; and he went and hanged himself. [6] But the chief
priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, It is not lawful to put them into the
treasury, since they are blood money. [7] After conferring together, they
used them to buy the potters field as a place to bury foreigners. [8] For this
reason that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. [9] Then was
fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah, And they
took the 30 pieces of silver, the price of the one on whom a price had been
set, on whom some of the people of Israel had set a price, [10] and they gave
them for the potters field, as the Lord commanded me.43

Two accounts of the fate of Judas appear in the New Testament, and they
differ both in their assessment of Judas and in the explanation of the
field of blood. In Acts 1:1819 Judas buys the field with the rewards
of his wickedness and receives his punishment in it: he falls headlong
and bursts open in the middle of the field stained with the blood of his
gushing bowels.44 Matthew shares the tradition that Judas betrayal
43Translation

according to NRSV.
The Aramaic name of the field, Akeldama, appears only in Acts and is translated
as, Field of Blood. Alongside the Gospels etiology, some have suggested alternative
explanations for the name. The Greek transliteration (akeldamach) may denote, field
of dead (demah), i.e., cemetery. Alternatively, Yadin proposed the field received
the blood of the Temple sacrifices; see Y.Yadin, The Temple Scroll (3 vols.; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1983) 1:224). A third suggestion reads, field of tears
(dema), as in m. Ahilot 18:4 (according to some textual witnesses): a field of tears
is not planted and not sown; its soil is pure and one may make with it ovens for hallowed foods. This mishnah knows of a burial area called Field of Tears, whose soil
is fit for producing clay vessels (ovens), as implied by the Matthean narrative below.
See D.Rosenthal, Akeldama: Field of Tears, Mehqerei Talmud: Talmudic Studies
44

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money was used for purchasing the land known as the Field of Blood,
but the blood is that of Jesus, whose price funded the field. To a great
degree, the Matthean revision of the traditional material and the specific way he develops the theme of Jesus blood money is indebted to
Zechariahs prophecy paraphrased in verses 910 (and misattributed to
Jeremiah), which he believes was fulfilled through this incident.45 The
exact wording and meaning of Zech 11:13 have posed quite a challenge
to commentators,46 but the verse provided Matthew with a starting point
for completing the Judas episode by highlighting the significance of the
unique concept of the price of the Lord.
In an exceptionally opaque phrase, Zechariah refers to what may be
most literally translated as the price of the value by which they have
valued me (eder ha-yqar asher yaqarti me-aleyem). According to the
Masoretic text, God commands the prophet to throw this sum of 30 pieces
of silver to the house of the Lord, and then he throws it to the house of the
Lord and to the potter. Building upon this hint at the value of the Lord
(the value ... they have valued me), Matthew ingeniously constructs
a narrative that would combine all elements in the verse. First, Judas
throws the 30 pieces of silver equivalent to the price of the valued one
into the Temple treasury (house of the Lord), but from there the priests
transferred it to the potter in exchange for the field.47 The narrative
Dedicated to the Memory of Professor Eliezer Shimshon Rosenthal, ed. M.Bar-Asher
and D.Rosenthal (Hebrew; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1993) 490516.
45For an in-depth study of the formation of the literary unit from its source material and the relationship between the narrative and the fulfillment quotation from
Zachariah, see D.P. Senior, The Fate of the Betrayer, ETL 48 (1972) 372426 (repr.
in idem, Passion Narrative According to Matthew: A Redactional Study [Leuven:
Leuven University Press, 1982] 343397). As Senior stresses, almost every element in
the narrative setting reflects the content of the Old Testament quotation. He concludes
that although Matthews starting point is the aetiological legend shared with Acts,
associating the field of blood with the death of Judas, his major interest lies in the
fulfilment of the biblical prophecy.
46
In the previous verse the prophet received 30 pieces of silver after quitting his
work as a careless shepherd, but the following sequence of events is extremely puzzling, both with respect to syntax and vocabulary. Possible translations include: Then
the Lord said to me, Throw it to the potter the lordly price at which I was priced by
them. So I took the 30 pieces of silver and threw them into the House of the Lord, to the
potter (ESV); So they weighed out my wages, 30 shekels of silver the noble sum
that I was worth in their estimation. The Lord said to me, Deposit it in the treasury
etc. (JPS, vv.1213). The Septuagint transmits an alternative reading of the oppositional phrase (eder ha-yqar asher yaqarti me-aleyem), which solves some of the
obscurities in the Masoretic text: And the Lord said to me, Drop them into the furnace, and I will see if it is genuine, as I have been proven for them. And I took the 30
pieces of silver and cast them into the furnace in the House of the Lord.
47
A lternatively, Matthew knew both interpretations of the word yotzer and

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thus follows closely all the components of the prophecy; at the same
time, this Matthean midrash does not supply any underlying rational for
the narrative. Why did the priests not accept the money but redirect it to
the potters field, and for what purpose? At this point, the laws of consecration come into play.
There is no explicit prohibition against dedicating blood money to the
Temple. However, commentators agree that the scriptural source for the
priests reluctance to use Judas sinful revenue is Deut 23:19: You shall
not bring the hire of a harlot and a price of a dog into the house of the
Lord your God. The priests assert that defiled money tainted by sin may
not be used for Temple needs, and they arrive at the solution of using the
money for purchasing a burial ground for strangers.48 But the Gospel
offers no hint where this solution comes from. Is Matthew preserving a
historical memory of the actual usage of the Field of Blood for burying
strangers in Jerusalem?49 Alternatively, the reference to the potter and
the shedding of innocent blood may have led Matthew to Jeremiah 19,
where the prophet symbolically breaks a potters vessel and prophesies
the death of innumerable victims with no place of burial.
These conjunctures are plausible; however, we should pay special
attention to the inner logic of the priests solution. According to Matthews narrative, the purchase of the potters field follows Gods commandment imbedded in the ancient prophecy. The purchase of a burial
field must therefore be conceived of as a most worthy cause, and not
only a last recourse for removing impure money from the Temple precincts and the priests responsibility. In other words, the price of Jesus,
the valued one, may be used only for the most treasured of purposes,
although it is may not be brought to the House of the Lord.
Rabbinic tradition recognizes one thing that precludes participation in
the Temple worship but at the same time takes priority over it: the treatment
combined them into one narrative. See R.L. Smith, Micah-Malachi (Word Biblical
Commentary 32; Wako: Word Books, 1984) 2712.
48Commentators commonly suggest that the field was purchased for the burial of
non-Jews, who were not allowed to be buried in the same cemetery as Jews. See, for
example, D.A. Hagner, Matthew (Word Biblical Commentary 33a and b; Dallas: Word
Books, 19931995) 33b:813. Alternatively, and more plausibly, Matthew is talking
about non-residents, who have no place for burial in the Jerusalem area and depend
on public funding.
49As early as Eusebius, Akeldama was identified to the south of Mount Zion, above
the Kidron Valley. The site indeed includes tombs from the Herodian period, and its
proximity to the Hinnom Valley would imply the plausibility of this identification.
However, the tombs found there are high class and elegant, suitable to the Jerusalem
elite much more than a burial place for foreigners. See Leen and Kathleen Ritzmeyer,
Akeldama: Potters Field or High Priests Tomb? BAR 20/6 (1994) 2235, 7678.

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The Midrash of Jesus and the Bavlis Counter-Gospel 

323

of the dead who have no one to take care of them overrides both Temple
worship and priestly purity. Thus, for example we read in the Sifra, concerning the priests prohibition of contracting corpse impurity:
No one should make himself unclean for the dead among his people (Lev
21:1): It is only when the dead persons people are present and can take care
of their own dead that the priest may not defile himself; he must however
defile himself in case of a met mitzvah, a forsaken corpse in need of burial.50

The Sifra then instructs any priest, even the High Priest, to carry out the
obligation (mitzvah) of burying such a foreigner, even though this disqualifies him from Temple worship.
This principle of met mitzvah, the ultimate act of benevolence more
important than Temple worship, seems to have supplied the foundation
for the use of Judas money in the Matthew narrative. The blood money
is not simply diverted to public expense in general, but to the one thing
that captures its full significance: This money embodies at one and the
same time both the value of Jesus, who is greater than the Temple (Matt
12:67), and the criminal and defiling manner of his death. Davies and
Allison seemed to have grasped the matter in their formulation: the
unclean money buys an unclean place.51 But this is only one aspect of
the story. It is unclean and stained with blood, indeed, yet burying the
needy is the worthiest of matters.
Against this background, we return to the teaching of Jesus in the
Talmud: For of the hire of a harlot she gathered them and to the hire
of a harlot shall they return (Mic 1:7) that is,they came from a place
of filth, let them go to a place of filth; thus, prostitution money may be
used for building a latrine for the High Priest. This teaching deals with
the same ritual problem as in Matt 27:310 and offers a parallel solution, and it too reflects upon the value of Jesus himself. Consequently,
it reproduces the very same structure as in the Gospel, only to invert its
meaning. On one level, the teaching retains the same halakhic principle, according to which money originating in an unclean place defiled by
sin must return to a place of uncleanness. On a more fundamental level,
both the Gospel and the talmudic replication identify the money with
the value of Jesus, as it originated in a sinful act, which determined his
fate. According to Matthew, this fate is encrypted in Zechariahs prophecy, while the Talmud hints at its own accounts of Jesus biography to
uncover the true meaning of the money brought to the Temple.
50Sifra

Emor, Parasha 1:3 (ed. Weiss, 93c).

Davies and D.C. Allison, Gospel According to Saint Matthew: Matthew
1928 (International Critical Commentary; Edinburgh, T and T Clark, 1997) 567.
51W.D.

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Yair Furstenberg

JSQ 22

At the same time, as much as the two teachings show substantial correspondence, the contrast between them is truly striking. Matthew created a
possibility for redemption, as the money defiled by the killing of Jesus was
allocated for the ultimate act of benevolence through burial. Through the
double-sidedness of corpse impurity, the criminal death of Jesus becomes
at the same time the root of salvation.52 In contrast, the talmudic midrash applied this same structure to the uncleanness of prostitution and
latrines. Unlike death, sexual impurity is inescapably repulsive, bringing
about perpetual denigration. One cannot truly redeem money from such a
despised source, but only preserve it for the benefit of bodily needs. Jesus
and his message are thus bound to perpetually engage with such lowly
causes, and no salvation is brought about through his death.
To conclude: through a sophisticated reworking of New Testament
materials, the Babylonian rabbis sought not simply to caricature their
Christian opponents, as any superficial impression of the Jesus pericope
in the Bavli would suggest, but rather to fundamentally distort the very
structures of Christian discourse, embedded in their own textual canon.
In the case discussed here, the Talmud seems to suggest that Jesus was
a victim of an impure act, as he is in the Gospel. Nonetheless, his outright rejection of rabbinic purity laws reveals his impure nature, which
brought about his own misfortune, and the fate of the heresy he created.
Though it may be seductive, it is essentially repulsive. In this sense,
this fake midrash of Jesus truly represents the teachings of heresy, as
the Babylonian transmitters of the early Tannaitic story understood it.
Clearly, such a response is a product both of a close knowledge of the
New Testament and a careful reworking of its ideological structures.
This case serves as a testimony to the distinct challenge Christianity
posed to the rabbis of Sasanian Babylonia. Whereas their Palestinian
colleagues never disclose any knowledge of heretical books and remain
limited to the field of biblical exegesis, the Babylonian rabbis turned
to an offensive tactic. Equipped with a new body of knowledge and an
understanding of the role of the Gospel for imaging Christian beliefs,
they reshaped the nature of the inter-religious encounter.53
52
In other words, Jesus had to be both an innocent victim of a criminal act and a
sacrifice for atonement; see M.Halbertal, On Sacrifice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012) 35.
53For the actual locality of the inter-religious polemics in Sasanian Babylonia, see
S.Secunda, The Talmudic Bei Abedan and the Sasanian Attempt to Recover the
Lost Avesta, JSQ 18 (2011) 343366. Secunda proposes that the Bei Abedan mentioned in BT Shabbat 106a, with respect to the reading of books of heretics, served for
inter-religious disputations presided by Iranian authorities as part of their attempt to
recover their sacred tradition.

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