Toledot Yeshu (''The Life Story of Jesus'') Revisited (PDFDrive) PDF

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. VII
Peter Schiifer
Introduction ................................................ .
Michael Sokoloff
The Date and Provenance of the Aramaic Toledot Yeshu
on the Basis of Aramaic Dialectology 13
Peter Schiifer
Agobard's and Amulo's Toledot Yeshu ..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 27
William Horbury
The Strasbourg Text of the Toledot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 49
Adina M YojJie
Observations on the Huldreich Manuscripts of the Toledot Yeshu ....... 61
Michael Stanislawski
A Preliminary Study of a Yiddish "Life of Jesus" (Toledot Yeshu):
ITS Ms. 2211 ............................................... 79
Pierluigi Piovanelli
The Toledot Yeshu and Christian Apocryphal Literature:
The Formative Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 89
Eli Yassif
Toledot Yeshu: Folk-Narrative as Polemics and Self Criticism .......... 101
Philip Alexander
The Toledot Yeshu in the Context of Jewish-Muslim Debate . . . . . . . . . .. 137
Sarit Kattan Gribetz

Hanged and Crucified: The Book of Esther and Toledot Yeshu ......... 159
VI Table of Contents
Michael Meerson
Meaningful Nonsense: A Study of Details in Toledot Yeshu . . . . . . . . . . .. 181
Ora Limor and Israel Jacob YuvaJ

Judas Iscariot: Revealer of the Hidden Truth .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 197
John Gager
Simon Peter, Founder of Christianity or Saviour ofIsrael? ............ 221
Galit Hasan-Rokem
Polymorphic Helena - Toledot Yeshu as a Palimpsest of Religious
Narratives and Identities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 247
Yaacov Deutsch
The Second Life of the Life of Jesus: Christian Reception
of Toledot Yeshu ............................................. 283
Paola Tartakoff
The Toledot Yeshu and Jewish-Christian Conflict in the Medieval Crown
of Aragon .................................................. 297
Index ...................................................... 311

Acknowledgments
The essays published in this volume are the fruit of a seminar and conference on
Toledot Yeshu conducted at Princeton University. The seminar, directed by John
Gager, Michael Meerson, and Peter Schafer, took place in the fall term of2009,
culminating in an international conference on November 15-17,2009, organized
by Yaacov Deutsch, Michael Meerson, and Peter Schafer. Both the seminar and
the conference are related to the Princeton University Toledot Yeshu project,
funded by the Mellon Foundation, which is now in the last stages of preparing
an edition and translation with brief commentary of all the available recensions
of Toledot Yeshu. All the essays are revised versions of the conference papers,
with the exception of Sarit Kattan Gribetz's essay, which was presented at the
seminar.
First and foremost, we thank the participants of the seminar and conference
for their contributions to what we believe marks a new stage in Toledot Yeshu
research and for allowing us to publish them in this volume. Aaron Kachuck,
graduate student in the Department of Classics, helped us in editing the articles.
Princeton University's Department of Religion and Program in Judaic Studies
extended, as always, Princeton's legendary hospitality and made the conference
an enjoyable and memorable event for all the participants. The Mellon Foun-
dation generously funded the conference, and Mohr Siebeck took care of the
publication in their customary smooth, fast and professional way. To all of them
we express our deep gratitude.
Princeton, Berlin, Jerusalem, May 2011 Peter Schafer

Michael Meerson
Yaacov Deutsch
Introduction
Peter Schiifer
Modem research on Toledot Yeshu - that enigmatic late antique-medieval tract

whose origins are shrouded in history's mists - began with Samuel Krauss'
monograph Das Leben Jesu nach judischen Quellen, published more than a
century ago. I Krauss' analysis of the manuscripts available to him at the time,
of the text's history, and of its main motifs, has had a lasting influence to this
day; almost all scholars writing about Toledo! Yeshu still take him as their point
of departure, and humbly add further details rather than attempt to fundamen-
tally change the picture drawn by him. It was almost seventy years later when
the next step was taken with William Horbury's 1970 Cambridge dissertation A
Critical Examination of the Toledoth Yeshu, which was, however, unfortunately
never published. 2 The dissertation soon became the much sought-after insider tip
of Toledo! Yeshu research, jealously guarded by the lucky ones who succeeded
in obtaining a copy and all the more eagerly searched for by the unlucky ones
I Berlin: S. Calvary, 1902; repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1977,2006. Krauss supplemented his
monograph with an impressive array of articles, published between 1904 and 1939. See "Je-
sus in Jewish Legend," EncJud (New York: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1907), 7: 170-73;
"Fragments arameens du Toldot Yeschou," REJ 62 (\ 91\): 28-37; "Neuere Ansichten ilber
'Toldoth Jeschu,'" MGWJ76 (\ 932): 586-603 and 77 (1933): 44-61; "Une nouvelle recension
hebraIque du Toldot Yesu," REJ 103 (1938): 65-90; "The Mount of Olives in Toldot Yeshu,"
Zion 4 (1939): 170-76 (in Hebrew).
2 Luckily, Horbury did publish an important series of articles; see his "The Trial of Jesus in
Jewish Tradition," in The Trial of Jesus: Cambridge Studies in Honor of c. F. D. Moule (ed.
Emst Bammel; Naperville: Allenson, 1970), 103-21; "Tertullian on the Jews in the Light of
de spec. xxx. 13," JTS 23 (1972): 455-59, reprinted in idem, Jews and Christians in Contact
and Controversy (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1998), 176-79; "The Revision of Shem Tov ibn
Shaprut's Eben Bohan," Sefarad43 (1983): 221-37; reprinted in Jews and Christians, 261-75;
"Christ as Brigand in Ancient Anti-Christian Polemic," in Jesus and the Politics of His Day
(eds. Emst Bammel and Charles F. D. Moule, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984),
183-95; reprinted in Jews and Christians, 162-75; "Jews and Christians on the Bible: Demar-
cation and Convergence (325-451 )," in Christliche Exegese zwischen Nicaea und Chalcedon
(eds. Johannes van Oort and Ulrich Wickert; Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1992), 72-103, reprinted
in Jews and Christians, 2OQ...25; "The Depiction of Judaeo-Christians in the Toledot Yeshu," in
The Image of the Judaeo-Christians in Ancient Jewish and Christian Literature (eds. Peter J.
Tomson and Doris Larnbers-Petry, Tilbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 280-86; "Rabbinic Percep-
tions of Christianity and the History of Roman Palestine," Proceedings of the British Academy
165 (2010): 353-76 = Rabbinic Texts and the History of Late-Roman Palestine (eds. Martin
Goodman and Phi lip Alexander, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 353-76.
2 Peter Schiifer
who were less successful. Professor Horbury has finally decided to put an end to
this and is working now on a revised edition of his dissertation for publication.
And the third decisive step was reached when Riccardo Di Segni published his
groundbreaking article "La tradizione testuale delle Toledoth Jeshu: Manoscritti,
edizioni a stampa, classificazione,"3 soon to be followed by the monograph Il
vangelo del ghetto. 4 Di Segni, with his meticulous evaluation of many manu-
scripts and their classification according to different groups (the Pi late, Helena
and Herod recensions) in particular, put the research into the Toledot Yeshu
manuscript tradition and the transmission of its various versions on a completely
new leveP
Twenty five years after Di Segni, the time has finally come to take stock and
to provide the scholarly world with a full picture of the Toledot Yeshu evidence,
that is, to lay the foundations for a more informed study of Toledot Yeshu by
preparing an edition of all the available manuscripts and further clarifying
the text's complicated history.6 This ambitious task has been tackled by the
Princeton University Toledot Yeshu project: we have collected, transcribed, and
translated all the available manuscripts and are now in the process of preparing a
sophisticated database that will help us to unravel the secrets of Toledot Yeshu's
origins and reception history and ultimately lead to the publication of a synoptic
edition supplemented by an electronic database on a CD. In order to place this
project in the context of current Toledot Yeshu research, we decided to convene
an international conference with those scholars who have been working on
Toledot Yeshu recently or who have expressed their keen interest in the confer-
ence topic. As always with such conferences, not all of the colleagues on our list
could accept the invitation, but we are confident that the voices assembled in this
volume reflect a representative cross-section of ongoing Toledot Yeshu research.
Ifthe conference and the evaluation of the various recensions in the Princeton
Toledot Yeshu project have made one thing clear, it is the fact that there never was
] Rassegna Mensile di Israel 50 (1984): 83-100.

4Rome: Newton Compton, 1985. See also his article "Due nuovi fonti sulle Toledoth Jeshu,"
Rassegna Mensile di Israel 55 (1990): 127-32.
5 Further progress in Toledot Yeshu research was made by, among others, Gilnter Schlichting,
Ein jiidisches Leben Jesu (Tilbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1982); Hillel 1. Newman, "The Death of
Jesus in the Toledot Yeshu Literature," JTS 50 (1999): 59-79; Yaacov Deutsch, "New Evidence
of Early Versions of Toldot Yeshu," Tarbiz 69 (2000): 177-97 (in Hebrew).
6 Out ofc. 150 known Toledot Yeshu manuscripts, only very few were published. In addition
to the aforementioned publications by Krauss, Horbury, and Deutsch, see Abraham Harkavy,
"Leben Jesus," Hebriiische Bibliographie 15 (1875): 15; Elkan N. Adler, "Un fragment arameen
de Toldot Yeschou," RF.! 61(1910): 12Cr30; Louis Ginzberg, ed., Genizah Studies in Memory
of Doctor Solomon Schechter (Ginze Schechter) (3 vols.; New York: The Jewish Theological
Seminary of America, 1928), 1:329-38; Michael Higger, "Ma'aseh Yeshu," Chorev 3 (1936):
143-52 (in Hebrew); Zeev Falk, "A New Fragment of the Jewish Life of Jesus," Imm 8 (1978):
72-9; Daniel Boyarin, "A Revised Version and Translation of the 'Toledot Yeshu' Fragment,"
Tarbiz 47 (1978): 249-52 (in Hebrew).
Introduction 3
a Toledot Yeshu Urtext back to which all the existing versions can be traced.? The
romantic search for the one and only Urtext is an idea that has mislead scholars
in many areas of Jewish Studies (and, of course, not only there), and Toledot
Yeshu is a prime example of this futile exercise. What we can establish are vari-
ous foci or nuclei, snapshots as it were, that can be fixed in place and time; but
these snapshots on no account represent fixed points of a unilinear and mono-
causal chain of development originating from a given Urtext and leading to all
the branches of the text tradition. We even don't know at which point in history
the snapshots begin embodying something that justifiably so might be called
"Toledot Yeshu," that is, a fully developed narrative deserving this title. Or, to
put it differently and more precisely, there may well have been different nuclei
representing different macroforms of Toledot Yeshu at different times and places.
A first cluster of contributions deals with Toledot Yeshu's manuscript tradi-
tions and its multiple versions. The earliest known physical evidence of a pe-
culiar version of Toledot Yeshu is preserved in the Aramaic fragments from the
Cairo Geniza. The earliest of these fragments can be dated to the tenth century,
but there can be no doubt that the narrative they transmit is earlier. One way,
probably the safest way, to determine the date and provenance of this narrative
is to examine the fragments' language, that is, the Aramaic dialect they use.
Michael Sokoloff undertook this task and has come to very interesting and
remarkably unambiguous results. Recently, Willem Smelik has claimed that
Toledot Yeshu was originally composed in third-fourth century Palestine (more
precisely in the Galilee) in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, was then transferred to
Babylonia, where it received an updating in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, and
was finally brought back to Palestine and converted to Late Jewish Literary Ara-
maic. 8 In constant dialogue with Smelik, Sokoloff contests Smelik's findings and
concludes that Toledot Yeshu's Aramaic is a mixture of Jewish Babylonian and
Targumic Aramaic and that its vocabulary clearly points to Jewish Babylonia as
its provenance. Its time of composition, he proposes, was "towards the middle
of the first millennium CE."
An important nucleus of Toledot Yeshu traditions has come down to us in cer-
tain quotations to be found in the writings of Agobard, bishop of Lyons, and his
successor, Amulo, in the first half ofthe ninth century. Peter Schiifer reevaluates
these references and, providing a detailed comparison with the Aramaic frag-
ments, confirms Di Segni's assessment that both share many characteristics and
hence belong to the same recension (Di Segni's Pilate group). With regard to the
narrative ofYeshu's conception and birth, which is so conspicuously missing in
the Aramaic fragments and in Agobard / Amulo, he argues that it wasn't part of
7 This insight is not new, but confirms what Di Segni wrote already in \985; see his I1 vangelo
del ghetto, 217 f.
8 Willem F. Smelik, "The Aramaic Dialect(s) of the Toldot Yeshu Fragments," Aramaic
Studies 7 (2009): 39-73.
4 Peter Schiifer
their version and must have been added at a later stage.9 He then puts Agobard's
and Amulo's Toledot Yeshu in the broader context ofthe two bishops' statements
about the Jews in contemporary Carolingian society, and concludes that the Jews
in the Carolingian Empire under Louis the Pious not only were well aware of a
version of Toledot Yeshu, but made public and even aggressive use of it.
Turning to the famous Strasbourg manuscript that figures so prominently in
Krauss' Leben Jesu, William Horbury locates the manuscript in an eighteenth-
century Galician Karaite milieu and then proceeds to detennine earlier stages
of the text as presented in the Strasbourg copy. He finds evidence that the Stras-
bourg text must have been identical with texts that were current in France and
Spain in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and are now lost. But certain
elements or microfonns in the Strasbourg text lead him back in time much
earlier. The first microfonn is the list of the new Christian festivals substitut-
ing the old Jewish ones, which he locates, following Daniel Stokl Ben Ezra,lo
in fourth or early fifth century Palestine or Syria. Second - noticing that, of
all the Hebrew manuscripts of Di Segni's Helen group, only Ms. Strasbourg
incorporates the Talmudic narrative of the trial and execution of five disciples
ofYeshu (an important element ofDi Segni's Pi late group, which is well known
from the Aramaic fragments) into its Toledot Yeshu version - he suggests a link
between the Strasbourg text and the much earlier version preserved in the Ara-
maic fragments from the Cairo Geniza. Finally, he proposes that even the birth
story, which opens the Strasbourg manuscript and which Di Segni and Schiifer
consider to be a medieval addition, in fact represents a much earlier element of
the Toledot Yeshu narrative. Hence, he concludes that the Pilate group of the
Aramaic fragments and Agobard/ Amulo originally contained the birth story and
that the Strasbourg manuscript echoes this early version.
One of the most baffiing recensions of Toledot Yeshu is the one published
in 1705 by the Christian scholar Johann Jacob Huldreich (Huldricus), together
with a Latin translation and annotations. It was much neglected in Toledot Yeshu
scholarship, presumably because of its complexity and unique characteristics,
and Adina Yof'fie deserves credit for again drawing our attention to it. Compar-
ing the Huldreich version with the other Toledot Yeshu versions, she argues that
it combines some very early parts of the Toledo! Yeshu tradition known from
the earliest Hebrew manuscripts and even the Aramaic fragments with high me-
dieval and very late Slavic elements. Altogether, she concludes, the Huldreich
9 See also Di Segni, It vangelo del ghetto, 33, 113, 127-218, and Peter Schafer, "Jesus'
Origin, Birth, and Childhood according to the Toledot Yeshu and the Talmud," in Judaea-
Palaestina, Babylon and Rome: Jews in Antiquity (eds. Benjamin Isaac and Yuval Shahar,
Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck), forthcoming.
\0 Daniel Stokl Ben Ezra, "An Ancient List of Christian Festivals in Toledot Yeshu: Polemics
as Indication for Interaction," HTR 102 (2009): 481-96.
Introduction 5
version was composed in the fifteenth or sixteenth century at the earliest by an

unknown author or a group of authors.
Finally in this first group of contributions, Michael Stanislawski forces his
way through the even more neglected thicket of Yiddish Toledot Yeshu manu-
scripts. Briefly surveying the known Yiddish manuscripts, he determines that a
manuscript at the Jewish Theological Seminary of New York (JTS Ms. 2211)
differs from the other Yiddish manuscripts in that it doesn't follow any single
or stable Hebrew text; rather, it combines different and often contradictory
sources and displays clear traits of what Stanislawski calls the "Ashkenization"
of the Toledot Yeshu tradition. Mary's portrayal as a prophetess gone wrong in
particular, which diverges considerably from the other Toledot Yeshu versions,
can be read as a subversion of the Marian cult prevalent in the Christian society
of Central and Eastern Europe in the late seventeenth century.
A second cluster of contributions makes an attempt to locate Toledot Yeshu
in its broader cultural context. Pierluigi Piovanelli compares certain motifs in
the Toledot Yeshu with the Book of the Cock, a Christian apocryphal text from
Late Antiquity that is preserved in Ethiopic but was originally written in Greek,
probably in the second half of the fifth century. This book, he argues following
Hillel Newman, II belongs to a roster of late antique Christian apocryphal texts
that respond to polemical Jewish stories such as those found in Toledo! Yeshu. In
his view, this brings us if not to an Urtext of Toledo! Yeshu but nonetheless to a
more or less well developed "first edition" of Toledo! Yeshu already circulating
at the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth century C. E. Furthermore,
following Ernst Bammel 12 and WiIliam Horbury, he sets out to track down the
hypothetical prehistory of Toledot Yeshu in the second and third century. Here,
it is the conspicuously positive depiction of Judas in particular, which Toledo!
Yeshu shares (more precisely which the Aramaic fragments of Toledot Yeshu
share) with the newly discovered Gospel of Judas (before 180 C. E.) and the
Book ofthe Cock, that leads him back into the second century C. E. He concludes
with the (not so) rhetorical question: "(W)hat if the earliest Toledot Yeshu stories
were the oral product of Jewish communities that were living, probably in Syria-
Palestine,13 in close contact and connection with a group, or multiple groups, of
Jewish Christians?"
Quite a different picture arises from Eli Yassif's article. Taking seriously
the fact that Toledot Yeshu is a fully developed narrative (as opposed to the
fragmentary nature of Talmudic references) with its own textual autonomy (as
11 See above, n. 5.
12 Emst Bamme1, "Christian Origins in Jewish Tradition," NTS 13 (1966-67): 317-35, re-
printed in idem, Judaica. Kleine Schriften (2 vols.; Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1986), 1: 22(}-38;
idem, "Origen Contra Celsum i. 41 and the Jewish Tradition," JTS 19 (1968): 211-13, reprinted
in Judaica, 194--95; idem, "Der Jude des Celsus," in Judaica, 265-83.
IJ Here following Smelik rather than Sokoloff.
6 Peter Schiifor
opposed to the genre of midrash) he determines that these features are typical of
the early Hebrew narratives first produced in the Middle Ages. The emergence
of autonomous narratives that coincides with the emergence of works devoted
to specific disciplines (such as Midrash Aseret ha-Dibrot and The Alphabet
of Ben Sira) starts in the eighth century and originated in Islamic Babylonia.
This, Yassif claims, is the cultural milieu to which Toledot Yeshu belongs: it
was written by young Jewish scholars in and around the Babylonian yeshivot
in Jewish Iraq in the second-third century of Islam. He bolsters this underlying
hypothesis with a number of more detailed analyses: Toledot Yeshu is a typical
Volksbuch whose different versions are not textual mutations of one Urtext but,
rather, autonomous compositions belonging to different communities; it has a
well-defined hero, who, however, is not a victim but a villain; like the novella, it
displays an unexpected turning point or Wendepunkt that drastically changes the
protagonist's life - the theft of the Ineffable Name and its successful magical use,
which, although well known in Jewish folklore as early as the rabbinic period but
of considerably greater interest in Geonic Babylonia, becomes the hallmark of
Jewish superiority to Christianity; it exhibits a novella-like interest in the erotic;
and it is critical of the hierarchical norms of Jewish society.
In his article "The Toledot Yeshu in the Context of Jewish-Muslim Debate,"
Philip Alexander addresses the much neglected question of Toledot Yeshu within
the Islamic context, that is, its Sitz im Lehen not only in the Jewish-Christian
but also in the Jewish-Muslim debate. In other words, locating Toledot Yeshu
in the triangle between Muslims, Christians, and Jews, he asks where the tract
stands in relation to the Muslim "Gospel" and what this might tell us about its
circulation among Jews in the Muslim world. After a meticulous discussion of
the physical evidence of Toledot Yeshu manuscripts in the Muslim world and
the tract's relationship with both the Christian and the Muslim "Gospel," he
proposes: having originated as an anti-Christian tract in Aramaic in late antiquity
(presumably in the Galilee) - that is, as a Jewish anti-Gospel - Toledot Yeshu
was taken to the East, where is was reworked and played an important role in
the Jewish-Christian debate in late Sasanian Babylonia. With the rise of Islam,
it gained new life in buttressing a distinctive Jewish identity not just against
Christianity, but now also against Islam.
In the following contribution, Sarit Kattan Gribetz explores the ways in which
Toledot Yeshu employs tropes and images from the Book of Esther and attempts
to place these literary allusions into their broader socio-historical context. She
proposes that the parallels with the Book of Esther not only serve to highlight
specific common motifs but in fact relate the overall narrative themes ofthe Book
of Esther to Toledot Yeshu. Hence, since the association between Haman, Jesus,
Purim, and anti-Christianity can be traced as early as the late fourth/early fifth
century, a certain nucleus of Toledot Yeshu must have been present at this time.
In a last step, she ventures the tentative conclusion that Toledot Yeshu even might
Introduction 7
have been used as a type of megillah, that is, to be recited and performed, similar
to the use of the Book of Esther on Purim. As for the date of this public perfor-
mance she discusses the ninth of Tevet, Christmas, Easter and Purim as possible
days, with Christmas as the most likely candidate (at least for the later sources).
Most of the contributions to the volume focus on the exploration and expla-
nation of certain motifs or subjects in Toledot Yeshu. Michael Meerson boldly
tackles some of the most conspicuous ones related to Yeshu's death and burial:
the fork on which Yeshu was suspended, the cabbage "tree" on which he was
hanged, and his burial in an aqueduct. The fork (/Urea), as opposed to the cross,
is peculiar to Agobard's version of the Toledot Yeshu, and Meerson suggests that,
at Agobard's time, the fork as a tool of death penalty had long since replaced
the cross. In using the term furea, Agobard therefore deliberately ignores the
tradition of the crucifixion and displays his acquaintance with Roman legal and
punitive practices as published in the sixth century Corpus furis Civilis. The
cabbage stalk is the most bizarre of all Toledot Yeshu motifs claiming that all the
trees which the rabbis tried out to hang Yeshu upon them immediately broke,
thanks to Yeshu's magical powers, and that only the cabbage plant - because
Yeshu forgot to include it in his curse of the trees - finally accepted his body
and did not break. For the first time taking the cabbage stalk seriously and not
trying to explain it away, Meerson looks into the botanical make-up of the cab-
bage and finds out that the wild cabbage, contrary to our modern perception, in
its second year shoots out an unusually high stem and that, for this reason, it was
considered - as early as the fourth century B. C. E. - to be a "tree-herb." More
importantly, he points to the fact that the wild cabbage could be identified with
the wild mustard and that it is precisely this plant that is mentioned in Matthew
13:31 f. as the smallest of all seeds which grows into "the greatest garden plant
and becomes a tree." Hence, while in the New Testament the wild mustard/
cabbage signifies the triumph of Christianity, in Toledot Yeshu it is used to sig-
nifY Christianity's ultimate failure - Yeshu's humiliating death on the cabbage
tree. As to the other strange peculiarity of Agobard and the Aramaic fragments,
Yeshu's burial in an aqueduct or a water reservoir, Meerson suggests that it is a
faint echo of the aqueduct built by Pilate that not only was paid for by Temple
money but cut its way through a cemetery that was in use during that period. In
his conclusion, Meerson first draws our attention to that fact that Toledot Yeshu
indeed contains many traditions that at the time when they coalesced into their
literary form were no longer understood by the scribes and their readers but
(sometimes) can be traced back to their late antique origin and, second, warns
us not to mistake the date of a specific detail or motif in Toledot Yeshu for the
date of the composition as a whole.
Ora Limor and Israel Yuval turn to the enigmatic figure of Judas Iscariot who,
thanks to the discovery of the Gospel of Judas, has attracted much attention.
They compare the image of Judas in Toledot Yeshu, the Legend of the Finding of
8 Peter Schiifer
the Cross, and the Golden Legend and start from the basic assumption that Judas
represents the Jewish people and that his behavior represents the Jewish attitude
to Christianity and its savior. Always presented as a subversive figure, Judas
can act clandestinely either in order to destroy Christianity and to save Judaism
or, vice versa, to destroy Judaism and to save Christianity. It is obvious that To-
ledot Yeshu is a prime example of Judas in his first capacity, presenting a clear
counter-narrative to the New Testament: in burying Yeshu in a cesspool Judas
mocks the cult of the Christian holy place by transforming the Holy Sepulcher
into a latrine (the authors suggest that this motif reflects a Jewish answer to the
Crusader experience); the late Huldreich version, created in a German-speaking
environment, transmits a curse in which Judas curses Yeshu (not the other way
around) and makes fun of Yeshu; and the version published by Krauss l4 even
describes a pogrom perpetrated by the Jews against the Christians in Jerusalem
(the authors argue that this motif, rather than echoing the famous slaughter in-
flicted upon the Christians by the Jews in 6 t 4 C. E. after the Persian conquest of
Jerusalem, is a product of medieval Jewish fantasy).
In the Legend of the Finding of the Cross, a Jew by the name Judas discovers,
on Queen Helena's request, the location of Jesus' cross, whereupon he converts
to Christianity and (renamed Kyriakos - "of the Lord") brings about the conver-
sion of all Jews. In Toledot Yeshu, Judas, knowing the location ofYeshu's body,
reveals it to Helena - not in order to support Christianity but, on the contrary,
to refute the Christian claim that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead, that
is, to expose Jesus as a swindler and impostor. The authors suspect that Toledot
Yeshu was familiar with the Legend of the Finding of the Cross, which became
known to the Jews in the fifteenth century. Finally, the authors point out that
the much more negative image of Judas in the Golden Legend (appearing in
Europe in the twelfth century and broadly disseminated), where he is depicted as
almost pathologically distorted, doesn't find a response in Jewish sources. They
attribute this striking fact to the worsening of relations between the Christian
majority and the Jewish minority during the High Middle Ages, when the Jews
preferred to ignore their Christian neighbors rather than to answer them.
A similar subversive role is played by Simon Peter, the primary founder of
Christianity as an authentic faith for the Christians - and an underground double-
agent of the rabbis who ultimately saves Israel by bringing about the final separa-
tion of Christianity from Judaism for the Jews. John Gager follows the traces that
this strange figure has left in Toledot Yeshu and related Jewish sources (Megillat
Ta'anit, Rashi, Rabbenu Tarn, the Nishmat prayer, Mahzor Vitry) and finds the
blueprint of Peter the false believer and double agent in no less a source than in
the Gospel of Mark. Then, addressing the question of how Toledot Yeshu's Peter
became a refined poet of liturgical texts (piyyutim), he refers to the apocryphal
14 Krauss, "Une nouvel\e recension," 65-73.

Introduction 9
letter of Peter to James that serves as an introduction to the Homilies which

are part of the Pseudo-Clementines. It is there, he argues, that we encounter a
Christian text with Peter as the author of liturgical compositions and as the fierce
defender of Judaism, a Peter who embodies the main message of Toledot Yeshu:
to reclaim as Jews the major figures of foundational Christianity. Finally, in an
appendix, Gager summarizes his views regarding the notoriously difficult dating
problem of Toledot Yeshu:
We must imagine smaller as well as larger blocks of materials that show up
in different versions and traveled in separate channels; individual elements in
these channels reach back as far as the early second century. As to the Simon
Peter complex in Toledot Yeshu, one version took shape somewhere between
the fifth and the seventh centuries in the regions of eastern Christianity (Syria
to Babylonia). The bits of information gathered by scholars should not taken,
however, as evidence of a single, stable and integrated Toledot Yeshu narrative,
but, rather, as pointing to accounts with different elements at different places and
times. In particular, we must pay attention to the Eastern and Western setting
of certain motifs, with the Peter story most likely originating in the West. Most
importantly, we must dismiss the notion of a Toledot Yeshu Urtext, that is, of a
single point of origin for the Toledot Yeshu composition.
Another figure who plays a prominent role in Toledot Yeshu is (Queen) Hel-
ena, but her identity is blurred and encompasses at least three women bearing
the name Helena (or its cognates), namely Queen Helena of Adiabene, Helena
Augusta the mother of Cons tanti ne and Helen the lover/spouse ofSimon Magus;
a fourth contender is the Hasmonean Queen Salome Alexandra, although she
doesn't bear the name Helena. Galit Hasan-Rokem pursues this polymorphous
figure as a prime example of both the variability and the inconsistency exhibited
in Toledot Yeshu, reading Toledo! Yeshu as a palimpsest and arguing for a dispa-
rate rather than related and coordinated existence of the Toledot Yeshu versions.
Of the three Helenas, the Helen ofSimon Magus is the least significant in Toledo!
Yeshu, whereas Helena of Adiabene and Helena Augusta are almost equal com-
petitors as regards possible historical references. Both share, however, with each
other (and to a certain degree with Simon Magus' Helen) the explicit connection
with Jerusalem, certain sexual motifs, a strong association with conversion, and
great generosity for religious institutions. Yet, ultimately, it is the imagined map
of Jerusalem that Hasan-Rokem identifies as the birthplace of the composite Hel-
ena figure presented in Toledo! Yeshu. The central role ofHelena as a palimpsest
in Toledot Yeshu, Hasan-Rokem concludes, may be understood as an encoding of
the palimpsest Jerusalem, with the polymorphic Helena subverting unanimous
and all too self-confident statements of its ownership.
A last cluster of contributions deals with the reception history of Toledo!
Yeshu. Yaacov Deutsch summarizes the Christian reception of Toledot Yeshu in
the High Middle Ages and the early modem period, pointing out that, ironically,
ID Peter &hiifer
Toledot Yeshu is the unique example of a Jewish text the infonnation about
which in Christian sources is richer than the infonnation in Jewish sources. He
begins by stating that it is highly unlikely that prior to the ninth century there
existed a composition that included most of the stories appearing in the manu-
scripts and printed editions known to us from the Middle Ages and onward and
that the motifs scattered in earlier sources served as building blocks for the
Toledo! Yeshu literature rather than being evidence of a composition "Toledo!
Yeshu." The earliest version of Toledo! Yeshu which, however, does not contain
the birth narrative, can be found in the Pi late group of the Aramaic manuscripts
to which Agobard and Amulo are closely related. The next nucleus in Christian
sources appears in the thirteenth century in a collection of Hebrew passages
from Paris and in the writings of the Anonymus ofPassau (ca. 1260), followed
by the famous lengthy quotation in Raimundus Martinus' Pugio Fidei (around
1280), which corresponds to the manuscripts of the Helen group but (in contrast
to them) lacks the birth narrative; another Latin translation was published by the
Viennese cleric and historian Thomas Ebendorfer (d. 1464). With the number
of Christian references to Toledot Yeshu growing rapidly in the fourteenth and
fifteenth century, parts of Toledot Yeshu were printed for the first time by Chris-
tian scholars in 1470 and 1520, followed by the first printed edition of the full
text with Latin translation by Johann Christoph Wagenseil in his notorious Tela
/gnea Satanae of 1681 and by Johann Jacob Huldreich in 1705.
Briefly contrasting with this picture emerging from the Christian sources the
available Jewish sources, Deutsch notices that the latter up to the seventeenth or
even eighteenth century only rarely refer to Toledot Yeshu; conspicuously, with
only one exception (Ibn Shaprut's Even Bohan) all of these references belong
to the Helen group of manuscripts. From the combined Christian and Jewish
evidence he concludes that the Helen group was created sometime during the
twelfth or the thirteenth century and from then on became the dominant version
of Toledot Yeshu; he doesn't find proof that prior to the twelfth century Toledot
Yeshu was a comprehensive narrative that described Jesus' life from birth to
death. The latest version of Toledot Yeshu is the one known as the Herod group
with its primary witness in the text published by Huldreich in 1705.
The last paper by Paola Tartakoff adds a very different perspective: the func-
tion that Toledot Yeshu served in the context of Jewish-Christian relations in the
Crown of Aragon in the mid-fourteenth century. She analyses the story of a cer-
tain Jew by the name of Alatzar who converted to Christianity and took the new
name Pere. Pressed by his Jewish friends, Pere publicly renounced Christianity
and, tied to the stake and already beginning to burn, was rescued by the inquisi-
tor. He then renounced Judaism for a second time and denounced his Jewish
friends for having re-Judaized him. In the subsequent inquisitorial trial, Toledot
Yeshu played an important role as the Jews' major tool to convince Alatzar/Pere
of Jesus' true origin as a bastard conceived through adultery. Tartakoff places
Introduction 11
this trial in its historical context and argues that the Toledot Yeshu narrative was
indeed used in the medieval Crown of Aragon not only to re-Judaize apostates
but even to force a repentant apostate to unveil Toledot Yeshu in public and hence
to instigate open confrontation with Christians. This result, in turn, deepens our
understanding of the text itself since we need to take into consideration that the
Toledot Yeshu narrative might have been molded to suit particular goals and
hence been subjected to a creative process shaped by the ever changing circum-
stances of Jewish life.
It goes without saying that many of the questions raised by the enigmatic and
elusive text Toledot Yeshu have not been addressed in the pages of this volume,
let alone been answered. But we hope that, in presenting the papers of our con-
ference to the public, we at least succeed in reopening the scholarly discourse
and encouraging new questions and answers.
The Date and Provenance of the Aramaic Toledot
Yeshu on the Basis of Aramaic Dialectology
Michael Solwloff
The Publication of the Aramaic Texts
While a late Hebrew version of Toledot Yeshu has been known for centuries, I
only very little of the origina! Aramaic version was available until the late
nineteenth century. The first published Aramaic fragment appeared in 1n1:l 1:l1<,
a polemic work of Semtob ibn Saprut, who lived in Spain in the latter part of
the 14th cent. 2 In 1875, Abraham Harkavy published a page of an Aramaic ver-
sion. 3 In 1902, Samuel Krauss, in his comprehensive book on TY, published two
pages from an unidentified Cairo Geniza manuscript. 4 In 1911, Elkan N. Adler
published a fragment from his personal collectionS which Krauss republished
the following year, together with an additional fragment belonging to Adler. 6 In
1928, Louis Ginzberg published a large amount of the Aramaic text from two
manuscripts in the Taylor-Schechter collection.1 In 1970, William Horbury re-
published the first page of Ginzberg's first fragment which the latter was unable
to read, together with many corrections to the other pages of this fragment. 8 In
I For our knowledge of this composition until the twentieth century, see U.
2 The text was reprinted in U 147 from a now lost manuscript, formerly in Breslau. See
now: Jose-Vicente Nicl6s, cd., Sem Tob ibn Saprut, "La piedra de toque": Una obra de con-
troversia judeo-cristiana: introduccion. edicion critica. traduccion y notas allibro I (Madrid:
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1997). In light of the Aramaic texts from the
Cairo Geniza, it is clear that the author had a much longer Aramaic text similar to them, but
that what he cites was an abridgment.
3 See Abraham Harkavy, "Leben Jesus," Hebriiische Bibliographie 15 (1875): 15 (published
from St. Petersburg Evr. HA 105/9, #64109 in The Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manu-
scripts, Jerusalem).
4 See U, 143-44.
5 See Elkan N. Adler, "Un fragment arameen de Toldot Yeschou," RE} 61(19\0): 126--30
(ITS 2529, Adler 2102).
6 See Samuel Krauss, "Fragments arameens de Toldot Yeschou," REJ 62 (1911): 28-37
(= Mss. A, B).
7 See GSJ. 329-38 [publication of two fragments: 1. T-S Misc. 35.87 (= Ms. H); 2. T-S Misc.
35.88 (#19674 in The Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts, Jerusalem).
8 See Horbury, 116--21. As anyone who has ever dealt with Ginzberg's edition of the frag-
ments of the Palestinian Talmud from the Cairo Geniza can attest, his copies were notoriously
inaccurate.
14 Michael Sokoloff
1977, Zeev Falk published an additional page belonging to the first manuscript
published by Louis Ginzberg,9 and Daniel Boyarin republished it a year later
with many corrections. 1O Finally, in 2000, Yaacov Deutsch published two new
Hebrew texts of TY which differ from the medieval version, and which are, in
fact, a translation of the Aramaic original. He included in this article a composite
republication of most of the previously published Aramaic material. 11
Previous Discussions of the Aramaic Language of the Texts
In their publications of the Aramaic texts, Harkavy and Krauss made no attempt
at analyzing the Aramaic language of the text in order to detennine its date and
provenance. Ginzberg in his introduction to his publication of the TY Aramaic
text in GSI, was the first scholar to relate to these issues, and he correctly pointed
out that the Aramaic language of the text was linguistically a composite of TA
and JBA. However, as will be seen further on, in spite ofthis, most of his specific
lexicographical and philological comments were either incorrect or unfocused. 12
The present writer added several linguistic observations concerning the lan-
guage of the text in notes to Boyarin's article. However, the most thorough at-
tempt by far to analyze the Aramaic language of this composition is to be found
in a recently published article by Willem Smelik. 13
In order to understand Smelik's suggestions for the date and provenance of
TY, it will be helpful to first outline briefly Jewish Aramaic dialectology during
the first millennium CE:
Aramaic was divided during this period into two major dialect areas which are
tenned MWA and MEA, each of which was further divided into dialects along
confessional grounds. The two major Jewish dialects, JPA and JBA, are known
to us mainly from literary texts of Rabbinic literature, and to a lesser extent, also
from a body of non-Rabbinic and epigraphic texts.
9 See Zeev Falk, "A New Fragment of the Jewish 'Life ofJesus, ", Tarbiz 46 (1977): 319-22
(in Hebrew). Its siglum is T-S NS 298.56.
IO See Daniel Boyarin, "A Revised Version and Translation of the 'Toledot Yeshu' Frag-
ment," Tarbiz 47(1978): 249-52 (in Hebrew).
11 See Yaacov Deutsch, "New Evidence of Early Versions of Toldot Yeshu," Tarbiz 69 (2000):
177-97 (in Hebrew). Deutsch reprinted in this article the texts published by Ginzberg-Horbury
and Falk-Boyarin, and in the present study, Aramaic TY will be cited according to the page and
line numbering of this edition.
12 It is the opinion of the present writer who has reviewed all of Ginzberg's philological
studies that his philological conclusions were on the whole erratic.
\3 See Smelik, Aramaic Dialect. Smelik has been working on this text for the past few years
in the framework of the project "Late Aramaic: The Literary and Linguistic Context of the
Zohar" in the Zohar Workshops centered at University College, London (See http://www.ucl.
ac.uk/hebrew-jewish.home/zoharws.php.).
Date and Provenance of the Aramaic Toledot Yeshu 15
In addition to these two literary dialects which were based on the vernaculars
of the Jewish communities ofEretz Israel and Babylonia, two other Jewish liter-
ary Aramaic dialects are relevant to our discussion:
1. TA, the dialect in which the official Targumim to the Pentateuch and the
Prophets, known respectively as TO and TJ, were composed. The date and prov-
enance of this dialect is still debated by scholars,14 but it is clear that during the
Talmudic and Geonic Periods it was known and employed only in Babylonia. Its
base is a form of Official Aramaic of the late Second Temple Period.
2. LJLA, the dialect in which the late Targumim to the Writings and the
Pseudo-Jonathan Targum to the Pentateuch were composed. While its basis is
JPA, it contains a strong admixture of JBAand TA elements, as well as including
many loanwords from both Persian and Akkadian. 15
Smelik's conclusions can be summarized as follows l6 :
1. The provenance of TY is Palestine, and it was originally composed in JPA
of the third-fourth centuries CE;
2. At some later date, TY was transmitted in an oral or written form to Baby-
lonia;
3. The JBA elements in TY do not derive from the original composition, but
are rather the result of a later Babylonian updating of the narrative and the elimi-
nation of the JPA elements;
4. After the original Palestinian composition received its JBA form, it was
brought back to its Palestinian homeland where it was converted to LJLA.
Linguistic Analysis of the Vocabulary of TY
The arguments in Smelik's article are based mainly on several morphological

and lexical features found in the Aramaic TY texts. Indeed, his startling conclu-
sion - viz. that the text originated in Palestine, was transmitted to Babylonia
where it underwent a partial transformation, and then was returned to Palestine
where further morphological changes took place - seems complicated to say the
least, and, to my mind, insupportable in light of the linguistic evidence. As will
be seen, he has placed an inordinately strong emphasis of one morphological
feature of TY occurring in one manuscript, and - following Ginzberg's incorrect
philological remarks - also on several supposed JPA lexical features. In the fol-
lowing analysis, the present writer will deal with the morphology and vocabulary
14 See Christa Miiller-Kessler, "The Earliest Evidence for Targum Onkelos from Babylonia
and the Question of its Dialect and Origin," Journal for the Aramaic Bible 3 (200 I): 181-98.
15 See Stephen A. Kaufrnan, "Targum Pseudo-Jonathan and the late Jewish Literary Arama-
ic," in Studies in Bible and Exegesis (eds. M. Bar-Asher et aI., Ramat Gan: Bar I1an University
Press, 1993 [in HebrewD, 3: 363-82.
16 See Sme1ik, Aramaic Dialect, 69-73.
16 Michael Sokoloff
of TY in order to show that it is penneated by JBA and TA 17 to such an extent

that it is extremely improbable to contend that it was originally written anywhere
else except in Jewish Babylonia. As to the time of its composition, the absence of
known morphological elements from Geonic JBA and the presence of morpho-
logical elements from TA point to its having been composed sometime before
the Geonic Period. While the present writer cannot give a plausible explanation
at present for the occurrence of occasional JPA morphological fonns found in
one manuscript of TY,18 it is his opinion that they cannot refute the overwhelm-
ing evidence of JBA morphology, vocabulary, and syntax in IT to suppose an
original Palestinian provenance for this composition.
1. Morphologyl9
The morphology of TY is overwhelmingly that of JBA with an admixture ofTA.
1.1 Verbal fonns
1.1.1 Synthetic participial fonns 20 : JBA - 1sg. Kl":lY (189:27); Kl'Y:I (190:2);
Klw'n; (190:8); KlY'j:', Klj:"!ltJ (192:7); 2sg. n:l:"1' (192:6); Ipl. Tl';:l' (K29:15);
P'j:':lW (186:21); 2m.pi. T,n'nN (195: 14);21 T,n';:l' (K29: 18); T,n{'}n:lwtJ (194: 16);
,n':llt (189:5).
1.1.2 Infinitive fonns of derived conjugations:
a. TAl2 - KnnK; (194:21); KntJK; (190: 1); Kj:'!lK; (190:7); K:I;ltK' (193: 11).
b. JBA23 - :"1'mnK' (G337:11).
1.1.3 Af. of.y'nK as -'nN - JBA24 - m'nK (191 :21); :"1"nK (191 :26).25
1.1.4 3rd pers. imp. w. -ll -, prefix26 - JBA - 3m.sg. C'Y~'; (191 :2); 'lY<'l> {l']
(191 :3); 3m.pl. ,,:1',
(191:5).
1.1.5 Perfect qeti:la-fonns TA27 - m',' (191 :20); n'j:";o (195: 16; K29:21).
1.1.6 M.pl. participle of III-y verbs - TA 28 - T:llt "il (194:21).
17 Note also that the only direct citation of a Targumic text in TY is from Onkelos n':l11It"
1t:l'''l?Y ;,'n?':ll TO Dt 21:23 (see 195:12).
18 In essence, the only distinct JPA morphological form which actually occurs is the 3m.pl.
pf. verb with 3m.sg. suff. ;"l- which occurs in Ms. G alongside the JBA forms. Aside from this
one point, this manuscript is just as characteristically JBA as all the others.
19 The examples cited in the following sections are representative but not exhaustive.
20 See Eps, GBA, 40 if.
21 This form was incorrectly analyzed by Smelik, Aramaic Dialect, 57, as a pf. The entire
phrase reads: ,nc lm'nK CK "if you come tomorrow."
22 See Dalman, GJPA, 81
23 See Eps, GBA, 49.
24 This is a typical !BA form (see DJBA, 178, Af. #2, w. lit.). JPA employs either 'n"K or
'O"1t (see: DJPA, 80 ff.).
25 But once ,1t'M'1t (G336:4), the TA form [Dalman, GJPA, 358).
26 The statement of Smelik, Aramaic Dialect, 56 that the prefix -? occurs in JPA to express
volitional modality is completely incorrect. This prefix never occurs in accurate JPA texts.
27 See Dalman, GJPA, 260.
1.1.7 I-verbal stems: In addition to the retention of I as in TA and JPA, there

are many more examples with its assimilation as in JBA.
a. w. 1- 1'DilnK (191: 13); "mn'K (G336: 11).
b. w. assimilation of t2 9 - ?Y::I'n (192:5); 'nnD'K (193:26); nnD'K (194:2;
G336:16); ",MlC (195:1).
1.1.8 2m.pl.imp. vb. w. n- TA, JPA30- T,[nKn] (194:15); l1TMn (194:18);
l1":Jl1m (195: 15); T,y,n (195: 16).
1.1.9 2m.sg. imper. of <bur. - JBA31 - ?'T (196:2; G336: 10).
1.1.10 3m.pl.pf. All forms have the classical ,- ending found in TA and often
in JBA but not in JPA,32 e. g. '?TK (186:9); ,n:JIt'K (186: 11).
1.2 Nominal forms 33 :
1.2.1 M.pl. forms. The dominant morpheme is '- as in JBA, while only a few
examples ofl'-
(abs.) and N'- (det.) as in TA and JPA occur.
a. w.T'- TA, JPA- T"::I1 (186:11); T',::IU (189:9).
b. w. '- JBA - E. g. 'It'1n, '::IKn:J (186: 19); 'n,' (190:23); "lK' '::I[n]:J (190:26);
'C'7.)'J (191 :6); '7.)" (191: 1; 9); '7.)n, (191: 10); 'n,' (191 :30); '?'7.) (192: 11); 'YIt'
(193:9); det. w. N'- TA, JPA - K'?'7.) (189:27); K'lt'1n (192:30); K'n'7.) (196:3).
1.3 Pronominal forms:
1.3.1 3m.sg. suff. pron. TA34: 'i11?Y (188:26); 'i11"7.)?n (186:30); JBA: il"'7.)?n
(186:28); il'Y':J (195 :22); lit'" il'" (186:20).
1.3.2 Poss. suff. endings TA, JPA35 - 3m.pl. Tlil::l (191: 11); T'i'I'J" (192:22);
JBA36 : 3 f.pl. KnJ"7.) 'i'I?l:J (190:26).37
1.3.3 3m.sg. acc. suff. ending fol. 3m.pf. Several types occur in TY:
a. JBA 38i'1_ - i11<'> {,}nK (188:21); i11?oj:' (188:27); i11j:'CK, ill::l?X (G337:3).
b. TA 39,i'I_ - 'ilWN (186: 14); 'i'Ilj:'Jn (187:22); 'i'Il7.)l" 'ill::l?[X] (188: 14); 'ill'::Ij:'
(194:26); 'i'I,n:JIt'K (194:31) 'ill'::Ij:' (G337: 14); 'ill?Oj:" 'illDj:'T (H 335b:5).
c. JPA 40i'l'J_ - i'I'J,::I?X (G336:2); i'I'J,nnK (G337: 14); il'J'":JIt'K (G338:2).
29 See Eps, GBA, 50ff.

30 In JBA, there is no final -no
31 See DJBA, 100. The initial aleph is retained in both TA and JPA (see Dalman, GJPA, 300;
DJPA 43).
33 It may be noted here that the fonn ;,'n",~ (191 : 14) does not have a "pleonastic ending"
as stated by Smelik, Aramaic Dialect, 69. As correctly understood by Deutsch in his edition,
the scribe added an interlinear' to correct the first erroneous ,-'n in ;,'nn~ to the correct ;""'~.
36 See Eps, GBA, 124.
37 But incorrectly: l(rncl"~ T';"'::J (191 :7)
38 See MALBT, 59.
40 See Dalman, GJPA 381. Note that all of the examples occur in Ms. G.
18 Michael Sokoloff
1.3.4 3m.sg./pl. acc. suff. ending fol. 3m.pf. - TA, JPA41 - T'l""W (186:8);
T'l':ln:l (186:25); T'l<'>':I'IC, rmlY~ (G336a: I).
1.3.5 3 f.sg. acc. suff. ending fol. 3m.pf.III-y vb. - JBA, TA - i1'nlC (192: 18)42;
i1"nlC (\ 94:7); i1"t:' (195:7).
2. Syntax
2.1. 1Ct:' + participle - This syntagm is employed only in JBA43 - 'Y~I) 1Ct:'
(\86:13; 29); m,' 1Ct:' (191:22); i1,,' 1Ct:' (192:2); [ ... ] 1Ct:' (192:29).
2.2 qetllle- syntagm - JBA 44 - " 'Tn IC' [1"1C ':I]lCn:l (186:27).
2.3. Indeterminate forms of nouns - As in JBA, the determinate forms are
always employed, except in specific syntactic usages, e. g. i1:1i"l CIC ,:1, CN
(190:17); [i1Y]~ ,:1:1, T'Y ,:1:1 (191:12).
2.4. Position of deictic pronouns - As in JBA these are always placed before
the noun,45 e. g. IC':I'Y lC'i1i1 (191 : 13).
2.5. Use of acc. marker -n' - This syntagm is used in TA and JPA.
a. Independent46 - "ltl n' 'n'lC (195: 18) = i1"ltl M' ',nl) (K29:22)
b. W. pron. suff. -l'i1n' 'l'Y~ (193:5); [i1]'n' ,:I,J (193:8); i1'n'IC:I'JIC' (193: 11);
i1'n' :I,J'I)' (193:12); i1'M' Pi'C' (194:10); l'i1n' '~tln (195:1); i1'n' PM:I't (195:5);
l'i1n' 'Y~IC (195:13); 'n' l'n:l~n (195:15); i1'n' 'n'lC (\95:18); i1'M' "1 (195:22);
i1'n' 'M'I) N1N (K29:22); i1'n' 1)1 (335b:5).
2.6 Use of acc. marker -, - This usage is common in all of the Middle Aramaic
dialects.
a. alone - 1C1Y:lJI) [ll]m', ':lCl (G336: I); i1C", i1" 1C1Y1i' 1C11C (192:7); 1C1i"tll)
i1'7)'1C 'YI)I) i1', (197:8); etc.
b. w. proleptic pron. -1C1Y:lJ7) llm', 'mn'lC (186: 14); ,~.., i1"nlC (191 :26); i1YT:I
i1C", (192:14); ICY'~' ,~", mi'clC (G337b:3); etc.
2.7 Use of independent poss. pron. -", and -", - Both forms are employed in
the texts. The former is used in TA and the latter in JBA and JPA. 47
3. Vocabulary
The following analysis of the vocabulary of TY shows that most words which
are peculiar to a particular MA dialect are found either in JBA or another MEA
dialect. 48 A large number of additional words are known specifically from TA.
The following are the examples:

42 In lPA, the end. is ,In-, e. g. ;'W1M (Dalman, DJPA).
43 See DJPA, 976.
44 See DJBA, 612.
45 See GJPA, 368.
46 Smelik, Aramaic Dialect, 54, incorrectly states that IT does not use this independent fonn.
47 See DJBA, 327; DJPA, 145.
48 Smelik, Aramaic Dialect, 60, suggests that K1:'1 is borrowed from Syriac .om. This is en-
tirely unlikely. The passage reads: K"'lEl 1:1 '11." Kl:'1 1" (K29:25), where it is a clear corruption
3.1. JBA Vocabulary

1. KD'W'W::I 'MK "to grasp in a towel/garment" (194:6) - Similarly, Semtob
ibn Saprut's lM1::1 T::IK text reads: K~"C' KD'W'W::Il'I"l'I' ''1 l'I'ui'~ (LJ 147:24). This
phrase is exactly like the Geonic phrase ND'W'W::I 'N N'1"C::Il'I" U'i'~,.49
2. -, 'MN pe. "to hold back, retain" (191 :24; 29) - The text reads: NOY::I n'K
{l'I} 'M" ,c',n l'I'O'N 'YO::l K"1' T"MN' 'N'1l'1" "there are among the lewish people
those who retain the fetus in the mother's womb for twelve months." This mean-
ing of,,J,nK pe. is known elsewhere only from Syriac. 50
3. W'~'N "someone, person" (191 :2) - This form is characteristic of MEA,51
occurring in lBA and Ma. 52
4. -::I n'N "to contain, have" - The text reads: 'N"l'I" K1JY::I n'N (191 :23). This
is a JBA usage. 53
5. N::I' Nl'I'N "great God" (1<29:26; 335b:6) - The phrase is known from JBA.54
6. 'N1JN "why" (192:2) - This word occurs only in lBA, while lPA has l'IO'.
7. N"O '1JN "to recite an incantation" (G336: 15; 193:23) - While this idiom-
atic phrase is documented in both lPA55 and lBA,56 its use here with the abs.
form N"1J may point to a MWA origin.
8. KnyW N'l'Il'I::I "atthat time" (194: 12) - In contrast to Smelik,57 this adverbial
expression does not reflect LJLA, but is perfectly good lBA and occurs often
in texts. 58
9. KnN1,nN "places" (191 :8) - This is the JBA pI. of the noun K,nK, occur-
ring also in the other MEA dialects,59 as opposed to the pI. T',nN in the MWA
dialects. 60
10. 'OM" {l'I}"O 11J '1JM' 137::1 "they prayed to the Lord of Prayers" (191: 10)-
This is a thoroughly lBA expression composed of two idiomatic expressions.
from K111. The examples given in DJBA, 385 are in square brackets and also indicate that this
word is a corruption.
49 See DJBA, 1126. Ginzberg's attempt in GSI, 337, n. to \.I, to understand this word as a
cock's crest should be completely rejected. Besides the fact that the parallel quoted here from
Tm::l l::lK supports the known meaning of this word (DJBA, 1126), his attempt to connect this
word semantically with Aramaic Kn?::l'::' is far-fetched to say the least.
50 Cf. ~"" ....)Ulr. .... \.lo",.. ,,,d m ........ he held the messenger back for three days, Paul Bedjan,
ed., Gregorii Bar-Hebraei chronicum syriacum (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1890),390:21 (SL,25,
rnng.3).
51 It occurs also in Ma 1I1'lY MD, 353.
52 See DJBA, 119. Contrary to Smelik, Aramaic Dialect, 44, this is not a phonetic change
from 1I1l'lC, but probably reflects Official Aramaic 1I1'K which later disappeared. JPA only has 1I1l1C.
53 See DJPA, 127, mng. c.
54 See DJPA, 133.
55 See DJPA, 305, mng. 3b.
56 See DJBA, 669, rnng. 5.
57 See Smelik, Aramaic Dialect, 60.
58 See DJBA, 1168.
59 See DJBA, 179.
60 See DJPA, 81.
20 Michael Sokoloff
Both the word 'I)"' "prayer" as well as the phrase 'I)"'ICY:J ''to pray" are well
attested in JBA61 and are also found in Ma. 62 As to the expression 'I)""
"1),
Ginzberg pointed to the Hebrew expression C'l)mil ?Y:J "Merciful One" occur-
ring once in Mishnaic Hebrew in Leviticus Rabbah and contended that it is an
Aramaic calque of this phrase instead of the more common Aramaic IOC",.63 The
Hebrew phrase there reads in its entirety: il?'"n mlD£ll:J Yl'l C'I)"'il ?Y:J T'IC "the
Merciful One does not smite the souls first" (LevR 17:4, ed. M. Margulies, p.
378:2). While this is clearly is an epithet of God, it is also certain that its literal
meaning from the context is "Lord of Mercy." However, in view of the first part
of the Aramaic phrase in TY, it is clear that this cannot be its meaning in this
text where it should rather be translated as "Master of Prayers." To the best of
my knowledge, this Aramaic phrase is unattested anywhere in JBA; however, its
Hebrew equivalent is known from a Babylonian Selil}ot prayer from the Geonic
Period: C'1.l"'il ?Y:J 'l£l? 'l'1.l"' 'b'l:Jil C'C"' 'O'l:l1.l "May the ones who bring in
prayers bring in our prayers before the Master of Prayers,"64 i. e. the angels are
implored to be intercessors in bringing the congregation's prayers before God,
who is the Master of Prayers. 65 Moreover, we should also note that this exact
phrase actually occurs in Ma, another MEA dialect: IC"ICC IC' IC'CillC' IC"ICC IC'
ICnlC'lC:J "0 Lord of prayers, 0 Lord of petitions" Lidzbarski, ML 188:1.66
11. illCl) "owner of a garden" (186: 10)67 - The form known from JBA is nearly
always illCl'l,68 although illCll is also attested. Note that the variant form ICll)
(193:24) is found also in JPA and in Sy.69
12. ':Jil "so" (187:29; 188:12) - A typical JBA word that is not found in
MWA.7° The Sy form Pil (189: 10)71 is employed once.
13. 'lDl'K ,lil "those people" (194:30) - This is a typical JBA phrase. 72
14. ,£lil pa., itpe. "to transform, be transformed" - The texts read: ,'£lil' 11':1'
ICl:J1C IC':J'Y K'ilil? il":Ji' "when God transformed that fetus into a stone" (191: 18);
Kl:J1C mm 'b'i" il'm:J 'Y1.l:J mil' IC':J'Y lC'ilil ,'£lilnlC' "that fetus which was in his
The MWA dialects only have the meaning "mercy" for this word (DJPA, 521).
61
See DJBA. 1069, mng. 3.
62
63 See GSJ, 329, n. to 1.12 (He is followed in this interpretation by Smelik, Aramaic dialects,
68.) For the use ofKJ~m as an appellation of God in JBA, see DJBA, \069.
64 See Israel Davidson et aI., eds., Siddur R. Saadja Gaon (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1970 [in
HebrewD, 357:21; Daniel Goldschmidt, ed., ,ht" Y'N:l C'1t'1'!l" 1"1'''''P' IC~" lO1J~:;'I"11n"D" "D,
(Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1965), 16:16.
65 Note that in the following line God is called: "'!)1"1 Y/)1tt'.
66 See MD, 251.
67 The original meaning is "gardener."
68 See DJBA, 281.
69 See DJPA, 133; SL, 249.
70 See DJBA, 382.
71 See SL, 342. The form p., occurs also in JPA (see DJPA, 165), where it is a defective spell-
ing for 1':;'''. This is unlikely here since TYemploys plene orthography.
72 See DJBA, 388. Note, however, that the more classical Aramaic form 1"IC, well known also
from TA, occurs in the conflated phrases l'?IC 'tt'J'1C (195: 13) and 1"1C ':lICI"1:;' (186:24).
daughter's womb was transformed into a stone" (191:13). This meaning is at-
tested in JBA,13 but not in JPA.
15. Knlfm "now" (195: 17) - This word occurs only in JBA. 74
16. "", "il itpe. "to encircle" (195: 1; 191: 13) - This root appears occasion-
ally in Geonic JBA with /:1.75 The morphology of the itpe. form with assimilation
of t as well as its meaning agree well with the attested form in JBA.
17. Klm!l:l Tytl "to place iron manacles upon s.o." (193:6; G336:1)- This
specialized meaning of KIn'!l is found in MEA only in JBA76 and in Sy,17 The
meaning of -:I Tytl "to place upon s. 0." is documented for JBA.78
18. 1C1.l?y '?,;, "everyone" (189: 10) - This is a ubiquitous term in JBA 79 not
found in JPA which uses IC1.lY ?;,.80
19. ','1.l ?;, "anything, whatever" (190:2) - This is a common phrase in JBAY
20. IC:I";" ICl;:) "stalk of a cabbage" (194:9 82 ; G337b:483 ) - In spite of the in-
congruous small size of this plant, this reading - which occurs twice in the Ara-
maic text as well as in the later Hebrew tradition of TY - should not be emended
to IC;:)"" as was done by Smelik. 84 The text here brings to mind the tradition
concerning Haman who was hanged on a thorn bush,85 something which is es-
pecially relevant in light of the comparisons in the midrashic literature between
Haman and Jesus.
21. 'K1.l "what" - This form of the pronoun is ubiquitous in JBA 86 both alone
(189:23) and w. a fol. noun, e. g. ICmolC '1C1.l "what kind of healing" (1<29:12).87
22. Km'K1.l "lords," pI. ofK',1.l (186:24) - This form used in JBA88 as opposed
to the pI. l"1.l found in JPA.89
73 See DJBA, 388 If.

74 See DJBA, 391.
75 See DJBA, 363. This has no connection with JPA which empoys ,In.
76 See DJBA, 930, mng. 3 (from Anan).
77 See SL, 1235, mng. 2.c.1.
78 See 'K"II:':I K~'Y "':1 ;nJY" Qid 73a(21) (DJBA, 511, Pe., mng. 2).
79 See DJBA, 560.
80 See DJPA, 410.
81 See DJBA, 560.
82 This is the correct reading of the text (see Horbury, 120), and not KlI:',,:I, as read by Ginz-
berg and followed incorrectly by Smelik, Aramaic Dialect, 68.
83 Incorrectly cited by Sme1ik, ibid., as K:I":I' Klj:'.
84 See Smelik, ibid., 68. There is only one suggested interchange of this type in JBA, viz.
K:I"C (see DJBA, 809) and an ad hoc emendation on that basis in light of the strong textual
tradition of K:I":I is extremely unlikely. A later Hebrew version of TY preserves the tradition
found here: "'Y ,mK ,'m :I,,:Jw YY 'K':lillI:' 'Y (U 120:21).
8S See Esther Rabbah 9:2 (14b) and SYAP, 182-83.
86 See DJBA, 634.
87 See DJBA, 635, mng. d.
88 See DJBA, 707
89 See DJPA, 329.
22 Michael SokolofJ
23. KI;)'Y "'I;) "worldly life" (192:4) - This expression occurs several times
in JBA 90
24. '7;)v 17;) + imp. (194:9; G337:4) - This usage is well attested in JBA91
25. Kl(K)Y:1ll;) "baptizer" (186:4; 186:9; 189:3; 189:21)92 - The root Y:1l is
often found in JPA, JBA, and MH in the sense of "to dip, dye," but never in the
sense of "to immerse oneself' for which ,:1U or 'I;)K are usually employed. As
the present writer has pointed out,93 the word under discussion is well known in
MWA from CPA ~~ as an appellation of John the Baptist. 94 Smelik has ad-
ditionally noted that IClK:1lK7;) occurs in Ma in the same usage. 95 Since a borrowing
in IT of a word from CPA is extremely unlikely, its occurrence in IT probably
implies that it was borrowed from Ma, with an adaptation to the classical orthog-
raphy. The existence of another Ma specialized expression in TY in addition to
the previously discussed '7;)"' "1;) shows that this is not an isolated phenomenon.
26. "1;), Kl'l;) "my lour master" - The use of "7;) before a PN (cf. 'W" "7;)
195:10) is common in most of the A dialects. The form here is either JPA or TA
since JBA uses '1;). The form !Cl'7;) (195:3; 17) is an archaic form 96 and is known
elsewhere from Geonic JBA 97
27. !C,:1,Y "fetus, embryo" ( 191 : 19) - This word is known only from MH and
from JBA.98
28. !C7;)'!) This word occurs in two meanings in TY: 1. "edge of knife I sword," in
the phrase <,> {K} 7;)'!) l',n, K:1'" (186:23) - This meaning occurs in MEA in both
JBA99 and Sy;IOO 2. "opening" in phrase !Cn'YI;)' !C7;)'!) (193:23) - This meaning is
found only in Aramaic in JBA 101 and CPAI02
29. c'v pe. "to be in a state, ready" (193: 12 = G336:5) - The text reads: K:J"l
i1':J'l7;)' C'!Ci' i1'n' :J'l'7;)' "!Cv "the crucifix pole is ready to crucifY him."103 This
specialized meaning of the root used with inanimate objects is only attested in
JBAI04
90 See DJBA, 867, mng. 2.

91 See DJBA, 1026, mng. Il.a. Ginzberg's statement, ad loc., that the verbal form here is a
pf. is entirely incorrect.
92 This is rendered in the Hebrew translation by the same Aramaic root Y:J:f (185:27; 186: 15;
193:8)
93 See Boyarin, "A Revised Version," 250, n. to 1.2.
94 See LSp, 166. Sy always employs -<>~ SL, 802.
95 Like Ma Kl"K' "river" MD, 187, this word seems to be one of the Ma words which
originated in the West.
96 Note also Kl' (186:21).
97 See DJBA, 707.
98 See DJBA, 846.
99 See ;'l~'!l T',m ll'lt" DJBA, 890.
100 See ,0>",,",,-", ~;A'.a.... SL, 1165. It also occurs in CPA (LSp, 159) in the form ",....
101 See DJBA, 890.
102 See LSp, 158.
103 Smelik, Aramaic Dialect, 59, incorrectly translates "the impaler (sic!) was standing."
104 See DJBA, 1003, mng. 7b.
30. N1I:'" C~j:' "to behead" (188:21) - This phrase is found also in Sy, where it
is used there only in connection with plants. 105
31. 'IJ, pe. "to attach (chords, threads, etc.)" - This root occurs in the phrase
il'Y';:):l [N]?:ln NIJ' (195:21), and this specific meaning of this verbal root is oth-
erwise found only in JBA.I06
32. N1I:"EI' NIJ1I:' "the Ineffable Name" (G336: 12) - This phrase occurs in MH
as 1Z:'1'EllJil C1I:'107 and in the Jewish Aramaic dialects as N1I:"ElIJ N1J1I:'.108 Note, how-
ever, that the word N1I:"EI occurs in Ma in the phrase N'1I:"Nil N1Z:'1NEI "phylactery
against sorcery." 109
33. ,n:l "11:' "to send for s.o." (191:31)- While the root "11:' pa. occurs in
many Aramaic dialects, its use together with ,n:l is limited only to JBA. I10
34. T'1J1I:' "names," pI. of NIJ1I:' (186:31) - The JPA plural is always Til1J1I:', III
while the JBA plural is nearly always T'1J1I:'.1I2
35. N?U,n "rooster" (194:4) - The form of this word without gimei occurs
specifically in JBA. JJ3
36. Numerals - Nearly all of the numerals occurring in the text are in JBA.114
3.2. TA Vocabulary
I. ''IN "letters" (190:26)115 - All of the Aramaic dialects employ the f.pI. form
Nn1l'N except for TA where the pI. is r'l'N TJ Is 39: 1.
2. -? N?;:)" n'?/n'N + inf. "to be able" - This specific expression is found in TA,
e. g. T"il NIJY n' N?YN? 'il c'P K?;:)" n'?'1J TO Dt 14: 16 and in JPA. 116
3. K'IJ' N'j:'1I:' n':l "water trough" (196: 1) - The term is found elsewhere only
in TA (e. g. TO Gen 24:20).
4. N~1I:"j:':l "truly, indeed" (195:6)117 - This phrase occurs often in TA (e. g.
TO Gen 17:19; Ex 2:14) and in the MH calque nIJN:l, but it is unknown in JPA
andJBA.
5. 1Nn pa. "to laugh" (1<29: 16)118 - The form is otherwise known only from
TA.119
IOS See mll\,=>bo ~; :»\,.0 SL, 1353.

106 See DJBA, 1087, mng. 14.
107 See Jastrow, 1242.
108 See DJBA. 940; DJPA, 451. Cf. also Sy ,u.;s r6u. PSm, 330.
109 See MD, 465.
110 See DJBA, 252.
III See DJPA, 555.
112 See DJBA, 1153 tr.
113 See DJBA, 1235.
114 See, e. g.: ,o',n (191:25, 2x); 'D:nK (196:7).
115 The sg. occurs in TY in the restored text K'[l'Kj (189:6), which should most likely be
read Kn['),Kj.
116 See DJPA, 237.
117 The text reads: K'7:I~' 'TK' Kj:'tMj:':l.
118 The text reads: T';"7Y ,'Kn7:1 m;,.
119 See Jastrow, 432, s. v. #2 "n.
24 Michael Sokoloff
6. 'n'::l "alive" (192:7; 194: 19) - This use oh::l in a conditional clause occurs
elsewhere only in TA (e. g. TO Ex 12:9; Lev 16: 10).120
7. N'YO "womb" (190: 14 ) - This meaning is found elsewhere in TA (e. g. TO
Gen 25:24), JPA,121 and Sy.122
8. N;'?N 1n?'~ "service of the God of heaven" (196: 15; cf. N'OID 1n?~ K30:34)-
The exact expression is found in TA (e. g. TO Dt 32:21) and in Sy.123
9. N'l'~ "body" (195:8; 18) - This noun appears in all of the Aramaic dialects
in the qat/-formation, except for TA where the qitl-formation is found (e. g. TO
Lev 26:30; Num 14:32).
10. N:l'?l "crucifixion pole" (193: 12; 195: 1) - This word which occurs in
MWA 124 and TA (e. g. Gen 40: 19) does not occur in JBA which employs N~'i'T.12S
11. Nn"'N' NO"v "law" (194:24) - This specific meaning here of common
Aramaic C"i' occurs only in TA (e. g. 1'11 c~p' TO Ex 15:25).
12. N'O' N";" "water trough" (194:27) - The word occurs once in TA as "1
[var ,,;,,] TO Gen 30:38. It is also attested in Sy.126
Conclusions
From the comparative linguistic material cited from the relevant Aramaic dia-
lects we may propose the following conclusions:
1. With regard to morphology, TY presents on the whole a mixture of forms
known mainly from JBA and TA. Forms particular only to MWA (e. g. suff. acc.
pronouns to 3m.pf. verbal forms) are extremely rare and cannot prove that TY
has a Western base.
2. There do not seem to be any particular morphological forms specifically
associated with Geonic Aramaic.
3. The evidence of the vocabulary overwhelmingly points to an Eastern prov-
enance. Many expressions are typical of JBA, while several others found only in
TYbut are known elsewhere from MEA dialects, indicating that the author could
only have known them if he had lived in a MEA milieu.
4. A large number of other vocabulary items are known only from TA which
was employed by Babylonian Jewry for.Targumim during the Talmudic and Ge-
onic Periods, as opposed to Palestinian Jewry which utilized JPA for Targumim.
120 Conditional clauses are introduced in JBA by ':l and in JPA by 1~.
121 See DJPA, 322.
122 See SL, 800.
123 See SL, 1164.
124 See DJPA, 465.
125 See DJBA, 418.
126 See SL, 1441, mng. 7.
Date and Provenance a/the Aramaic Toledot Yeshu 25
5. All of the preceding evidence strongly points to the provenance of the

Aramaic TYas being Jewish Babylonia, and its time of composition towards the
middle of the first millennium CE.
The following abbreviations are employed in this article:

CPA Christian Palestinian Aramaic
Dalman, GJPA Gustaf Dalman, Grammalik des jiidisch-pa/iistinischen Aramiiisch
(second ed.; Leipzig: lC. Hinrichs, 1905)
DJBA Michael Sokoloff, A Dictionary ofJewish Babylonian Aramaic ofthe
Byzantine Period (Ramat Gan: Bar Han University Press; Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002).
DJPA Michael Sokoloff, A Dictionary ofJewish Palestinian Aramaic ofthe
Byzantine Period (second ed.; Ramat Gan: Bar Han University Press;
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2(02).
Eps, GBA Jacob Nahum Epstein, A Grammar of Baby/onian Aramaic (Jerusa-
lem: Magnes Press, 1960).
G Text ofTY, published in GS1, 336-38.
GS1 Louis Ginzberg, ed., Genizah Studies in Memory of Doctor Solomon
Schechter (Ginze Schechter) (3 vols.; New York: The Jewish Theo-
logical Seminary of America, 1928).
Horbury WilIiam Horbury, "The Trial of Jesus in Jewish Tradition," in The
Trial of Jesus.' Cambridge Studies in Honour of C. F. D. Moule (ed.
Emst Bammel; Naperville: Allenson, 1970), 116-21.
Jastrow Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary ofthe Targumim, the Ta/mud Bab/i and
Yerusha/mi and the Midrashic Literature, (2 vols.; London: Triibner;
New York: G. P. Putnam, 1886-1903).
JBA Jewish Babylonian Aramaic
JPA Jewish Palestinian Aramaic
K Samuel Krauss, "Fragments arameens de Toldot Yeschou," REJ 62
(1911): 28-37 (= Mss. A, B).
LevR Leviticus Rabbah
L.J Samuel Krauss, Das Leben Jesu nach jiidischen Quellen (Berlin: S.
Calvary, 1902).
LJLA Late Jewish Literary Aramaic
LSp Friedrich Schulthess, Lexicon Syropalaestinum (Berlin: G. Reimer,
1903).
Ma Mandaic
MALBT Max Leopold Margolis, A Manual of the Aramaic Language of the
Babylonian Talmud (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1910).
MD Ethel Stefana Drower and Rudolf Macuch, A Mandaic Dictionary
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1963).
MEA Middle Eastern Aramaic
MH Mishnaic Hebrew
MWA Middle Western Aramaic
OfA Official Aramaic
26 Michael Sokoloff
PSm Robert Payne Smith, Thesaurus Syriacus (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon,

1868-190 I).
REJ Revue des Etudes Juives
SL Michael Sokoloff, A Syriac Lexicon (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisen-
brauns; Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias Press, 2009).
Sme1ik, Aramaic Willem F. Smelik, "The Aramaic Dialect(s) of the Toldot Yeshu Frag-
Dialect ments," Aramaic Studies 7 (2009): 39-73.
Sy Syriac
SYAP Michael Sokoloff and Joseph Yahalom, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic
Poetry from Late Antiquity (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy ofScien-
ces and Humanities, 1999 [in Hebrew D.
TA Targumic Aramaic
TJ Targum Jonathan to the Prophets
TO Targum Onkelos
TY Toledot Yeshu
Agobard's and Amulo's Toledot Yeshu
Peter Schiifer
It has been one of the major methodological challenges of research on Toledot

Yeshu to distinguish between, on the one hand, certain traditions collected by
Christians, Pagans or Jews for whatever reason and in whichever configura-
tion, and, on the other, a well-defined work bearing the title "Toledot Yeshu" (or
whatever title such a work might have been given). Much of the older research
on Toledot Yeshu has been guided by the desire not only to discover such a work
but also to find it attested as early as possible. Any tradition about Jesus' birth,
life, and death that is shared between the Toledot Yeshu and some ancient source
and that cannot be explained from either the New Testament or rabbinic sources
is taken as evidence of a "composition" or "work" Toledot Yeshu - and the earlier
this ancient source turns out to be the earlier the work Toledot Yeshu is dated. The
most graphic example of this approach is the famous tradition mentioned by an
author as early as the Christian apologist and polemicist Tertullian (second half
ofthe second century C. E.). In his De spectacu/is, Tertullian gives an impressive
list of what the Jews had said about or had done with Jesus, which culminates
in the dramatic scene:
This is he whom his disciples secretly stole away that it might be said he had risen (ut
surrexisse dieatur), unless it was the gardener (hortu/anus) who removed him, lest his
lettuces be damaged by the crowd of visitors (nee lactueae suaefrequentia eommeantium
ad/aederentur)! I
All the elements in Tertullian's list can be easily explained by the New Testa-
ment, including the gardener who makes his appearance (only) in John: when
Mary Magdalene discovers the empty tomb and cannot find Jesus, she mistakes
the risen Jesus for the gardener and assumes that the gardener had taken Jesus'
body away.2 But what is missing in John are the lettuces about which Tertullian's
gardener is so concerned, and since not only the gardener but also the lettuces
make their appearance in some of the Toledot Yeshu versions, many scholars
believe that Tertullian in fact refers to some early version of the Toledot Yeshu.
Samuel Krauss, whose Das Leben Jesu nach jiidischen Quellen (published
1902) remains until today the standard work on Toledot Yeshu, boldly states that
I Tertullian, Spect. 30.

2 John 20:15.
28 Peter Schii/er
Tertullian's words must be regarded as "an excellent summary of everything

that is reported in Toledo! (Yeshu)'>;3 he even goes so far as to declare Tertullian
the ultimate guide for us to determine "which elements belong to the original
components of the Toledot (Yeshu)."4
More recent scholarship has been more restrained in the hunt for early tradi-
tions that may be taken as evidence of an allegedly early version of the work
Toledo! Yeshu. But still, even a scholar as careful and cautious as Hillel New-
man holds that Tertullian's lettuce garden "is surely our best, not just our first,
view of the prototypical form of Toledot Yeshu,"5 which served as springboard
for the later versions (in particular the bizarre tradition of Jesus being hanged
on a cabbage tree). And, most recently, Daniel Stokl Ben Ezra has analyzed the
list of the (new) Christian festivals versus their (old) Jewish counterparts in the
Toledo! Yeshu and has come to the conclusion that this particular tradition must
belong to the late fourth or early fifth century.6 Although he is well aware ofthe
difference between dating a tradition and a work and admits that he is dealing
with a very small part of Toledo! Yeshu that appears only in the Helena recension
of the work, and although he duly concedes the "possibility that a fifth-century
Christian list was used by a Jewish author who lived later, or even much later,
and/ or not in the same region as the origin of the list,"7 StOkl cannot resist the
temptation to date the work (that is, some coagulated version of it) in late-antique
Palestine. Despite many caveats, he ultimately does extrapolate from one (to
repeat: tiny) dated tradition within a certain version of the Toledot Yeshu the date
and provenance of the work as a whole. 8
In what follows I would like to redirect our attention to what most, ifnot all,
scholars regard as the first clear attestation not just of certain dispersed traditions
but of a work that must have been identical with or at least have resembled some
version of the Toledo! Yeshu as we know it from the manuscripts: Agobard's and
his successor Amulo's references to Toledo! Yeshu. 9
3 Samuel Krauss, Dos Leben Jesu nach jiidischen Quellen (Berlin: S. Calvary, 1902; repr.,
Hildesheim: Olms, 1977), 3.
4 Krauss, ibid., 247f.
5 Hillel L Newman, "The Death of Jesus in the Toledot Yeshu Literature," JTS 50 (1999):
59-79 (esp. 78).
6 Daniel Stokl Ben Ezra, "An Ancient List of Christian Festivals in Toledot Yeshu: Polemics
as Indication for Interaction," HTR 102 (2009): 481-96.
7 Stokl Ben Ezra, ibid., 492 f.
8 This becomes very clear in his "Conclusions and Implications" at the end of the article,
pages 495 f. In fact, he follows here Bonfil, who simply declares that Toledot Yeshu "was appar-
ently written in the fifth or even as early as the fourth century" and that "it was certainly written
in an area that was under Palestinian influence during the Byzantine period" (Bonfil [below,
n. 12], p. 13). From this, Bonfil draws far-reaching conclusions regarding the Jews of Lyons'
dependence on Palestinian rather than Babylonian traditions.
9 I would like to thank the participants in the Toledot Yeshu graduate seminar during the fall
term of 2009 and the subsequent conference for their most helpful comments and critique. My
Agobard's and Amulo 's Toledot Yeshu 29
Agobard
Agobard (ca. 769-840) was enthroned as bishop of Lyons in 816 C. E., after he
had served several years as adjunct bishop of his predecessor, Leidrad. He is
regarded as one of the major figures of the so-called Carolingian Renaissance,
as a proponent of the unity of the Frankish Empire, as an eloquent advocate of
the rights ofthe Church against the growing claims of the Empire - and, depend-
ing on the views of the respective authors, as a fervent anti-Semite or at least
an outspoken enemy of the Jews.1O He played an important role in the political
ups-and-downs at the Court of his sovereign Louis (778-840), who became his
father Charlemagne's successor in 814 C. E., and who is called Louis the Pious.
In 834, Agobard lost the power struggle with Louis and was deposed from his
miter, but the King allowed him return to his diocese in 838, where he died soon
after (840).1 \
Among his many books, treatises, and letters, Agobard wrote - between the
years 823 and 827/28 - a series ofletters and documents dealing with the Jews
and their rights in the Carolingian Empire. 12 Agobard's works were lost until
they were rediscovered in the early seventeenth century and published in several
editions, one of which was reprinted in Migne's Patrologia Latina. More modem
Princeton colleagues Bill Jordan and Michael Meerson kindly read and commented upon a draft
of this paper; Aaron Kachuck provided stylistic assistance and helped in shaping my argument.
10 Heinrich Graetz, Geschichte der Juden von den liltesten Zeiten bis aufdie Gegenwart (11
vols.; fourth ed., Leipzig: Leiner, 1909; reprint Berlin: Arani, 1998),5:238, calls him "Haman-
Agobard."
lIOn Agobard in general, see Adrien Bressolles, Doctrine et action politique d 'Agobard, I:
Saint Agobard, eveque de Lyon, 769-840 (Paris: Vrin, 1949); Egon Boshof, ErzbischofAgobard
von Lyon. Leben und Werk (Cologne: Biihlau, 1969); Michel Rubellin, Eglise et societe chre-
tienne d'Agobard a Valdes (Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 2003).
12 On Agobard's relationship with the Jews, see in particular Friedrich Wiegand, "Agobard von
Lyon und die Judenfrage," in Festschriji seiner Koniglichen Hoheit dem Prinzregenten Luitpold
von Bayern zum Achtzigsten Geburtstage dargebracht von der Universitiit Erlangen (Erlangen:
A. Deichert, 190 I), 221-50; Adrien Bressolles, "La question juive au temps de Louis le Pieux,"
Revue d 'histoire de l'eglise de France 28 (1942): 51-64; J. Allan Cabaniss, "Agobard of Lyons,"
Speculum 26 (1951): 50-76; Arthur 1. Zuckerman, "The Political Uses of Theology: The Conflict
of Bishop Agobard and the Jews of Lyons," Studies in Medieval Culture 3 (1970): 23-51; Robert
Bonfil, "The Cultural and Religious Traditions of French Jewry in the Ninth Century as Reflected
in the Writings of Agobard of Lyons," in Studies in Jewish Mysticism, Philosophy and Ethical
Literature, pres. to Isaiah Tishby on his 75th Birthday (eds. Joseph Dan and Joseph Hacker;
Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1986 [in Hebrew)), 327-48; English version: "Cultural and Religious
Traditions in Ninth-Century French Jewry," in Jewish Intellectual History in the Middle Ages (ed.
Joseph Dan; Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1994), 1-17 (Binah, vo\. 3); Friedrich Battenberg, Das
europiiische Zeitalter der Juden, I: Von den Anfiingen bis J650, (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft, 1990), 52 if.; Johannes Heil, "Agobard, Amolo, das Kirchengut und die Juden
von Lyon," Francia. Forschungen zur westeuropiiischen Geschichte 25 (1998-1999): 39-76.
The most recent comprehensive treatment of our subject (with all the relevant literature) is the
unpublished dissertation by Anna Beth Langenwalter, Agobard ofLyon: An Exploration ofCaro-
lingian Jewish-Christian Relations (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2009).
30 Peter Schiifer
editions have appeared in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica and van Acker's
Agobardi Lugdunensis opera omniaP The titles and sequence of his works re-
lated to the Jews are as follows: 14
I. Consultatio et supplicatio de baptismo Judaicorum mancipiorum ("A Con-
sideration and Entreaty Regarding the Baptism of Jewish Slaves"), a brief note
written to the three officials Helisachar, chancellor of the empire, Adalard, abbot
of Corbie, and his brother Wala, hence also called Consultatio ad Adalhardem,
Walam et Helisachar (PL 104:99-106; MGH, Epistolae Carolini Aevi 3: 164-66;
letter no. 6 in van Acker, Agobardi Lugdunensis opera omnia, 1I5-117: De
baptismo mancipiorum Iudaeorum [ad Adalardum, Walam et Helisacharum]);
ca. 823 C.E.
2. Epistola contra praeceptum impium de baptismo Judaicorum mancipiorum
("Against the Impious Command Concerning the Baptism of Jewish Slaves"),
written to the Archchaplain Hilduin and Wala, now the abbot of Corbie, hence
also called Epistola ad proceres palalii Walam et Hilduin (PL 104: 173-78;
MGH, Epistolae Carolini Aevi 3:179-82; letter no. 10 in van Acker, Agobardi
Lugdunensis opera omnia, 185-88); 826 C. E. 1S
3. De Judaicis superstitionibus ("On the Jewish Superstitions"), written by
Agobard and two of his colleagues (Bernard of Vienne and Faof of Chalon-
sur-Saone) and addressed to Louis (PL 104:77-100; MGH, Epistolae Carolini
Aevi, 3: 185-99; letter no. 12 in van Acker, Agobardi Lugdunensis opera omnia,
199-221: De Iudaicis superstitionibus et erroribus [ad Ludovicum D; 826 C. E.
4. De insolentia Judaeorum ("On the Insolence of the Jews"), a personal let-
ter by Agobard to Louis, sent together with De Judaicis superstitionibus (PL
104:69-76; MGH, Epistolae Carolini Aevi, 3: 182-85; letterno. II in van Acker,
Agobardi Lugdunensis opera omnia, 191-95); 826 C. E.16
5. Epistola exhortatoria de cavendo convictu et societate Judaica ("Exhorta-
tory Epistle on Avoiding Eating and Associating with Jews"), addressed to his
fellow bishop Nibridius of Narbonne, also called Epistoia ad Nibridium (PL
104:107-14; MGH, Epistolae Carolini Aevi, 3:199-201; letter no. 14 in van
Acker, Agobardi Lugdunensis opera omnia, 231-34); 827 or 828 C. E. 17
13 Lieren van Acker, Agobardi Lugdunensis opeFa omnia (Corpus Christianorum Continuatio
Mediaevalis 52; Turnhout: Brepols, 1981).
14 I follow Cabaniss "Agobard"; Wiegand, "Agobard," 221, n. 2, gives the same sequence,
but Graetz, Geschichte, 5:235, n. 2, and Heil, "Agobard," 42 ff., differ slightly. For a full Ger-
man translation of Agobard's writings against the Jews, see Des heiligen Agobard. Bischofs zu
Lyon, Abhandlungen wider die Juden. In BriejJorm, aus dem Lateinischen ilbertragen und mit
einem kurzen Bericht ilber Agobard's Leben versehen von Emanuel Samosz (Leipzig: Hein-
rich Hunger, 1852). Gustav Strobl, Kann ein Christ Antisemit sein? Die Briefe des Erzbischofs
Agobard in Lyon iiber die Juden (Erfurt: U. Bodung, 1937), is an anti-Semitic pamphlet.
IS Heil, "Agobard," 51.
16 Hei1, ibid., 52.
11 Heil, ibid., 57.
Agobard sand Amulo s Toledot Yeshu 31
The passage that obviously relates to Toledo! Yeshu belongs to De Judaicis

superstitionibus, written about 826 C. E. by Agobard and his fellow bishops.
Its context clearly shows that Agobard is well aware of certain Jewish writings,
although their precise identification remains uncertain. 18 Agobard begins by say-
ing that the Jews maintain that God is corporeal, with distinct bodily members
like human beings (except for the fact that his fingers are immobile and stiff
because he doesn't work with his hands). Whether or not this information de-
rives from what has become known as Shi 'ur Qomah, as some scholars argue, 19
is difficult to ascertain; but when he immediately continues that God, according
to the Jews, sits on a throne carried by four creatures and located in a huge pal-
ace (sedere autem ... in solio, quod a quatuor circumferatur bestiis, et magno
quamvis palatio contineri), the assumption indeed suggests itselfthat Agobard
refers here to the Hekhalot literature. 2o Similarly, that the Jews according to him
believe that the letters of their alphabet are eternal (existere sempiternas) and
have been assigned, before the creation of the world, the tasks commanded by
them in the temporal world - this Jewish belief may well originate from Sefer
Yetsirah,21 probably in combination with the Otiyyot de-R. Aqiva. 22 And the fol-
lowing reference is even clearer:
And furthennore they maintain that there exist several earths, several netherworlds, and
several heavens. One of the latter, which they call Racha, that is, finnament, supports
according to them the mills of God, in which the manna is ground into food for the an-
gels. Another (heaven) they call Araboth, in which, they add, God resides and which is
referred to according to them in the Psalm (verse): "Give way to the one who rides upon
Araboth."23 Moreover, (they maintain), that God possesses seven trumpets, each of which
measures one thousand cubits. 24
This is a somewhat garbled version of the seven earths, netherworlds, and

heavens tradition which is well documented in rabbinic literature. But, whereas
18 PL 104:86c ff.; van Acker, Agobardi Lugdunensis opera omnia, 205 f.

19 Heinrich Graetz, "Die mystische Literatur in der gaonllischen Epoche," MGWJ 8 (1859):
67-78, 103-18, 140--53 (esp. Ill); Cabaniss, "Agobard," 62. Another possibility is that the stiff
fingers are a distorted echo of the rabbinic tradition that the angels cannot sit because they have
no knee joints (see b. Hagiga 15a).
20 Graetz, ibid., Ill; Langenwalter, Agobard ofLyon, 170, suggests (following Bonfil, "Cul-
tural and Religious Traditions") that Agobard might as well refer to certain "midrashic inter-
pretations of the revelation on Sinai," since the boundaries between midrash and the Hekhalot
literature were still fluid in Agobard's time. On the contrary, it seems that the Jewish sources
Agobard is relying on are quite peculiar (and Langenwalter's references to support her claim
are much too vague to be of use).
21 Cabaniss, "Agobard," 62.
22 Graetz, "Die mystische Literatur," 68 f.; Cabaniss, ibid., 62; Arthur Marmorstein, "Alpha-
bet des R. Akiba," EncJud (Berlin: Eschkol, 1928), 2:451.
23 Ps. 67:5 in the Vulgate (Ps. 68:5 in the Hebrew Bible). Agobard has: Iter facite ei. qui
caballicat super Araboth, which, interestingly enough, is an almost literal translation of the
Hebrew and does not follow the Vulgate ("iter facite ei qui ascendit super occasum").
24 PL 104:87b; van Acker, Agobardi Lugdunensis opera omnia, 206.
32 Peter Schiifer
classical rabbinic literature is primarily interested in the heavens and merely lists
the names of the earths and the netherworlds, it is only the treatise Seder Rabba
di-Bereshit that gives a full picture of the earths, netherworlds, and heavens, in-
cluding their respective inventories. 25 As far as the inventory is concerned, only
Seder Rabba di-Bereshit and the Bavli (Hagiga 12b)26 present an inventory of
the heavens that is almost identical in both sources. There, the manna is ground
for the righteous (not the angels, as Agobard has it, but we should remember
that the righteous become like angels after their death already in pre-rabbinic
sources) in the third heaven, Shehaqim, and not in the second heaven, Raqia'
(which is clearly Agobard's Racha). And both the Bavli and Seder Rabba di-
Bereshit agree that God sits on his throne in the seventh heaven Aravot; they
even quote the same verse as Agobard does: Ps. 68:5. Hence, although the
possibility cannot be ruled out that the Bavli was Agobard's immediate source
here, the combination of earths, netherworlds, and heavens makes it more likely
that he refers to some version of Seder Rabba di-Bereshit rather than to Bavli
Hagiga. The only element of Agobard 's description that is missing in both Seder
Rabba di-Bereshit and the classical rabbinic literature are the seven trumpets, but
the enormous measurement of the trumpets (one thousand cubits) may point to
the Otiyyot de-R. Aqiva27 or again to Seder Rabba di-Bereshit with its emphasis
on the huge distance between the heavens and the measurement of certain parts
ofthe heavenly inventory.28
Now follows what Agobard has to say about the Jews' distortions of the life
and death of Jesus. I will first quote the text in English translation and then
compare its various motifs with the Toledot Yeshu.
And also in the teachings of their ancestors they read that Jesus was (considered) among
them as an honorable young man, educated under the tutorship (magisterio) of John the
Baptist, (as one) who had many disciples, one of whom was given (by Jesus) the name
Cepha, that is, Peter, due to the severity (duritia) and dullness (hebitudo) of his mind. And
when the people expected him (Jesus) (to appear) on a holiday, some of the boys of his
25 On this, see in detail Peter Schafer, "In Heaven as It Is in Hell: The Cosmology of Seder
Rabba di-Bereshit," in Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions (eds.
Ra'anan S. Boustan and Annette Yoshiko Reed; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2004),233-74.
26 On the cosmology of b. Hagiga, see Peter Schiifer, "From Cosmology to Theology: The
Rabbinic Appropriation of Apocalyptic Cosmology," in Creation and Re-Creation in Jewish
Thought: Festschriji in Honor ofJoseph Dan on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday (eds.
Rachel Elior and Peter Schiifer; Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2(05), 39-58.
27 "Alfabet-Midrasch des R. Akiba. Erste Recension," in Bet ha-Midrasch (ed. Adolph Jelli-
nek, third ed.; Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1967), 3:31 (letter ~): when God resurrects the dead he
will sound a Shofar as large as one thousand cubits.
28 See Peter Schiifer et aI., Synopse zur Hekhalol-Literalur (Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1981),
§§ 462 if. One could think, of course, also of the Shi 'ur Qomah traditions.
school would run towards him, who were chanting Hosanna to the son ofDavid, 29 out of
the honor and reverence for (their) master.
In the end, however, accused of much mendacity, he was thrust back (retrusum) in jail
according to the verdict of Tiberius (when) he had thrown into his daughter - to whom
he had promised a male offspring without (the agency of) a man - a stone fetus (eo quod
filia ipsius, cui sine viro masculi partum promiserat, lapidis conceptum intulerit). Then,
he was suspended on a "fork" (forca) like an execrable magus, and there he was hit on
the head with a stone (ubi et petra in capite percussum). Killed in this way, he was buried
next to some aqueduct, and some Jew was entrusted with the custody. At that very night,
however, the aqueduct was suddenly flooded. By Pilate's order, (Jesus' corpse) was sought
for twelve months but never found.
Then, Pilate published the following law for them (the Jews): "It is obvious," (the law)
says, "that the very one, who was killed by you because of envy, was resurrected as he
had promised, (the one) who was found neither in (his) grave nor in any other place. And
for this reason, I order you to worship him (ut adoretis eum). (Anyone) who refuses to do
this should understand that his future lot is in hell."
Indeed, their elders have fabricated all ofthis, and (now) they eagerly / often read it with
stupid stubbornness (stulta obstinatione lectitant) in order that with inventions of this kind
the full truth of the virtue and passion of Christ could be emptied out, and that worship is
not due to him because he is the true God, but because it was imposed on him by the law
of Pi late. And (also) Peter (they say) was by no means rescued from prison by an angel, as
we do believe, but by the mercy of Herod, who held his wisdom in high esteem. 30
Reading this passage, it becomes immediately clear that it shares quite a number
of elements with Toledo! Yeshu, particularly with its Aramaic version known
from the Genizah fragments. Most conspicuous are the dramatis personae next
to Yeshul Jesus: John the Baptist, Tiberius, and Pilate, who are also prominent
(only) in the Aramaic fragments. Riccardo Di Segni, in his influential clas-
sification of the Toledo! Yeshu versions, accordingly lists Agobard together
with the Aramaic fragments in one group (his "gruppo Pilato").31 What has
been preserved in the Aramaic fragments begins 32 with John the Baptist being
imprisoned by Tiberius and questioned by R. Yehoshua b. Perahyah (together
with a certain Marinus and Omitus) about the "Scriptures of sorcery found in
the hands ofYeshu, your disciple." So here, too, it becomes immediately clear
that John the Baptist is Yeshu's teacher. John the Baptist answers in the Aramaic
fragments that he has nothing to do with these Scriptures but that Yeshu and
his students have fabricated them. The students are mentioned by name in the
Aramaic fragments (Mattai, Naqi, Buni, Netzer, and Todah) - a tradition that
29 Mt. 21: 15 - and it is explicitly said there that "children" (tous paidas) greeted Jesus with
these worlds in the Temple.
30 PL I 04:87b-88a; van Acker, Agobardi Lugdunensis opera omnia, 206 f.
31 Riccardo Di Segni, "La tradizione testuale delle Toledoth Jeshu: Manoscritti, edizioni a
stampa, c1assificazione," La Rassegna mensile di /srael50 (1984): 83-100 (esp. 84ff.).
32 Ms. Cambridge T.-S. Mise. 298.56. All quotations from the Toledot Yeshu manuscripts are
according to our Princeton Toledot Yeshu database.
34 Peter Schiifer
we also know from the Bavli 33 - and put on trial, presided over by R. Yehoshua
b. Perahyah. 34 This section is lacking in Agobard, but Agobard does know that
Yeshu has "many disciples," singling out Peter Cepha (he is clearly aware that
"Peter" refers to "stone" or "rock"). In the Aramaic fragments, there then follows
a trial of John and Yeshu - presided over by the Emperor Tiberius himself and
in the presence of Pilate, Marinus "the Great Elder," R. Yehoshua b. Perahyah,
and R. Yehudah, "the gardener of the city of Tiberias." Tiberius inquires about
John's and Yeshu's occupation, and Yeshu answers that they both are "the sons
of the God of Heaven." This is again lacking in Agobard; instead he has Yeshu's
students hail him as the Messiah (an obvious reference to Jesus' entry into Jeru-
salem in the New Testament).35
The next section in Agobard comes closest to the Aramaic fragments. A part of
Yeshu's and John's answer regarding their occupation is missing in the Aramaic
text, but when Yeshu boasts himself of being capable not only of healing the sick
but even of giving life to people or causing them to die, this is obviously his
answer to Tiberius' question about his occupation. And then comes a long sec-
tion about the Emperor's daughter and Yeshu, to which Agobard no doubt refers
with his rather enigmatic and brief comment that Yeshu, having promised the
Emperor's daughter a male child without the agency of a man, had "thrown into
her / inserted in her a stone fetus" (lapidis conceptum intulerit). The Aramaic text
is much more elaborate here: Yeshu boasts of being able to give Tiberius' daugh-
ter"a child without (the agency of) a man" (we/ad be-la gevar), and the Emperor
takes him by his word. 36 Yeshu utters his "words of sorcery," and Tiberius has
Yeshu put in fetters for nine months until his daughter should give birth to the
promised child. The people of Israel are in great distress, and R. Yehoshua b.
Perahyah decrees a prolonged fast to avert the expected disaster - and indeed,
God perfonns a miracle and turns the fetus ('uvra) in the daughter's womb into a
stone ('avna). This is obviously a deliberate play on words ('uvra versus 'avna).
When the nine months had passed without his daughter giving birth, Tiberius
demands an explanation from Yeshu, and Yeshu refers to the alleged fact that
some Jewish women give birth after twelve months. When the twelve months
33 h. Sanhedrin 43a-b; on this tradition, see Peter Schafer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2007), 75 if.
34 Ms. Cambridge T.-S. Misc. 35.87; I follow the translation by William Horbury in his un-
published dissertation A Critical Examination of the Toledoth leshu (Cambridge: Cambridge
University, 1970), 77-89.
3S Mt. 21:9 ff.; Mk. 11:9ff.; Lk. 19:38 ff.; cf. Ps. 118:26.
36 More precisely, Yeshu boasts of being able to give a barren woman a child without the
agency ofa man (Ms. Cambridge T.-S. Misc. 35.87, fol. la, line 28), but how exactly he exer-
cises this ability on the Emperor's daughter is missing in this manuscript. Ms. Adler JTS 2529.2,
fol. Ib, lines 4-9, has preserved this passage: "They (Yeshu and John the Baptist) said: ... And
also into a barren woman who never gave birth we can put an offspring without (the intercourse
with) a man. And when the Caesar heard this, he laughed at them, and said to them: I have [ ... ]
a virgin. Can you put sons in her without a man?"
had passed and the daughter still hadn't given birth, Yeshu suspects that she
cannot give birth because she is a virgin and offers to tear open her womb and
to deliver the child alive. The Emperor agrees, Yeshu tears the daughter's womb
open - and finds in her belly a stone instead of a child. Yeshu is unable to make
the stone alive, and Tiberius decides that both John and Yeshu deserve the death
penalty. Whereas John the Baptist is executed immediately, Yeshu escapes and,
by means of his magical power, flies in the air of heaven like a bird, until R.
Yehudah the gardener brings him down, using some powerful counter-magic.
This particular part of the story - the flying contest between Yeshu and Yehu-
dah the gardener - is again missing in Agobard. Immediately after the abortive
demonstration ofYeshu's magical power, Agobard proceeds with Yeshu's execu-
tion: Yeshu is suspended on a "fork" ({urea) - that is, a fork-shaped gallows 37 -
and brought to death by stoning, literally "hit on the head with a stone." Here, the
Aramaic version deviates from Agobard, because it tells us that Yeshu is cruci-
fied on the (in)famous cabbage stalk38 - a motif that is completely incompre-
hensible in the Aramaic version and further elaborated in the Hebrew versions. 39
But, nevertheless, the Aramaic version continues, a few lines further down, that
"they stoned him (Yeshu) with a stone (sg.!), and he died on the cross,"40 which
is precisely how Agobard puts it. So it seems that the Aramaic recension of the
Toledot Yeshu has two versions ofYeshu's death (crucifixion on a cabbage stalk
and stoning with a stone), of which Agobard's recension knows only the latter -
or else ignores the former because it doesn't understand it. Instead, it emphasizes
the Jewish death penalty of stoning, but gives it a peculiar twist: Yeshu, who
could only create a stone in the womb ofTiberius' daughter and not a child, is
appropriately killed by a stone. Moreover, since Yeshu's most important disciple
is called Peter, that is "stone," Agobard's recension most likely wants to subtly
(or not so subtly) imply that Jesus' hope in building his church on the rock of
Peter (Mt. 16: 18: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church") was
utterly misguided: Peter was called "stone" or "rock" because of the "severity
and dullness of his mind," not because he became the foundation ofthe church.
In fact, according to Agobard's version, there is no such foundation because
Peter turned out to be a blockhead and Yeshu was killed by a stone.
The next important element in Agobard's version is that Yeshu was buried
next to a water channel (juxta quemdam aquaeductum) and that a Jew was en-
trusted with the custody of his grave. 41 This again echoes the Aramaic version
according to which Yeshu was buried "in a channel of water in the garden ofR.
Yehudah the gardener" (rihata de-mayya be-ginnta de-R. Yehudah gannana).
37 On this, see Michael Meerson's article in this volume.

38 Ms. Cambridge T.-S. Mise. 35.87, fol. 2a, line 7.
39 On the cabbage tree, see in more detail Michae1 Meerson's article in this volume.
40 Ms. Cambridge T.-S. Misc. 35.87, fol. 2a, line 11.
41 On this, too, see in more detail Michael Meerson's article in this volume.
36 Peter Schdfer
But the end of the story becomes very different in Agobard and the Aramaic ver-
sion. Whereas, in Agobard, the water channel was suddenly flooded and Yeshu's
corpse disappeared - evidently because the water streaming in swept his body
away - in the Aramaic version, Yehudah the gardener deliberately kept Yeshu's
corpse hidden as proof that Yeshu wasn't resurrected and hadn't ascended to
heaven, as he had promised and as his followers wanted everybody to believe.
Accordingly, whereas in Agobard Pilate draws the conclusion from the disap-
pearance of Yeshu's corpse that he was indeed resurrected and consequently
orders the Jews to worship him, the Aramaic version has Yehudah the gardener
dragging Yeshu's corpse through the streets of Tiberias and delivering it to Pi-
late, who accepts the truth that Yeshu was wicked and orders Yehudah to bury
him "in the place where they bury the dead,"42 that is, to give him a decent burial.
So, whereas in the Aramaic version it is the Jews who ultimately triumph,43 in
Agobard's version it is the Christians who have the final say. Since it is highly
unlikely that Agobard's Jewish Vorlage included such a happy ending from the
Christian point of view, we may safely assume that Agobard fabricated it.
So what we have in Agobard is an abbreviated, summarized, and slightly
twisted version of a certain Toledot Yeshu recension that comes closest, of all
the Toledot Yeshu recensions we know, to the one preserved in the Aramaic
fragments. The dramatis personae in Agobard's recension, John the Baptist as
Yeshu's teacher and the stone embryo in the womb ofTiberius' daughter, are the
most conspicuous features that connect it with the Aramaic Toledot Yeshu. More-
over, both the Aramaic recension and Agobard begin their story with Yeshu's
education and his disciples and leave out the birth narrative and his suspicious
origin.44 We cannot be sure, however, whether the Aramaic recension did not
contain this first part of Jesus' life story or whether in fact it is missing because
of the fragmentary character of our Aramaic manuscripts, that is, because it is
simply not preserved in the manuscripts that we happen to have. Yaacov Deutsch
has published a Hebrew version of Toledo! Yeshu that runs parallel to the Ara-
maic fragments and that indeed contains the beginning of Jesus' life story, which
goes, briefly summarized, as follows: 45
During the reign of King Herod, Josef and Miriam were married in Nazareth
in Galilee, but Miriam was barren and could llot conceive a child from Josef. One
Sabbath eve, when the righteous and pious Josefhad left his house for the Syna-
42 Ms. Cambridge T.-S. 35.87, fol. 2a, lines 27-28.

43 The triumphant tone is unmistakable in the Aramaic version: "And the one who perfonned
the great judgment on Yeshu the wicked, he will swiftly perfonnjudgment and retribution upon
the haters of his people and everyone who forsakes the worship of the God of heaven and goes
and worships Yeshu the wicked" (Ms. Cambridge T.-S. Mise. 35.87, fol. 2a, lines 30-32).
44 Langenwalter, Agobard of Lyon, 169, claiming that all the Toledot Yeshu versions contain
the story ofYeshu's illegitimate birth,. is not aware of the Aramaie recension.
45 Ms. St. Petersburg RNL EVR 1.274, in Yaacov Deutsch, "New Evidence of Early Versions
of To/dot Yeshu," Tarbjz 69 (2000): 177-197 (in Hebrew).
Agobards and Amulo s Toledot Yeshu 37
gogue service, some wicked man (who remains anonymous) slips into Miriam's
bed and has intercourse with her (she doesn't recognize him and thinks he is her
husband). After Miriam has given birth to Yeshu, the couple goes to Egypt where
Miriam gives birth ("in fornication," as the text explicitly says) to more sons and
daughters. Yeshu grows up in Egypt as a gifted child, learning both Torah and
the magical art of Egypt. The couple returns with their children to Nazareth, and
when the Jewish court there declares him a bastard, Yeshu becomes a heretic
and claims that he is the son of God. He performs miracles (among other things,
he draws images of birds and makes them fly; he splits a river so that he and his
disciples can walk through it on dry land; he feeds a multitude with one loaf of
bread; he turns water into wine; etc.). Then, shifting to some kind of mixture
of Aramaic and Hebrew, the story, now locates itself in Tiberias, with Tiberius
and Pilate on the Roman side and Yehudah the gardener, Yehoshua b. Perahyah,
and Marinus, "the Great Elder of the Jews," on the Jewish side. They question
Yeshu about his family background, and he reveals that his father is Pandera,
a carpenter by profession, his mother is Miriam, who takes care of the beauty
of women, that the father of his mother is Pappos, also a carpenter, and that he
himself works as a fisherman. Then they question him about the Scriptures of
sorcery that he uses, and Yeshu at first claims that they were written by Balaam
and that he found them in Egypt, but when they threaten to kill him ifhe doesn't
tell the truth, he finally answers that his master and teacher John (the Baptist)
gave them to him. And then follows the episode of John the Baptist as we know
it from the Aramaic fragments. 46
From this brief overview it becomes immediately clear that the first part be-
longs to the (later) Hebrew standard versions of Toledot Yeshu, with some prox-
imity to the Huldreich recension (Herod). The style and content of this part is
very different from the Aramaic recension as preserved in the Aramaic fragments,
and it is highly unlikely that Deutsch's Hebrew recension reflects the full content
of the Aramaic recension (that is, the missing part in the Aramaic fragments) as
Deutsch has suggested. 47 At most one could consider that the Aramaic recension
might have started when Tiberius, Pilate, Yehudah the gardener, Yehoshua b.
Perahyah, and Marinus enter the story, which is marked also by the sudden shift to
Aramaic and the fact that Yeshu 's father now is Pandera and not Josef. This would
mean that Yeshu's family background - Miriam, Pandera, Pappos - did belong
to the original Aramaic recension, but that the elaborate story ofMiriam's seduc-
tion, as we know it from the later Hebrew versions, did not. 48 His family back-
46 Beginning Ms. Cambridge T.-S. Misc. 298.56 and followed by Ms. Cambridge T.-S. Misc.
35.87.
47 Deutsch, "New Evidence," 180ff.
48 Remarkably, it is even missing in Raimundus Martinus' )31h century Latin version that is
otherwise closely related to De Segni's "gruppo Elena, primo tipo," and there in particular to
the Strasbourg manuscript, published and translated by Krauss.
38 Peter Schiifer
ground could easily be concocted from motifs known from the New Testament
(the carpenter, the fisherman), from Celsus49 and/or from the Bavli 50 (Egyptian
magic, Miriam the hairdresser, Pandera the lover,51 Pappos b. Yehudah 52), but it
is conspicuous that the Aramaic recension has just the name Pandera and doesn't
seem to know anything about Miriam's seduction and adultery. Agobard clearly
wasn't aware of any of these details relating to Jesus' uncertain origin.
How, then, did Agobard know of the Toledot Yeshu? It seems unlikely that he
could read these stories in the original Hebrew; rather, he must have heard them
from contemporary Jews, probably in Lyons. 53 As I have mentioned already, he
is aware of quite a number of such Jewish writings, presumably among them
Shi 'ur Qomah, the Hekhalot literature, Sefer Yetsirah, Otiyyot de-R. Aqiva, and
Seder Rabba di-Bereshit. Of Toledot Yeshu he explicitly says that the elders
of the Jews have fabricated (eonfinxerunt) these stories and that the Jews with
stupid stubbornness lectitant them. The verb leetitare means "to gather / collect
eagerly" or "to read often with eagerness." Hence, Agobard knows that the Jews
of his time take particular interest in certain motifs of Jesus' life story that they
have invented and that they eagerly collect and/or read. It may well be that
there is little point in distinguishing between collecting and reading and that,
consequently, the Jews of Agobard's time in fact continued collecting material
that eventually made it into various versions of Toledot Yeshu. In other words,
the process of "Toledot Yeshu" taking shape was still going on, and there was
clearly not one final version of Toledot Yeshu available at Agobard's time; the
version that he knew and from which he takes his details was nothing but a snap-
shot of one recension prevalent in the Lyons of his time. We cannot determine,
of course, how old this recension was, that is, when precisely it was concocted.
When he says that "their elders have fabricated all this," he hardly refers to the
Jewish elders of his own time, but it is also not necessary to assume that this hap-
pened in the dim and distant past. Quite the contrary, in fact, as the Jewish writ-
ings that Agobard refers to all took shape in the centuries around Agobard's time:
most scholars agree now that the Hekhalot literature (the literature, not all of
its traditions) is a post-Talmudic phenomenon, and this is certainly also true for
Shi 'ur Qomah as an edited work54 as well as for Seder Rabba di-Bereshit. 55 Se/er
49 Origen, Contra Celsum 1:28; 1:32.

50 b. Shabbat 104b and b. Sanhedrin 67a.
51 In Celsus he is a Roman soldier; in our Hebrew recension he is an 'arma 'i - a "gentile,
Roman."
52 In our Hebrew recension he is his mother's father; in the Bavli he is considered as
Miriam's husband.
53 On the question of whether Jewish converts were involved, see Langenwalter, Agobard
of Lyon, 172 f.
54 Peter Schiifer et aI., Ubersetzung der Hekhalot-Literatur (4 vols.; Tiibingen: Mohr Sie-
beck, 1991), 4:XXXVIIff.
55 The most comprehensive treatment of Seder Rabba di-Bereshit is still the monograph by
Yetsirah, despite certain attempts to date it much earlier,56 is firmly embedded

now in an Islamic context, probably in the ninth century;57 and Otiyyot de-Rabbi
Aqiva (or the Alphabet of R. Aqiva) is in fact first mentioned by Agobard - if
it is indeed this work that he refers to - and then again in the tenth century by
the Karaites Salmon b. Yeruham 58 and Jacob Kirkisani. 59 Altogether, it becomes
ever more apparent that the "coagulation" of this kind of literature took place
during, at the earliest, the two centuries before, and, at the latest, during the one
century after Agobard.
But the fact that Agobard knew of these writings and quotes from them seems
to indicate that the Jews of his time were particularly active in disseminating
them, not least such a controversial and polemical work as Toledot Yeshu. Or,
to put it differently, they not only made no secret of their possession and use
of these books but seemed to have aggressively publicized them - this at least
is the message Agobard wants to convey. And this fits in very well with what
he has to say about the Jews in general. His letters and treatises over and over
again make clear that the Jews, in his view, have secured for themselves a much
too prominent and safe place in the Carolingian society, that they even boast of
their rights and privileged treatment by the King, Louis the Pious. I will briefly
summarize the most important aspects:
Agobard's first two missives are concerned with the problem that occupies
him most, the question of Jewish slaves in Jewish households that express their
desire to convert to Christianity. Such conversions, he complains in his first let-
ter of 823 (De baptismo mancipiorum ludaeorum), are made ever more difficult
because the King supports the Jewish point of view in this matter: although the
Jews are offered the price they had originally paid for the slave who wants to
convert, they refuse to accept it because they believe that they are favored by the
palace (putantes sibi favere magistratus palalii). 60 Things are made worse by the
fact, Agobard adds, that the Magister ludaeorum, appointed by the King to en-
sure and enforce the imperial laws protecting the Jews, constantly sides with the
Jews. (This "Master of the Jews" - his name was Evrard - was among Agobard's
Nicolas Sed, La mystique cosmologique juive (Paris: Editons de I'Ecole des Hautes Etudes,
1981 ).
56 Yehudah Liebes, Torat ha-Yetsirah shel Sefer Yetsirah (Jerusalem: Schocken, 2000).
57 See Steven M. Wasserstrom, "Sefer Yetsira and Early Islam: A Reappraisal," Jewish
Thought and Philosophy 3 (1993): 1-30 (p. 21); idem, "Further Thoughts on the Origins of
Sefer Yetsirah," Aleph 2 (2002): 201-220; Klaus Herrmann, Sefer Jetsira. Buch der Sch6pfung
(Frankfurt a. M.: Verlag der Weltreligionen, 2008), 184 if.
58 See Israel Davidson, ed., The Book of the Wars of the Lord Containing the Polemics of
the Karaite Salmon ben Yeruhim against Saadia Gaon (New York: The Jewish Theological
Seminary of America, 1934): 113; and cf. Graetz, "Die mystische Literatur," 69.
59 See the brief reference in AdolfNeubauer's review of Abraham Harkavy's Remarks of the
Qaraite Abu-YusufYaqub al-Qirqisani, JQR 7 (1895): 356.
60 Van Acker, Agobardi Lugdunens is opera omnia, 116.
40 Peter Schiifer
main culprits for the desolate state of the Church under Louis the Pious.)61 In his
second letter regarding the baptism of Jewish slaves (De baptismo Judaicornm
mancipiornm) of 826, he gives the concrete example of a Jewish woman who,
having converted gratia Christi from Judaism to Christianity, had to suffer se-
vere persecutions from the Jews. The Jews regard her conversion as illegal and
refer to an imperial precept that a Jewish slave must not be baptized without the
consent of his or her master (ut mancipium ludaicum absque vo/untate domini
sui nemo baptizet).62 This would indeed have been a major infringement of
what Agobard perceives as the legitimate rights of the Church sanctioned by an
avalanche of canonical decrees. He feels caught between the King's legislation
favoring the Jews and the mandate of the Church, all the more so as the "Mas-
ter of the infidel Jews" constantly threatens him with severe punishment if he
doesn't obey the imperial precepts. 63
The treatise De Judaicis superstitionibus and the personal letter to Louis ac-
companying it (De inso/entia Judaeornm) of 826 are Agobard's most detailed
missives about the Jews. The subject of the slaves returns now from the point of
view of Christian slaves in Jewish households: Christians should not sell Chris-
tian slaves to Jews because Christian women may then be put in the intolerable
situation of being forced to work on Sundays and to eat meat during Christian
fast days.64 He explicitly refers to a canonical decree according to which Chris-
tians are prohibited from serving Jews, and Christians have the right to redeem
Christian slaves from Jews for the amount of 12 solidi (gold coins).65 Moreover,
he accuses the Jews of stealing Christian children and selling them as slaves. 66
The Jews - this is his main complaint presented ever more forcefully - are not
impressed by his and his fellow bishops' arguments. On the contrary, they ap-
peal to the generous imperial precepts in their favor and the King's envoys sent
to Lyons to enforce the precepts (with Evrard, the Magister ludaeornm, at their
helm), boasting themselves in their "odious insolence" and threatening that they
will take revenge on the Christians.67 Evrard's biased mission in particular, he
stresses, pleases the Jews and saddens the Christians because it bolsters the Jews
in their resolve to preach disrespectfully to the Christians what they are supposed
to believe and hold true (ut auderent inreverenter praedicare Christianis, quid
potius credendum esset ac tenendum), "bla.spheming in front of them our Lord
God and Savior Jesus Christ" (blasphemantes coram eis Dominum Deum ac
Sa/vatorem nostrnm lesum Christum )."68 The latter, that the Jews revile (maledi-
61 Van Acker, ibid., 116.
64 Van Acker, ibid., 192 f.
66 Van Acker. ibid., 195.
68 Van Acker, ibid., 192
Agobard's and Amulo's Toledot Yeshu 41
cant) Jesus daily and openly, Agobard pretends to know not only from Church
Fathers such as Jerome but from his own direct contact with Jews. 69
Over and over again, Agobard calls upon his Christian flock to avoid any
dealings with the Jews, the "synagogue ofSatan,,70 and embodiment ofthe An-
tichrist. 71 More precisely, they should not share their meals with the Jews 72 or
live closely together with them - his last letter to bishop Nibridius ofNarbonne
is fully devoted to this subject - nor should they buy meat or wine from them.
Christians buying Jewish meat or wine must have been an everyday affair.
Agobard explains at great length that the Jews sell meat to the Christians that
they regard as non-kosher, calling these animals "with the insulting name 'Chris-
tian cattle'" (et insultario vocabulo Christiana pecora appellentur).73 Similarly,
they sell wine that they regard as impure to the Christians; even wine that has
been spilled on the floor and contaminated with dirt, they collect from the floor,
put it in vessels, and then sell to Christians. 74
The Jews do, and boast about, all of these abominable things, precisely be-
cause they can be sure of the support of the King and his court. Unabashedly,
they pride themselves on being the descendants of the patriarchs,75 and their
Christian protectors indeed believe that the Jews need to be honored because
of the patriarchs and because they are better than the Christians (patriarcharum
causa honorandos eos putant, and Christian is dicere audent meliores).76 Even
the most distinguished among the Christians long for their sermons and blessings
and wish they had a legislator of such kind as the Jews have (quod excellentis-
simae personae cupiant eorum orationes et benedictiones, et Jateantur ta/em se
legis auctorem habere velle), whereas the more simple-minded Christians claim
that the Jews preach better than their own priests. 77 Moreover, the Jews not
only proudly show the imperial decrees benefitting them, they even display the
clothes that the female relatives of the King and the women at Court had given
their women as presents. 78 No wonder then, that because of this predilection for
the Jews in the highest circles, the Jews are allowed, contrary to all the canonical

70 Van Acker, ibid., 219. In the letter to Nibridius the Jews are called "sons of the devil"
(diabolijilii); van Acker, ibid., 232.
71 Van Acker, ibid., 214, 218.
72 Van Acker, ibid., 202, 203.
75 Van Acker, ibid., 194. See also the letter to Nibridius, where the "sons of the devil" proudly
claim that they are the descendants of the patriarchs and the prophets; van Acker, ibid., 232.
77 Van Acker, ibid., 194. In his letter to Nibridius, Agobard goes a step further and argues
that the common folk and the peasants confess that the Jews "alone are the people of God" (ut
hunc solum Dei esse populum); van Acker, ibid., 232.
42 Peter ScOOfer
laws, to build new synagogues, and that the market day has been changed from
Saturday to Sunday to help them observe their Sabbath. 79
Much ink has been spilled over the question of whether or to what degree
Agobard can be taken at his word in his attacks on the Jews: does he refer to
"real" events that appropriately reflect the situation of the Jews in the Caro-
lingian empire, the "golden age" of the Jews as it has been called, or has he
invented much or at least some of his case studies in order to sharpen his ar-
gument? Scholars are divided on this question, with the older research taking
more or less for granted what Agobard reports 80 and more recent research being
skeptical about the realistic nature of his descriptions. 81 Without going into detail
here, it has become clear now that it is not the Jews who are the primary target
of Agobard's missives. Agobard did not write his letters and treatises because
of the Jews, setting out once again to define the theological status of the Jews in
the Carolingian society. To be sure, he did in fact define the status of the Jews,
but he did so within the framework of a much broader conflict - the conflict
between ecclesia and imperium, that is, the rights of the Church as he saw them
and the rights of the State as the King tried to implement them, a conflict that
jeopardized the unity of Church and Empire. This conflict became apparent
most prominently in the quarrel about lay possession of Church property82 and
about Louis' succession - between his son from his second wife Judith, later to
be called Charles the Bald, and his three sons from his first marriage - in which
Agobard sided with Louis' older sons. 83 The Jews were just a means to an end
in this power struggle and not its cause. One should also take into consideration
that the King's protection of the Jews and his charters of protection issued for
individual Jews (never Jewish communities)84 were certainly not motivated by
theological considerations but by economical necessities. 85
We should be very careful, however, not to throw out the baby with the
bathwater. Much as the peculiar political and economical conditions of his time
dictated Abogard's concerns and the style of his writings, we must not conclude
from this that what he has to say about the Jews serves only this purpose and
hence cannot be taken seriously. (This has become a trend particularly in recent

80 Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, 5:234fT.; Boshof, £rzbischof Agobard von Lyon, 102ff.;
Cabaniss, "Agobard," 58ff.
81 Zuckerrnan, "Political Uses of Theology," 23 fT. (theological arguments are inextricably
linked with political and economic considerations); Battenberg, Dos europiiische Zeitalter, 55 f.
(Agobard draws an image of Lyons' Jews that "is highly unlikely to correspond to the reality");
Heil, "Agobard," 40ff.
82 Emphasized by Heil.
8] Cabaniss, "Agobard," 63 fT. .
84 Battenberg, Dos europiiische Zeitalter, 52 fT.
85 Battenberg, ibid., 56.
German scholarship.)86 True, Agobard's letters and treatises are full oftheologi-
cal stereotypes taken from the Church Fathers and the legislation of the councils
and synods, but they are much more than this: they are brimming with concrete
details and examples from the everyday encounter between Christians and Jews.
No doubt that Agobard uses this information for his greater purposes and that he
may even exaggerate certain details in order to make his point, but this does not
mean that the picture he draws "in no way reflects the reality. "87 The Jewish pride
in their patriarchs and prophets, for example, and certain Christians' response to
it is too much of a constantly recurring motif in his writings to be attributed to
his imagination. And we must ask why he would have invented in his letter and
treatise to the King Evrard's, the Master of the Jews, allegedly biased behavior,
as this could easily be verified by the authorities. s8 And, as for the presents that
noble women at the court gave to their Jewish friends, it would have been quite
counter-productive to invent such concrete details in his missives to the King. 89
An important element in judging the picture that Agobard draws of the sta-
tus of the Jews in Louis the Pious' Carolingian society is the case of the royal
chaplain Bodo who, in 839, converted to Judaism. (He fled to Saragossa, had
himself circumcised and married a Jewish woman. )90 This dramatic event, which
seems to have had no repercussion vis-a-vis Louis' attitude toward the Jews,
nevertheless throws light on the attractiveness the Jews must have exerted on the
Christian Carolingian society. It happened not long before Agobard's death, and
we have no reaction from his side, but it clearly confirms what he tells us about
the status of the Jews and their influence on the Christians at Louis' court (and
presumably also on the more simple minded Christian flock of which he tells
us that they were attracted by Jewish sermons). In light of Bodo's conversion,
Agobard's observations about Christians being attracted by Judaism seem all
the more credible. Or, to put it differently, Bodo's conversion reflects a certain
Zeitgeist of the Carolingian society that finds its expression also in Agobard's
writings. 91
86 Battenberg, ibid., 55 f.; Heil, "Agobard," passim.

87 Battenberg, ibid., 56; see also Heil, ibid., 64.
88 The fact that Evrard possessed considerable Church property in the county of Lyons
certainly explains much of Agobard's rage against him (Heil, "Agobard," 60fT.), but from this
insight does not necessarily follow that Evrard's favorable treatment of the Jews, supported by
the King, belongs to the realm of fantasy.
89 Heil, ibid., 52, distinguishes arbitrarily between "facts" (such as building new synagogues
and shifting the market day from Saturday to Sunday) and "unverifiable episodes and rumors"
(such as presents of court women to Jewish women). Why are the latter less verifiable for
Agobard's contemporaries (and the King in particular) than the former?
90 Heil, ibid., 66, n. 118, with the relevant literature.
91 This is also Langenwalter's conclusion who writes (pace Heil); "What created problems,
from Agobard's perspective, was that Jews and Christians had become too unified, that Jews
were entwined into the fabric of the empire. This discomfiture at close relations combined with
the swift and negative reaction from Louis and his missi helps explain the number and increas-
44 Peter SchiiJer
Amulo
Amulo, Agobard's successor, ascended to the bishop's see of Lyons in 841. A

few years later, in 846, he published his Contra /udaeos, a theological treatise
against the Jews in the real sense of the word rather than a missive provoked
by actual political circumstances as was the case with Agobard's writings.92 He
does refer, however, to the affair of Bodo's conversion in 839, which must have
caused a major stir in Church circles. He calls him a Palatine Deacon of noble
birth, who, enticed by the diabolic persuasions of the Jews, forsook the palace,
his native land, and his parents. Now he lives in Spain among the Jews, denying
Jesus Christ as the son of God, desecrating his baptism and accepting circumci-
sion, even changing his name from Bodo to Eliezer, and - sporting a beard and
being married - blaspheming Christ and his Church together with the Jews. 93
According to Amulo, Bodo's conversion was clearly a dramatic event; with
him the Jews caught a big fish - after all, he was Louis' personal confessor.
Amulo does not mention any other conversion from Christianity to Judaism,
but the larger context in which he puts Bodo's conversion is revealing. Amulo
is primarily concerned with conversions from Judaism to Christianity that seem
to have been less successful than the Church might have wished, since the Jews,
"wickedly and cunningly," don't give up on Jewish converts to Christianity.
There is nothing wrong with you believing in Christ, he has the Jews tell their
apostates, because Christ does not really detract from God's superior position-
there is no one who is like God or his equal.94 Some Jews, Amulo continues,
even go so far as to admit that there exists a major and a minor God (Deum
esse majorem, et Deum minorem). To them, this dual Godhead doesn't pose a
problem, as long as it remains clear that Jesus is subordinate to the Father and a
human being. 95 Unfortunately, Amulo doesn't give more details about these Jews
who distinguish between a major and a minor (or lesser) God, but it is tempting
to see here an echo of Jewish speculations about Metatron, the human being
Enoch who was transformed into the "lesser God" (YHWH ha-qatan). This leads
us again into the realm of the Hekhalot literature, more precisely the Third Book
of Enoch that may well have taken shape around Amulo's time.%
ingly harsh rhetoric of Agobard's anti-Jewish writings" (Agobard oJ Lyon, 132; see also ibid.,
161 f., 216f.).
92 Amulo, Liber contra Judaeos (PL 116:141-184); cf. Boshof, ErzbischoJ Agobard von
Lyon, 311 ff.; Heil, "Agobard," 65 ff.
93 Amulo, Liber contra Judaeos 42 (PL 116:171b-c).
94 Amulo, ibid. (PL 116: 171 a): Quid mali est si credis in Christum? Hoc tantum tene, quia
similem sibi et aequalem Deus non habet.
95 Amulo, ibid. (PL 116: 171a-b).
96 See Schlifer, Obersetzung der Hekhalot-Literatur, 1:Lff.
Agobard sand Amulo s Toledol Yeshu 45
It doesn't come as a surprise, then, that Amulo 's treatise betrays some definite
knowledge of the Toledot Yeshu. 97 I quote the first reference:
They (the Jews) blaspheme that we believe in him of whom the Law of God says that he
is suspended from a tree (in lingo suspensum) and accursed by God. Therefore, on the
same day that he was suspended, it was decreed that he should be buried, lest he remain
on the gallows (in patibulo) over night and their land become polluted by him .... And
their teacher Joshua cried out and ordered that he be quickly taken down from the tree,
and he was cast into a grave in a garden full of cabbage (horto caulibus plena), lest their
land be contaminated. 98
This is an obvious reference not only to the Toledot Yeshu but again to the recen-
sion of the Toledo! as preserved in the Aramaic fragments,just as it was the case
with Agobard. The "Law of God" that Amulo mentions is a direct quotation of
Deut. 21 :22 ( ("When someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death and
is executed, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse must not remain all night
upon the tree; you shall bury him that same day, for anyone hung on a tree is
accursed by God. You must not defile the land that the Lord, your God, is giving
you for possession"), and this quotation - as well as the problem that it alludes
to - plays an important role (only) in the Aramaic fragments. Moreover, what
has been translated above as "gallows" (patibulum in Latin) is a fork-shaped
yoke, similar to the/urea in Agobard. And it is also (only) in the Aramaic frag-
ments that Joshua - in the Aramaic text his full name is mentioned: Yehoshua
ben Perahyah - gives the order to take him down from the tree (= cross) and
to bury him. The only difference between the Aramaic recension and Amulo is
that, according to Amulo, Jesus is buried in a garden full of cabbage, whereas, in
the Aramaic fragments, he is buried in a channel of water (similar to Agobard's
"next to an aqueduct"). But the cabbage appears also in the Aramaic fragments -
as well as in many of the later Hebrew versions - namely as the "stalk of cab-
bage" (kannah di-keruva) on which Jesus was crucified. 99 Amulo's garden full of
cabbage echoes Tertullian's gardener, who is so concerned about his lettuces, lOO
and it seems likely that Amulo, together with Agobard, reflect a version of the
Toledot Yeshu that doesn't know yet of the cabbage stalk as Jesus' cross. In
other words, although Agobard's and Amulo's Toledot Yeshu come closest to the
Aramaic recension, they certainly were not identical with the Aramaic fragments
that have been preserved.
The second reference to the Toledot Yeshu in Amulo reads as follows:
97 Pace Heil, "Agobard," 65 with n. 112. Heil's conclusion "der SchluB, Amulo habe die
Toldol selbst gekannt, muB nicht gezogen werden, denn seine Kenntnisse beschrlinken sich auf
ganze zwei, dazu nicht einmal zentrale Motive der Toldol- Tradition" is not just overly cautios
but simply wrong. Heil relies on second-hand and incomplete evidence of the Toledot Yeshu.
98 Amulo, Liber contra Judaeos 25 (PL 116: I 58a).
99 Ms. Cambridge T.-S. Mise. 35.87, fol. 2a, line 7.
100 See above, p. 27.
46 Peter Schiifer
And they say, according to their ancestors, that when he was taken down from the tree and
buried in a grave, in order that all should know him to be dead and not revived, he was
removed again from the grave and dragged back through the entire city and thus thrown
awaylOI (ilerum de sepulcro extractum, el relorta per lolam civifalem Iractum, sicque pro-
jectum). Therefore, till today his sepulcher stands empty and is fouled with stones and full
of filth, which they are in the habit of throwing in .... However, not completely satisfied
with blasphemies of this kind, they have fallen into such a deep abyss of misfortune that
they are convinced of and zealously observe (the custom) that no prayer of them could
be accepted by God unless they curse in it our Lord Jesus Christ, confessing that he is
impious and the son of an impious (eum esse impium etfilium impii), namely, (someone)
of uncertain origin (nescio cujus ethnici), whom they call Pandera (quem nominanl Pan-
dera): with whom they say the mother of (our) Lord committed adultery (a quo dicunl
matrem Domini adulteratam), and in this way he, in whom we believe, was born: 02
Here we learn that Jesus' corpse, after it was buried, was taken out of the grave
and dragged through the city in order to demonstrate that Jesus was indeed dead
and hadn't risen from the dead. This is clearly an abbreviated version of the full
story as we have it again in the Aramaic Toledot Yeshu. There, Jesus is buried
in a channel of water in the garden of R. Yehudah the gardener, and when his
followers cannot find him in his grave (remember that according to Agobard
the aqueduct was flooded), they believe that he was indeed resurrected and had
ascended to heaven. But R. Yehudah, knowing the location of his grave in the
channel of water, "brought him out of his grave, cast a rope around his legs and
dragged him through all the streets of Tiberias," proclaiming: "This is Yeshu
bar Pandera the wicked."103 This makes more sense than Amulo's somewhat
unmotivated removal of Jesus' corpse from the grave, just to demonstrate that
he was dead. But most conspicuously, the dragging of the corpse through the
city is found only in the Aramaic version and in Amulo (who doesn't bother to
mention the name of the city or leaves it out because he knew only too well that
Jesus was buried in Jerusalem). That Jesus' grave is empty, of course harks back
to the empty grave of the New Testament (but we know now that it is not empty
because Jesus was resurrected, but because the Jews took him out of his grave
and disposed of him);I04 and that the Jews throw stones into his empty grave
refers to the Jewish custom of putting stones on top of graves.
Finally, Amulo tells us that Jesus was the son of someone of uncertain origin
with the name Pandera, with whom his m~ther committed adultery. The later
Toledot Yeshu recensions elaborate in great detail on this information and offer
a full-fledged birth story of Jesus as a bastard and as the son of a menstruating
woman. Amulo doesn't seem to know the full story, but he knows a bit more
101 Or "abandoned."
102 Amuio, Liber contra Judaeos 40 (PL 116: 168b-169d).
103 Ms. Cambridge T.-S. Mise. 35.87, fol. 2a, lines 23-25.
104 In the Aramaic text Pilate orders Jesus' corpse to be reburied in a graveyard (fol. 2a,
lines 27-28).
than the Aramaic version, which mentions only the name of Jesus' father (Yeshu
bar Pandera}, and certainly knows more than Agobard, who doesn't refer at all
to Jesus' family background. 105 Although we cannot know whether Amulo had
access to Celsus (through Origen) or - admittedly less likely - to the Babylonian
Talmud's brief reference to Pandera as Miriam's lover, one thing seems clear:
Amulo's Toledot Yeshu was focused on Jesus' death and not on his birth and life.
Unlike Agobard, the Toledot Yeshu seems to be the only Jewish work that
Amulo is aware of - apart, of course, from the Old Testament that he quotes
over and over again. There is, however, one notable exception: in chapter 22
of his treatise he argues at great length against the Jewish idea of a Messiah
ben Ephraim, that is, a Messiah from the tribe of Ephraim. 106 At first glance,
this looks like the well-known midrashic tradition of the Messiah ben Ephraim,
who is supposed to die in the eschatological battle and to pave the way for the
true savior, the Messiah ben David. But what is conspicuous here is the fact that
Amulo doesn't say anything about the Messiah ben Ephraim's death and the
fulfillment of his mission through the Messiah ben David. Quite the contrary,
he portrays the Messiah ben Ephraim as a rival of the true Messiah ben David
(who, of course, is Jesus Christ), as if the Jews had invented the Messiah ben
Ephraim in order to compete with the Christian Messiah ben David. This is a
story very different from the tradition of the Messiah ben Ephraim as we know it
from the rabbinic sources - except for one tradition preserved in the Pisqaot 34,
36, and 37 of Pesiqta Rabbati. 107 There, a Messiah Ephraim (not ben Ephraim)
appears as the only redeemer, and this Messiah Ephraim bears a number of
quite remarkable characteristics that are otherwise known from the Christian
tradition (or, more precisely, from the Jewish tradition - the Suffering Servant
in Isaiah - that has been usurped by the Christians and accordingly suppressed
by the Jews): a Messiah who takes upon himself the sins of the people ofIsrael
and who, because of this, endures almost unbearable suffering until ultimately
God vindicates him. lOB An important role in this Messiah Ephraim tradition is
played by Jer. 31 :9, "for I (God) have become a father to Israel, and Ephraim is
my firstbom," and it is precisely this verse that Amulo quotes and the messianic
interpretation of which he attacks. 109 The Pisqaot about the Messiah Ephraim
are very different from the bulk of Pesiqta Rabbati, and scholars tend to date
them now between the seventh and the ninth centuries (probably rather the
105 See above, p. 36--38.

106 Amulo, Liber contra Judaeos 22 (PL 116: 155c-156d).
107 Rivka Ulmer, ed., Pesiqta Rabbati: A Synoptic Edition of Pesiqta Rabbati Based upon
al/ Extant Manuscripts and the Editio Princeps (3 vols.; Lanham, ML: University Press of
America, 2009), 2:816--21, 830-36, 837-45.
108 On this, see Peter Schafer, Die Geburt des Judentums aus dem Geist des Christentums
(Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010),133-78; expanded English version in preparation.
109 Amulo, Liber contra Judaeos 22 (PL 116: 155d).
48 Peter Schiifer
fonner than the latter). 110 This means - if indeed Amulo refers to the Messiah
Ephraim tradition in Pesiqta Rabbati - that we are confronted with yet another
example of a very peculiar group of works that took shape in the post-rabbinic
period and that Agobard and Amulo know and attack because they challenged
core Christian values.
In sum, there can be hardly any doubt, first, that both Agobard and Amulo
refer to a certain recension of the Toledot Yeshu and, second, that this Toledot
Yeshu recension must have been very similar to the version preserved in the
Aramaic fragments from the Cairo Genizah. This means that the version of the
Aramaic fragments was known and used in the first half of the ninth century
C. E. It is impossible to detennine how long before this date it took shape, but
the fact that it belongs to a body of literature that seems to have crystallized
between the seventh and the ninth centuries C. E. casts into doubt the possibility
that it appeared as a coagulated and well defined work long before the seventh
century. In any case, the Jews in the Carolingian Empire under Louis the Pious
made public and even aggressive use of it, public and aggressive enough that
the authorities of the Church became aware of it and felt provoked by it. Since
we don't have earlier evidence of other written versions of the Toledot Yeshu, it
may well be that the Aramaic fragments-Agobard-Amulo recension is not only
the earliest recension that has been preserved but, indeed, thefirst recension that
was ever put into writing.
110 Schafer, Geburt, 174 if.

The Strasbourg Text of the Toledot
William Horbury
The Strasbourg text is among the best-known of all presentations of the Toledot
Yeshu. Samuel Krauss placed it first in the series of texts printed in his Das Leben
Jesu nachjiidischen Quellen (1902), and it was the only text which he illustrated
with running series of variant readings and also of references to other relevant
literature outside the Toledot Yeshu. 1 Correspondingly, it was the main text trans-
lated into English by Hugh J. Schonfield in his book on the Toledot, According to
the Hebrews (1937), and the text chosen for translation into Italian by Riccardo
Di Segni in his substantial study 11 vangelo del ghetto (1985) to illustrate the first
and probably oldest type of what he called the "Helen Group" oftexts.2
Krauss himself had written that this text stands out for its Aramaisms on
the one hand, and its agreement with the Oxford Yiddish text edited by Erich
Bischoff on the other; the one or two scattered Aramaic phrases and sentences,
viewed together with other features, had inclined him to see it as in essence
particularly 01d. 3
It presents a shorter version of the type of Toledo! Yeshu first made fully
known in the scholarly world through an edition, translation and study by 1. C.
Wagensei1. 4 The narrative of the Strasbourg text may be summarized as follows.
Mary is betrothed to John, but Yeshu's father is Joseph son of Pandera; the Wise
find this out, and Yeshu flees to Jerusalem, learns the Shem ha-mephorash,
gathers disciples and works wonders before queen Helen, claiming to be mes-
siah and son of God. The Wise accuse him as a sorcerer, at first in vain, but they
eventually prevail when Yeshu is brought down from his aerial flight by their
agent Judas Iscariot, bound to a pillar and crowned with thorns in Tiberias. He
is rescued by his followers and taken to Antioch, but finally arrested again in the
temple when he comes to Jerusalem. He is hanged on a cabbage-stalk, his body
I Samuel Krauss, Das Leben Jesu nach jiidischen Quellen (Berlin: S. Calvary. 1902; repr.,
Hildesheim: OIms. 1977).20-21, 38-M.
2 Hugh J. Schonfield, According to the Hebrews (London: Duckworth, 1937),35-61; Ric-
cardo Di Segni, 11 vangelo del ghetto (Rome: Newton Compton, 1985), 33, 51-66.
3 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 20-21, 247, referring to Erich Bischoff, Einjiidisch-deutsches
Leben Jesu (Leipzig: W. Friedrich, 1895).
4 "Liber Toldos Jeschu" and "Confutatio Libri To1dos Jeschu" each separately paginated, in
lohannes Christophorus Wagenseil, Tela /gnea Satanae (Altdorf: Joh. Henricus Schonnerstaedt,
1681).
50 Wil/iam Horbury
disappears but is retrieved and displayed, and his followers, in continual dispute
with other Jews for thirty years, are eventually separated by the Wise through
their agent Elijah, a great hakham who pretends to be Christian and is known
by the turbulent followers of Yeshu as Paul. Later on Nestorius brings many
of them back to a more Jewish outlook and way of life, and their conflict with
Jews continues. It is ended when they press another disciple of the Wise, Simeon
Cepha, to join them; he agrees on condition that they no longer molest Jews,
but like Elijah he remains secretly Jewish, and unbeknown to the Christians he
carries on his activities as a great payyetan.
The story in this form occupies only twelve pages of about thirty lines in the
Strasbourg manuscript (if. 170a-175b) described by Samuel Landauer. 5 Even so,
its narrative shape suggests considerable antecedent redaction; thus, not to speak
of details, the passages on Nestorius and Simeon (Peter) look like additions. In
any case, since Krauss's book this text has probably become the most familiar
Hebrew Toledot Yeshu for many, as the treatments by Schonfield and Di Segni
may suggest. Yet perhaps the Strasbourg text still deserves further notice, partly
because one or two doubts have overshadowed it, but more especially because
Krauss's judgment of its importance can be confirmed in various ways, and
it raises the question of the origins of the Toledot Yeshu tradition particularly
clearly.
1.
The later modem series of editions of Toledot Yeshu texts by scholars was her-
alded by Adolf Jellinek's publication of extracts on Simeon Cepha, under the
heading "Petrus-Legende."6 It began fully, however, when Erich Bischoif edited
the Yiddish text just mentioned in 1895. Krauss in his 1902 book suggests that
Bischoff's Yiddish was translated from a Hebrew Toledot Yeshu akin to the
Strasbourg text. 7 Bischoif himself now, in 1902, contributed to Krauss's book
a classification of types of Toledo! texts which later students have repeatedly
reconsidered; but therein he recalled that when he had inquired about the Stras-
bourg text in 1894 the chief Librarian, Prof~ssor Barack, had expressly denied
to him that any manuscript of this kind existed in the library. 8 This of course
5 It forms the tenth main item in Strasbourg, Bibliotheque nationale et universitaire Ms. 3974
(Heb. 48), as described by Samuel Landauer, Katalog der hebriiischen. arabischen. persischen
und tiirkischen Handschriften der kaiserlichen Universitiits- und Landesbibliothek zu Strass-
burg (Strassburg: K.1. Trilbner, 1881),68-70.
6 Bet ha-Midrasch. Sammlung kJeiner Midraschim und gemischter Abhandlungen aus der
iilternjiidischen Literatur (ed. Adolph 1ellinek; 6 vols., Vienna: Brilder Winter, 1853-77; third
ed.; Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1967),5: xxvi-xxviii, 60--62; 6: ix-xiii, 9-14, 153--6.
7 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 20--21. .
8 Bischot'f in Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 30.
The Strasbourg Text of the Toledot 51
was surprising in view of its description in the 1881 Strasbourg catalogue, cited
above, and Krauss's own sight of it. Any doubts on this head were settled, how-
ever, in 1928, when Robert Eisler received confinnation from the then librarian
that it was and had been available in the library.9 Some doubt of another kind
still remained, however, for although Krauss saw the Ms. himself he based his
edition on a copy, and the copyist had every so often been baffled by what lay
before him. A later transcription made by the present writer from the manuscript
in 1982 has helped with gaps and seeming slips in the printed edition.
Before moving to signs of the importance of this text in the attestation of the
Toledo! Yeshu I note what might almost seem at first to suggest its unimportance,
namely the modem European origins of the copy presented in the Strasbourg
manuscript. Yet it is indeed significant for our knowledge of the currency and
Sitz im Leben of the Toledot Yeshu that this particular copy can be located in a
setting more precisely than is often the case, thanks especially to scribal notes
offamily births and deaths, and S. Landauer's full description in his catalogue.
This text was probably copied in the eighteenth century. A scribal note at the
end (f. 175b) gives the copyist's name as Moses. The Toledo! Yeshu is one item
in a miscellaneous compilation much of which, later in the volume, was copied
towards the end of the century by Joseph, the second son of Moses, as his notes
on f. 276b and later show. His father Moses was a hazzan and died, as Joseph
mentions in a later note (f. 314a), in 1793; Joseph's elder brother Samuel, also
hazzan, died in 1802. The father Moses seems likely to have been the copyist
of the Toledot Yeshu. Father and sons were members of a family which for a
long time provided hazzanim and hakhamim for the Karaite community among
the Jews of Halicz on the river Dniester in south-eastern Galicia, in the area of
the fonner Ruthenia, and now in western Ukraine, seventy miles south-east of
Lemberg/Lviv.lo
Many of the items brought together in this compilation are of specifically
Karaite authorship or interest. They include Caleb Afendipulo and other Karaite
authorities on the laws of shehitah, and extracts from moral and pious works,
with some translations from Hebrew into Tartar, the language retained by Kara-
ites in these parts. According to their own tradition their forefathers had migrated
from Byzantium to the Crimea, and had then been resettled in Troki near Wilnal
Vilnius and places further south, including Halicz, by the Grand Duke Witold of
Lithuania after his 1392 victory over the Tartars. 11
9 Robert Eisler, lesous Basileus ou Basileusas (2 vols.; Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1929-30),
1:516, n. I.
10 The family records inserted by the main copyist, Joseph b. Moses, are sU11!marized by
Landauer, Katalog, 70; on the succession of hazzanim from this family among the Halicz
Karaites see Nathan M. Gelber, "Halicz," EncJud (Berlin: Eschkol, 1928-1934), 7: 870-71.
11 An 1838 responsum of Abraham Leonowicz of Halicz, cited by Majer Balaban, "Kariier,"
EncJud (Berlin: Eschkol, 1932),9: 923-54 (936-37). See further Mikhail Kizilov, The Karailes
ofGalicia (Leiden: Brill, 2008).
52 Wil/iam Horbury
The Toledot Yeshu is the only polemical or midrashic item in the manuscript.
It fits in a general way with the interest in communal instruction and the main-
tenance of Jewish education and ways of life which is evident in much of the
compilation. Joseph ben Samuel, an ancestor of the eighteenth-century Moses
and his sons Samuel and Joseph, had migrated to Halicz from Lithuania at about
the beginning of the eighteenth century; at this period the Lithuanian Karaites
had produced literary controversy against both Rabbanites and Christians. Je-
didiah Solomon b. Aaron of Troki about 1700 wrote with these aims, and was
preceded a hundred years earlier by the more famous Isaac of Troki, author of
the Hizzuq 'emunah. The general conditions which had evoked these apologetic
works still prevailed later and further south, and concern with Christian pressure
might have been sharpened in mid-eighteenth-century Galicia by the Frankist
movement; Jacob Frank and many of his followers accepted baptism in the af-
termath of the rabbinic-Frankist disputations held under ecclesiastical auspices
in Lemberg in 1757 and 1759.
There is no indication whether the Toledo! Yeshu was copied from a text be-
longing to a Rabbanite or a Karaite. It is tempting to ask if the text was mediated
ultimately through Karaite contacts with Jerusalem and the east - the Karaite
David Hazzan had migrated from Jerusalem to Galicia in 1640. The attestation
of similar texts in Europe at an earlier date makes caution advisable, but the
contacts with oriental texts noted below at least bring the question to the fore.
In any case, it is of interest that the manuscript provides a relatively late but
clear instance of the reading of the Toledot Yeshu by Karaites; one other pos-
sible case of a Karaite copying a Toledot Yeshu text was pointed out by G. B.
De Rossi, and old Karaite authors including Qirqisani and Judah Hadassi show
knowledge of its contents, but as far as I know attestations of Toledot Yeshu
manuscripts in use by Karaites are rare. 12 The text is also notable as an instance
of the copying of the Toledot Yeshu by a communal official and instructor;
comparably, at about the same time in Italy the Toledot Yeshu appear to have
been appended by Joshua Segre, rabbi in Scandiano, near Reggio Emilia, to his
polemical work Asham Talui. 13 Later on, in Baghdad in 1846, during mission-
ary activity there by the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the
Jews, a copy of the Toledot Yeshu was made py the Hakham Isaac b. Mordecai
12 Giovanni B. De Rossi, Mss. Codices Hebraici Bibliothecae I. B. de Rossi (3 vols., Panna,

1803), no. 96, pp. 60b, 62b, on the basis of correspondence with Elia Morpurgo, who described
a copy of the works in this Ms. formerly in the possession ofa Karaite.
13 Ms. Oxford, Bodleian Library Opp. Add. 4° 145, comprising Asham Talui Part II and the
Toledot Yeshu, with a letter of Segre of 1787, described by Adolf Neubauer in A. Neubauer
& Arthur E. Cowley, Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library (2 vols.,
Oxford, 1886, 1906), I: 845a, no. 2407; Malachi Beit-Arie, ed. R.A. May, Catalogue of the
Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library: Supplement ofAddenda and Corrigenda to Vol. J
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), p. 469a.
b. Sason.14 Those trends and external pressures which helped to promote such
copying by communal officers or teachers at the same time of course had an
opposite effect; they encouraged the criticism or discrediting of the Toledot by
Jewish authors who were communal representatives deeply engaged with the
non-Jewish world, like Leone Modena in the seventeenth century or Moses
Mendelssohn at the end of the eighteenth. 15
2.
The Strasbourg text was thus copied for use in an eighteenth-century Galician
Karaite milieu. Yet, to turn now to its importance for the history of the Toledot
Yeshu narrative, it is notable first of all that the text reproduced bears signs of
greater age. The same is of course true of many other modem copies of the
Toledot Yeshu. Krauss brought this point out implicitly for the Strasbourg text
by noting in his textual apparatus readings suggested by the Latin translation of
parts of a Toledot Yeshu text given by Raimundus Martinus in his Pugio fidei,
compiled in Spain by c. 1278. Some further indications bear out the view that the
Strasbourg copy substantially represents a text already current in the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries.
First, it begins in satirical style with the phrase tehillat ber;yyato shel Yeshu,
"the beginning of the creation of Yeshu," modelled on the midrashic tehillat
beriyyato shel 'olam (Ber. R. i 6, etc.). This is a palpable hit at the clause of
the Nicene Creed, credo in ... Christum ... genitum non factum, "begotten not
made," and with its literary as well as polemical character looks like one of those
reworkings of the introduction of the Toledot Yeshu to which the text was repeat-
edly liable. In this case, however, the reworking is of respectable age, for the
same opening of the text is attested in Latin translation in the anthology of texts
compiled by the Dominican Theobald of Saxony under the heading Extractiones
de Talmut in the mid-thirteenth century, in connection with the long-drawn-out
public examination of the Talmud in the university of Paris initiated in 1239;
in a section illustrating blasphemies against Christ and the Virgin it is stated
that the Jews have a book which begins initium creacionis ihesu nazareni. 16 No
14 David S. Sassoon, Ohel Dawid. Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Man-
uscripts in the Sassoon Library, London (2 vols., London: Oxford University Press, 1932), no.
793, pp. 426, 920; Albert A. Isaacs, Biography of the Rev. Henry Aaron Stern, D. D. (London: J.
Nisbet & co., \886), 24-74 (on the Baghdad mission of which Stem was a member, 1844-52).
15 Leone Modena, Magen va-herev: hibur neged ha-Natsrut (ed. Shlomo Simonsohn, Jerusa-
lem: Mekitse nirdamim, 1960),3.9, p. 43 (ha-kol sheqer ve-kazav); Moses Mendelssohn, letter
to J. C. Lavater in Moses Mendelssohn, Gesammelte Schriften (Berlin: Akademie Ver1ag, 1930),
7: 362 ("eine Misgeburt aus den Zeiten der Legenden, und ihrer wtirdig").
16 On the Extractiones see Heinz Schreckenberg. Die christlichen Adversus-Judaeos Texte
und ihr literarisches und historisches Umfeld (13.-20. Jh.) (Frankfurt a.M.: P. Lang, 1994),
54 William Horbury
title is quoted, and it may be that the text in question simply began and ended
without a title, as is the case in the Strasbourg text. The Hebrew text of the Paris
Disputation of 1240 indeed correspondingly includes, as Isidore Loeb noted, two
allusions to the Toledot Yeshu, both noting features of the "Helen group" found
in copies including the Strasbourg text Mary's betrothed husband was called
John, and Jesus lived in the days of queen Helen.17
Secondly, the Strasbourg Hebrew text corresponds verbally with Hebrew
quotations of the Toledot Yeshu by Abner of Burgos, who had received the bap-
tismal name Alfonso, in his Hebrew anti-Jewish polemic, before 1349. Arguing
that Christ's miracles are well known to Jews, he quotes two books, one Toledo!
Yeshu in Hebrew and another in Aramaic. Corresponding Aramaic texts are now
known once again through Genizah fragments, and the story which they present
can be seen often to be echoed in the Jewish statements reported by the ninth-
century Lyonnais bishops Agobard and Amulo. Here Yeshu uses magic and is
tried by judges including Pilate, whereas in the Hebrew group represented by the
Strasbourg text Yeshu uses the Ineffable Name and appears before queen Helen.
Abner's quotations from the Hebrew book can be seen, through comparison
with the Strasbourg text, to be five separate extracts, brought together in the
order of the narrative to form a summary of what is important for Abner 's argu-
ment. Abner indicates that the title was Ma 'aseh shel Yeshu ha-Notsri. Abner's
polemic was reproduced in the answer to it issued by Shem Tob ibn Shaprut as
an addition to his own apologetic work the Touchstone ('Eben Bohan) in 1400,
and this passage from it was published from a Ms. of ibn Shaprut by Krauss; but
he did not point out the agreement of the quotations with the Strasbourg text. IS
These verbal correspondences in the Incipit and a series of extracts confirm
that that the Strasbourg text is identical in important particulars with lost texts
which were current in France and Spain in the thirteenth and fourteenth centu-
ries. This observation can now be set beside Krauss's indication of agreements
between the Strasbourg text and other texts which were still extant. One was the
Oxford Yiddish text, but in fact this does diverge sometimes in both language
and content from the Strasbourg text, as G. Schlichting pointed out. 19 Another,
\01-3; the Toledot Yeshu reference is cited from Ms. Paris Lat. 16558, f. 14c, by Chenmelech
Merchavia, The Church versus Talmudic and Midr"ashic Literature, 500-1248 (Jerusalem:
Mosad Beyalik, 1970 [in Hebrew]), 305, 328-30.
17 Isidore Loeb, "La controverse religieuse entre les chretiens et les juifs au moyen age,"
Revue de I'histoire des religions 17 (1888): 311-37 (329, n. 3); 18 (1888): 134-56.
18 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 146-7, from a Breslau Ms.; 1 have verified the quotation in two
other Mss. of the Touchstone, Cambridge University Library, Add. 1175 and Bodleian Library,
Mich. 137. For the date and presentations of Ibn Shaprut's quotation and rebuttal of Abner
see William Horbury, "The Revision of Shem Tob Ibn Shaprut's Eben Bohan," in Jews and
Christians in Contact and Controversy (ed. William Horbury; Edinburgh: T. &T Clark, 1998),
261-75 (264) (= Sefarad 44 [1983]: 221-37).
19 Gunter Schlichting, Einjiidisches Leben Jesu: Die verschollene Toledot-Jeschu-Fassung
Tam u-Mu 'ad (WUNT 24, Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1982),42.
however, was a probably nineteenth-century Hebrew fragment, a single leaf

with the beginning of the story, which E. N. Adler had purchased in Bokhara
in 1897. 20 It has the title Ma 'aseh Yeshu ha-Notsri, begins with a corrupt form
of the Strasbourg Incipit, and throughout corresponds fairly closely with the
Strasbourg text.
This agreement with a text found in central Asia is open to many explanations.
Thus among the printed books which Adler saw in Bokhara were some originat-
ing ultimately with refugees from Spain, including a copy of the Ixar Pentateuch
of 1490 and some pages from a Catalonian prayer-book printed at Salonika in
1523. 21 A manuscript copy of the Toledot Yeshu text known to Abner of Burgos
could have travelled in the same way, and Adler's leaf could come from a much
later copy of it. Yet the nineteenth-century Bokharan Jews were also in touch
with Lithuania and Jerusalem, both possible sources of Toledot Yeshu texts; and
given the remarkable mobility of books in general, speculation is probably futile.
In any case, this agreement was later paralleled by agreements over a longer
portion of text with at least five other eastern manuscripts, mainly from the Ye-
men. Among the earliest of these is a copy in a seventeenth-century Yemenite
hand (formerly Ms. Sassoon 902) corresponding to nine pages of the printed
text in Krauss (40 line 2-48 line 6).22 It begins with the discovery ofYeshu's
paternity, and ends in the story of Elijah-Paul. Another, less close verbally, a
Yemenite text printed by Krauss, runs (with what seem to be abbreviations) from
the conception ofYeshu to the separation of the Christians by Elijah, and retains
a little of the Aramaic which in the Strasbourg text gives verisimilitude to one
or two remarks by speakers who claim learning. 23
The Strasbourg text therefore has links in its opening with the lost text cited
in the thirteenth century by Theobald, and with the probably nineteenth-century
fragment bought by Adler in Bokhara. In the body of its narrative it is close to
the lost texts quoted in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by the Christian
controversialists Raimundus Martinus and Abner (Alphonsus) of Burgos, re-
spectively, but also to texts which circulated in the Middle East, especially the
Yemen, at least from the seventeenth century onwards. Thus it is an instance in
which, despite the individuality of almost every single Toledot Yeshu manuscript,
the possibility of discerning a group of texts which are verbally as well as the-
matically close seems real, and in which some encouragement for the idea of a
synoptic presentation can be found. Again, it is one of many instances in which
a relatively modem copy has clear links with texts which were already current
20 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 21, 140-41; Bischoff in Krauss, ibid., 30-31.
21 Elkan Nathan Adler, Jews in Many Lands (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of
America, 1905), 221.
22 Sassoon, Ohel Dawid, 920-21, no. 902.
23 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 21, 118-21; Bischoff in Krauss, ibid., 31.
56 William Horbury
in the Middle Ages. Now, finally, two further aspects of the text raise questions
about its contacts with ancient and early mediaeval times.
3.
One much-discussed aspect has been the presentation in this text of the names of
the new Christian festivals which Elijah-Paul causes to be substituted for Jewish
ones. These appear quite widely in Toledo! Yeshu manuscripts (thus the Baghdad
1846 copy just mentioned has a somewhat fuller form) but, as Krauss put it, they
are seen at their best in the Strasbourg text, where they are given in the Syriac
used by eastern Christians; the names of the Jewish festivals are also given in
Aramaic. 24 Krauss's discussions of this passage as a sign of early date have
been developed by later writers, most fully in a recent investigation by Daniel
Stokl ben Ezra which shows that the list of festivals probably reflects Palestine
or Syria in the fourth or early fifth century.25 Here it need only be noted in addi-
tion that the last item in the list, Kalendae, substituted for Hanukkah, was also a
loan-word and liturgical term in Syriac, and that the emphasis in the context of
the list on the separation of Christians from Jews and the good treatment of Jews
by Christians is not peculiar to the Toledot, but, with some broadly comparable
references to festivals, is likewise a feature of apocryphal Christian accounts of
early apostolic councils. 26 In general, the Toledot presentation of ecclesiastical
events after the crucifixion is close to Christian narrative of these (including
pious fraud by the apostles Peter and Paul, as well as commandment to eschew
Jewish customs) as it was developed by the fourth and fifth centuries.~7
A second striking feature of the Strasbourg text, this time not paralleled in
the manuscripts mentioned above, is its presentation of a form of the Talmudic
narrative of the trial and execution of five disciples ofYeshu (b. Sanhedrin 43a).
In the Toledot Yeshu text this passage appears when Yeshu is captured for the
second time, in the temple. The Wise ask him his name, and he gives a series of
four cover-names - Matthai, Naqi, Buni and Netzer. These are four of the five
names allotted in the Talmud to the five disciples (although in part of the Tal-
24 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 272; idem, "Neuere Ansichten iiber 'Toldoth Jeschu,'" MGWJ
76 (1932): 586-603; 77 (1933): ~I (46-7).
25 William Horbury, A Critical Examination of the Toledoth Jeshu (Ph. D. diss.; Cambridge
University, 1970), 275-81; Daniel SUlkl Ben Ezra, "An Ancient List of Christian Festivals in
Toledot Yeshu: Polemics as Indication for Interaction," HTR 102 (2009): 481-96.
26 So for example canons IS and 16 in the Syriac Teaching of the Apostles translated by Ben-
jamin Plummer Pratten, Syriac Documents attributed to the first three centuries (Ante-Nicene
Christian Library 21; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1871), 41.
27 William Horbury, "The Depiction of Judaeo-Christians in the Toledot Yeshu," in The Image
of the Judaeo-Christians in Ancient Jewish and Christian Literature (eds. Peter J. Tomson and
Doris Lambers-Petry; WUNT 158, Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 284-85.
mudic textual tradition, represented in Haggadot ha-Talmud, there are likewise

only four); but they read like names derived from the Christological proof-texts
which Yeshu then quotes (Ps. 42:2, 24:7; Exod. 4:22; Isa. 11: 1), only to be rebut-
ted by other nearby texts on the principle teshuvatan be-ziddan (enunciated in
respect of answers to Minim in b. Sanhedrin 38b, Bereshit Rabbah viii 9). The
messianic and Christological character ofthe proofs was emphasized by students
including H.J. Schonfield. 28 Hence it was suggested by Ernst Bammel that, as
this text of the Toledot Yeshu might indicate, originally the names were simply
envisaged as names referring to Yeshu; and Peter Schiifer somewhat similarly
argues that the author or editor of the trial-scene in the Babylonian Talmud is
giving a rebuttal of Christian claims for Christ under the guise of an account of
the trial of the disciples. 29
At present, however, the focus of interest is not so much the interpretation
of the Talmudic passage, as its incorporation into a Hebrew text of the Toledot
Yeshu - something which is in fact typical not of the other texts ofthe Strasbourg
or "Helen" type, but of the Aramaic texts and their Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic
congeners, in which either five or twelve disciples are brought and tried. 3o It
may be suggested that the Strasbourg text has contact here with a form, perhaps
early, of the story given in the Aramaic texts, in which Yeshu did indeed apply
the names to himself. In this connection it is at least noteworthy that the pas-
sage on Simeon Cepha in the Strasbourg text, itself probably an addition, gives
the Christian authorities Hebrew equivalents of the titles which in the Aramaic
texts we find given to Roman or Jewish ones: hegemon andyashish gadol. 31 In
the Strasbourg text we then have a possible link between the Hebrew text in the
"Helen Group" form which is the most familiar of all, and the story given typi-
cally in the Aramaic texts.
The Strasbourg text thus presents both a well-marked form ofthe passage on
festivals which forms one of the internal associations of the "Helen group" with
the fourth and fifth centuries, and also, in the passage on the names ofYeshu and
in the titles given to authorities, material suggesting that this text has had contact
during its transmission and development with the story as current in Aramaic
texts of the "Pilate group." Can more be said on the pre-thirteenth-century his-
tory of the narrative attested in the Strasbourg text?
The beginning of the Strasbourg text, with its tinge of literature and satire,
is probably an elaboration of a Toledo! Yeshu which was already current. This
28 Schonfield, According to the Hebrews, 153-7.

29 Emst BammeI, "What is thy Name?," in Judaica. K/eine Schriften (ed. idem; 2 vols.;
WUNT 37, Tilbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1986; repr. from NT(1970) 12:223-28), I: 210-15; Peter
Schlifer, Jesus in the Ta/mud (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 75-81.
30 Yaacov Deutsch, "New Evidence of Early Versions of To/dot Yeshu," Tarbiz 69 (2000):
177-97 (18fr89).
31 Hebrew text (f. 175a) in Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 49.
58 Wi/liam Horbury
particular opening is first attested in the early thirteenth century, and may of
course be earlier; but in any case a closely similar Hebrew text, with or without
this opening sentence, probably circulated earlier in the Middle Ages. Yet clear
earlier attestations of the narrative as it is presented here as a whole are lacking,
and the divergence from it of those fonns of narrative which are indeed attested
earlier in Aramaic - Di Segni's "Pi late group" - is striking not only for the dif-
ference in the principal governing authorities concerned, but also for the lack of
the birth story in the published texts of the "Pilate group" - and indeed also in an
early witness to the "Helen group" like that of Raimundus Martinus (here Jesus
is of illegitimate birth, but the story of his birth is not told in the text, at least as
far as it is translated by Raimundus). Hence it has been suggested that the birth
story as it is found at the beginning of the Strasbourg text represents a mediaeval
addition to the Toledot Yeshu narrative, from the thirteenth century or later. 32
The intensive study oftexts which is under way will surely throw more light
on the whole question of the pre-thirteenth-century antecedents of the "Helen
group," but some tentative remarks can be made on the basis of evidence al-
ready available. The importance of the Toledot Yeshu for the Jewish statements
reported by Agobard and Amulo in the ninth century was underlined, now with
the suggestion that it fonned a significant factor in Carolingian conversions to
Judaism, by Bernhard Blumenkranz. 33 Of special note for the Strasbourg text,
with its narrative of the conception ofYeshu, is Amulo's Liber contra ludaeos,
issued in 846. Here a connected narrative of the type known from Aramaic texts
concerning deposition from the cross at the request of Joshua (ben Perahiah), en-
tombment, and the dragging of the body through the city is followed by a report
that Jews call Jesus "the impious son of an impious father, that is of some gentile
(nescio cuius ethnici) whom they call Pandera; they say that this man commit-
ted adultery with the Lord's mother and that thence he in whom we believe was
born."34 This statement implies knowledge not just of the Talmud, which lacks
the specification of Pandera as a gentile, but also of a fonn of the Toledot concep-
tion narrative. In the context of Amulo's reproduction of a connected account
of events after the crucifixion, it suggests a Toledot Yeshu of the Pilate group as
known from Aramaic texts, but beginning with a birth story.35
32 Di Segni, Il vangelo del ghetto, 33, 113, 127-29,218 (not mentioning the thirteenth-
century attestation of the Incipit of the Strasbourg text).
33 Bemhard Blumenkranz, Juifs et chretiens dans le monde occidental, 430--1096 (Paris:
Mouton,1960), 169-71,258.
34 Wagenseil, "Confutatio Libri Toldos Jeschu," 12-13; Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 13 (both
follow the old attribution of the book to Hrabanus Maurus); the relevant passages are reprinted
from Pierre-Fran~ois Chiffiet, Scriptorum Veterum de Fide Catholica Quinque Opuscula (Di-
jon, 1656),289-534 in Hennann Leberecht Strack, Jesus, die Hiiretiker und die Christen nach
den iiltesten jiidischen Angaben (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, 1910), 17*.
35 Blumenkranz,Juifs et chretiens'-258 envisaged a recension like, but a little different from,
that attested by Agobard.
The view expressed here that Pandera was a gentile was later assumed by
Maimonides, and it reappears in Toledot Yeshu texts, for example in the Yemen
(possibly now in turn influenced by Maimonides) in Ms. Sassoon 902, the sev-
enteenth-century text cited above for its closeness to the Strasbourg copy.36 The
Strasbourg text itself represents a widespread form in which "Joseph ben Pan-
dera" is simply a Jewish neighbour, but Wagenseil's text among others retains
with this a vestige of the old assertion that he was a soldier, which is found in
the second century in the statements on Christian origins attributed by Celsus to
a JewY Probably at an early stage the descriptions "soldier" and "gentile" were
sometimes found together, for the suggestion that the father was non-Jewish
already appears in another form in St John's GOSpeJ.38
A conception narrative could then reasonably be envisaged for the "Helen"
as well as the "Pi late" form of narrative in the ninth century, given that much
internal evidence suggests that the "Helen" form had already developed in the
fourth and fifth centuries. Krauss dated the story in the Strasbourg text probably
to the fifth century.39 A date near this time is suggested by the character of the
account ofNestorius as an addition to an existing narrative; the figure of Helen
herself (apparently conflating Helena Augusta, the mother of Constantine, with
Helen of Adiabene), in the light of the proliferation of Christian legend on St
Helen and the Jews in the fourth and fifth centuries; and the contacts of the
Elijah-Paul narrative noted already with Christian accounts, from the fourth
century onwards, of apostolic preaching by pious fraud and apostolic instruction
to separate from Jewish ways.
The Pilate form, it may be suggested, represents a still earlier narrative; it
has links with the anti-Christian Acts of Pilate which circulated in the late third
century, and, like the probably later "Helen" form known from the Strasbourg
text, it is related ultimately (but more closely than the "Helen" form) to the
second-century stories which are attributed by Celsus to a Jewish source, and
are not without some reflection in rabbinic tradition. 40
36 Abraham Halkin, ed., Moses Maimonides' Epistle to Yemen (New York: American Acad-
emy for Jewish Research, 1952), 12-13.
37 Origen, Contra Celsum 1:32 (Mary turned out by her betrothed, for she had been convicted
of adultery and had a child by a soldier called Panthera); Wagenseil, "Liber Toldos Jeschu," 3
(Joseph Pandera a gibbor milhamah), discussed with other attestations of "soldier" and "gen-
tile" by Horbury, A Critical Examination, 405-6.
38 John 8:48 "you are a Samaritan," cf. 8:41 "we were not born of fornication."
39 Krauss, Dos Leben Jesu, 246.
40 For rabbinic passages as suggesting an early form of narrative on Jesus related to the
Toledot Yeshu and current in both Judaea and the east see William Horbury, "Rabbinic Percep-
tions of Christianity and the History of Roman Palestine," Proceedings ofthe British Academy
165 (2010): 353-76 (= Rabbinic Texts and the History of Late-Roman Palestine reds. Martin
Goodman and Philip Alexander)).
Observations on the Huldreich Manuscripts
of the Toledot Yeshu*
Adina M Yoffie
"Diese Recension gibt uns schwere Probleme auf"l With those words, Samuel
Krauss, author of the seminal work Das Leben Jesu nach Judischen Quellen
(1902), encapsulated the challenges posed by the "Huldreich" version of the
Toledot Yeshu. Johann Jacob Huldreich, a Christian scholar from Zurich about
whom little is known, first published a manuscript of the version in 1705, along
with a Latin translation and annotations. 2 Huldreich's manuscript differs sub-
stantially from earlier manuscripts of the Toledot in both content and style, it
combines some of the earliest and some of the latest Toledot traditions, and its
origin remains almost completely obscure: Huldreich said only that a Jew had
given it to him. Building on the work of Krauss, his colleague, Erich Bischoff,
and scholars recently researching the Toledot, this article closely examines the
Huldreich version, exploring its unique narrative and its rewritings of earlier
versions. It also offers some thoughts about dating the manuscripts.
Krauss delineates some of the unique features of the Huldreich version, which
this article will discuss in some detail, but, in short, there are many. It is thus sur-
prising, at least at first glance, that the Huldreich manuscripts have not received
more scholarly attention relative to the other versions than they have. There are
a number of ways to explain this comparative neglect, including: the paucity of
manuscripts; the lack of significant differences between the manuscripts, which
led Krauss, Riccardo Di Segni, and others to believe - in my view, correctly -
that they are all copies of each other; and the sheer number of dissimilarities
• This article would not have been possible without the resources of the Toledot Yeshu
project. I would like to thank the attendees of the Toledot Yeshu conference, especially Peter
Schiifer, who made the conference - and the project - possible, and Michael Meerson, my
colleague on the project, for their thoughtful comments. I am also indebted to Michael for his
answers to my questions while I was turning the paper into an article. I appreciate Eve Levavi
Feinstein's and Jannon Stein's help with my last-minute queries.
I Samuel Krauss, Das Leben Jesu nach jii.dischen Quel/en (Berlin: S. Cavalry, 1902; repr.
2 Johann Jacob Huldreich (Hu1dricus), Se/er Toledot Yeshua ha-NolsrilHisloria Jeschuae
Nazareni: aJudaeis blaspheme corruptalex manuscripto hactenus inedito nunc demum edila,
ac versione et notis (quibus Judaeorum nequiliae proprius deleguntur, et authoris asserta in-
eptiae ac impietatis convincuntur), ilIustrata a Joh. Jac. Huldrico (Leiden: J. du Vivie, 1705).
62 Adina M Yoffie
between the Huldreich version and all the others, which makes it very difficult
for the scholar to put it in context. 3
This article aims to situate the Huldreich manuscripts in their historical and
geographical contexts, in light of the manuscripts' unique features. The parts
of the Huldreich that reference earlier versions often echo the earliest extant
Hebrew manuscripts, at least one of which is a translation of an even earlier
Aramaic manuscript. But there are much later elements in the Huldreich as
well. The Huldreich's description of Mary's grave is nearly identical to that in
a Yiddish manuscript. Another account, about Jesus playing ball, is similar to a
story common in the latest, "Slavic," versions of the Toledot. Since the author
or authors of the Huldreich were familiar with some of the earliest and some
of the latest manuscript traditions, the Huldreich version may be dated to the
fifteenth or sixteenth century, if not even later. The Huldreich is most likely an
early modem synthesis of a number of Toledo! traditions, with some prominent
high medieval features, and with references to micro forms approximately half a
millennium older than the core text.
The Manuscript Evidence and Implications for Authorship
Every scholar who has attempted to catalog the more than 150 Hebrew Toledo!
Yeshu manuscripts has done so slightly differently and has given the manuscripts
different names and numbers. Riccardo Di Segni, author of a 1985 work on the
manuscripts, calls the Huldreich group "Herod," after the arbiter of Jesus's trial.
This is his general classification scheme, with what Krauss calls the "Wagenseil"
type being called "Helena," etc. 4 The Princeton University Toledot Yeshu project,
unlike earlier cataloguers, has access to digital copies of at least three-quarters
ofthe extent manuscripts. That has made it possible to check the classifications
of Krauss and Di Segni against both the manuscripts and Huldreich's text and,
in some cases, to eliminate manuscripts from the Huldreich group. The project
has identified five manuscripts so far that are nearly identical to the Hebrew text
published by Huldreich in 1705. They are: Frankfurt Hebrew 8.249 (Frankfurt
249); Amsterdam Hs. Ros 442; Amsterdam Ms. Ros 504; Princeton Firestone
Library 24 (Princeton 24); and Manchester Gaster 1989 (so called because it was
once owned by Krauss's friend, the Reverend M. Gaster of London). The rest are
likely to be either copies or translations of those five, which are nearly identical
to each other. Krauss's book lists only three Huldreich manuscripts, one of which
3 Riccardo Di Segni, If vangefo del ghetto (Rome: Newton Compton, 1985),225-36.

4 Di Segni, 11 vangelo del ghetto, 29-42, 216--19, cited by Hillel\' Newman, "The Death of
Jesus in the Toledot Yeshu Literature," JTS 50 (1999): 59-79, 59, n. 5.
Observations on the Huldreich Manuscripts of the Toledot Yeshu 63
was the text published by Huldreich. 5 Di Segni lists a total often manuscripts of
the "Herod" (i. e., Huldreich) type; that number does not include Princeton 24,
of which he was not aware, or Amsterdam 504, which he classifies as belonging
to the "Elena" (i. e., Wagenseil) type. Of those ten, he classifies five as copies of
the Herod/Huldreich version and four as translations of it. Three of the transla-
tions are to Judaeo-German; one is to Judaeo-Spanish.6 Citations of the text of
the Huldreich manuscript in this article will be to Frankfurt 249 (called "Fr. 1" on
Di Segni's 1985 list), unless otherwise noted. It is the most complete manuscript
of the five, although Princeton 24 is almost as complete.
Another problem with the manuscript evidence is that is very late. 1 The manu-
script of the Toledo! Yeshu that Huldreich used to publish his annotated Latin-
Hebrew edition of the Toledot has been lost. 8 About that manuscript, Huldreich
said, in his introduction to the reader, only that he got it from a Jew. 9 He used
no adjectives to describe the Jew, and he gave no indication that his source was
a Jewish convert to Christianity, as were the informants of Johann Christoph
Wagenseil (1633-1705), the other early modem Christian scholar to publish
a Hebrew text of the Toledo! Yeshu with a Latin translation and commentary
(1681 ).10 There was no "Huldreich" before Huldreich; that is, there are no extant
manuscripts of the Huldreich type before Huldreich published his book in 1705.
All of the subsequent manuscripts appear to have been copied from Huldreich's
book, or perhaps from other manuscripts that were copied from it.
Although Huldreich neither said nor implied that his source was a convert,
the possibility that the Huldreich was authored by converts must be considered.
Jewish converts to Christianity were often involved in telling Christians about
the existence of the Toledot, and, as was just mentioned, Wagenseil had a number
5 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 33-35. Dr. Erich Bischoff is the author of the "Klassificirung
der Texte" section of Das Leben Jesu (27-37). Pages from the section will be cited as "Krauss,
Das Leben Jesu, PAGE (Bischoft)."
6 For Di Segni's manuscript list (the most recently published one, although Princeton Uni-
versity's Toledot Yeshu project is in the process of producing a newer one), see the "Bibliogra-
fia" section of his Il vangelo del ghetto, 225-36.
7 Krauss points out that this is the case for almost all Toledot Yeshu manuscripts (Das Leben
Jesu,19).
8 Krauss, ibid., 33 (Bischoft).
9 Huldreich, Sefer Toledot Yeshua ha-Notsri, 4r: "Obsecutus ergo fui. atque aggressus sum
libel/um scelerate impium. quem Manuscriptum a Judaeo olim nactus sum." (I, therefore,
complied, and 1 guiltily undertook the impious little book, whose manuscript [is] from a Jew
I once met).
10 lohann Christoph Wagenseil, Tela ignea Satanae, hoc est: Arcani et horribiles Judaeorum
adversus Christum Deum et Christianem religionem libri anekdotoi: Sunt vero: R. Lipmanni
Carmen Memoriale. Liber Nizzachon Vetus Autoris lncogniti. Acta Disputationes R. Jechielis
cum quodam Nicolao. Acta Disputationis R. Mosis Nachmanidis cum Fratre Paulo Christiani,
et Fratre Raymundo Martini. R. lsaaci Liber Chissuk Emuna. Libel/us Toldos Jeschu/Johann
Christophorus Wagenseilius ex Europae Africaeque latebris erutos, in lucem protrusit ... (A1t-
dorf: lohann Heinrich Schonnerstlidt, 1681).
64 Adina M. Yoffie
of apostate infonnants. 11 Another feature of the Huldreich that could point to a

Christian author (or authors) is its many allusions to the story of Jesus's life in
the Gospels, and particularly the Gospel of John. 12 In both texts, Herod is the
King at Jesus's birth.IJ Both have a flight to Egypt (2v) and a slaughter of the
innocents (2v-3r). Jesus is both a student and a critic of the rabbis (3r), and he
has five disciples (3r), as in the Gospel of John, Chapter I. The disciples' leader
is Peter (Petrus). John the Baptist (Yehonos) is the first to be killed for follow-
ing Jesus (3v). In most of the versions in which John is mentioned (primarily
the Aramaic fragments and the early Hebrew manuscripts), he is killed together
with Jesus, after the disciples are executed. 14 Jesus wanders in the dessert (al-
though with the disciples), meets people, and makes pithy remarks to them (3v).
The ruler (in this case, Herod) agrees to execute Jesus after some delay (4v).
His executing is by hanging, with no stoning (although his disciples are stoned
n,
[4v in a marked departure from many other versions, and from the Talmud. ls
Perhaps the most famous seventeenth-century convert connected with the
Toledot is Samuel Friedrich Brenz of Bavaria. In his Judischer abgestreifter
Schlangenbalg (The Jewish Serpent sSkin Stripped; 1614), Brenz wrote that, on
Christmas Eve, the Jews read a book called Maase Thola (Tale of the Hanged
One, one of the alternative titles for the Toledot).16 In that book, Jesus is called
11 Krauss believed that many Toledot manuscripts were written by converts (Dar Leben Jesu,
17), on account of what he considered to be their poor Hebrew (16-17) and their utter hostility
to Christianity. He cited Johann Wiilfer's idea that converts manufactured the entire Toledot in
order to incite Christians to harm the Jews. Krauss thought that Wiilfer went a bit too far but
did not dismiss his argument (17). I think that Krauss went too far in crediting Wi1lfer's claims.
While converts were involved in the transmission, and likely to some degree in the composition,
of some manuscripts of the Toledot Yeshu, there is no reason not to see the Toledot as an internal
Jewish response to the Gospels and to Christianity.
12 In the Huldreich, Jesus is called "Yeshua" at his birth and then "Yezush" after his excom-
munication. In the other Hebrew Toledot Yeshu manuscripts, he is usually called "Yeshu" (or
"Yishai," which is probably the result of a transcription error) after his excommunication,
while at birth he may be called "Yeshua," "Yehoshua," or "Yeshu." For the sake of clarity, and
for ease of comparing with other manuscripts and with the New Testament, this article always
refers to him as "Jesus."
13 Toledot Yeshu (Ms. Frankfurt 249), 2v. For the rlimainder of this article, pages from the
Huldreich (Ms. Frankfurt 249) will be cited in internal citations in the body of the text.
14 For a transcription of, and introduction to, one of the most complete Aramaic manuscripts,
Cambridge 35.87, see Yaacov Deutsch, "New Evidence of Early Versions of Toledot Yeshu,"
Tarbiz 69 (2000): 177-97 (in Hebrew).
IS On the execution of Jesus in the Huldreich, see also Krauss, Dar Leben Jesu, 34 (Bischoft).
On Jesus's execution by stoning in the Talmud, see Mishnah (m.) Sanhedrin 6: 1 and Babylonian
Talmud Sanhedrin (b. Sanhedrin) 43a, quoted in Peter Schafer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2(07), 63-65.
16 Elisheva Carlebach, "The Anti-Christian Element in Early-Modem Yiddish Culture,"
Braun Lecture in the History ofthe Jews in Prussia 10 (Ramat Gan: Bar Han University, 2002):
1-20, 9. Carlebach cites Marc Shapiro, "Torah Study on Christmas Eve," Journal of Jewish
Thought and Philosophy 8 (1999): 319-53, 332-34.
Observations on the Huldreich Manuscripts 0/ the Toledot Yeshu 65
a bastard and the son of a whore and a menstruating woman.17 He added that
the book was a secret among Jews, and that they were forbidden to print it. 18
Brenz went on to give a number of details of the book, focusing particularly on
the Ineffable Name ("Schem Hamephorasch"), which the Jews claim that Jesus
stole from the Holy Temple in order to perform his miracles. 19 Bischoff, cit-
ing Johann Christoph Wolf, said that the lost Huldreich codex was "consistent
with the manuscript from which Brentz (sic) in his 'Jiid(isches) Schlangenbalg'
directly or indirectly drew."2o It is, therefore, tempting to speculate that Brenz
could have been involved in the writing of the Huldreich, but, contra Bischoff,
his accounts include a number of episodes that appear in many Toledot texts of
the Wagenseil and Slavic types, but not in the Huldreich. Those include Jesus
stealing the Name, Judah later learning the Name at the behest of the rabbis,
and Judah engaging in a flying contest with Jesus in which Judah renders Jesus
impure. 21 In the Huldreich, Jesus learns the "secret of the Ineffable Name" from
his teacher, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perahia (3r); he does not have to steal it. There
is no flying contest in the Huldreich, and although Judah does deprive Jesus of
the power to use the Name (4r), Judah never learns the Name.
So Brenz is not a credible candidate for the authorship of the Huldreich. Per-
haps another convert, or a group of converts, wrote it, but there is another, more
tantalizing, possibility, i. e., that Huldreich wrote it himself. He would not be the
first publisher of a "found" manuscript who was actually its author. Huldreich's
annotations to the manuscript, however, suggest that he could not have written
it. There is no evidence from his book that Huldreich had regular contact with
living Jews or Jewish converts, as Wagenseil did. When Huldreich discusses
Jewish customs, he cites Wagenseil or Johannes Buxtorfthe Elder (1564-1629),
Professor of Hebrew at Basel and author of Juden Schul (1603), rather than his
own observations of, or conversations with, Jews. 22
Then there is the question of Huldreich's knowledge of Hebrew. He is a
capable translator, but the author of the Huldreich was also a talented writer of
Hebrew who likely had read a number of different versions ofthe Toledot before
synthesizing and rewriting them to create the final manuscript. Huldreich's an-
notations do not appear to be the work of a talented Hebraist. There is very little
11 Samuel Friedrich Brenz, Jiidischer abgestreifter Schlangenbalg, 1680 ed., reprinted in

10hann Willfer, Theriaca judaica ad examen revocata (Altdorf: Andreas Knorzius, 1681), 2.
18 The Toledot Yeshu's status as a secret book made it both suspicious and tantalizing to
medieval and early modem Christians. See Elisheva Carlebach, "Attribution of Secrecy and
Perceptions of Jewry," Jewish Social Studies 2 (1996), 115-36.
19 Brenz, Jiidischer abgestreifter Schlangenbalg, 2.
20 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 33 (Bischoff, citing 10hann Christoph Wolff, Bibliotheca He-
braea, 11, #740): "Der (nicht mehr vorhandene) Codex Huldreich s ... iibereinstimmend mit dem
Ms., aus dem Brentz in seinem 'liid Schlangenbalg' direkt oder indirekt sch6pfte."
21 Brenz, Jiidischer abgestreifter Schlangenbalg, 2-3.
22 See, e. g., Huldreich, Se/er Toledot Yeshua ha-Notsri, 3, annotations 1 and 2.
66 Adina M Yoffie
Hebrew in them, and his statements about what the Talmud says could have been
taken from Wagenseil, Buxtorf, or an author of a Latin compendium of Talmudic
statements about Jesus. (Such compendia circulated in the early modem western
European scholarly world). The picture of Huldreich that emerges is one of a
fairly conventional, bookish, early modem scholar, with good Hebrew and Latin,
who sprinkled his notes on the Toledot manuscript with references to the many
books he read. 23 Nowhere is the creativity or linguistic skill of the Huldreich
author evident. With the existing evidence, therefore, the identity of the author
or authors of the Huldreich remains a mystery.
Preliminary Efforts at Dating the Huldreich
Despite all ofthese difficulties, it is possible to date the Huldreich, at least ap-
proximately, by gleaning clues from close readings of the manuscripts. A sig-
nificant portion of the manuscript seems to have originated in a high medieval,
western European milieu. The manuscript's echoes of other western European
manuscript types, including the Wagenseil, de Rossi, and Slavic, and, in one
case, a Yiddish version, indicate that the Huldreich is an early modem creation
comprised of disparate elements from a series of Toledot Yeshu traditions.
Krauss suggests an origin date of the twelfth or thirteenth century.24 He
notes that, during Jesus's trial, the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem sent letters to the
community of Gormiza or Germiza, also known as Wermiza, in the Land of
the Caesar (be- 'erets qisra); the community advised against the execution. In
the High Middle Ages, a number of Jewish communities, including Worms
and Regensburg, had letters that their leaders claimed proved their long-ago
opposition to Jesus's execution. 25 Krauss thus argues that the city of Wermiza
must be Worms, Germany, in the Holy Roman Empire, a city that did not even
have a Jewish community until the tenth or eleventh century.26 His conclusion
23 On early modem "bookish" learned culture, see.Ann M. Blair, The Theater of Nature:
Jean Bodin and Renaissance Science (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 49, 71, 96.
24 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 18 (thirteenth century), 247 (twelfth century). As Sid Z. Leiman
has pointed out, even within Das Leben Jesu, Krauss demonstrated a fair amount of"equivocat-
ing" regarding the provenance of the Huldreich. He admitted thinking, in large part because of
its "wretched" (erbiirmlichen) Hebrew, that the text had been created by a Christian or Jewish
"renegade" (16). He then changed his mind, because all of the manuscripts' Hebrew was pretty
wretched, and especially because he saw traces in the text of very old traditions (17, n. I). Over
200 pages later, he argued that the manuscript that Huldreich published could be dated to the
twelfth century (247). See Sid Z. Leiman, "The Scroll of Fasts: The Ninth of Tebeth," JQR 74
(1983): 174-95,190, n. 48.
25 Krauss, ibid., 18 (on Worms), 247 (on Regensburg).
26 Krauss, ibid., 16-18.
Observations on the Huldreich Manuscripts ofthe Toledot Yeshu 67
is that the Huldreich version must have developed in Germany no earlier than
the thirteenth century.27
Another piece of evidence brought by Krauss is the use of Latin in the Huld-
reich, which would place its author in a high medieval (or later) European mi-
lieu. Krauss says that the new alphabet written for the Christians (Sr) is a Latin
one, which I have also found to be the case. 28 Krauss and Bischoffnote the use of
Latin in proper names in the Huldreich, the most prominent of which is 'Ay ("Y),
which is short for yr ("Y; city, metropolis), and thus for Rome. 29 In most ofthe
versions of the Toledot Yeshu, Jesus is called Yeshu ('''Ul''), an anagram for "May
his name and memory be erased" (yimah shemo ve-zikhro). In the Huldreich, the
anagram is "May his memory and his name be erased" (yimah zikhro ve-yimah
shemo), resulting in the name ofYezush (Ul''',r), which is very close to both the
Latin and German pronunciations of "Jesus."
Krauss's origin date is too early, for reasons that will be discussed below, but
the manuscript has a prominent element that may be described as high medieval.
In addition to the Latin and the reference to Worms, another indication of this
high medieval European segment of the Huldreich is the strong anti-Marian
strain running through it. The Huldreich is the only manuscript type that portrays
Miriam as totally complicit in her adultery. She is clearly a suspect character
even to her husband, here called Pappos, as in the Talmud, rather than Yochanan
or Yosephl Joseph, as in most other versions containing an account of the birth
of Jesus. 30 Pappos locks her in the house so that the peritsim (men of violence,
an allusion to Daniel 11: 14, here a reference to Joseph Pandera and his family
members) cannot engage in acts of harlotry (znut) with her (2V).3\ When Joseph
Pandera comes along, she eagerly assents to his plan to carry her off (2v). She
lives an apparently happy life with him, first in Egypt and then in Nazareth,
bearing him additional bastard children (2v-3r). After Miriam dies, Herod has
Jesus's siblings hanged, and mother and children (except for Jesus) buried to-
gether under a headstone saying, "Here were hanged children of harlotry, and
their mother is buried beneath them; your (Ms. Princeton 24, IOv: their) mother
is a disgrace" (Sr). Jesus's relatives and followers then knock down the marker
and put up a different one, indicating that she had ascended to Heaven. 32 Herod
orders its destruction and the killings of over 100 of Jesus's relatives (Sr-Sv).
27 Krauss, ibid., 18.

28 Krauss, ibid., 18-19. The alphabet is very close to the Latin one, although there is also a
bit of Greek in it, such as "tav" or "tau" for "t."
29 Krauss, ibid., 22, 34 (Bischoft).
30 Krauss, ibid., 34 (Bischotl).
31 On the wordperitsim and Daniel 11:14, see WiIliam Horbury, "The Depiction of the
ludaeo-Christians in the Toledot Yeshu," in The Image of the Judaeo-Christians in Ancient
Jewish and Christian Literature (eds. Peter 1. Tomson and Doris Lambers-Petry; Tilbingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 280--86, 283.
32 See below for further discussion of this tombstone.
68 Adina M. Yoffie
Anti-Marian sentiment among Jews in the West also dates to the High Middle
Ages. It arose in response to the cult of the adoration of Mary and its anti-
Jewish elements. The veneration of Mary, which was visible in the doctrine of
the Eastern Church as early as the fifth century, became increasingly vibrant in
Latin Christendom in the tenth and eleventh centuries and reached its peak in
the twelfth, especially in France. 33 Peter Schafer has traced a number of popular
eastern Christian stories of Jewish maltreatment ofMary to the West. While the
stories were initially the province of monks and lay Christians with the means
to buy illustrated books of hours, they soon reached a wider audience by being
represented in church windows. One account, of the Jews attempting to disrupt
Mary's funeral and knock her body to the ground, was depicted in stained glass
in the second half of the thirteenth century in southwest Germany.34 Another
story, in which Mary saved a Jewish boy who was thrown into a furnace by his
father after taking the Eucharist, appeared in stained-glass church windows in
France (as early as 1241) and in England. 35 Schafer shows that even if it can-
not be proven that Jews were familiar with Christian literary representations of
those anti-Jewish stories, they must have seen the windows of the churches of
their towns, just as they would have witnessed the processions of venerators
of Mary walking through the streets. 36 In light of the negative images of Jews
promulgated by Christians in Mary's name, Schiifer has expressed surprise that
most versions of the Toledot Yeshu do not cast her in a more negative light.J7 The
dominant Toledot Yeshu manuscript type circulating in high medieval western
Europe was the Wagenseil, which portrays Mary as the victim of a rapist she
thought was her husband. 38 That the Huldreich manuscript, also a product of
western Europe, does depict Mary as an adulterer and whore is much less re-
markable. It suggests a date of origin, at least for those parts of the manuscript
involving Mary, in the twelfth or thirteenth century, when the Marian cult, and
thus the need to respond to it, would have been most salient for Jews.
In the style of its narrative, the Huldreich is sometimes more reminiscent
of medieval Europe than first-century Palestine. Sid Z. Leiman has said that it
"abounds with anachronisms and reads much like a late medieval romance."39
He is probably referring to Joseph Pandera's placing a ladder against Mary's
window in order to free her from captivity in Pappos's house (2v), Jesus giving
romantic advice to a shepherdess (3v), and Jesus outsmarting Peter and Judah
out of a goose at a desert tavern (3v). The latter story, as has been noted by
33 Peter Schafer, Mirror o/His Beauty: Feminine images o/God/rom the Bible to the Early
Kabbalah (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 147-48.
34 Schafer, ibid., 189.
35 Schafer, ibid., 204.
36 Schafer, ibid., 179-80,239.
37 Schiifer, ibid., 211-12.
38 On the prevalence of the Wagenseil, see Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 27 (Bischoff).
39 Leiman, "The Scroll," 187. On the Huldreich's romantic style, see also Krauss, ibid., 12.
scholars, is also in the Decameron. None of these stories appears in any of the
other manuscripts.
The role of Worms as a major Jewish city in the Huldreich manuscripts, the
Latin names and alphabet in the text, as well as the prominent anti-Marian
sentiment, point to a twelfth, or, most likely, thirteenth-century context for at
least a significant part of the Huldreich. But there are later elements still. When
Mary dies in the Huldreich, Herod wants to have her buried under a monument
describing her as the mother of "children of whoredom." Her family's response
is to steal the monument and replace it with one saying "Hinneh sulam mutsav
'artsah ve-ro'sho magy'a hashamaymah ve-hinne malakhe 'elohym 'olym ve-
yordyn boo 'Em habanym smeha, halleluyah" (5v). The first sentence's words
are those describing Jacob's ladder in Genesis 28:12. This account is in none
of the Hebrew manuscripts, but, as Michael Stanislawski has shown, there is
an almost identical incident in a Yiddish manuscript, JTS 2221, owned by the
Jewish Theological Seminary. The manuscript was written in the seventeenth
century, but, as with the manuscripts of the Hebrew Toledot, the composition
dates of surviving manuscripts are not accurate indications of the text's origins.
That being the case, the European Yiddish manuscripts are generally later than
the European Hebrew manuscripts. It is possible that the Yiddish author could
have been familiar with the Huldreich, rather than the other way around, but that
would still put the Huldreich manuscript in the world of Central and Eastern
European Jewry before Huldreich published it in the eighteenth century.
There is also one similarity between the Huldreich and the elaborate "modern-
Slavic" version, which Krauss and Bischoff consider to be the latest manuscript
type. 40 As will be discussed in the next section, the rabbis get a number of clues
that Jesus is a bastard. The most common is that Jesus does not cover his head
in front of them. The Huldreich also has him playing ball inappropriately close
to the Holy Temple. In at least eight Slavic manuscripts, Jesus also attracts the
attention of the rabbis by playing ball, in those cases in a way that violates the
Sabbath.41
The Huldreich is so unique that it is tempting to say that it has no parallels in
any manuscript types, except perhaps the earliest ones that draw heavily from
the Talmud. But such a statement would be too rash, as it ignores the type Krauss
and Bischoff call "de Rossi."42 The de Rossi is also quite unusual; perhaps its
most noteworthy characteristic is that Miriam's husband is called Joseph and her
4V Krauss, ibid., 35-37 (Bischofl).
41 There are seven manuscripts, all Slavic, in which Jesus violates the Sabbath by throwing
the ball in the public domain more than the allotted four cubits: Amsterdam Hs. Ros 467 (page
15); Jerusalem JNUL b 263-8228 (14); Jerusalem Yad Ben Zvi 961 (16v); Leeds University
Library Ms. Roth (3r); New York JTS 2503 (8v); Princeton Firestone Library 22 (21); and St.
Petersburg 01 244 (1Ir). Jerusalem JNUL b 242-8 65 (4v) also has him throwing the ball in the
public domain but just says that he threw it "too far."
42 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 31-33 (Bischofl).
70 Adina M Yoffie
rapist is called Yochanan, rather than the other way around. The de Rossi's nar-
rative, while not precisely echoing the Huldreich, at least contains some similar
elements. 43 The de Rossi also mentions Herod (in addition to Tiberius Caesar)
as one of the rulers at Jesus's birth (50r). In the de Rossi, Jesus learns magic in
Egypt (60r) after he loses the power of the Divine Name (57v); in the Huldreich,
he spends his childhood in Egypt before learning "sod Shem Hamephorash" in
Jerusalem (3r). The figure attempting to split the Judaeo-Christians from the
Jews, called "Elijah/Eliahu" in the de Rossi, aims to separate the two peoples
linguistically as well as religiously: "The main thing that Jesus wants from you is
for you to separate from the Jews, in Torah, in language (be-Jashon), in commu-
nity, in Sabbaths, and in festivals" (65v). Eliahu does not specify how this should
be done and does not offer an entirely novel alphabet, as Shimon Haqalpus does
in the Huldreich (5r), but the theme oflinguistic separation appears in both ver-
sions. Dating the de Rossi is beyond the scope of this paper, although Krauss
considers it earlier than the Huldreich, but no earlier than the tenth century.44
Some scholars before Krauss dated the Huldreich to the Reformation or later. 45
One scholar currently working on the ToJedot, Yaacov Deutsch, has suggested an
origin date of the fifteenth century. I have found no evidence of anything particu-
larly Protestant in the Huldreich. But I argue that the author of the Huldreich was
aware of the dominant European ToJedot Yeshu manuscript type, the Wagenseil,
as well as the earlier, eastern manuscripts, with their many Talmudic allusions
and corresponding maltreatment of Mary, the de Rossi manuscript type, and,
possibly, a considerably later Yiddish manuscript and a Slavic tradition. The fact
that the Huldreich brings together so many different Toledot traditions from a
wide variety of manuscript types, with a significant part of it originating as late
as the thirteenth century, indicates that the Huldreich very likely dates from at
least the fifteenth, and probably the sixteenth, century, if not even later.
The Uniqueness of the Huldreich: Rewriting Old Traditions
What is really striking about the Huldreich is the fact that, as Krauss and others
have pointed out, its text incorporates older traditions about the life of Jesus
(some of them pre-Toledot) into a largely new, i. e., high medieval! early modem
narrative framework. Krauss says, "The content of the H( uldreich) turns back
43 In this article. I will cite pages from one particular de Rossi manuscript, Parma 2083 de
Rossi 96, and I will use internal citations in the body of the article.
44 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu. 31 (Bischofl),247.
45 Leiman, "The Scroll," 189-90, and 190, n. 48. Leiman mentions J. Basnage, History ofthe
Jews (London, 1708).375-81; Sabine Baring-Gould. Lost and Hostile Gospels (London: Wil-
liams and Norgate, 1874), 115; and William Henry Burr, Revelations ofAntichrist Concerning
Christ and Christianity (New York: Amo Press, 1879).394--407.
to old sources (Huldreich has in common with the Cairo, the indubitably older
version, for example, that a Caesar is arbiter, as in the Acts of Peter, etc). "46 This
article has already discussed the story of Miriam's romantic escape with Joseph
Pandera and the tale of the innkeeper and the goose, but those are not the only
elements that are found in the Huldreich and not in any other Hebrew manu-
scripts. Unique incidents include: the rabbis soaking Jesus's head in me bolet,
some kind of water that prevents hair from growing (3r), a practice his disciples
then voluntarily adopted (3v); Jesus killing his father, Joseph Pandera, when he
finds out about Miriam's harlotry (3r); Jesus wandering through the desert with
his disciples (3r); the new alphabet and Scriptures written by Simon as a means
of further separating the Jews and Judaeo-Christians (5r); and the mourning of
Simon's death on 9 Tevet (5v). This list is not exhaustive, but it gives a sense of
the level of divergence from other versions.
Despite the significant differences in the details, the Huldreich is thematically
similar to the rest of the Hebrew manuscripts of the Toledot. All of the Hebrew
Toledot Yeshu manuscripts follow the same general story line, except for the fact
that the earliest ones do not have the story of Jesus's birth. They start amidst
his heresies or his interrogation or trial on account of those heresies. In all of
the manuscripts with the birth story, Jesus is conceived through some kind of
forbidden sexual contact between Mary, who is menstruating, and a man not
her husband or fiance. After Jesus is born, Mary sends him to be educated in the
Jewish community, where his strange and impudent behavior leads the rabbis
to suspect he is a bastard. Mary admits to the rabbis that Jesus is a bastard, and
he is excommunicated. Jesus gains disciples by performing various "miracles,"
which are made possible because of his mastery of sorcery and/ or the Ineffable
Divine Name. The Jews, upon hearing of Jesus's exploits, seek cooperation
from the authorities to put Jesus on trial for sorcery and heresy. Jesus claims
that he is the son of God and/ or the Messiah, using proof-texts from the Hebrew
Bible. After one or more trials, Jesus is executed by the Jews according to Jew-
ish law. He is buried, but his body is stolen and reburied somewhere else by a
Jew concerned about the disciples' behavior. The disciples, in turn, complain
to the authorities, who begin to wonder if, perhaps, Jesus ascended to Heaven,
as he had prophesized. The Jews discover the reburial and produce the body,
at which point the authorities realize that Jesus was a fraud and concede the
Jews' victory over him. Many manuscripts, including the Huldreich, have other
sections after this, explaining how, through a Jewish agent masquerading as a
messenger of Jesus, the Jews successfully separate the Judaeo-Christians from
their community.
46 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 17, n. 1: "(D)er Inhalt von H(uldreich) aufalte Quellen zuriick-
weist. (Huldreich hat z. B. mit Cairo die unzweifelhalft iiltere Fassung gemein, dass ein Kaiser
Schiedsrichter ist, wie in den Acta Petri u.s.w)."
72 Adina M Yoffie
Those general similarities are not the only ones between the Huldreich and
other Toledot Yeshu manuscripts. Parts of the Huldreich are close to some of
the earliest extant Hebrew manuscripts. Those earlier manuscripts, in turn, are
similar to the Babylonian Talmud (Bavli)'s small number of stories about Jesus.
The Bavli's accounts of Jesus's life are linked to the early Hebrew manuscripts
by even earlier Toledot Yeshu fragments, which are in Aramaic. (The Aramaic
fragments were discovered in the Cairo Geniza and have been dated to approxi-
mately the ninth or tenth century, although there is no great consensus about the
dating). The Bavli's sections about Jesus are echoed, sometimes word-for-word,
in the Aramaic fragments, and at least one of the earliest surviving complete
Hebrew manuscripts, JTS 8998 (Middle Eastern, from the thirteenth to fifteenth
centuries, or earlier), is a word-for-word translation of an Aramaic manuscript.
Two other early Hebrew manuscripts, St. Petersburg 274 and JTS 6312, have no
birth story, but they are not complete, so it is impossible definitively to conclude
that they never had one. The Hebrew manuscripts travelled to western Europe
after the year 1000 (little is known about the process of textual transmission)
and were edited there. Extra sections, including the birth story and the account
of the Christian separation, were added, and the western European manuscripts
increasingly diverged from their Middle Eastern counterparts, although they
retained older microforms. The Huldreich, by contrast, contains many of the
Bavli's names, places, and events, but there are no sections that are produced
word-for-word. Everything was rewritten by the Huldreich's author(s).
In the Aramaic fragments, which do not have the birth story of Jesus, his
mother, Miriam, is a hairdresser, her husband is called Pappos, and Jesus's fa-
ther is Pandera or ben Pandera, as in the Bavli (Shabbat l04b). Jesus performs
miracles using sorcery, and he has five disciples, who are executed soon before
he is. In St. Petersburg RNL EVR 1.274 (St. Petersburg 274), one of the earliest
Hebrew manuscripts, Jesus admits under questioning from the rabbis (another
feature common to the Bavli and the Aramaic fragments) that his mother, Mir-
iam, is a hairdresser, and her father's name is Pappos (23v). His disciples are
executed in myriad ways (24v-25r), and then he is first hanged and then stoned
for sorcery (26r). The section on the interrogation of the disciples in St. Peters-
burg 274 (24v-25r), which is very close to the Bavli's description of the event
(b. Sanhedrin 43a-b), is translated into Hebrew from accounts in the Talmud
and the Aramaic fragments, although parts of the section remain in Aramaic. St.
Petersburg 274, like almost all of the rest of the Hebrew manuscripts, also has
other sections not in the Aramaic fragments, such as the birth story of Jesus. The
birth story, in which Miriam is raped by the wicked Joseph while her husband,
Yochanan, is at the house of study (bet midrash), takes place during Herod's
reign (21 v). But the interrogation of the disciples is also approved by "Pi late the
governor" (Pi latus Hegemon; 24r-24v), a key figure in Jesus's interrogation in
the Aramaic fragments as well.
Observations on the Huldreich Manuscripts o/the Toledot Yeshu 73
The two different rulers in St. Petersburg 274 and the text's switch from
Hebrew to Aramaic and back again both reveal that St. Petersburg 274 is a
transitional text between the eastern and western versions of the Toledot. By the
twelfth century in western Europe, the dominant version of the Toledot Yeshu
was the so-called "Wagenseil" or "Helena" type, in which the seam between
the Hebrew and the Aramaic had become almost invisible. There is much less
Aramaic, although words and phrases remain. The birth story, with Yochanan the
husband and Joseph the rapist (in the de Rossi manuscripts, as noted above, the
names are reversed), is in every manuscript ofthat version. Miriam is described
as a beautiful, modest woman who refuses Joseph's advances until he pretends
that he is her husband/fiance, and even then most manuscripts have him forcing
himself upon her, since she is menstruating and will not violate the rules against
sexual contact. There is only one ruler, Queen Helena, often further described
as the wife of Constantine. Jesus's disciples are called peritsim, an allusion to
Daniel 11: 14, but they are only very rarely named, and they are not executed as
a group.
It is a bit surprising, then, that the Huldreich, a western European manuscript
in a form that is later than at least most of the Wagenseil, would be more similar
to the Talmud's stories of Jesus than the Wagenseil is. There are, however, a num-
ber of similarities between the Huldreich and the Bavli. Miriam is a hairdresser
in both the Bavli (Shabbat l04b) and in the Huldreich (2v); the profession is,
for some reason, disreputable.47 In both texts she is also a sotah, an adulterous
woman (b. Shabbat 104b). The story in the Huldreich of Rabbi Akiva coming to
her Nazareth house to ask about the circumstances surrounding Jesus's birth (3r)
appears to be based on Masekhet Kallah 15b-16a. 48 Although the Kallah version
names neither mother nor child, the story later, according to Louis Ginzberg and
others, came to be associated with Jesus. Jesus is buried in a sewage ditch, as
opposed to a water channel, the text announces, "in order to fulfill the words
of the Sages: Everyone who mocks the words of the Sages is judged in boiling
excrement."49 This is not just an allusion, but, rather, a quotation from the Bavli
(b. Gittin 56b-57a), which tells the stories ofthe punishments of the worst Jew-
ish and Gentile sinners. Jesus (in some versions, the "sinners ofIsrael") is forced
to spend eternity in boiling excrement (4V).50
With the exception of the quotation just cited, the Huldreich almost always
incorporates Talmudic stories and Toledot traditions by rewriting them, at least
slightly. As has been discussed, the forbidden sexual relationship that produces
Jesus is voluntary adultery, rather than rape or mistaken identity. Jesus per-
47 Schiifer, Jesus in the Talmud, 16--18.

48 Kallah is a minor tractate with only a gemara (no mishnah), and the numbering of it varies
by edition. Bischoff cites Kallah 18b (Krauss, Dos Leben Jesu, 33 [Bischoft).
49 Ms. Princeton 24 has "Razar' instead of "Hakhamim" (8r).
50 Schiifer, Jesus in the Talmud, 83-86.
74 Adina M Yoffie
fonns miracles using the Ineffable Name (2r-3v), but he does not steal it from
the Temple, which is by far the dominant story in the other manuscript types.
Instead, he learns ma 'aseh merkavah and sod Shem Hamephorash from Rabbi
Yehoshua ben Perahia, his teacher (3r). The rabbis capture him not by depriving
him of the Name, but by tricking him into drinking the ''waters of forgetfulness"
(me shokhehah; 4r), not by ritually contaminating him or cutting the parchment
containing the name out of his body. In addition to assigning Jesus's followers
new holidays, the post-Jesus "prophet" in the Huldreich takes the unusual step
of writing an entirely new alphabet and Scriptures for them. Not content merely
to separate them from the Jewish people, he murders a group of them, by of-
fering to give them a ride on his flying cloud and then throwing them from it in
mid-air (Sr).
In order to show how the Huldreich rewrites texts and traditions, two brief,
adjacent sections of the Huldreich will be analyzed. Of all the sections in the
Huldreich, these two are closest, in terms of wording, to comparable sections in
the other versions.
I. Jesus Uncovers His Head, and the Rabbis Declare Him a Bastard
In nearly every western European Toledot Yeshu manuscript, from the Wagenseil
onward, one ofthe ways in which Jesus reveals that he is a bastard is by ignoring
the custom to cover his head in the presence of the Sages oflsrael. He does this
not by accident but, rather, purposely and arrogantly. In a fairly typical Wagen-
seil manuscript, Harvard Houghton Library Ms. S7, the story goes as follows:
One day, the boy passed before the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. And it was the
custom in those days that everyone who passed before them would cover his
head and kneel and bow to them. And this boy, when he passed before them,
uncovered his head and, insolently, bowed to his rabbi alone. And everyone
answered and said, "Since he is singularly contemptuous, one may deduce that
he is a bastard." And one of them answered and said, "Surely he is a bastard and
the son of a menstruant" (23r).
The expression "since he is singularly contemptuous, one may deduce that he
is a bastard" (midehatsifkule ha 'e shemma 'minah mamzer hu ') is a slight modi-
fication of a sentence that appears in the Bavli, Bava Metzi 'a 83b: "Since he is
singularly contemptuous, one may deduce that he is a wicked man" (midehatsif
kule ha 'e shemma 'minah rasha ' hu '). The motif of the rabbis concluding that a
young boy is a bastard and the son of a menstruant based on whether he covers
his head is in Masekhet Kallah, lSa-16b. The "mamzer" version of the quote
(with or without the kule ha 'e) is in nearly every WagenseiI manuscript, as well
as in the Slavic manuscriptsY
SI Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 35-36 (Bischoff).

The analogous Huldreich passage is slightly different. Jesus does two things
to convince the rabbis that his legal status in the community must be suspect.
First, he plays ball near the Temple. (In the other manuscripts that have him
playing ball, which are all Slavic, his sin is playing on the Sabbath and throw-
ing the ball in the public domain outside the allotted four cubits). He is wear-
ing priestly garments, and, when his ball goes astray, he becomes despondent
and throws his mitre onto the ground. The boys playing with Jesus say to him,
"Cover your head," to which he responds, "And is it not true that Moses did not
command that (head-covering) in the Torah, and that the words of the sages are
worthless?" The rabbis are not directly involved in this conversation, but three
of them, Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, and Rabbi Akiva, are sitting
nearby, and they hear the exchange. Rabbi Eliezer suggests that Jesus is the son
of a menstruant (midehatsif kul [sic] ha 'e shemma' minah ben niddah hu), to
which Rabbi Joshua responds that he is the son of a prostitute. Rabbi Akiva says
that he is a bastard (3r).
In order to capture the Huldreich's melding of different texts, it is necessary to
take a close look at the Masekhet Kallah text. In the Kallah passage, the primary
sin of the young boy (later identified with Jesus) is, as in most of the Toledot
Yeshu texts, but not in the Huldreich, failing to cover his head in front of great
rabbis. In the Huldreich, but not in the other versions of the Toledot, the rabbis
in question are the same three named in the Kallah text. In the Kallah passage,
Rabbi Eliezer suggests that the boy is a bastard, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says
that he is the son of a menstruant, and Rabbi Akiva, bringing their charges
together, concludes that he is a bastard and the son of a menstruant. In the Hul-
dreich, however, the charges are that Jesus is the son of a menstruant, the son of
a prostitute, and a bastard, with the result that the symmetry of the Kallah text
is lost. There is no clear narrative reason for this change, and the change is even
stranger in view of the fact that the Huldreich, unlike the rest of the Toledot ver-
sions, continues with the story, as the KaIlah passage does. In both the Huldreich
and the Kallah, Rabbi Akiva approaches the boy's mother for confirmation of the
manner of her son's conception. He swears to her that if she tells him the truth,
she will be granted a share in the World to Come. But Rabbi Akiva, we are told,
did not mean his vow: "he swore with his lips/mouth and nullified (the vow) in
his heart."s2 The mother admits the truth to him. In Masekhet Kallah, it is that,
without her knowledge, her husband's friend slept with her on her wedding
night, while she was menstruating. In the Huldreich, Miriam admits sleeping
52 The Huldreich reads: ". And, behold, I put you under oath (mashbi 'akh) by God, the Lord
of the Heavens: Tell me what your deeds have been, and I am a surety (arev) for you for the
World to Come' ... And Rabbi Akiva swore with his mouth and nullified in his heart" (3r). The
Kallah reads: '''My daughter, if you tell me the thing I am asking you, I will bring you to the
life of the World to Come (haye 'Olam Haba)' ... Rabbi Akiva swore with his lips and nullified
in his heart" (I 5a-16b).
76 Adina M Yoffie
with another man without divorcing her husband. The Huldreich text is more
elaborate than the short Kallah passage. Rabbi Akiva goes to Nazareth and talks
to Miriam, who has changed her name to Karahat (a play on the word for "bald,"
which Jesus soon will be, because ofthe me bolet).53 After he swears falsely to
her, and she admits that Jesus is a bastard, he excoriates her (3r).
For this section, then, the Huldreich weaves together three texts: the passage
from the Bavli (Bava Metzi'a 83b), which appears, with the substitution of
"bastard" for ''wicked one," in most Toledo! manuscripts; the account of Jesus
not covering his head in front of the sages, leading them to conclude that he is a
bastard, which is in Masekhet Kallah and also in most Toledot manuscripts; and
the longer Kallah narrative of Rabbi Akiva securing confirmation of the fact that
the boy is a bastard from his mother. It also adds new material: Jesus dressing in
priestly clothes and the story of Rabbi Akiva's visit to Nazareth. The result is an
account of the discovering of Jesus's status that is similar to, yet also noticeably
different from, the dominant one in the Toledot Yeshu manuscripts.
H. "The Words of the Sages Are Worthless": Jesus and Moses

After being urged by his peers to cover his head, Jesus replies, "And is it not
true that Moses did not command that (head-covering) in the Torah, and that the
words ofthe sages are worthless?" (3r). This statement, one of the strongest pos-
sible critiques of rabbinic authority - and the final confirmation the rabbis need
that Jesus is a bastard - is a simple one in comparison to the speech attributed
to Jesus in many of the manuscripts. In most de Rossi and Slavic manuscripts,
Jesus critiques the rabbis' claim to having the ultimate authority over sacred texts
with a clever midrashic analysis of the comparative intelligences of Moses and
Jethro. Here is a fairly typical text, from Parma 2083, the de Rossi manuscript
from which I cited above:
Afterwards, his rabbi went to his study-house and was teaching his students from Trac-
tate Nezikin. And the bastard came to the house of study and began to teach law to the
students. One of them answered and said to him, "Did you not learn that 'everyone who
teaches law in the presence of his teacher is liable for death?' (b. Berakhot 31 b). And you
are teaching law in the presence of your rabbi like a bastard and the son of a menstruant!"
The wicked one answered insolently, "You are the f.>icked ones, offspring of falsehood,
'children of whoredom ' (Hosea 2:6). You see a book and do not know a thing about it, not
who is the rabbi and who is the student, who is righteous and who is wicked, who is the
scholar and who is the ignoramus. And if you have knowledge, tell me, Who was wiser,
Moses or Jethro? If you say to me, 'Moses,' you are giving false testimony, since Moses
learned practical knowledge and good counsel (from Jethro). And if you say 'Jethro was
wiser than Moses,' Moses's greatness is nullified and his prophecy is de-legitimized, for
the Scriptures said about him, 'He is faithful in all of my house' (Numbers 12:7); 'And
53 On Miriam, Karahat, and baldness, see Krauss, Das Leben )esu, 23. On the same page,
Krauss speculates on the origins of the term "me bolet" but comes to no firm conclusion.
there never again arose a prophet like Moses in Israel' (Deuteronomy 34: 10); 'I speak to
him face to face'" (Numbers 12:8).
This clever reply appears, with slight variations, in at least 50 Hebrew Toledot
Yeshu manuscripts, mostly of the de Rossi and Slavic types. It is far more so-
phisticated than the Huldreich's "And is it not true that Moses did not command
that (head-covering) in the Torah, and that the words of the sages are worthless?"
I would argue, however, that that sentence constitutes a re-writing of Jesus's
longer speech. Manuscripts that do not have this speech generally contain no
discussion at all about the rabbis' understanding of texts as compared to the
commandments of Moses. The rabbis' only indication that Jesus is a bastard is
his failure to cover his head in front ofthem. The Huldreich's treatment of this
matter, though different and far more briefthan the dominant one, indicates that
the author was probably aware of the Toledot tradition that Jesus questioned the
rabbis' authority to interpret the Torah and impose their interpretations on the
Jews.
Conclusion
The Huldreich version of the Toledot Yeshu is both unique and problematic. The
paucity of manuscript evidence, even by the standards of the Toledot Yeshu, the
unusual narrative elements, and the combination and recasting of old and newer
traditions have made it difficult for scholars to date the work or otherwise put
it in context. These difficulties probably explain the comparative neglect of
the Huldreich version in the scholarship so far on Toledot Yeshu. This article
has tried to address some of the problems by comparing and contrasting the
Huldreich to other Toledot versions, examining Huldreich's own notes to the
manuscript he published, and offering close readings of sections of the most
complete manuscript. The Huldreich echoes, in some parts, the earliest Hebrew
manuscripts, and, by extension, the even earlier Aramaic fragments. In other
parts, it has high medieval themes, including anti-Marian sentiment, and still
others show awareness of the later, Slavic, tradition of Jesus throwing the ball
too far on the Sabbath and of the Yiddish account ofMiriam's two tombstones.
Based on this evidence, it seems most likely that the Huldreich was composed in
the fifteenth or sixteenth century, at the earliest, by an unknown author, or group
of authors. The author( s) knew many Toledot Yeshu traditions and combined and
rewrote them, thus creating a recognizable, but unique, Toledot version.
A Preliminary Study of a Yiddish "Life of Jesus"
(Toledot Yeshu): JTS Ms. 2211
Michael Stanislawski
My research into the Yiddish versions of the Toledot Yeshu stems from my con-
tinuing fascination with the popular religion of early modem Ashkenazic Jewry,
especially as reflected in the plethora ofunstudied Yiddish texts from this period.
In previous studies, I I have focused on Yiddish translations of Hebrew originals,
teasing out of them what I have semi-playfully termed their "Ashkenization,"
i. e., the conscious and unconscious inclusion of cultural markers which clearly
reveal their imbrication in the religious universe of early modem Central and
Eastern European Jewry, and the transformation both by commission and omis-
sion of aspects of the Hebrew originals deemed unsuitable for the audience of
Yiddish translations - presumed to be meant for, as the texts themselves claim,
"women and unlearned men." In this study, I will attempt to adapt this approach
to the early modem Yiddish manuscripts of the Toledo! Yeshu, taking my cue
from my colleague Elisheva Carlebach, who so aptly argued that "deep within
its structure (early modem Ashkenazic Jewish) culture had built in strategies
of internal resistance to the religious narrative of Christian society, trenchant
polemic in the guise of folklore."2
My analysis, I must emphasize from the start, is not only preliminary, but
beset by several fundamental problems: first, we do not possess an accurate list
of extant Yiddish manuscripts of the Toledo! Yeshu - something I hope to redress
in a tentative manner below; secondly, until we have a reliable bibliography and
analysis of all the extant Hebrew versions of the texts, it is impossible to discern
to what extent the Yiddish manuscripts differ from their presumptive Hebrew
sources;3 thirdly, despite all the scholarship that has been produced on the To-
I See my "The Yiddish' Shevet Yehudah': A Study in the' Ashkenization' of a Spanish-Jewish

Classic," in Jewish History and Jewish Memory. Essays in Honor of Yosef Hayim Yernshalmi
(eds. Elisheva Carlebach, John M. Efron, David N. Myers; Hanover, NH: University Press of
New England, 1998), 134-149; and "Toward the Popular Religion af Ashkenazic Jews: Yiddish-
Hebrew Texts on Sex and Circumcision," in Mediating Modernity; Challenges and Trends in the
Jewish Encounter with the Modern World. Essays in Honor of Michael A. Meyer (eds. Lauren B.
Strauss and Michae1 Brenner; Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008), 93-106.
2 Elisheva Carlebach, "The Anti-Christian Element in Early Modem Yiddish Culture," Braun
Lectures in the History of the Jews in Prussia 10 (Ramat Gan: Bar Han University, 2003), 9.
3 Only two of the extant Yiddish manuscript that I know of, that in the Valmadonna collec-
80 Michael Slanislawski
ledot Yeshu in the last century, there has been virtually no scholarly work done
on the Yiddish versions: even Erich Bischoff's 1895 publication of Ein judisch-
deutsches Leben Jesu4 - a more-or-Iess accurate transcription of the original and
translation into German of a manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford - con-
tains a very minimal scholarly apparatus, and Gunther Schlichting's excellent
monograph on the Hebrew manuscripts contains only four paragraphs on one
Yiddish manuscript held in Amsterdam. 5
First things first: there are to my knowledgefifteen extant Yiddish manuscripts
of the Toledot Yeshu, all but one of which have copies deposited in the Institute
for Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts in Jerusalem: three of these are from
libraries in Amsterdam, two at JTS in New York; and one each to be found in
Gottingen, Paris, Frankfurt, St. Petersburg, London, Zurich, Oxford, Prague,
Harvard, and Jerusalem. 6 Eight of these manuscripts date from the mid-to-late
eighteenth and four from the nineteenth centuries, and hence do not interest
me in this particular project. Thus, only three of the known manuscripts can be
ascribed to the early modern period: the Oxford manuscript mentioned above
is early eighteenth-century, but it is nearly identical to the Harvard manuscript
dated by its scribe to 1652; and JTS 2211, to which I will return in depth below,
is undated but clearly stems from the seventeenth century - probably the 1670's
or 1680's.
Bischoff already determined that the Oxford manuscript belongs almost en-
tirely to what he termed the "Wagenseil tradition" of the Hebrew Toledot Yeshu,
though with elements of the "Typus de Rossi," with virtually no discernable dif-
ferences traceable to its having been translated into Yiddish. But this is definitely
not the case of JTS 2211, which differs substantially and expansively from the
Oxford/Harvard texts and does not adhere clearly to any heretofore defined
Hebrew textual tradition or indeed any single or stable Hebrew text. As I shall
explicate below, its scribe himself expounds on the fact that he had access to,
and used, several different, and often contradictory sources for his tale, and the
tion and Jerusalem 8 228 are found in collections that include Hebrew versions, from which
they seem to differ in minor, though interesting ways; bllt even here, I am loathe to speculate
about the originality of these discrepancies until I feel more secure about the variations in the
Hebrew manuscripts themselves.
4 Erich Bischoff, Ein judisch-deulsches Leben Jesu. Zum ersle Male nach dem Ox/order
Manuskripl herausgegeben (Leipzig: Wilhe\m Friedrich, 1895).
5 Giinther Schlichting, Ein judisches Leben Jesu: Die verschollene Toledol- Yeshu-Fassung
Tarn u-mu'ad (Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1982), 14-15.
6 I) ITS 2211 (17th century); 2) Harvard (1652); 3) Oxford (early 18 th -century copy of#2);
4) Valmadonna (18 th century, Hebrew and Yiddish); 5) Zurich 18th century; 6) Amsterdam 233
(18th century); 7) ITS 2219 (18th century); 8) Prague 18th century; 9) St Petersburg (1756); 10)
Amsterdam Ets Hayim (1764); 11) Frankfurt a.M. (1771); 12) Amsterdam 467 (19th century;
Yiddish and Hebrew); 13) Jerusalem -8228 (19th century); 14) Paris (1838); 15) Goettingen
(1892).
A Preliminary Study of a Yiddish "Life ofJesus .. 81
result displays ample examples of "Ashkenization" and other deviations from

the other Yiddish and Hebrew texts I have studied.
Before proceeding to this textual analysis, a few words are necessary about
this manuscript as a whole: First, it is far longer than any of the others I have
examined: 152 pages (the Oxford I Bodleian manuscript, in contrast, is 48 pages
long - i. e. three times shorter), the length directly related to the already men-
tioned citation of different versions of the same tale, and the scribe's constant
and self-conscious editorial hand at play throughout the work, in which he
speaks to his readers in the first person: "In this chapter I shall recount the tale
of ... " and enumerating - often inaccurately - which version of the "Miriam"
or "Yeshu" story will follow. My very tentative hypothesis is that this narrative
intervention is if not unique to, then certainly redolent of, its specific cultural
context: it is common not only in the specific early modern Yiddish texts I have
previously studied, but throughout the contemporary genre of mayse bikher -
books of stories - whose most famous creations were the Bova-Bukh, first
composed in Venice in 150 I, a rhymed Yiddish version of the English romances
of Bevis of Hampton, and most importantly for our purposes the anonymous
Mayse Bukh first published in 1602 and then repeatedly through the next centu-
ries, which purported to be a collection of aggadot and midrashim from works
stretching from the Talmud to Sefer Hasidim and beyond. Indeed, since the most
important alternate title to the Toledot Yeshu was Mayse Tole, (The Story of the
Hanged One) it is no stretch whatsoever to include the Yiddish translations of
the Toledot Yeshu into this mayse bikher genre and tradition. (To what extent this
narrative strategy was borrowed from, or at least influenced by, the nascent genre
of what we may call the "proto-novel" in European societies in the seventeenth
century - witness, for example, Bunyan's Pilgrim s Progress first published in
1677, is not directly relevant here.)
For the sake of clarity and brevity, I will summarize here under separate ru-
brics - not following precisely the narrative order of the text - the most impor-
tant and interesting characteristics that I have so far identified in JTS Ms. 2211.
I. The editor's knowledge and citation of different narrative traditions.

While there are many examples of this throughout the text, the most important
pertains to the issue of Pandera's sexual intercourse with Mary. All the variants
of the story identify Pandera, rather than Joseph, as the true biological father of
Jesus, but the disagreement in the sources is about whether Pandera's intercourse
with Mary was consensual or rape: Some say that the first time Pandera came
to her to have sex she thought this was Joseph and screamed at him: "Get away
from me since I am pores niddah - ikh bin tome" - I am menstruating and im-
pure 7 - while others present her essentially as a whore, either enticing Pandera or
7 All references to Ms. JTS 2211 will be cited by folio number f. 3a.
82 Michael Stanislawski
at the least succumbing to his entreaties; a fourth option tells us that di varheit iz
gevezn az zi hot nikhst gezogt tsu ir khosn 8 - the truth is that she said nothing to
her betrothed - i. e. that she was herself guilty of having sex while in niddah, not
just once, but twice, clearly implicating Mary in mortal sin - though this latter
scenario makes little sense, since it is unclear then how Joseph learns about her
earlier intercourse with Pandera, crucial to the rest of the story.
2. Talmud and trial of Jesus.

Almost as incendiary as the charge that Jesus was a bastard born in menstrual
blood is this manuscript's repeated insistence that it was the Jews, and not the
Romans, who ordered Jesus's death: at very start of our manuscript we read: Eyn
pi/put in di gemore sanhedrin iber dem Yeshu (un) zayn mitah ... vo di sanhedrin
hobn den Yeshu tozn dan zayn kedas torasenu vi di roshe der velt derfir far zinf
(A debate in the Talmud Sanhedrin over Jesus and his death and how the Sanhe-
drinjudged him according to the law of our Torah since the Evil One misled the
world through his sins); and our scribe, as is his wont, returns to give a longer
version of the verdict of the Sanhedrin that Jesus be put to death according to
Jewish law. These references to the Talmud are not found in the Oxford/Harvard
manuscripts, nor in the Hebrew versions I have read.
3. Historical inaccuracy.
In analyzing the Yiddish Shevet Yehudah, I noted that that book began with
historical errors - an inaccurate account of the story of Anthony and Cleopatra
and a conflation of the destruction of the First and Second Temples. 10 Here the
basic historical error pertains to the year of Jesus's birth: our narrator begins the
text with Tsvey un fertsiktse yor vi nokh regirt hot der Keyser Agustus un zayn
kenigen ll - "in the forty-second year of the reign of Emperor Augustus and his
queen"; however, since Augustus became emperor in 27 BCE, the 42nd year of
his reign was 15 CE, a date without (at least any obvious) significance in the
Jesus narrative. 12 Similarly, the entire (and odd) story of Queen Helena's reign in
Judea is presented in different versions that contradict one another in dating and
in regard to the extent of her power, and, perhaps more significantly, in regard
to Pontius Pilate's appointment and functions as procurator in Judea, and most
importantly, to his role in the trial of Jesus. Due to the multiplicity of sources
available to and used by our scribe, this is presented in even more confusing
8f. 3b.
9f. la
10 See Stanislawski. "The Yiddish 'Shevet Yehudah, ". 139.
11 f. la-b.
12 The Zurich manuscript has this as the 52 nd year of Augustus's reign. This calculation is
shared, however, by the Harvard manuscript - though not in the Bodleian variant. I have not
found other differences between the Harvard and the Oxford Mss. shared with JTS 2211.
A Preliminary Study ofa Yiddish "Life ofJesus " 83
and contradictory versions than in the other versions of the Toledot Yeshu I have
thus far examined, not to speak ofthe contradictions in the Gospels themselves;
indeed, whether there is any correlation between the dichotomy on this count
between the Passion narratives in Mark, Matthew and Luke and the different ver-
sions of Toledot Yeshu from antiquity on is an important desideratum in scholarly
analyses of this work.
4. Linguistic markers of the distinctions between Jews and Gentiles.

As opposed to the other Hebrew and Yiddish texts of the Toledo! Yeshu I have
thus far examined, our narrator frequently employs the traditional usage of
the term le-havdil to distinguish betWeen Jews and Gentiles - or sometimes,
good Jews and bad Jews. This first occurs, interestingly, in the genealogy of
Jesus in which we read: un le-havdil di Miriam iz der Yohanan iz gevezn fun
der geshlekht fun beys-dovid - i. e. Joseph was from the House of David, as
opposed to (Ie-havdil) Mary - thus indicating not simply the hoary theologi-
cal conundrum of Mary's lack of relationship to the Davidic dynasty but more
subtly, her apostasy, later described in detail in the text. 13 Later, Jesus himself
is distinguished from other Jews by the term le-havdil, as are, quite naturally,
his followers after they are termed nozrim - i. e., Christians, and thus we often
read variations on "yehudim un lehavdil nozrim; and our text reads "Pilatus un
lehavdil di Sanhedrin."14
In the same vein, when Jesus himself decides that he could no longer learn
anything more from the rabbis and so begins to act derisively towards then, he is
described as acting vi eyn goyl5 - like a Gentile; and a strange story is told that
one of his derisive acts was playing with a ball in the presence of the Sanhedrin
and throwing it up and down in the air - an act characterized vi eyn goyishe
kind - like a Gentile child.
5. Halachah.
In a different vein, our narrator is clearly troubled by the contradiction between
Jewish law in his time and in ancient Palestine regarding sexual intercourse
between 'erusin and qiddushin: on the one hand, he writes: "at that time the rule
was in all oflsrael that when a virgin became betrothed to a man they could have
sex like a husband and wife,"16 while, on the other hand, in a passage again not
present in the Oxford/Harvard version, Mary immediately realized that it was
Pandera and not Joseph who was attempting to (and then succeeding in) having
J3 Parenthetically, in the Valmadonna manuscripts, it is Mary who is described as descended

from the House of David - a fascinating claim I cannot deal with in this paper.
14 f. 2a.
IS f. 8b.
16 f. 2a
sex with her since the latter was so frum that he refused to have intercourse with
her before they were married;
6. Attitude to Kabbalah.
In my study of early modem Yiddish translations of Hebrew manuals on sex
and circumcision, I noted a persistent excision of all the references to kabbal-
istic sources abundant in, and crucial, to the originals - and this in the decades
immediately preceding the spread of Lurianic kabbalah throughout Ashkenazic
Jewry. Thus, we might have expected our translator here to have been wary of
repeating some of the magical acts attributed to members of the ancient rabbin-
ate, including most provocatively the astonishing scene in which Judas defeats
Jesus in their celestial battle by rendering him impure through anal sex. But this
scene is preserved in our manuscript and the other Yiddish texts I have thus far
examined. Indeed, our text refers to the magical acts performed by the rabbis as
groyse khokhme be-kabo/e 17 - "great wisdom and Kabbalah," and goes so far as
to state that Jesus was boki in kol ha-toyre ku/o un in kabo/e l8 - an expert in the
entire Torah and in Kabbalah; this claim is not made in the other Yiddish manu-
scripts I have examined. On the other hand, there is a hint, I think, of a negative
attitude to some aspects of early modem kabbalistic practices disapproved of
by the rabbis, attributed to the Sabbatean heresy and its later offshoots already
in the late seventeenth century, and then again a century later in regard to the
emergence of East European Hasidism: Jesus and his followers are described in
clearly derogatory terms as engaging in shpringn un zingn un tanzen l9 - "jump-
ing up and down, singing and dancing during prayers" - customs associated with
what the popularization ofkabbalah and its antinomian potential;
7. Ashkenization.
Far more abundant in our manuscript are examples of the transposition of the
story as a whole from first-century Judea to early modem Central/Eastern Eu-
rope. Here I will cite only a few of the relevant examples:
a) many cases of what I would term "pure" or "simple" Ashkenization: when
Jesus begins to sprout his heresies he is referred to a groyse treyfe me/amid (a
very unkosher teacher) and the schools in which Jewish children study are re-
ferred to as khadorim;2o
b) our scribe does not follow the (strange) tradition of rendering Armenia
(one of the places to which the apostles are sent) as "Deutschland." He seems to
know, ifnot where Armenia is, that he is living in something called Deutschland;
c) other examples have, I would argue, far more profound cultural referents:
17 f. 15a
18 f. 7a
19 f. 7b.
20 Ibid.
A Preliminary Study of a Yiddish "Life ofJesus .. 85
Joseph is described as remaining in besmedresh mamesh mishabes leshabes21 -

in the study hall really from one shabbat to the next - again, not only a linguistic
change but connected to the resonant claim that Joseph was so dedicated to his
Torah studies that he had no interest in, or lust for, Mary, during the week and
came to have sex with her only on Friday nights - and only because that was
required by Jewish law;
d) perhaps with even more specific cultural resonance: after the Christians
begin to persecute the Jews our text reads: azoy hobn di Sanhedrin geshikt iri
shamoshim in ale bote-midrashim un kleyne khadorim um di rabonim mazhir
tsu zayn dos kleyne bekhurim un betules zoln iber di gasn geyen 22 - and so the
Sanhedrin sent their sextons to all the study halls and small heders to warn the
rabbis and the young boys and girls (t) not to go out on the streets. This seems
to be a clear anachronistic retrojection of the fear of letting Jews in general and
children in particular out on the street on Christian holidays, and particularly on
Easter night, for fear of attacks by Christians. Indeed, we may here have a hint
of the alleged practice of reading Toledot Yeshu on Christmas eve, as reported in
1614 by the former Jew and now Christian Samuel Friedrich Brenz;23
e) after the split between the Christians and the Jews (covertly led, of course,
by Paul and Peter) many Jews saw the errors of their way, did teshuvah, com-
mitted themselves again to halachah and diedfrume yidn. 24 Again, the issue here
is not simply the obvious linguistic change, but the connection to a very com-
plex issue: the interjection here of early modern Ashenazic notions of kiddush
hashem: when SaullPaul accepts his mission he is not only promised - as in the
other versions - eternal life, but he is described as performing an act of kiddush
ha-shem,25 just as the successful search for Jesus's corpse after it disappears
from its grave (thus raising the dangerous veracity of the claim of resurrection),
is also accorded the status of an act of kiddush ha-shem. 26
8. Differences in narrative itself.

a) After Mary gives birth to Jesus and has him circumcised, the narrator first
relates the standard account that he was named after her brother, but then adds
that she chose Yeshu (aka Yishai) to emphasize that she was from the House
of David, not Joseph - thus solving - as it were - the profound genealogical
21 f.2b
22 f. 20a
23 Samuel Friedrich Brenz in his Jiidischer abgestreifter Schlangenbalg (Nuremburg: self-
published, printed by Andreas Knorzius, 1681), 2. On this see Elisheva Carlebach, Divided
Souls: Converts from Judaism in Germany, 1500--1750 (New Haven and London: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 2001), 213-214, and Marc Shapiro, "Torah Study on Christmas Eve," The Journal
ofJewish Thought and Philosophy 8 (1999): 319-53.
24 f. 39b.
25 f.30b.
26 f. 59b.
conundrum that led to so many reams of Christian exegesis; moreover, that in

so doing, she wanted to protect him, since she knew in advance that he would
die a mise mishune - "a horrible death" since he would be termed a mamzer ben
niddah. Thus, in our manuscript, it is Mary, not the rabbis, who raise this claim
first, i. e., far earlier than in the Harvard/Bodeleian manuscripts and the Hebrew
texts of the Wagenseil tradition, and not because of his behavior toward rabbis.
This version challenges, if not subverts the - I think correct - overarching and
far-reaching reading of the original link in the earliest and later accounts between
Jesus's disrespect towards the rabbis and his obvious characterological, if not
ontological, status as a mamzer ben niddah (and thence all the crucial analyses
of the deep structure of the mysogynist rabbinical view of menstrual blood).
Here, Jesus's status as a mamzer ben niddah is merely a genealogical truth first
articulated by Mary herself;
b) Pontius Pilate - as noted above, he is presented in several different guises
in the various traditions of the Toledot Yeshu. Here he appears as a benevolent
ruler, indeed to some extent a proto-Jew who "learns how to love God from the
Children of Israel";27
c) in the list of calendrical changes introduced by Christianity, in our manu-
script Shemini Azeret is added to the list of holy days abolished by the Chris-
tians - a festival omitted in the Bodleian/Harvard Yiddish version;28
d) the central issue of the Christian abandonment of circumcision is explained
here as stemming not from Paul, but from Jesus himself, and specifically (though
hardly logically) from the fact that he hated Jewish children, so instead of milah
he introduced baptism - though that is done with mayim tome (sic);
9. Portrayal of Mary.
a) Mary's role in the narrative is fundamentally different from the "standard"
Toledot Yeshu version: here, e. g., it is she who informs Jesus after he returns
from his missions abroad about the rabbinic proclamations and shofarot which
have broadcast his illegitimacy throughout Palestine; and when he does learn
the truth, he goes so crazy that even Mary is shocked and pleads with him to
calm down, they will find a refuah. When he still continues his manic fit, Mary
deliberately shuts a door on her own breasts to hurt herselfto get sympathy from
him. The question then poses itself, I think, of whether this story was influenced
in any way by the highly popular practice of self-mortification in medieval and
early modern European Catholicism, and particularly among women - indeed,
as my colleague Caroline Bynum has argued, constituative of a highly original
gendered form of female Christianity;29
27 f.47b.
28 f. 72a.
29 See, e. g. her Jesus as Mother: St~dies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berke-
ley: University of California Press, 1982).
A Preliminary Study ofa Yiddish "Life ofJesus" 87
b) Mary herself engages in a Christological interpretation of Isaiah 7: 14 - she

herself is the 'almah harah yoledet ben, but crucially, she explicitly defines
'almah as meaning a virgin;30
c) she compares herself to Miriam the prophet after crossing the Sea: she
cites Exodus 15:20, Va-tikah Miriam ha-neviah, but substitutes 'ahot Aharon
with 'em Yeshu;31
d) finally, and perhaps most bizarrely, we have here a very strange description
of Mary's death missing in the other manuscripts I have examined: her death
is described in the words of Genesis 28: 12: Va-yishkav Miriam ba-maqom ha-
hu ve-hinneh sulam mutsav 'artsa ve-ro'sho magia' ha-shamayma ve-hinneh
mal 'akhe 'elohim 'oUm ve-yordim bo32 - and Miriam lay down in that place and
behold there was a ladder resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven,
and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. But then, in sharp
contrast to the Jacob story, the Sanhedrin had her grave destroyed.
From the last two stories one is tempted to ponder to what extent this portrayal
of Mary as a prophetess gone wrong, absolutely parallel to the basic narrative
of the Toledot Yeshu - Jesus the talmid-hakham gone wrong - is a time-bound
subversion of the Marian cult exceedingly prevalent in the Christianity of Cen-
tral and East Europe in the period in which this manuscript was written. The
counter-claim, that the Jews did not know enough about the religion of the Chris-
tians among whom they lived is, to say the least, itself subverted by the intimate
knowledge of Christianity demonstrated by the scribe of JTS 2211 as well as
the Harvard and Bodleian Mss., and it seems very safe to assume that they were
not alone in passing on "built in strategies of internal resistance to the religious
narrative of Christian society, trenchant polemic in the guise offolklore."
30 if. 31 a-32b.
31 Ibid.
32 f. 63a.
The Toledot Yeshu and Christian Apocryphal Literature:
The Formative Years
Pier/uigi Piovanelli
This book is not now common, though at one time it had a wide circulation ( ... ) in
Hebrew and Yiddish among the simpler minded Jews, and even more educated Jews
used to study the book during the nights of Natal (Christmas). ( ... ) Our mothers
knew its contents by hearsay - of course with all manner of corruptions, changes,
omissions and imaginative additions - and handed them on to their children. Dif-
ferent versions of the book exist in Ms., some expanded to greater length and others
abbreviated. ( ... ) But though such changes are sometimes great, as a rule they af-
fect only details, especially names; some versions added longer or shorter episodes,
while in others certain episodes are omitted. But the general tenor of the story, its
general spirit, and the outstanding features remain the same in all. *
The Discovery of a Strange Jewish Anti-Gospel in 1985
It was through the pages of Yeshu ha-Notzri, the seminal monograph by the Is-
raeli scholar Joseph Klausner (1874--1958), that I became aware, in 1985, of the
existence of a strange and fascinating Medieval Jewish anti-gospel known as the
Toledot Yeshu, or "Stories about Jesus. "I At the time I was carrying out extensive
research on the Paralipomena ofJeremiah (also called 4 Baruch), a 2nd century
Christian reworking of a Jewish haggadic midrash on the destruction of the
First Temple and the Babylonian captivity. In particular, I was preparing a new
critical edition of the Ethiopic version of the Paralipomena ofJeremiah, which
was initially published in 1866 by August Dillmann, and subsequently translated
into Modern Hebrew in 1901, within the pages of Ahad Ha'am's periodical Ha-
• Joseph Klausner, Jesus o/Nazareth: His Life, Times, and Teaching (trans. Herbert Danby;
New York: Bloch, 1989 [first edition, 1925; original Hebrew edition, 1922]),48. I would like
to thank Peter Schlifer and Yaacov Deutsch for inviting me to participate in an intellectual ad-
venture as stimulating as the first international conference ever organized on the Toledot Yeshu.
I Klausner, Jesus, 47-54, provides an accurate summary of the evidence available in his day,
mainly on the basis of Samuel Krauss's admirable edition and commentary, Das Leben Jesu
nach judichen Quellen (Berlin: S. Calvary, 1902; repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1977). On Klaus-
ner's critical attitude concerning the historical value of the few traditions about Jesus found
in rabbinic sources, see John P. Meier, The Roots 0/ the Problem and the Person. VoL 1 of A
Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1991), 95-8;
Peter Schiifer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 5 and 147.
90 Pierluigi Piovanelli
Shiloah, by Klausner himself.2 Aside from the philological aspects of my quest,

I must confess that I was naively curious to uncover the motivating factors that
had pushed a young Zionist historian to investigate such an obscure text. It took
me years of study and experience to realize what Klausner had already brilliantly
understood, that is to say, that the Paralipomena ofJeremiah is one of the most
important 2nd century texts for the history of Jewish Christian relations and
the construction of a specifically Christian identity.3 Returning to 1985, even
if I quickly forgot those bizarre Toledot Yeshu, the reading of Klausner's book
helped me to better appreciate the Jewishness of Jesus4 and this new awareness
left a deep and durable mark on every aspect of my research on antique and late
antique religions and cultures.
The Rediscovery of a Strange Christian Gospel in 1998
In 1998 I began studying and translating the Ethiopic version of the Book of the
Cock, a Christian apocryphal text from Late Antiquity, that was originally writ-
ten in Greek, probably in a monastery close to Jerusalem, between the years 451
2 August DilImann, "Liber Baruch," in idem, Chrestomathia Aethiopica (Leipzig: Weigel,

1866), viii-x and 1-15; Joseph Klausner, "The Book of Baruch in Ethiopic Language," Ha-
Shiloah 8 (1901): 236--52 (in Hebrew), reprinted in idem, Mehkarim Hadashim u-Meqorot
'Atiqim (Tel-Aviv: Masada, 1957),90-117. For a new critical edition of the Ethiopic version,
see Pierluigi Piovanelli, Ricerche sugli apocriji veterotestamentari etiopici (Tesi di Laurea;
Florence: Universita degli Studi di Firenze, 1986), 109-231.
3 My major contribution was the Italian translation and commentary, "Paralipomeni di Ger-
emia (Quarto Iibro di Baruc) - Storia della cattivita babilonese (Apocrifo copto di Geremia),"
in Apocriji dell'Antico Testamento (5 vols.; ed. Paolo Sacchi; Biblica, Testi e Studi 7; Brescia:
Paideia, 1999), 3 :235-381. Also see Pierluigi Piovanelli, "Le sommeil seculaire d' Abimelech
dans I' Histoire de la captivite babylonienne et les Paralipomimes de Jeremie. Textes - inter-
textes - contextes," in Intertextualites. La Bible en echos (eds. Daniel Marguerat and Adrian
H. W. Curtis; Le Monde de la Bible 40; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2000), 73-96, and idem,
"Abimelec in visita da Eusebio: Eugenio Montale lettore di un frammento dei Paralipomeni
di Geremia" (in collaboration with Claudio Zamagni), Studi e Problemi di Critica Testuale 61
(2000): 157-88.
4 It is not by chance that Klausner is hailed as one of the most significant forerunners of the
present day quest for the Jewish Jesus. Thus, for example, according to Ed Parish Sanders,
Jesus and Judaism (London: SCM; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 53, "(t)he general line fol-
lowed by Geza Vermes ... is in important respects similar to Klausner's." Concerning Klaus-
ner's perspective on Jesus, special attention should be given to Donald A. Hagner, The Jewish
Reclamation of Jesus: An Analysis and Critique of Modern Jewish Study of Jesus (Eugene,
Or.: Wipf and Stock, 1997 [first edition, 1984D, passim; Clinton Bennett, In Search of Jesus:
Insider and Outsider Images (New York: Continuum, 200 I), 261-63; Dan Jaffc~, Jesus sous la
plume des historiens juift du ~ siecle. Approche historique. perspectives historiographiques,
analyses methodologiques (Patrimoines, JudaYsme; Paris: Cerf, 2009), 56--72 and 338-39; as
well as David Fox Sandmel's unpublished Ph. D. thesis, Into the Fray: Joseph Klausner 's Ap-
proach to Judaism and Christianity in the Greco-Roman World (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania, 2002).
The Toledot Yeshu and Christian Apocryphal Literature 91
and 479 of the Common Era. s In the Book ofthe Cock we encounter a text that is
easily as fantastic as the Toledot Yeshu - one has only to think of the astonishing
episode that gives the work its title: the resurrection of the cooked rooster from
the last supper that Jesus sends to spy on Judas' clandestine activities in Jerusa-
lem! It should be obvious that, such stories - the narratives that we find in the
Toledot Yeshu, the Paralipomena ofJeremiah, the Book ofthe Cock, and many
other ancient writings that did not (always) make into the official canons - are
neither weird, ridiculous, creepy, or disgusting. 6 In any case, they are no more
odd or shocking than some of their canonical counterparts. 7 They simply need
to be taken with a minimum of professional seriousness and placed within the
context of their ancient and late antique environments.
It was in doing so, that I realized that the Book of the Cock was, so to speak,
at the center of a complex web of intertextual connections shared not only with
other late antique Christian apocryphal texts such as the Greek and Latin Acts of
Pi/ate (or Gospel ofNicodemus), the Arabic and Ethiopic Lament of Mary (im-
properly called the Gospel of Gamalie/), or the Coptic Book ofthe Resurrection
of Jesus-Christ by Bartholomew the Apostle,S but also and especially with the
S See the French translation and commentary by Pierluigi Piovanelli, "Livre du coq," in
Ecrits apocryphes chretiens (2 vols.; eds. Pierre Geoltrain and Jean-Daniel Kaestli; Biblio-
theque de la Plc!iade 516; Paris: Gallimard, 2005), 2: 135-203, as well as idem, "Exploring
the Ethiopic Book of the Cock, An Apocryphal Passion Gospel from Late Antiquity," HTR
96 (2003): 427-54, and idem, "The Book of the Cock and the Rediscovery of Ancient Jewish
Christian Traditions in Fifth Century Palestine," in The Changing Face ofJudaism. Christianity
and Other Greco-Roman Religions in Antiquity (eds. Ian H. Henderson and Gerbem S. Oegema;
Studien zu den Jiidischen Schriften aus hellenistisch-romischer Zeit 2; Giltersloh: Giitersloher
Verlagshaus, 2006), 308-22.
6 As Janet E. Spittler, Animals in the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles: The Wild Kingdom
of Early Christian Literature (WUNT 2.247; Tilbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 13~O, makes
sufficiently clear, besides the illustrious examples of Balaam 's ass (Num 22:20-35) and Achil-
les' horse (11. 19.404-18), talking animals were not uncommon in ancient literature. (In this
connection, one should not forget the speaking eagle in 4Bar. 7.)
7 This is especially evident in the case of apologetic readings of the Bible, both ancient and
modem. Thus, Josephus preferred to omit some embarrassing episodes such as the Judah-
Tamar affair (Gen 38) from the volumes he wrote for a non-Jewish audience. For a list of such
passages, see Louis H. Feldman, "Josephus' Jewish Antiquities and Pseudo-Philo's Biblical An-
tiquities," in Josephus. the Bible. and History (eds. Louis H. Feldman and Gohei Hata; Leiden:
Brill; Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989), 59-80 (at 74), reprinted in idem, Studies
in Hellenistic Judaism (AJECAGJU 30; Leiden: Brill, 1996),57-82 (at 78-79). As for the pas-
sages that are perceived by the standards of present day sensibility as politically incorrect, one
s
could refer to, e. g., John Shelby Spong, The Sins of Scripture: Exposing the Bible Texts of
Hate to Reveal the God ofLove (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 2005).
8 On these and other Christian apocryphal texts, see, in general, Maurice Geerard, Clavis
Apocryphorum Novi Testamenti (Corpus Christianorum; Turnhout: Brepols, 1992); Wilhelm
Schneemelcher, ed., New Testament Apocrypha, (trans. Robert McL. Wilson; 2 vols.; Cam-
bridge: Clarke; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991-92 [based on the sixth
German edition, 1989-90»; J. Keith Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament: A Collection of
Apocryphal Christian Literature in an English Translation (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993 [revised
and newly translated edition of Montague Rhodes James, The Apocryphal New Testament
Toledot Yeshu. With respect to this connection, the reading of HillelI. Newman's
study on "The Death of Jesus in the Toledot Yeshu Literature'''} was particularly
enlightening. In his article Newman argues, with reason, that one of the goals
of the narrators of late antique Christian passion gospels was also to respond to
and neutralize polemical Jewish stories about Jesus similar to those found in the
Toledot Yeshu. Thus, for example, the character of Philogenes the Gardener in
the Book of the Resurrection of Jesus-Christ by Bartholomew the Apostle can
be considered to be a narrative reply to the figure of Rabbi Yehuda Ganina (i. e.,
"the Gardener") in the Toledot Yeshu.1O
A few examples taken from the Book of the Cock will help to confirm the
soundness of Newman's judgment. In the Book of the Cock as in the Toledo!
Yeshu - and here I will be referring primarily to the Old Cairo Genizah fragments
in Aramaic ll - Jesus' adversaries explain his extraordinary powers as the result
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1924)]); Hans-JosefKlauck, Apocryphal Gospels: An Introduction (trans.

Brian McNeil; London and New York: T. & T. Clark, 2003 [original German edition, 2002]).
9 Hillel I. Newman, "The Death of Jesus in the Toledot Yeshu Literature," JTS 50 (1999):
59-79. Other useful readings include Stephen Gero, "The Nestorius Legend in the Toledoth
Yeshu," OrChr 59 (1975): 108-20; idem, "Jewish Polemic in the Martyrium Pionii and a 'Jesus'
Passage from the Talmud," JJS29 (1978): 164-68; idem, "The Stern Master and His Wayward
Disciple: A 'Jesus' Story in the Talmud and in Christian Hagiography," JSJ25 (1994): 287-311;
Clemens Thoma, "Jesus dans la polemique juive de I' Antiquite tardive et du Moyen-Age," in
Jesus de Nazareth. Nouvelles approches d'une enigme (eds. Daniel Marguerat, Enrico NoreIli
and Jean-Marie Poffet; Le Monde de la Bible 38; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1998),477-87; Rob-
ert E. Van Voorst, Jesus outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000),104-29.
10 Newman, "The Death of Jesus," 67-68, who concludes, "'Bartholomew' reads like a
Christian rejoinder to the antagonistic claims of Toledot Yeshu: after the Jews turn [the Gospel
of] John on his head, 'Bartholomew' tries to right him again, though not quite as he was before"
(68). Such a connection was originally made by Hugh J. Schonfield, According to the Hebrews:
A New Translation of the Jewish Life of Jesus (the Toldoth Jeshu), with an InqUiry into the
Nature of Its Sources and Special Relationship to the Lost Gospel According to the Hebrews
(London: Duckworth, 1937), 127-28.
11 For the extremely complex textual history of the Toledot Yeshu, see the classification pro-
posed by Riccardo Di Segni, "La tradizione testuale delle Toledoth Jeshu: manoscritti, edizioni
a stampa, c1assificazione," La Rassegna Mensile di Israel 50 (1984): 83-100, who singles out
a "Pi late" (comprising the Aramaic fragments and Agobard of Lyons's testimony, in the 9th
centuy), a "Helene" (including the large majority ofmedic!val versions), and a "Herod" group
(consisting of the single Huldreich manuscript, edited in 1705). The Aramaic fragments have
been translated by WiIliam Horbury, A Critical Examination ofthe Toledoth Jeshu (Ph. D. diss.;
Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1970), 75-151; Jean-Pierre Osier, L 'Evangile du ghetto. La
Iegende juive de Jesus du II' au X" siec/e (L' autre rive; Paris: Berg International, 1999 [first
edition, 1984]), 121-28; Riccardo Di Segni, Jl vangelo del ghetto (Rome: Newton Compton,
1985),45-50; Herbert W. Basser, "The Acts of Jesus," in The Frank Talmage Memorial Vol-
ume (2 vols.; ed. Barry Walfish; Haifa: Haifa University Press, 1993),1 :273-82. An extremely
late representative of the "Helene" group, originally published in Breslau, in 1824, has been
edited by Giinter Schlichting, Ein judisches Leben Jesu. Die verschollene Toledot-Jeschu-
Fassung Tam u-mu 'ad Einleitung, Text, Ubersetzung, Kommentar, Motivsynopse, Bibliogra-
phie (WUNT 1.24; Tiibingen: Mohr S'iebeck, 1982), and summarized by Klauck, Apocryphal
Gospels, 211-20. The English translations of the Wagenseil text and the Strasbourg manuscript,
The Toledo! Yeshu and Christian Apocryphal Literature 93
of the practice of black magic. 12 Thus, when Jesus has Judas' felony denounced
by a flying and speaking stone pillar, Judas accuses him of being a magician
(I :19-20). At the moment of Jesus' interrogation in the palace of the high priest,
the servant Baliisidii, daughter of Baliidi, identifies Peter as one of the followers
"of the Galilean magician" (5:26). Finally, the Jewish leaders attribute the be-
nevolence that Procla, Pilate's wife, shows toward Jesus to "the action of Jesus'
magic" (8: 11). In the Book of the Cock as in the Toledot Yeshu Judas Iscariot is
the person chiefly responsible for Jesus' arrest - even if, in the case of the Ara-
maic fragments of the Toledot Yeshu, Rabbi Yehuda Ganina seems to be someone
other than the Iscariot (at least in Ca 3 [manuscriptT.-S. new ser. 298.56]), while
in the Book ofthe Cock, Saul of Tarsus plays a considerable role as well. 13 In the
Book of the Cock as in the Toledot Yeshu Jesus escapes from his persecutors for
a short time and runs into the Temple (as in the Strasbourg manuscript), under
the portico of Solomon, before once again being captured by Rabbi Yehuda in
the Toledot Yeshu, while in the Book of the Cock (6:8-14) he is betrayed by a
relative of Judas that he immediately transforms into a rock.
With respect to this connection, it is also striking that, according to the Ara-
maic fragment Ca I (manuscript T.-S. Mise. 35.87) of the Toledot Yeshu, the
runaway Jesus transforms himself at first into a bird, and then into a rooster who
flies up onto Mount Carmel; but Rabbi Yehuda Ganina, who has followed him
into the air, seizes him by the shushifa - not the "comb," as per the usual transla-
tion, but the "scarf>14 - just as Judas, at the moment of the betrayal, "seized the
fiqar (in Ethiopic, "girdle, belt, cowl, vestment of a priest") that was around the
two other witnesses of the "Helene" group, originally published in 1885 and 1903, have been
reprinted as Appendix A and B in Frank R. Zindler, The Jesus the Jews never Knew: Sefer
Toldoth Yeshu and the Quest of the Historical Jesus in Jewish Sources (Cranford, N. J.: Ameri-
can Atheist Press, 2003), 347-450.
12 On this accusation, see Graham N. Stanton, "Jesus of Nazareth: A Magician and a False
Prophet Who Deceived God's People?" in Jesus of Nazareth: Lord and Christ. Essays on the
Historical Jesus and New Testament Christology (eds. Joel B. Green and Max Turner; Carlisle:
Paternoster Press; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994), 164-80.
13 See Piovanelli, "Exploring the Ethiopic Book ofthe Cock," 445-46; idem, "Ancient Jewish
Christian Traditions," 311-13; idem, "'L'ennemi est parmi nous.' Presences rhetoriques et nar-
ratives de Paul dans les Pseudo-clementines et autres ecrits apparentes," in Nouvelles intrigues
pseudo-clementines - Plots in the Pseudo-Cementine Romance: Actes du deuxieme colloque
international sur la litlerature apocryphe chretienne, Lausanne-Geneve, 30 aout-2 septembre
2006 (eds. Frederic Amsler, Albert Frey, Charlotte Touati and Renee Girardet; Publications de
l'Institut romand des Sciences bibliques 6; Prahins, C. H.: Zebre, 2008), 241-48.
14 Following the advice of Louis Ginzberg, the first editor of Ca I in Ginzei Schechter:
Genizah Studies in Memory ofDoctor Solomon Schechter (3 vols.; New York: The Jewish Theo-
logical Seminary of America, 1928), 1:324-38 (at 326), the Aramaic shushifa is rendered as
"comb" by Osier, L 'Evangile du ghetto, 126 ("la crete"), and Di Segni, Il vangelo del ghetto, 49
("la cresta"); as "crop" by Basser, "The Acts of Jesus," 279 ("his crop"); but correctly as "cloak"
by Samuel Krauss, "Neuere Ansichten Gber 'Toldoth Jeschu, '" MGWJ 76 (1932): 586-603; 77
(1933): 44-61 (at 48-49 ["Mantel"]), and Horbury, A Critical Examination, 85 ("his cloak"),
even if the latter acknowledges that a translation with "crest" is also possible "by analogy with
neck of our Savior" in the Book ofthe Cock (4: 14; 5:11-12).15 Then, Ca I carries
on with Rabbi Yehuda who brings Jesus back to Rabbi Joshua ben Perahiah in
order to have him hung up and crucified (reading with William Horbury keruva,
as in Ca 2 [manuscript T.-S. Mise. 35.88], and not berosha) "on a cabbage
stalk."16 Needless to say, the speaking rooster of the Book ofthe Cock is more the
Christian antithesis of the Jewish Ziz (Psalm 50: 11) or tarnegol bara, the "wild
rooster" of the Jewish legendary traditions, than Jesus' alter ego. 17 However, it
is this kind of reasoning that is presupposed in the Toledot Yeshu - that is, Jesus,
the deceiver who claimed that he would ascend to heaven, has been caught and
killed like vulgar poultry, or, as Jean-Pierre Osier maliciously puts it, "the one
who would like to fly as an eagle, but who is not an eagle, will end his flight as
a chicken"18 - and it is exactly this type of reasoning that is at the origin of the
beautiful story found in the Book of the Cock and the parallel versions of the
Book of the Resurrection of Jesus-Christ by Bartholomew the Apostle (manu-
scriptA, 1:1-3) and the Greek B recension (forms B2 and B3) of the Gospel of
Nicodemus (1 :3).19
Thus, it seems to me that the new evidence provided by the Book ofthe Cock
serves to demonstrate that a more or less well developed first edition of the To-
ledot Yeshu was already circulating at the end of the 4th or the beginning of the
5th century. Since the publication of Ca I, in 1928, by Louis Ginzberg,2° it has
the two meanings of /carba/ta" (ibid., n. I). Also see Willem F. Smelik. "The Aramaic Dialect(s)
of the Toldot Yeshu Fragments," Aramaic Studies 7 (2009): 39-73 (at 67).
IS I would like to thank Michael Sokolofffor pointing out the exact meaning, in this context,
of the Aramaic shushifa. This made possible the discovery of such a new and extraordinary
parallel between the To/edot Yeshu and the Book of the Cock, a detail- the seizing of Jesus by
his own stole, cloak, or keffiyeh - that is completely unattested elsewhere.
16 Horbury, A Critical Examination, 86 and 90. Also see Smelik. "The Aramaic Dialect(s),"
68-69.
17 Both birds are similar to - or even identified with - the sekwi, the "rooster endowed with
foreknowledge" according to Job 38:36, a verse that is traditionally repeated among the Be-
rakhot at the beginning of the Shaharit morning service: "Blessed are you, 0 Lord, our God,
King of the world, who gives the cock intelligence to distinguish between day and night." See
Piovanelli, "Exploring the Ethiopic Book of the Cock," 442-44; idem, "Ancient Jewish Chris-
tian Traditions," 314-15.
18 Osier, L 'Evangile du ghetto, 21.
19 See Piovanelli, "Exploring the Ethiopic Book of the Cock," 437-38. A new critical edition
of the Greek B recension of the Gospe/ of Nicodemus has been recently published by Remi
Gounelle, Les recensions byzantines de I 'Evangile de Nicodeme (CCSA, Instrumenta 3; Turn-
hout: Brepols; Prahins, C. H.: ZCbre, 2008).
20 See above, n. 14. Ca I was edited anew by William Horbury, "The Trial of Jesus in Jewish
Tradition," in The Trial of Jesus: Cambridge Studies in Honour of C. F. D. Moule (ed. Ernst
Bammel; Naperville: AlIenson, 1970), 103-21. Other fragments have been published by Abra-
ham Harkavy, "Leben Jesu," Hebriiische Bibliographie IS (1875): 15; Elkan Nathan Adler, "Un
fragment arameen du To/dot Yeschou," RE.! 61 (1910): 126-30; Samuel Krauss, "Fragments
arameens du To/dot Yeschou," RE./62 (1911): 28-37 (new edition of the fragments previously
published by Adler and Krauss himself[Das Leben Jesu, 36-37 and 143-46]); Zeev W. Falk.
"A New Fragment of the Jewish 'Life of Jesus,'" Tarbiz 46 (1977): 319-22 (in Hebrew); idem,
become clear that the Genizah Aramaic fragments are the best witnesses to such
an Urtext, even if I am not entirely certain that they have faithfully preserved
all the details of the original cycle of stories - the plural is de rigueur here, the
Toledot Yeshu being anything but a fixed and crystallized text. 21 For example,
does the narrator of Ca 1 explain why and how Rabbi Yehuda (not to mention
Jesus) has learned the exact pronunciation of "the Explicit Name" that he uses
to fly after Jesus? Or, what are the reasons given for the extraordinary use of "a
cabbage stalk" as the support for Jesus' body? But if the loss of some episodes
and the omission of others make the recovery of that late antique first edition
fairly difficult, what could we say, then, about a hypothetical prehistory of the
Toledo! Yeshu in the 2nd and 3rd centuries of the Common Era?22
The Rediscovery of a Strange Gnostic Gospel in 2006--{)7
Ernst Bammel and William Horbury are the two scholars that have most strived,
in my opinion convincingly, to demonstrate the existence and early circulation
of some polemical proto- Toledo! Yeshu traditions - or, as Riccardo Di Segni puts
it, some of their original kernels. 23 As Horbury aptly summarizes it, "the outspo-
"A New Fragment of the Jewish 'Life of Jesus,'" Imm 8 (1978): 72-79; Daniel Boyarin, "A
Revised Version and Translation of the 'Toledot Yeshu' Fragment," Tarbiz 47 (1978): 249-52
(new edition of the previous fragment [in Hebrew)).
21 Additional evidence about the missing sections ofthe Aramaic Toledot Yeshu can be found
in the report of the apostate Avner Alfonso summarized by Shem Tov ben Isaac ibn Shaprut
in his polemical treatise 'Even Bohan, written at the end of the 14th century. On this Spanish
rabbi, his work, and the sources he used, see George Howard, "A Primitive Hebrew Gospe\ of
Matthew and the Tol'doth Yeshu," NTS34 (\988): 60-70; Basser, "The Acts of Jesus," 273-74
and 280; Libby Garshowitz, "Shem Tov ben Isaac Ibn Shaprut's Gospel of Matthew," in The
Frank Talmage Memorial Volume, 1:297-322; Jose-Vicente Nicl6s, Shem Tob ibn Shaprul.
"La piedra de toque" (Eben Bohan). Una obra de controversia judeo-crisliana. Introduccion,
edicion crilica. traduccion y notas allibro I (Bibliotheca Hispana Biblica 16; Madrid: Consejo
Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1997). Moreover, Yaacov Deutsch, "New Evidence of
Early Versions of Toldot Yeshu," Tarbiz69 (2000): 177-97 (in Hebrew), has published a Hebrew
version of the Toledot Yeshu from the manuscript Evr. I 274 of the Firkovitch collection in St.
Petersburg, which is particularly close to the text of the Aramaic fragments.
22 As Newman, "The Death of Jesus," 61, insightfully reminds us, "(i)n addressing the slip-
pery question ofthe provenance of the 'Pilate' group, we must remember to distinguish between
related but distinct problems: the pre-literary history of the narrative, a putative 'original' liter-
ary creation, and the version or versions found in extant manuscripts."
2J See especially Ernst Bammel, "Christian Origins in Jewish Tradition," NTS 13 (1966--67):
317-35, reprinted in idem, Judaica. Kleine Schriften (2 vols.; WUNT 37; Tiibingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 1986), 1:220-38; idem, "Origen Contra Celsum i:41 and the Jewish Tradition," JTS
19 (1968): 211-13, reprinted in Judaica, I: 194-95; idem, "Der Jude des Celsus," in Judaica,
1:265-83; WiIliam Horbury, "Tertullian on the Jews in the Light of de spec. xxx. 13," JTS 23
(1972): 455-59, reprinted in idem, Jews and Christians in Contact and Controversy (Edinburgh:
T. & T. Clark., 1998), 176-79; idem, "Christ as Brigand in Ancient Anti-Christian Polemic,"
in Jesus and the Politics of His Day (eds. Ernst Barnrnel and Charles F. D. Moule; Cambridge:
ken Jewish polemic in the Toledoth Jeshu appears to presuppose the importance
gained by Tiberias under the Jewish patriarchs (i. e., in late Antiquity, from the
3rd century onwards), but its agreements with the speeches of the Jew ofCelsus
in Origen, with Tertullian on Jewish claims, and with passages in the probably
third-century Commodian, indicate the currency of Jewish anti-Christian tradi-
tions in the second century and later."24 But can we have at least an approximate
idea of their contents?
I would like to suggest that one of their main features, even at this early stage,
was the extremely positive depiction of Judas as the Jewish hero of the story.
Such a hypothesis is indirectly corroborated by two facts. The first is that many
of the traditions found in the 5th century Book ofthe Cock, including those about
Judas, seem to be, or actually are, much older, and of Jewish Christian origin
(as is certainly the case for the description of Paul as the most ruthless persecu-
tor of Jesus).25 The second is that the popularity, so to speak, of the Iscariot at
least among 2nd century Gnostic (probably Sethian) Christians has been now
fully vindicated by the recent rediscovery and publication, in 2006--07, of the
famous Gospel ofJudas. 26 It is not my intention to reopen the fiery debate that
surrounds the interpretation of Judas's figure in the gospel that bears his name. It
is well known that the original editors and commentators ofthe Gospel ofJudas
perceive him as an extremely good guy, while the subsequent translators tend
Cambridge University Press, 1984), 183-95, reprinted in Jews and Christians, 162-75; idem,
"Jews and Christians on the Bible: Demarcation and Convergence [325--451]," in Christliche
Exegese zwischen Nicaea und Chalcedon (eds. Johannes van Oort and U1rich Wickert; Kampen:
Kok Pharos, 1992), 72-103, reprinted in Jews and Christians, 200-25; idem, "The Depiction
of Judaeo-Christians in the Toledot Yeshu," in The Image of the Judaeo-Christians in Ancient
Jewish and Christian Literature (eds. Peter J. Tomson and Doris Lambers-Petry; WUNT 1.158;
TUbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2(03), 280-86. Also see Di Segni, 11 vangelo del ghetto, 216--19;
Newman, "The Death of Jesus," 61-63.
24 Horbury, "Jews and Christians on the Bible," 76--77 (203--4 of the reprint). Also see idem,
A Critical Examination, 437: "It is submitted ( ... ) that a compilation directly related to the later
Toledoth existed in the third century, in written form. It formed the core of later texts, to which
additions, especially in proper names, were made. The olltline of the trial-scene of the third-
century Toledoth is exhibited in the Aramaic texts" (emphasis added).
25 See above, n. 13. In this connection, one should note that Marvin Meyer's useful anthol-
ogy, Judas: The Definitive Collection of Gospels and Legends about the Infamous Apostle of
Jesus (New York: Harper One, 2(07), is far from being either exhaustive or "definitive."
26 Initially translated by Rodolphe Kasser, Marvin Meyer and Gregor Wurst, The Gospel of
Judasfrom Codex Tchacos (Washington, D.e.: National Geographic Society, 2006 [second
edition, 2008]), then edited by Rodolphe Kasser et aI., The Gospel ofJudas, Critical Edition:
Together with the Letter ofPeter to Philip, James, and a Book ofAllogenes from Codex Tchacos
(Washington, D.e.: National Geographic Society, 2007),177-252 and 341-70. Wurst's pre-
liminary transcription of some new, unpublished fragments, together with Meyer's English
translation, is available on line (http://www.kthf.uni-augsburg.de/de/ proCdoz/hisUheol/
wurst/ forschung_downloads/Neue_ Fragmente_1Y.pdf#N eue FragmenteIV).
to see him as being, in April D. DeConick's words, "as evil as ever.'>27 As far
as [ am concerned, [ will simply say that the protagonist of the Gospel ofJudas
is neither "Dr. Judas" nor "Mr. [scariot," on the contrary, he is a more "well
rounded figure," the only disciple who is initiated by Jesus to the mysteries of
the Kingdom, whose final and dramatic destiny will be to sacrifice his master
without being allowed to ascend to the holy generation. 28 The only compensation
for the terrible task he has to accomplish will be perhaps, in DeConick's opinion,
to finally ''join Ialdabaoth in his cloud becoming assimilated with Ialdabaoth in
some way"29 - the only ascent to heaven that the narrator of the Gospel ofJudas
could eventually grant to the wayward disciple.
Be that as it may, the triangular reading of the Gospel of Judas (before 180
C.E.), the Book of the Cock (third quarter of the 5th century), and the Aramaic
fragments of the Toledot Yeshu (at least before the beginning of the 9th century)
seems to confirm that some elements of the Judas traditions embedded in texts
as late as the Toledot Yeshu and the Book of the Cock are, in fact, much earlier,
even datable to the 2nd century.
Here and now: The Absence of a Strange Jewish Christian Gospel
Until recently, the simple possibility of identifying a series of older elements,

motifs, or traditions in a given text, was immediately converted into the system-
atic study of its written sources. Even worse, the actual meaning of that text was
generally neglected - especially if its narrative was deemed to be too repetitive,
nonsensical, or simply distasteful - in order to give priority to the study of its
original edition and its sources. 3D Now, we do not need to go back to Roland
Barthes and French structuralism in order to acknowledge the basic fact that
every text is, up to a certain extent, a tapestry of linguistic and literary echoes,
or that biblical and parabiblical "memorial traditions" (to borrow Jean-Claude
21 April D. DeConick, The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel ofJudas Really Says (Lon-
don and New York: Continuum, 2009 [first edition, 2007]), 45~1 and 185-87. One can have
an idea of the wide spectrum of interpretations from a reading of the different contributions
published by Madeleine Scopello, ed., The Gospel of Judas in Context: Proceedings of the
First International Conference on the Gospel of Judas. Paris, Sorbonne, October 2'Jh-2tJ'h,
2006 (NHMS 62; Leiden: Brill, 2(08), and April D. DeConick. ed., The Codex Judas Papers:
Proceedings of the International Congress on the Tchacos Codex Held at Rice University.
Houston, Texas, March 13-16, 2008 (NHMS 71; Leiden: Brill, 2009).
28 See Pierluigi Piovanelli, "Rabbi Yehuda versus Judas Iscariot: The Gospel of Judas and
Apocryphal Passion Stories," in DeConick, ed., The Codex Judas Paper, 223-39.
29 DeConick, The Thirteenth Apostle, 119.
JO A simple survey of the literature on, e.g., the Paralipomena of Jeremiah, the Pseudo-
Clementine Homilies and Recognitions, or the "orthodox" Apocalypse of Paul will reveal
many examples of such a scholarly proclivity to identify preexisting editions and sources at the
expenses of the understanding of the available texts.
Picard's categories), especially when they are "open and subject to endless varia-
tions," as in the case of many Christian apocryphal stories and the Toledot Yeshu,
constantly reperforming and rewriting themselves. 31
Eighty years ago, however, it was only natural to expect that the publication of
the Aramaic fragments Ca 1 and Ca 2 would encourage some specialists to en-
gage in a new quest for other parallels in ancient literature in order to identify the
sources or to understand the genesis ofthe Toledot Yeshu. Thus, in 1932-33, the
great Samuel Krauss was able to compare the newly discovered episode of Jesus-
the-rooster that Rabbi Yehuda Ganina seizes by the shushifa32 to one quotation of
the presently lost Gospel according to the Hebrews found in the works ofOrigen
(twice) and Jerome (three times): "(In the Gospel according to the Hebrews) the
Savior himself says: A moment ago, my mother, the Holy Spirit, took me by one
of my hairs and brought me to the great mountain Tabor" (Origen, Comm. Jo.
2.12).33 According to Krauss, this episode was modeled after the description of
Ezekiel's vision of the abominations in the sanctuary - "He stretched out the
form of a hand and caught me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up
between earth and heaven and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem ... "
(Ez 8:3) - which contains the Hebrew term tsitsit that means both "hair-lock,"
as in the patristic quotations, and "fringe," from which eventually developed the
"cloak" of the Genizah fragment. In his opinion, the existence of such a strong
connection, together with the presence of what he considered to be Syriac influ-
ences in the Aramaic language of the fragments, proved that the Toledot Yeshu
was a parodic rewriting of the Jewish Christian Gospel according to the Hebrews
that Jerome had translated from Syriac (sic) into Latin. 34
In spite of the objections immediately raised by Bernard HelIer in the same
volume of the Monatsschrift for die Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums,
31 See Jean-Claude Picard, "Les chemins de la mythologie chretienne" (1993), in idem, Le

continent apocryphe. Essai sur les litteratures apocryphes juive et chretienne (Instrurnenta
Patristica 36; Tumhout: Brepols, 1999), 247-{)4, and for a most holistic and sensitive ap-
proach towards ancient texts, Vernon K. Robbins, Exploring the Texture of Texts: A Guide to
Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation (Valley Forge, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1996); idem,
The Tapestry of Early Christian Discourse: Rhetoric, Society and Ideology (London and New
York: Routledge, 1996). •
32 See above, n. 14.
33 See the edition and commentary of Albertus Frederik 10hannes Klijn, Jewish-Christian
Gospel Tradition (VCSup 17; Leiden: Brill, 1992),52-55 (even ifhe does not mention the
possible parallel in the Toledot Yeshu), as well as Simon C. Mimouni, Lesfragments evange-
liquesjudeo-chretiens ·'apocryphises. "Recherches et perspectives (CahRB 66; Paris: Gabalda,
2006),27-29.
34 Krauss, "NeuereAnsichten," 54-55. Actually, Jerome was referring to a Gospel according
to the Hebrews "written in the Chaldean and Syrian language, but in Hebrew characters, and
used by the Nazoreans to this day" (Pelag. 3.2). These Nazoreans were the members ofa Jew-
ish Christian community living in Beroea, near Aleppo (Vir. Ill. 3), a region in which Western
Aramaic dialects, not Syriac (a language that belongs to the Eastern branch of Aramaic), were
spoken.
Krauss's fascinating theory managed to at least convince Hugh J. Schonfield,

who defended it in the extremely well-documented monograph he published in
1937. 3s Today, the idea of any special connection between the Toledot Yeshu and
the rather mysterious Gospel according to the Hebrews is rarely mentioned, and
even so, with scepticism. 36 Krauss and Schonfield were certainly going beyond
the evidence in concluding that the Toledot Yeshu is quoting from or even para-
phrasing a written version of a Jewish Christian gospel. However, as the abun-
dance of elements in the Book ofthe Cock that point to a Jewish Christian milieu
could suggest, what if the earliest Toledot Yeshu stories were the oral product
of Jewish communities that were living, probably in Syria-Palestine, in close
contact and connection with a group, or multiple groups, of Jewish Christians?37
Such a polemical debate between Jewish and Jewish Christian believers,
carried out through the medium of popular, oral retellings of the gospels - both
canonical and extra-canonical ones, this distinction being largely anachronistic
and/ or irrelevant in the milieus that were in conversation - was going to result,
on the Christian side, into a series of "orthodox" apocryphal writings produced
35 Bernhard Helier, "Ober das Alter der jiidischen Judas-Sage und des Toldot Jeschu," MGWJ
77 (1933): 198-210; Schonfield, According to the Hebrews, 25(H)9. Interestingly enough,
Schonfield did not follow Krauss in his comparison between this quotation of the Gospel ac-
cording to the Hebrews and the Ca 1 fragment of the Toledot Yeshu, but preferred to put it into
relation with another passage - "And Jesus pronounced the great Name, and the Spirit came
and set him up between heaven and earth" - found in the Wagenseil type of the Toledot Yeshu
that does not include the detail of Jesus' transformation into a rooster (259).
36 See Di Segni, II vangelo del ghetto, 153-55 and 216-17. Nonetheless, as argued by Pio-
vanelli, "Ancient Jewish Christian Traditions," 315-16, intertextual echoes with the Gospel
according to the Nazoreans and other Jewish Christian traditions are still detectable in the
Book of the Cock.
37 It is here that linguistic, social, and historical considerations come into play. Thus, ac-
cording to Ginzberg, Ginzei Schechter, 325-26, the Aramaic language of the earliest Aramaic
fragments ofthe Toledot Yeshu, with its mixture of Eastern (Babylonian) and Western (Palestin-
ian) Aramaic elements, seems to be perfectly artificial. On the contrary, Boyarin, "A Revised
Version," 249, thinks that it could betray an imperfect Eastern adaptation of a text originally
written in a Western Aramaic dialect. More recently, Smelik, "The Aramaic Dialect(s)," 69-73,
has concluded that there are persistent Palestinian characteristics in the Aramaic language of,
at least, Ca 2: "(t)his implies that the Toldot Yeshu has its provenance in Palestine in the third-
fourth century CE," while "(t)he preponderant Babylonian features of the remaining fragments
indicate that the tradition was transmitted to Babylonia at some point in history in oral or written
form" (71). For a different view, see Michael Sokoloff's contribution to the present volume. In
any case, the fact observed by Schiifer, Jesus in the Talmud, 113-22 and 181-85, that the large
majority of the Rabbinic traditions about Jesus are preserved in documents that are, as in the
case of the Babylonian Talmud, of Eastern origins, does not exclude the possibility that many
other oral and/or written stories have been circulating in Syria-Palestine and elsewhere among
more popular milieus. As for the interconnectedness of Jews and (Jewish) Christians in those
regions until, at least, the end of the 4th century, one can refer to the evidence highlighted in,
e. g., the volume edited by Adrian H. Becker and Annette Y. Reed, The Ways That Never Parted:
Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007
[first edition, 2003)), or the monograph of Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of
Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004).
100 Pier/uigi Piovanelli
in the 4th, 5th , and 6th centuries, during the period that I defined elsewhere as "the
small globalization of Late Antiquity."38 If the sudden explosion of Christian
apocryphal texts such as the Acts of Pi/ate, the Lament of Mary, or the Book of
the Resurrection ofJesus-Christ by Bartholomew the Apostle, to which we can
now add the highly instructive Book of the Cock, has any special meaning and
any polemical raison d'etre, to what kind of Jewish oral traditions, stories, and/
or written texts were they responding?
38 See Pierluigi Piovanelli, "Le recyclage des textes apocryphes a I'heure de la petite 'mon-
dialisation' de I' Antiquite tardive (ca. 325-451). Quelques persl?ectives litteraires et histo-
riques," in Poussieres de christianisme et de judafsme antiques. Etudes reunies en /'honneur
de Jean-Daniel Kaestli et Eric Junod (eds. Remi Gounelle and Albert Frey; Publications de
l'Institut romand des Sciences bibliques 5; Prahins, C. H.: Zebre, 2007), 277-95; idem, "The
Reception of Early Christian Texts and Traditions in Late Antiquity Apocryphal Literature," in
The Reception and Interpretation of the Bible in Late Antiquity: Proceedings of the Montreal
Colloquium in Honour of Charles Ka';nengiesser, 1l-/3 October 2006 (eds. Lorenzo DiTom-
maso and Lucian Turcescu; Bible in Ancient Christianity 6; Leiden: Brill, 2008), 429-39.
Toledot Yeshu: Folk-Narrative
as Polemics and Self Criticism
Eli Yassif
Few Hebrew narratives from the Middle Ages have been the subject of such ex-
tensive and diverse research efforts as Toledot Yeshu. There are many reasons for
the enormous interest in this work, not least of which is the mystery surrounding
it in terms of time and place of origin. Moreover, the fact that more versions have
been found for Toledot Yeshu than for any similar text has led to philological
studies comparing the different versions, analyzing their language, and attempt-
ing to identify the period of their composition. The connection between Toledot
Yeshu and the New Testament, as well as the responses to the text in medieval
Christian society, has also attracted considerable research attention, as has the
book as "counter-history" in Jewish historical memory and in the copious Jewish
polemical literature against Christianity.} Yet despite the large body of research
devoted to the work, its basic character as a Hebrew narrative from the Middle
Ages has been largely ignored. Before being a polemic against Christianity, a
parody of Christian myth, or a subject of philological study, Toledot Yeshu is
first and foremost a long narrative, written in Hebrew, that was produced in the
Middle Ages. This definition of its essential nature generates different questions
than those raised thus far in the research literature. And the attempt to answer
them may lead our investigation in new and unexpected directions, helping us to
better understand the meaning of this fascinating work and its place in medieval
Jewish society.
I A detailed description of research until 1970 in WiIliam Horbury, A Critical Examination

o/the Toledoth Jeshu (Ph. D. diss.; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1970), 1-37. On recent
research compare: Yaacov Deutsch, Toledot Yeshu 'in Christian Eyes: Reception and Response
to Toledot Yeshu' in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period (MA thesis, The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, 1997 [in Hebrew)). On the concept of "counter history" in regard
to Toledo! Yeshu, see: Amos Funkenstein, "Anti-Jewish Propaganda: Pagan, Medieval and
Modem," Jerusalem Quarterly 19 (1981): 56-72; David Biale, "Counter-History and Jewish
Polemics Against Christianity: The Se/er Toldot Yeshu and the Se/er Zerubavel." Jewish Social
Studies 6 (1999): 130-45.
102 EIi Yassif
Origin
Before we can even speak of the literary character and structure of Toledo! Yeshu,
we must first address the complex and controversial issue of the time and place
in which it was created. The dates that have been suggested range anywhere
from the fourth to the sixteenth century CE, and the places proposed for its
composition reach from Islamic Babylonia in the east to Christian Europe in the
west. Close examination of the various theories, however, reveals no reliable
evidence of the existence oftheJull narrative before the beginning of the ninth
century (motifs of the life of Jesus appear in much earlier Jewish sources, but
they are sporadic and don't come in full narrative form). The direct testimony of
Agobard of Lyon and his disciple Amulo in 826 is the first unimpeachable source
we have. 2 The statements of the bishop and his follower, which appear together,
indicate that his library had a copy of Toledot Yeshu as early as the first quarter
of the ninth century. However, and here we enter the realm of speculation, from
his comments it seems clear that Agobard was not referring to a new work, but
to a familiar existing text which, most likely, was not written in France, but
elsewhere. Thus, the latest date for the origin of Toledot Yeshu would appear to
be the second half of the eighth century.
We must also remain within the realm of speculation, well-grounded though
it may be, in the attempt to establish the earliest possible date for its composi-
tion. It is difficult to imagine that such a provocative work, with such major
historical and theological implications, would have been totally ignored for very
long. I am not referring here to the fragmentary episodes and distorted motifs
from the Gospels which had been circulating in oral and written form since the
period of early Christianity. Evidence of these tales can be found not only in
Christian literature, but in the Talmud and early Islamic writings as well. But as
Peter Schafer's study of Jesus in the Talmud demonstrates, surviving evidence
in the Babylonian Talmud and the few Palestinian references indicate a lack of
familiarity with any complete narrative of the life of Jesus from birth to death,
at least at the time of the Babylonian Talmud in the fifth-sixth centuries. 3 None
of the texts that can be identified with certainty as ~irect quotations from Toledo!
Yeshu, such as those recorded by Agobard and Amulo or found in similarly reli-
able surviving Geniza fragments, dates from before the eighth century. Thus,
on the basis of solid evidence and judicious speculation, we can conclude that
Toledo! Yeshu was most likely written in the eighth century CE.
Further support for this conclusion comes from analysis of the narrative's
place of origin. The little evidence we have in this regard, as well as simple
logic, points to the Jewish community in Babylonia. The first indications of this
2 On this most important evidence see Peter Schiifer's article in the present volume.
3 Peter Schiifer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007).
Toledot Yeshu: Folk-Narrative as Polemics and SeljCriticism 103
origin can be found in the earliest textual references to Toledot Yeshu, the Geniza
fragments. Ginzberg, Falk, and Boyarin, all of whom studied these manuscripts,
were unable to detennine with any certitude whether the Aramaic in which they
are written was Palestinian or Babylonian, although all three seem to lean in
the direction of either the Babylonian idiom or the synthesis of the two dialects
typically used in Babylonia. However, Michael Sokoloff, whose analysis of the
language of the Aramaic manuscripts in the present volume is the most meticu-
lous and authoritative to date, concludes unequivocally that it is early Geonic
Babylonian.4 Moreover, in his detailed study of references to Jesus in rabbinical
literature, Schafer shows that the large majority of these allusions appear in the
Babylonian Talmud and not in Palestinian sources. His investigation reveals that
the Jewish community in Babylonia was familiar with the stories in the New
Testament, and displayed considerable interest in Jesus' character and deeds. 5
Common sense leads to the same conclusion. The freedom to retell a derogatory
story of the birth and death of Jesus by using bits and pieces of motifs and nar-
ratives from oral and written sources, and then to prepare it in manuscript fonn
and disseminate it - or in medieval tenns, to copy it out again and again at the
request of interested readers - would not have been possible in Byzantine Pal-
estine, which by this time was largely Christian. Such a manuscript would have
been rightly considered a deliberate attack on Christianity, an act ofheresy.6 In
Sassanid, and later Islamic Iraq, a story of this sort could have been created and
circulated orally and in writing without sanctions or risk to individuals or to the
Jewish community. Schafer also reveals another aspect of Talmudic literature
that is surprisingly apt for Toledot Yeshu: while interest in Palestine was mostly
directed to the rise of the new sect and its tenets, the Babylonians were mainly
intrigued by the life of Jesus himself.?
Furthennore, in my opinion, previous discussions of the origins of Toledot
Yeshu did not give proper consideration to the cultural context, that is, to its
creation not only as a polemic and ideological treatise, but as a literary work as
4 On the other hand, Willem F. Smelik, "The Aramaic Dialect(s) of the Toledot Yeshu Frag-
ments," Aramaic Studies 7 (2009): 39-73, argues that the Aramaic of these fragments originates
in Palestine, an argument that is definitely rejected by Michael SokolotT in his article in the
present volume.
S Schafer, Jesus in the Talmud.
6 Samuel Krauss, Das Leben Jesu nach Jiidischen Quellen, (Berlin: S. Calvary, 1902; repr.
Hildesheim: Olms, 1977), 10-11, prints one of many introductions to TY, which express the
fear of the copyist that this work will fall into the hands of Christians. On the other hand,
Elchanan Reiner emphasizes that in some earlier versions of TY the main episodes: the birth,
education, the trial, crucifixion, burial and return - all take place in the Upper-Galilee, which
is an evidence, according to him, that the composition was created in that area. See: E1chanan
Reiner, "The Seal of Christos and the Potion that Failed," in Continuity and Renewal: Jews
and Judaism in Byzantine-Christian Palestine (ed. Israel L. Levin; Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar
Center, 2004 [in Hebrew]), 355-86.
7 Schiifer, Jesus in the Talmud, 115-22.
104 EIi Yassif
well. Comparing the Talmudic texts relating to Jesus with Toledot Yeshu reveals
two distinct differences. The first, as noted above, is the fragmentary nature of
the Talmudic references as opposed to the full narrative form of the Toledo!
Yeshu. The second is the Halakhic and midrashic context of the former as op-
posed to the textual autonomy of the latter. The story in Toledot Yeshu stands
alone, with no Halakhic or midrashic trappings or pretexts. As Joseph Dan and
I both describe elsewhere, these two features of Toledot Yeshu are typical of
the early Hebrew narratives first produced in the Middle Ages. In this period,
the episodic texts strewn throughout the Talmud and midrashim in reference
to events and characters from Biblical times or later, such as the exodus from
Egypt, the destruction of the Temple, Abraham, Moses, or Alexander the Great,
were being replaced by full-scale literary narratives that told a whole story. They
incorporated both the fragments in rabbinical literature and narrative motifs and
episodes whose source was in medieval society. The other major feature of early
Hebrew narratives at this time was their autonomy. Rabbinical literature contains
no independent tales whatsoever. In other words, there are no stories that do
not exist within, and by virtue of, a particular context, whether it be Halakha,
ethical teachings, or homily. In contrast, from the very beginning medieval nar-
ratives sought to remain free of any such restraints, to constitute independent
stories that existed in and of themselves rather than to serve the purposes of one
context or another.
As I have long maintained, this important characteristic is associated with
a major cultural development in the medieval Islamic east - the emergence of
distinct disciplines. Thus, starting in the eighth century we find works devoted
to specific disciplines, including prayer and liturgy, history, linguistics, philoso-
phy, and commentary. The first autonomous narratives, such as Midrash Aseret
ha-Dibrot and The Alphabet of Ben-Sira, belong to this category, and the same
can be said for Toledot Yeshu. I therefore believe that it originated in Islamic
Babylonia in the eighth century, not only because of its language and the lack
of any credible earlier evidence of it, but because the cultural genre to which it
belongs - a full autonomous story independent of any literary context - did not
exist prior to this place and time.
Support for this contention can be found in evidence portraying the cultural
milieu in Iraq in the Geonic period, particularly the majlis, convocations of
scholars, some of which were closed while others were open to the public. Later
testimony to this custom and spirit comes from a tenth century Muslim traveler
from Spain. Describing a visit to Baghdad, he relates:
I twice attended their (the philosophers') assemblies ... At the first session there were
present not only Muslims of all sects, but also agnostics, Parsee, materialists, atheists,
Jews and Christians, in short, infidels of all kinds. Each of these sects had its spokesman,
who had to defend its views. As soon as one of these spokesmen entered, the audience
stood up reverently, and no one sat down until the spokesman took his seat.
Toledot Yeshu: Folk-Narrative as Polemics and Self Criticism 105
Earlier evidence of the majlis dates from the ninth century.8 These public con-
vocations would undoubtedly have been a fitting opportunity for a Christian
scholar to present the story of the birth and death of Jesus. And as the travel er
suggests, he would most probably have "had to defend its views" before the
other participants, perhaps the Jews in particular, in respect to issues such as the
virgin birth, the identity of Jesus as the son of God and Messiah, and the resur-
rection. In other words, it may very well have been at cultural events like the
majlis that exposition of the Christian doctrine gave birth to the sporadic motifs
that were later brought together in what we know as Toledot Yeshu. Viewing it
as a narrative that took shape largely in oral form in the course of debate with
agents of the Christian narrative and Muslim scholars, rather than as the work
of a Jewish writer taking one of the Gospels and deliberately distorting it to cre-
ate a counter-history, may better explain the existence of such a wide variety of
different versions of Toledot Yeshu, a fact that is apparent even from the earliest
references to it.
It is interesting to note the connection between Toledo! Yeshu and another
narrative created in the same cultural milieu: the earliest work attributed to Ben
Sira in the Middle Ages. Quite some time ago (in 1975), I dubbed this book
Toledot Ben Sira. perhaps due to some as yet unarticulated sense of a link to the
Toledot Yeshu. 9 Others before me have noted the similarity between the two,
particularly in respect to the opening episode in Toledot Ben Sira. Ben Sira is
said to have been born to the Prophet Jeremiah's daughter through impregnation
in a bathhouse by her father's semen, which had earlier been emitted into the
water. Clearly, this tale might have suggested an explanation, and one that could
8 The quotation is from Salo W. Baron, A Social and ReligiOUS History of the Jews (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1959): v, 83. Further evidences and additional bibliography
in: Rina Drory, The Emergence of Jewish-Arabic Literary Contacts at the Beginning of the
Tenth Century (Tel-Aviv: The Porter Institute, 1988 [in Hebrew)), 122, brings another example
to a similar event from the 9th century. Other supporting evidences to these type of events are
brought by Steven M. Wasserstrom, Between Muslim and Jew: The Problem ofSymbiosis under
Early Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 167-9; Wadi Z. Haddad, "Continu-
ity and Change in Religious adherence: 9th Century Baghdad," in Conversion and Continuity:
Indigenous Christian Communities in Islamic Lands 8'-h to I Slh Centuries (eds. Michael Gervers
and Ramzi Jibran Bikhazi; Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1990), 33-54,
and his clear conclusion in this matter: "Contact between the Christian and Muslim communi-
ties by the ninth century appears to have become widespread ... internal evidence from these
writings reveals that intimate discussion concerning matters offaith were engaged in on several
levels: both official with clergy as well as on the street level by youth gangs, radical groups and
others of the rabble" (p. 49). "In the ninth century, Dawud ibn Marwan al-Muqammas, who
was intimately integrated into the Christian Arab milieu of Harran, produced the first Jewish
work ofKalam theology, the Ishrun Maqala, which was considered a major work in its field at
least until the thirteenth century," David E. Sklare, Samuel ben Hofni Gaon and his Cultural
World (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 48. On the majlis - convocation for debate or study - see ibid.,
73-74; 99-104.
9 EIi Yassif, Tales of Ben-Sira in the Middle Ages (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1985 [in He-
brew)).
106 EIi Yassif
purport to be more logical, for the virgin birth of Christ in a "counter-history" or

parody of the Christian story. As we have seen, in ninth century Babylonia, the
time and place in which Toledot Ben Sira originated, Jewish and Muslim schol-
ars, as well as the general public, were familiar with the Christian narrative. It
is thus difficult to imagine someone reading or hearing the Hebrew text at that
time without being reminded of the virgin birth.
However, the connection between the two Hebrew compositions goes beyond
the opening episode, which has been the sole focus of the comparison thus far.
Both are also characterized by overt, at times brazen, eroticism, a fact that in-
curred the rage of religious leaders (especially in the case of Toledot Ben Sira).
Both describe homosexual encounters (between the evil descendents ofEphraim
in a bathhouse in Ben Sira; Judah defiling Jesus in this manner in several ver-
sions of Toledot Yeshu), the spilling of semen in vain (Jeremiah in the bath-
house; Judah spraying it on Jesus as he chases him in the sky), and adultery and
illegitimate relations (Lilith, the Queen of Sheba, and the animals in the Ark in
Ben Sira; the impregnation ofMary by a lustful adulterer and later her own acts
of adultery in Toledot Yeshu). Furthermore, like Ben Sira, Jesus is discovered to
be a child prodigy as soon as he is brought before his teacher, and like him, he
treats his teachers with arrogance and disdain. lo
The similarity between these two works and yet a third composition lends
further support to my contentions regarding the origins of Toledot Yeshu. In the
early studies of Toledot Ben Sira, Moritz Steinschneider, Israel Levi and Louis
Ginzberg ll already noted its resemblance to an apocryphal work known as The
Arabic Gospel of the Infancy of the Savior, particularly in an episode that fea-
tures prominently in both: the hero's first introduction to his teacher. This is the
description in The Arabic Gospel:
There was, moreover, at Jerusalem, a certain man named Zacchaeus, who taught boys.
He said to Joseph: Why, 0 Joseph, dost thou not bring Jesus to learn his letters? Joseph
agreed to do so, and reported the matter to the Lady Mary. They therefore took Him to the
master; and he, as soon as he saw Him, wrote out the alphabet for Him, and told Him to
say Aleph. And when He had said Aleph, the master ordered Him to pronounce Beth. And
the Lord Jesus said to him: Tell me first the meaning of the letter Aleph, and then I shall
pronounce Beth. And when the master threatened to flog Him, the Lord Jesus explained
to him the meanings of the letters Aleph and Beth; also which figures of the letter were
straight, which crooked, which drawn round into a spiral, which marked with points,
which without them, why one letter went before another; and many other things He began
to recount and to elucidate which the master himself had never either heard or read in any
book. The Lord Jesus, moreover, said to the master: Listen, and I shall say them to thee.
10 In the Strasbourg manuscript (Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 39), the name of Jesus is Yehosh-
ua', after his uncle, and right after his birth, his mother "seated him in from of a primary-school
teacher (melamed) and he was very c)ever ... learned in the Torah and Talmud." He behaves
rudely to his teachers - exactly as did Ben-Sira.
11 See Yassif, Ben-Sira, 34--36, and especially note 18.
And He began clearly and distinctly to repeat Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Daleth, on to Tau. And
the master was astonished, and said: I think that this boy was born before Noah. And turn-
ing to loseph, he said: Thou hast brought to me to be taught a boy more learned than all
the masters. To the Lady Mary also he said: This son of thine has no need of instruction. 12
This is very similar to the episode in Toledo! Ben Sira in which he is brought
before the elementary teacher and in response to each letter he is taught, the child
utters an aphorism that reveals the teacher's lascivious thoughts. Most scholars
agree that reliable evidence of the existence of The Arabic Gospel dates from
the ninth century, although it was probably based on earlier traditions which it
brought together in a single volume in Arabic for eastern Christian believers.
The two Hebrew compositions also show similarities to another classic Ara-
bic text, the Koran. In the Sura "Mary" (# 19), Mary is accused of adultery and
prostitution as a result of her pregnancy and the birth of Jesus, and it is the child
who explains how he was conceived and that he is the son of God. The very same
scene appears in both Toledo! Yeshu and Toledot Ben Sira.
A further connection between the two Hebrew texts can be found in relation
to a subject of central importance to both Jewish and Christian culture: the Mes-
siah. According to the story of Ben Sira, Jeremiah impregnates his daughter in
Jerusalem, that is, before the destruction of the Temple. When Ben Sira is born,
and immediately afterwards when Nebuchadnezzar sends his soldiers for him,
Jeremiah is no longer mentioned and Palestine is already under the rule of the
Babylonian king. In other words, these events take place after the fall of Jeru-
salem. Ben Sira was therefore born at the time ofthe destruction of the Temple,
when according to Jewish tradition, the Messiah would be born. 1J Ifwe add the
divine wisdom of Ben Sira, which is apparent throughout the book, we can not
ignore the possibility that its author regarded him as a parody of the Messiah,
similar to the figure of Jesus in Toledo! Yeshu. Furthermore, Ben Sira's name
was leshua or Jeshu, as is the name of the hero of Toledot Yeshu,14 and this might
even explain the choice of the ancient poet Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus) as the sub-
ject of the latter text. And there is more. One of the most intriguing episodes in
Toledot Ben Sira is an animal tale:
And he (Nebuchadnezzar) asked him (Ben Sira): horse and mule and ass, why do they
piss where others do and sniff their dung? He said to him, when the three of them were
created and given to the first man he began to work them very hard. The mule said to the
12 The Arabic Gospel of The Infancy of the Saviour (trans. Alexander Roberts and lames
Donaldson, The Ante-Nicene Fathers 8,404-15, par. 48); see also: James K. ElJiott, The
Apocryphal New Testament: A Collection of Apocryphal Christian Literature in an English
Translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
13 Midrash on Lamentations 1: 16, and to variants and discussion see: Galit Hasan-Rokem,
Web ofLife: Folklore and Midrash in Rabbinic Literature (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
2000), 146-90.
14 On the name/names of Jesus see: David Flusser, Jesus (Jerusalem: Magness Press, 1997),
24-25.
108 EIi Yassif
horse and the ass, aJl the animals rest from their labor and we have no rest from our labor.
Let us ask God when our toil will end, and if our seed will not vanish from the world.
They answered him: well said. Right away they went to the Holy One Blessed be He and
said to him, Lord of the Universe, when will our toil be lifted from us? He said to them:
when your waters turn the grindstones and your dung has the fragrance of perfume, at
that time will I end your toil ... Their temper appeased, they instructed their offspring that
wherever they see water they were to piss so that a great river would form and turn the
grindstones, and when they dropped dung they were to sniff it to see if it had the fragrance
of perfume. When that happened, they would be released from slavery into freedom. And
so they continue to do SO.IS
It is hard to imagine of a more scathing satire of messianism. On the overt

level, it contains sharp criticism of those impatient for the coming of the Mes-
siah, those who urge God to hasten the redemption and are always looking for
signs of its imminent arrival. But it is also no less critical of those who believe
the Messiah has already come, those who see the "water" and "perfume" that
herald His arrival, but do not realize that they are deluded fools, that what they
see is only piss and dung. The public, familiar with Christian rites, would not
have missed this far from subtle aIlusion to the baptismal font and incense of the
church. Thus, according to the text, what was perceived as tokens of the Messiah
was only filth.
Nevertheless, the most important feature to emerge from a comparison be-
tween Toledot Yeshu and Toledot Ben Sira is not that they contain similar motifs
or stories, but that they are written in the same tone and belong to the same liter-
ary genre: the parody. Both make use of the "lowest" elements, principally the hu-
man organs situated below the belt, to "explain" the central myths in each of the
two religions: the heroes of the Bible (the Prophet Jeremiah, King David, King
Solomon), the son of God, the virgin birth, and the Messiah. The contrast be-
tween the sacred theological source and its elucidation by means of genitalia and
bodily excretions creates a tension known in the theory of humor as incongruity,
producing the psychological response of derision and laughter. This is precisely
the literary technique employed in both texts, and in both cases it characterizes
the entire work, not merely certain motifs or episodes. In regard to Toledot Ben
Sira it has been claimed, and rightly so, that this c~mbination of familiarity with
the sources, sexual explicitness, and base humor was most likely the work of
youngsters, probably students in the large yeshivas in Babylonia in the Geonic
period. For them, this type of composition would have represented a midrash-like
creativity (retelling an earlier text) and subversive criticism of contemporary atti-
tudes (Christianity, religious hypocrisy, messianism), as well as a release from the
pressure of the strict regime of studies and discipline in the yeshiva. 16 The same
15 Yassif, Tales of Ben-Sira, 240-4L

16 David Stern, "The Alphabet of Ben Sira and the Early History of Parody in Jewish Litera-
ture," in The Idea of Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Honor ofJames L. Kugel (eds. Hindy
Toledot Yeshu: Folk-Narrative as Polemics and Se/fCriticism 109
could be said of Toledot Yeshu. The similarity between the two compositions in
tenns of cultural context, literary genre, and distortion of the story of the virgin
birth, the attitude toward messianism, and the crude humor would seem to lead to
an obvious conclusion that they were created in the same time, place, and milieu.
Thus, a significant accumulation of textual and contextual elements in Toledot
Yeshu point to Jewish Iraq in the second-third century ofIslam. We can therefore
conclude that it was written by young Jewish scholars, in and around the Baby-
Ionian yeshivo! in the eighth century. I believe this detennination answers the
majority (although admittedly not all) of the cultural, philological, and historical
questions raised in the scholarship of Toledo! Yeshu over the years.17
Toledo! Yeshu as a Volksbuch
In 1982, GOnter Schlichting classified Toledot Yeshu as a Volksbuch, or folk

book. IS Unfortunately, he did not offer a precise definition of this genre or ex-
plain why he categorized Toledot Yeshu in this way. We can only assume that his
opinion was based on the extensive Gennan research into this genre of folklore,
which includes popular tales such as the Nibelungenlied, Faust, the chivalric ro-
mances, and The Wandering Jew. They are defined as short narratives published
as small inexpensive books which generally contained folktales that had previ-
ously been spread orally. 19 The fact that Schlichting's book is devoted mainly to
a comparison of the Volksbuch Tam u-Mu 'ad with the many earlier versions of
the story suggests what may be the overriding feature that convinced the author
to ascribe Toledo! Yeshu to this genre: its numerous versions.
In the field of folklore research, different versions, or "multiple existence," is
considered a prerequisite for defining a story as a folk narrative. The many ver-
Nayman and Judith H. Newman; Leiden: Brill, 2004), 423-48. An earlier perspective on TY
as a parody was suggested by Morris Goldstein, Jesus in the Jewish Tradition (New York: the
Macmillan Company, 1950), 163.
17 The strongest objection to this conclusion is that of E1chanan Reiner who suggest Pales-
tine/the Upper Galilee in the early Byzantine period as the origin of the work. Compare Reiner,
"The Sea\." As explained earlier, I cannot accept this proposition, as there are too strong argu-
ments against it.
18 Giinter Schlichting, Ein jiidisches Leben Jesu: Die verschollene Toledot-Jeschu-Fassung
Tam u-mu 'ad (Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1982), 1-2. Both Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, and Hor-
bury, A Critical Examination, although not using directly the term Volksbuch, treated, in large
portions of their studies of TY, the work as such.
19 Lutz Mackensen, Die Deutschen Volksbiicher (Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer, 1927); Hans
Joachim Kreutzer, Der Mythos vom Volksbuch. Studien zur Wirkungsgeschichte des friihen
deutschen Romans seit der Romantik (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1977). Ben E. Perry, "Some Traces
of Lost Medieval Story Books," in Humaniora: Essays in Literature. Folklore. Bibliography;
Honoring Archer Taylor (eds. Wayland D. Hand and Gustave O. Arlt; Locust Valley, N. Y.: J. J.
Augustin, 1960), 150--60, describes the route that folk-books written in the East made, through
Southern Italy and Spain, into Europe. I suggest that a similar route was made by TYas well.
110 Eli Yassif
sions of Toledot Yeshu, along with the fact that it is anonymous, indicate that it
was regarded by the society that told the story as part of its cultural property, and
its members therefore gave themselves permission to change it and adapt it to
their own life and beliefs. In the early period offolklore research, this approach
was applied only to stories told orally. However, it later became clear that folk
literature was disseminated no less by written texts, with the same principles
remaining valid. 2o This gave rise to the critical term Volksbuch, which contrib-
uted to our understanding of the nature offolklore in literate societies from the
Middle Ages onward.
Toledot Yeshu indeed fulfills the criteria for its definition as a Volksbuch, and
most conspicuously the basic requirement of "multiple existence."21 This aspect
of the work is not merely a matter of critical jargon, but is of central importance
in comprehending the text and its social significance. Thus far, the countless ver-
sions of the book, appearing from the early Middle Ages on in nearly every Jew-
ish community, have been treated in research as a philological hurdle that must
be overcome by tedious comparisons and detailed diagrams. While this approach
may provide work for scholars, it does little to advance our understanding of the
text. Defining it as a Volksbuch, however, may change our perception entirely.
As noted above, in folklore theory, "multiple existence" is not simply a challenge
for scholars, but a cultural marker. It indicates that for the society or community
which has introduced changes into a text it received from written or oral sources,
that text has become part of its cultural legacy. The nature of the changes reveals
the way the society perceives itself and its values. Thus, the different versions of
Toledot Yeshu should not be seen as textual mutations of some Urtext, but as the
products of cultural interactions, whether with the Gospels, among the various
versions themselves (intertextuality), or between the texts and diverse histori-
cal, social, and cultural realities. Each version of the story should therefore be
regarded as an autonomous composition that arrived in a particular community
and underwent a process of acceptance and adaptation to its worldview and the
issues on its cultural agenda (oikotypification). Consequently, here too, as we
consider the major differences between the versions regarding the character
and childhood of Jesus, the sources of his miraculous powers and charisma, his
complex relationship with the Jewish community, his battle with Judas Iscariot,
and the separation of Judaism from Christianity, we will relate to them not as
deviations from an early authoritative version, but as independent negotiations
20 On the history of research and the contribution of Albert Wesselski in general folkloristics
and Moses Gaster to the Jewish field see Eli Yassif, "The Folk-Writer," in The Go/em ofPrague
and Other Tales of Wonder (ed. Eh Yassif, Jerusalem: The Bialik Institute, 1991 [in HebrewD,
7-72; idem., "Moses Gaster: Pioneer in Folklore and Jewish Studies," Pe 'amim \00 (2004):
113-24 (in Hebrew).
21 On the concept and its implications see: Eli Yassif, The Hebrew Folktale: History, Genre,
Meaning (Jerusalem: The Bialik Institute, 1994 [in Hebrew]), 5-6; 565, note 6.
Toledot Yeshu: Folk-Narrative as Polemics and SeljCriticism III
through which medieval Jewish communities expressed their attitudes toward

issues central to their lives and toward the dominance of Christianity.
Defining Toledot Yeshu as a Volksbuch has other important implications as
well. Studies have pointed to the main difference between this book and the
Gospels, not in respect to specific episodes, but in terms of the composition as
a whole: the exclusion of any non-narrative textual elements, such as homilies,
moral lessons, parables, instruction, or aphorisms. Toledot Yeshu ignores these
components entirely, confining itself solely to the narrative elements. Research
generally refers to this as "omitting" parts or "pruning" the lush text of the Gos-
pels. However, classifying it as a Volksbuch may provide a different explanation.
The early Firkovich version 22 bears the subtitle, "A book of Fables (about) Jesus
Christ," and concludes with the words: "and thus ends this book with the fable
of Jesus Christ." This version makes explicit use of the genre label "fable" in
its medieval sense of a narrative - fabula, thus indicating that its author, and
other scribes, did not view Toledot Yeshu as a moral or polemic work, but as a
story. Indeed, one of the defining principles of folk literature is the "law of the
epic plot,"23 whereby non-narrative forms of expression, such as description or
reflection, are absent and the focus is mainly on the narrative plot. This is not to
say that folktales contain no descriptions or ideas, but that these are expressed
primarily through the plot. Based on this principle of folk-narrative, the differ-
ences between the Gospels of the New Testament and Toledot Yeshu can be seen
not as an attempt to omit or ignore the tenets of Christianity, but as a deliberate
choice ofstorytelling over religious homily, that is, as the decision to narrate the
Christian Gospel as a folktale. The fact that this principle is maintained in every
one of the dozens of versions of the book indicates that the writers/tellers ap-
plied it instinctively, as did storytellers of folktales throughout the ages.
In order to fully understand the significance of defining Toledot Yeshu as a
Volksbuch, it may help to compare it with another work from the same domain,
The Arabic Gospel of the Infancy of the Savior mentioned above. The earliest
testimonies to the existence of The Arabic Gospel also come from the ninth
century, and it was also created within an Islamic culture. Moreover, it too ap-
pears in a multitude of versions, and was apparently popular, in both oral and
written form, among eastern Christians. Thus, The Arabic Gospel has much in
common with Toledot Yeshu. However, the value of the comparison derives not
from the similarities, but from identifying the differences and their meaning.
Indeed, the distinctions in structure and content between these two works of
folk literature are very telling. Although they both draw on the same source -
22 Yaacov Deutsch, "New Evidence of Early Versions of Toldot Yeshu," Tarbiz 69 (2000):
177-97 (in Hebrew).
23 Axel Olrik, "Epic Laws of Folk Narrative," in The Study of Folklore (ed. Alan Dundes;
Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1965), 138-40. TY combines, actually, two integral
"epic laws": "the unity of the plot," and "concentration on the Leading Character."
112 EIi Yossij
the gospel tradition if not the New Testament itself - Toledot Yeshu adopts the
narrative frame of Jesus' life from birth to death, while The Arabic Gospel bor-
rows only the episodic tales of Jesus' miracles and adds dozens more of its own
making. And according to The Arabic Gospel, all these miracles take place in
a short period of time, when Jesus' family is fleeing from Herod to Egypt, and
he is still an infant in the cradle. The text contains the tales of dozens of lepers,
people possessed by demons, the lame, and other wretched souls of all sorts who
are healed by touching Jesus' body or clothes. In other words, while Toledot
Yeshu tells one continuous and comprehensive story with a coherent sequential
connection between the parts, The Arabic Gospel tells numerous stories with
no link between them save for the identity of the miracle worker. Moreover, the
order or number of the stories is immaterial, as anyone of them could have been
omitted without interfering with the sequence and more could have been added
without changing the character of the composition. Thus, The Arabic Gospel is
a collection offolktales, whereas Toledot Yeshu is a folk epic that tells one single
story of a biographical nature. Since the Gospels themselves belong to both liter-
ary genres,24 each of the two pieces of folk literature could take from this rich
tradition the form and content that best suited its purposes. The Arabic Gospel
wished to stress the divinity of Jesus in the most basic sense: his very body was
holy, and so from the moment he was born, merely touching it brought about a
miracle. On the other hand, Toledot Yeshu totally ignored this aspect of the story,
focusing instead on its own objective: to controvert the frame story itself. To do
so, it retold the whole narrative of Jesus' life from birth to death.
The two works represent the two major forms of the Volksbuch: anthologies
that bring together in writing a collection of folktales previously told orally;
and books that tell a single epic story. Both categories were designed for a large
audience. Consequently, in our case, both books deliberately ignored the non-
narrative portions of the gospel tradition - homilies, moral lessons, parables,
prophecies - and focused solely on the plot in accordance with the poetics offolk
literature. Each opted for the narrative technique that best promoted its objec-
tives, whether a series of tales each of which added to the wonders of the savior
for an audience of his worshippers, or an epic chrpnology of his life written as
a subversive parody for the enjoyment of his deniers.
24 Already the "form criticism" approach to the New Testament considered large portions of
it as independent Novellen, and thus compared it to narrative tendencies of the pagan culture and
rabbinic literature. Compare Martin Dibelius, Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums (Tiibingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 1961),66-100, and David B. Gowler, "The Chreia," in The Historical Jesus
in Context (eds. Amy-Jill Levine et al.; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 132-48,
who sees in the evangelical miracle-tales short anecdotes similar to the Greek chreia. On the
other hand, other scholars emphasize the epic, unified narrative of the New Testament: Den-
nis R. MacDonald, "Imitations of Greek Epic in the Gospels," in Levine, ed., The Historical
Jesus, 372-84; idem., Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? Four Cases from the Acts of
the Apostles (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003).
This comparison between the two works demonstrates that Toledot Yeshu
clearly belongs to the category of folk literature. Like other medieval Hebrew
folk-books, such as Midrash 'Aseret ha-Dibrot (The Midrash of the Ten Com-
mandments), The Alphabet ofBen-Sira, and Hibbur Yafeh me-ha-Yeshu 'ah (An
Elegant Composition Concerning Relief after Adversity), which omitted the
Halakhic or homiletic context of Talmudic tales, Toledo! Yeshu omitted the reli-
gious context of the New Testament narrative. This fact has considerable social
significance, indicating that it was aimed at large sectors of society who had no
interest in the theological debate. Just as the humorous tales in Midrash 'Ekhah
Rabbah (The Midrash on Lamentations) reveal how the general public, as op-
posed to scholars, dealt with the threat ofHellenism,25 so Toledo! Yeshu presents
a convincing answer to one of the questions that has occupied research into
medieval Jewish culture since its inception: How is it that Jews in the Middle
Ages seem to have contended with rising Christianity initially through stories
rather than theological polemics? Understanding that the writers and tellers of
Toledo! Yeshu created a folk-narrative or folk-book in accordance with the epic
conventions of that genre sheds new light on this phenomenon. First and fore-
most, they wished to tell a story, not to write a polemical essay.26 The story could
be widely disseminated both orally and in writing, providing the general public
with answers to their questions about the powerful religious adversary that had
emerged out of Judaism itself. The choice of the genre of Volksbuch thus had
both literary and social ramifications.
From Victim to Villain
As we are relating here to Toledot Yeshu as a literary text, it is only proper that
we consider one of the most basic features of any work of literature: character-
ization, and most particularly, the characterization of the protagonist. From this
perspective, the different versions of the book can be divided into two distinct
categories. In the first, which contains what appear to be the older versions, Jesus
is presented in the early stages of his life as a positive, complex, and even tragic
figure. He is born, at no fault of his own, into a hapless reality as the illegitimate
child of a menstruate woman. The first time his mother brings him to a teacher
we are told, "The wicked one was an exceptionally bright and studious pupil.
For that reason he was well-Ioved."27 Similarly, the St. Petersburg version, one
2S EH Yassif, The Hebrew Folktale: History. Genre, Meaning (trans. JacqueHne Teitelbaum;
B1oomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press 1999), 177-79.
26 On this characteristic see: Ora Limor, "Judaism Looks at Christianity: The Debate of
Nestor the Priest and Toledot Yeshu," Pe'amim 75 (1998),109-25 (in Hebrew).
27 Samuel Krauss, "Une nouvelle recension hebraique du Toledot Yeshu," REJ 103 (1938):
77.
114 EIi Yossif
of the earliest known to us, relates: "And Jesus studied well and was great in the
Torah and was keen and clever."28 Yet however hard he tries to free himself of
his dark past, he can not escape his fate:
The wicked one was disporting with the boys outside as lads do, and he provoked the
boys in their game, and they said to him that he was the illegitimate son of a menstruate
woman! You think you are the son ofYochanan? You are not his son, you are the son of
Yosef Pandera who lay with your mother when she was menstruate and sired you the
depraved son of a depraved man. When the wicked one heard that, he ran home to his
mother in rage and shouted a great and bitter shout, saying, Mother, Mother, tell me the
truth. When I was a young boy the children said to me that I am the illegitimate son of a
menstruate woman, and I thought it was an idle taunt, and now the lads yell at me every
day, all of them as one, illegitimate son ofa menstruate woman and they say I am the son
ofYosefPandera who came to you when you were menstruate. 29
Where could the children have heard this malicious gossip about Jesus' birth?-
From their parents, of course. According to the story, the boy had to cope with
these ugly rumors from the time he was a little child and until he was a young
man. His dash home to his mother, his bitter cry in search of truth, and the need
to contend with his dark past are nothing less than tragic. 30 We must remember
that this is a work of literature, not a historical document. And this is the man-
ner in which the creators of these versions of the story chose to characterize the
early life of their protagonist. Just how complex his figure is in these versions
can be seen by comparing them to the second group of texts, in which Jesus is
born evil and is depicted as such from the very beginning. One typical example
begins with the following description:
Jesus Christ was arrogant from the time he learned to talk, and he was devious and cunning
and argumentative and known for his foul language. He spoke of the prophets and Torah
scholars displaying envy and greed and conceit, and sought tribute, and was disdainful
of the Torah and Moses ... and when the rabbis heard of it they said, because he was so
disrespectful, he was scrutinized. 3 1
In all the versions in the second group, Jesus' status as illegitimate manifests
itself in his personality,
When the boy grew older, (his mother) took him to the bet midrash to learn Torah. And
the illegitimate one was clever and would learn in one day what others could not learn in
a year, and of this the rabbis said, bastards are clever, and especially this one who was the
illegitimate son of a menstruate woman ... and he spoke with such conceit that showed
contempt for his rabbi and for the sages ofIsrael. 32
28 Deutsch, "New Evidence," 183.

29 Krauss, "Une nouvelle," 78.
30 So argued already Ora Limor, "Judaism Looks at Christianity," 120.
31 Michael Higger, "The Story of Jesus," Chorev 3 (193617): 144.
32 Krauss, "Une nouvelle," 66.
Even when the authors ofthese versions laud Jesus' intelligence and study skills,
they present these qualities as deviations deriving from the sin of his birth as the
illegitimate son of a menstruate woman. In other words, whereas the first group
describes him as an innocent child, attributing his hostility to Jewish society to
the cruelty he suffered at its hands, the second group depicts his villainy and
hatred for the Jews as inborn traits resulting from his conception in sin.
Indeed, the narrative development in the two categories is utterly reversed.
In the first group of versions Jesus is accused from early childhood of being a
bastard and the son of a menstruate woman although he himself is blameless,
while in the second group "because he was so disrespectful, he was scrutinized."
It was only after his villainy became apparent, when he was still a child that the
rabbis looked into his past and discovered what there was to discover, so that
Jewish society was in no way responsible for his fate and actions. The complex
characterization in the earlier versions is even more impressive at the point in
the story when Jesus' family returns from Egypt,
And it happened in those days that the bet din (rabbinic court oflaw) in that place presided
over trials of the people and their judgments were influenced by bribery and favoritism.
And Jesus Christ would sit with them and lecture them on the justice, and they were
menaced by him for it and he prevailed over them in the argument ... And they loathed
him for it and sought a pretext to remove him from among them ... And between the
hearings the judges called for his mother Mary after the death of her husband Joseph and
made her swear in the name of the Lord, tell us from where this man Jesus came to you,
whose son is he that speaks to us with such imperiousness ... When Jesus returned from
the village and came to take his accustomed place, the judges rose and pushed him away
saying: a bastard shall not enter the congregation ofthe Lord. He said to them: even if it is
as you say, I am wiser than you and God-fearing and J will not spare you rebuke ... They
answered: from now on we do not accept your words and you will not sit among us for
you are a bastard. He appealed to them and they would not be appeased until he wearied
and went off vehement and "Jeroboam went astray."33
This episode, which appears in one form or another in all the versions in the first
group, is an indication of their literary and ideological complexity. In a manner
not very different from the gospel narrative, the events are recounted from the
point of view of Jesus. He sees deep-rooted corruption in Jewish society, not
among the people, but among the judges and rabbis who are meant to be its
moral compass. He tries to rise up against it, admonishing, arguing, but his foes
fight back with the basest means: gossip and the exposure of the dark past of his
family in which he had no part. What is more, he attempts to appease them, to
win favor with the leaders of Jewish society, but in their fanaticism and corrup-
tion they push him away, and consequently, it is the unscrupulous judges and
rabbis who are primarily responsible for the fact that he left the fold.
33 Deutsch, "New Evidence," 184 (Ms. St. Petersburg 274).

116 Eli Yassif
As the rest of the story unfolds, Jesus is depicted as a wicked man who de-
ceives his followers, presenting himself as the Messiah and the Son of God, and
thus his execution is justified according to the internal logic of the narrative.
However, this does not detract from the literary and ideological complexity of
these versions. Jesus is characterized as a person who develops, not as a nega-
tive character from the beginning as in the second group of versions. His fate is
not determined by the sinful circumstances of his birth, but by the decisions and
actions of the society in which he lives, and the Jesus of the start of the story is
not the Jesus of its end. It might be said that the first group of versions of Toledot
Yeshu took from the Gospels not only the frame narrative of Jesus' early public
activities, but also the tone: criticism of the moral conduct of Jewish society, Je-
sus' fight against corruption, and his being expelled from the Jewish community
rather than making a personal decision to withdraw from it. Naturally, the theme
of the insults hurled at Jesus for being the son of an adulteress, presented as the
underlying cause of his suffering and tragic fate, does not appear in the Gospels,
since any mention of it could give credence to rumors of this nature that were
already circulating in the period of early Christianity.34 These versions of Toledot
Yeshu employ the theme as an effective and sophisticated literary means of delin-
eating the protagonist as a "round" character (in contrast to the "flat" character
that features in the second group), a man who struggles in his youth with the
bitter fate he can not escape, just like every tragic hero in world literature.
The Turning Point
Toledot Yeshu also displays a connection to the genre of the novella, the long-
short story which relates unusual events in a person's life and is generally of
an erotic nature. 35 This comes to bear as early as the introductory episode, the
seduction of Mary. To judge by the early versions of Toledot Yeshu (e. g., St.
Petersburg, Strasbourg, etc.), in all of which it appears in one form or another,
this novella-like opening episode was most likely an integral part of the text
from the very beginning. The various elements s>f the story - the adulterer
lusting after a beautiful wife, appealing to her elderly mother to help him in
his scheme, laying in wait until her husband (or betrothed) has left the house,
sneaking into the house, disguising himself as her husband and fornicating
with her throughout the night, and the way in which her husband learns of the
sinful deed - all sound as if they came straight out of a story by Boccaccio,
34See among others: Goldstein, Jesus in the Jewish Tradition, 147--66.

35From the rich research on the novella see: Robert J. Clements and Joseph Gibaldi, eds.,
Anatomy of the Novella (New York: New York University Press, 1977); Corradina Caporello-
Szykman, The Boccaccian Novella: The Creation and Waning of a Genre (New York: Peter
Lang, 1990), and the rich bibliography in each. See also below, note 37.
and are equally typical of the tales in the classic Persian-Arabic anthology One
Thousand and One Nights and the popular Tales ofSendebar (or Seven Sages),
which emerged in Arabic or Persian in the same time and place where I believe
Toledot Yeshu originated. A story from the Tales ofSendebar can be a valuable
example of such stories, which was undoubtedly known to Jewish readers (or
listeners). It is told as a separate tale of the type known in research literature
as "iuvenis femina":
There once was a man who had a most beautiful wife. Lusting for her was a young man
who could not attain her because her husband was jealous. So jealous that he used to lock
her in a room every day and he'd carry the key of the room with him. Now this merchant
was old and the youth became bedridden because of his great love. Now an old crone
came to him and asked him: what manner of illness have you? So he told her why he had
fallen sick. And she said to him: will you do all that I command you? He replied: yes.
So she told him: you get up and shave oifyour beard and put on women's clothes and
cover your face with a veil right up to the eyes. This he did. Now the old crone went to
the aged man and said to him: I pray you, my lord, I am a widow, and I've got a one and
only daughter, who's very virtuous, and I wish to go on a trip to another city. Now I've
heard how virtuous your wife is, and I was afraid to leave my daughter in a strange place.
So now, if it pleases you, I'd like to bring her here, with her expenses, and let her serve
your wife till I get back. Replied the old man: Bring her expense money and let her lie in
the same room as my wife. Whereupon the crone went for the young man, fetched him
thither, and he lay with her.36
This story can be found in all medieval Hebrew translations of Tales of Sende-
bar, although they (the translations we know of, not the text itself which is much
earlier) admittedly date from a later period, indicates that the Jews were familiar
with it, whether from earlier versions of the book in Persian or Arabic or from
oral traditions taken from it. Whatever their source, however, the story demon-
strates that typical novella-like elements found their way into the Toledot Yeshu.
One of the basic structural characteristics in the theory of the novella is the
unexpected turning point or Wendepunkt. 37 This refers to an imposing, frighten-
ing, erotic, or tragic event that changes the life of the protagonist and shifts the
direction of the plot. In Toledot Yeshu, the turning point comes at the moment
that Jesus goes from a persecuted young student to public figure acting against
Jewish society. In the St. Petersburg manuscript, immediately after he is ousted
by the rabbis, "he left his place in the land ofGalilee. And he declared, 'I am the
son of God and believe in me in my miracles which 1 shall show you,' and every
vain and irresponsible fellow gathered around him."38 In the Munk manuscript
36 This is the medieval Hebrew version, in Morris Epstein, Tales ofSendebar (Philadelphia:
Jewish Publication Society of America, 1967), 24Cr-50.
37 On this concept in the theory of the novella see: Benno von Wiese, Novelle (Stuttgart:
Metzler, 1963), 15 if.; John M. Ellis, Narration in the German Novelle: Theory and Interpreta-
tion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979),4.
118 EIi Yassif
published by Samuel Krauss, he hounds his mother until she tells him the truth
about his birth, and "finally after much tormenting she told him the truth that he
is Jesus son of Pandera and he is the son of a menstruate woman. And he left off
his mother, saying: 'IfI am the illegitimate son ofa menstruate woman I will act
like the illegitimate son of a menstruate woman!' And immediately he secretly
went to the Temple for the Ineffable Name was carved on the foundation stone
of the Temple."39 [n the Higger version: "as he heard that it was made known,
that his mother was a harlot and he was a bastard and the son of a menstruate
woman, immediately he left and fled to Jerusalem ... and in the Temple on the
Foundation Stone, which is the rock which the Patriarch Jacob anointed in oil,
there were the letters of the Ineffable Name.'>40 Similar accounts appear in all
the other versions of this group as well.
[n other words, the narrative turning point in which the story goes from being
the biography of a child conceived in sin to the account of decisive historical
events occurs at the moment in which the young man learns his true identity.
This is the cause, the motive, for his very next act: stealing the Ineffable Name
from the Temple and using it for illicit and subversive purposes against the Jews.
At this precise point, the protagonist is transformed from an innocent child into
the ultimate villain who changed the face of Jewish history. In this sense, the
Wendepunkt of Toledot Yeshu is not merely a narrative turning point typical of a
novella, but a historical turning point as well, and the authors of all the versions
of the text were very well aware of its weighty significance.
The hypothetical question of how a different turning point would alter the
plot is one of the fundamental issues in the theory of the novella. [fthe protago-
nist had acted differently, ifhe hadn't decided to slaughter his favorite hawk to
prepare a meal for his beloved who loved him only for his hawk, how would
the story and his life be different? Ifhe had not raised his eyes to the top of the
tower and seen the young wife of the rich old man imprisoned there, would his
life have taken a totally different course? The alternative narrative or course of
events creating itself in the mind of the reader or listener of the story is a major
aesthetic component in the theory of the novella. This issue is especially perti-
nent in respect to the turning point in Toledot YeshlJ. How would the story have
unfolded if Jewish society - the schoolboys, the rabbis in the bet midrash - had
not taunted the young man as they did? After all, he removes the Ineffable Name
of God from Judaism, from the Temple, because they expelled him from the Jew-
ish collective. He flees to the Upper Galilee after being shamed in public as the
illegitimate son of a menstruate woman, and only then "when the word that Jesus
was a bastard was made known, he left the Upper Galilee, and stole to Jerusalem
and entered the Temple and learned there the holy letters and wrote down the
39 Krauss, "Une nouvelle." 80.

40 Higger, "The Story of Jesus," 144.
name."41 Any such hypothetical question always contains an element of criti-

cism. Here it implies that if the Jews had treated Jesus better, not only the plot of
a story but perhaps the entire course of Jewish history might have been different.
Charisma and Polemics
The direct outcome of the turning point that drives the plot of the story is thus
the theft of the Ineffable Name. With this act, Jesus goes from a wretched
taunted child to a powerful charismatic leader. According to the theory of the
novella, this crucial point in the narrative also holds the meaning of the tale.
Indeed, interpreting a novella often relies on the definition of the turning point.
In our case, however, the importance of the theft of the holy name carved on
the foundation stone of the Temple does not derive solely from its function in
terms of plot development. It can also be said to be the most original episode in
Toledot Yeshu, and nearly the only one that does not have a source in the gospel
narrative (the only other episode that meets this description is the battle in the
sky between Jesus and Judas Iscariot, but the two scenes are linked by the role
of the Ineffable name, a subject discussed at greater length below.) Whereas all
the other episodes in the book - the virgin birth, Jesus' wanderings, the miracu-
lous acts of healing, recruitment of the disciples, persecution by the Pharisees,
Jesus being brought before Pontius Pilate or Queen Helena, the crucifixion, and
the resurrection - are drawn in one way or another from the Gospels, there is
no mention, or even hint, of the theft or use of the Ineffable Name in the New
Testament. It is therefore the most creative and imaginative episode in Toledot
Yesu, fashioned virtually out of whole c1oth.42
As both its role in the plot and its originality indicate the importance of the
episode, it must be key to any interpretation of the text. In order to understand
its meaning, let us look at the two early versions of the story from which it is
absent: the Geniza fragments and the St. Petersburg manuscript. In one of the
Geniza fragments, John the Baptist is brought before Joshua ben Perachia and
Marianus the Elder to be questioned,
41 The Wagenseil version, in Ora Limor, ed., Jews and Christians in Western Europe: En-
counter between Cultures in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (5 vols.; Te1-Aviv: The Open
University, 1997 [in Hebrew]), 4:394.
42 Almost. Because of the fragmental story in the Talmud (b. Shabbat l04b;y. Shabbat 12:4):
.. 'He who cuts upon his flesh.' It is a tradition that Rabbi Eliezer said to the Wise: 'Did not Ben
Stada bring witchcraft from Egypt in a cut which was upon his flesh?' They said to him: 'He was
a fool, and we do not bring proof from a fool.'" On this, and full analysis of the text see Schafer,
Jesus in the Talmud, 15-21, as well as the important evidence on this by Celsus: "Having been
brought up in obscurity, he (Jesus) went as a hired laborer to Egypt and there acquired experi-
ence of some (magical) powers. Thence he returned, proclaiming himself a god on account of
these powers" (Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician [San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978], 81).
120 Eli Yassif
And he said to John, these are the books of witchcraft that were found in the hands of
your disciple Jesus. If you tell us the truth we will let you go and ifnot you and Jesus will
be executed with a double-edged sword. John replied saying, Masters, Jesus wrote these
books, I have been a prisoner since the days of Tiberius Caesar and [ have never seen
these books, but he and his eleven disciples wrote them and use them to deceive people. 43
In another fragment, it is Jesus who is questioned:

They said: The sorcerers' books in your hands are they new or old and belong to Balaam
(and in Egypt] you found them? ( ... ] He said to them they are of Balaam [... ] to do
(magic] with them ... And why did you use them [ ... ] and do evil to all of creation? [ ... ]
the books in your hand if you tell [us] whose they are and if not we will kill [ ... ] your
carcass to the beasts of the field. ( ... ] The books are not old [and not ancient] and not
Balaam's [ ... ]. He said, they are John's [ ... ] he gave them to me ... 44
In the fuller text preserved in the St. Petersburg manuscript, the scene is de-
scribed thus:
And (Jesus) dealt in magic and witchcraft and deceived people. For he had books from
the sorcerers of Egypt and he delved into them always ... They said to him these books
in your hand are they new or old? He said to them, Masters, the writings are old and an-
cient. They are from Balaam son of Beor and I found them in Egypt and they cure with
incantations all ailments, wounds and sores. They said to him: tell us the truth where you
found these books and you teach and instruct people in them and you and they deceive
the world. Tell us the truth and if (not) we will kill you. He said to them these books are
not ancient and not old and I did not find them in Egypt but John my Master gave them
to me and he taught them to me ... R. Joshua answered and said to John: these books that
were found in the hands of Jesus your disciple where did you find them? If you tell the
truth you will be saved, and if not you and Jesus your student will die a horrible death.
John answered and said to them: the books are from my masters. Jesus wrote them and
copied them for I was imprisoned and the Emperor Caesar imprisoned me and he copied
them and did not show them to me, and he and his twelve disciples know them and rose
up and deceive the world. 45
From the fragmentary texts in the Geniza documents, and even more clearly from
the early St. Petersburg manuscript, we can see Toledot Yeshu's near obsessive
preoccupation with the sources of Jesus' magical powers. The rabbis Joshua ben
Perachia and Marianus the Elder threaten John the-Baptist with the death penalty
for himself and Jesus not because of anything they have done, but if they do not
tell the truth abut the source of the books from which Jesus learned to do witch-
craft. The texts that have survived suggest three possibilities: he learned sorcery
in Egypt, from which he brought back the writings; he learned it from his teacher
John the Baptist; or he made it up and wrote the books himself. The first option
43 Daniel Boyarin, "A Revised Version and Translation of the 'Toledot Yeshu' Fragment,"
Tarbiz 47 (1978): 251-52.
4S Deutsch, ibid., 184-86.
attributes the books to a foreign source, Egypt and the gentile prophet Balaam
ben Beor. The second attributes them to John the Baptist, perhaps alluding to the
splinter Jewish sects, such as the Essenes, with whom he fraternized in his early
life. In the third option, Jesus himself is the source of his knowledge and the
books are "new" and do not belong to any earlier tradition. All three alternatives
appear in various forms in Jewish sources on magic from Late Antiquity and the
early Middle Ages.46 Here, in the rabbis' interrogation of John the Baptist and
Jesus, any of them can serve the same fundamental purpose: to present Jesus'
powers as witchcraft or black magic. Whether the source of the writings is exter-
nal (Egypt), internal (e. g., the Essenes), or personal (Jesus himself) makes no dif-
ference. Whatever their origin, they describe acts of evil magic aimed to deceive.
Scholarship contains considerable discussions of the debate between Jewish
scholars and early Christians over whether Jesus' powers derived from the fact
that he was the Messiah and the Son of God or whether they were merely magic
tricks, a controversy already evidenced in the New Testament, in Talmudic
sources, and among the first Christian theologians. 47 However, less attention
has been paid to the question of how the Jewish community in the Middle Ages
contended with the Christian claim that Jesus' powers were divine rather than
magical. While the early versions of Toledo! Yeshu clothe the argument in nar-
rative garb, they add little to the New Testament narrative: "And when the devil
was cast out, the dumb spake: and the multitude marvelled, saying, It was never
so seen in Israel. But the Pharisees said, 'He casteth out devils through the prince
of the devils'" (Matt. 9:33-34). Indeed, the Gospels contain many references to
this controversy in which Jesus' followers regard his acts as miracles while the
Pharisees see them as sorcery.48
46 On these general observations see the discussions in two recent surveys, Gideon Bohak,
Ancient Jewish Magic: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), and Yuval
Harari, Early Jewish Magic: Research, Method, Sources (Jerusalem: The Bialik Institute, 20 I 0
[in HebrewD.
47 Compare to the discussions by Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician; Geza Vermes, Jesus
the Jew: A Historian s Reading 0/ the Gospels (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1973);
Markham 1. Geller, Joshua B. Perahia and Jesus o/Nazareth: Two Rabbinic Magicians (Ph. D.
diss.; Brandeis University, 1973); Deutsch, Toledot Yeshu' in Christian Eyes; Schlifer, Jesus
in the Talmud, and the amazing discussion in: John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the
Historical Jesus (4 vols.; New York: Doublday, 1994),2:646-873.
48 In Acts 4:5-12, after the Apostles heal a sick man, they are Questioned by the Pharisees
and asked how they did so. They answer, "by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye
crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you
whole ... Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven
given among men, whereby we must be saved." This is confirmed in the Talmudic tales, where
the acts of healing are also performed by means of the name of Christ. The use of the Ineffable
Name in Toledot Yeshu sounds very much like a response to the claim in the New Testament. It
alone has such power, and even Jesus himself performed his miracles by means of the Ineffable
Name, and not his own name, as the apostles claim. Naturally, according to New Testament
doctrine, Jesus had no need to invoke any name at all as he himself was the source of power.
122 Eli Yossif
On the other hand, the large majority of versions of Toledot Yeshu which do
describe the theft ofthe Ineffable Name add another narrative motifwhich casts
the significance of the debate, and perhaps also the function of the whole work
as a polemical text, in a new light. In order to clarify this point, let us consider
a typical passage from Mark:
And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying
unto him, (fthou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, moved with compassion, put
forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. And as soon
as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed. And
he straitly charged him, and forthwith sent him away; And saith unto him, See thou say
nothing to any man: but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing
those things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. But he went out, and
began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no
more openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places: and they came to him
from every quarter (I :40--45; similar accounts appear in the other Gospels as well).
Several points in these verses are relevant to the interpretation I am proposing

here. The first is the total absence of any reference to the means by which Jesus
performed the miracle. The text states merely, "I will," and nothing more. There
is no attempt whatsoever to explain the source of Jesus' power, the miraculous
or magical mode he employed, or even any queries or puzzlement regarding this
issue. The many tales of similar miraculous deeds almost invariably pose the
natural question: Where does the person who says "I will" and it is done get his
power from? But the more acts of this nature that occurs without any explana-
tion, the greater the mystery surrounding the individual who performs them. If
Jesus were holding a book of some sort, if he called on some ancient tradition
of magic (such as Balaam ben Beor) as in the Geniza versions of Toledot Yeshu,
there would be no mystery. And I believe that is precisely what the Gospels
sought to do, to heighten the aura of mystery that emanates from the incredible
remaining inexplicable. It might be argued that there was no need for an expla-
nation because the source of Jesus' power was obvious: he was the Son of God
and therefore had divine powers and was capable of bringing about whatever
he wished. But even if that is a valid contention (a question that belongs to the
realm of theological interpretation of the New Testament and is thus outside the
scope of this discussion), it has no relevance to the point I am making. The con-
nection between Jesus' divinity and its manifestation in the real world through
miracles would still remain shrouded in mystery and incomprehensible to any-
one who heard these stories. Our focus here is not on theological commentary
or the miracles themselves, but on the general public, the believers who heard
the stories and responded emotionally, not intellectually.49
49 These stories should be compared with tales of healing via the name of Christ, such as the
Talmudic legends discussed by Schafer, Jesus in the Talmud, 52--62, or the significant testimony
of Epiphanius, Bishop of Cyprus in the second hal f of the fourth century, who tells the story
In the verses above, Jesus goes on to instruct the fonner leper not to tell any-
one about his cure, but he does the exact opposite: "He went out, and began to
publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter." Could Jesus have been unaware
that this would happen? That the more he demanded that the man keep the act
a secret, the more he would be tempted to reveal it? In addition, he tells him to
make an offering before the priest for his cleansing. To the best of our knowl-
edge, offerings could be sacrificed before a priest only in the Temple, and the
miracle was perfonned in the Galilee. In other words, the fonner leper was told
to make the long pilgrimage from the Galilee to Jerusalem carting a sacrifice
with him the whole way, and he was not expected to tell anyone why he was
doing it?! And when he eventually reached the Temple, would it not have been
natural for him to relate the circumstances of his cure and explain why he was
asking to offer up a sacrifice? Jesus must have been fully aware of what would
happen, and therefore deliberately gave these instructions to the leper so that
his deed would be known not only in the Galilee, in the provinces, but in the
religious and administrative center of Jerusalem as well.
In this manner, Jesus emerged as a charismatic figure. Both his character and
his deeds were surrounded by an aura of mystery that defied explanation, arous-
ing speculation as to the source of his power among the growing audience who
heard the stories about him. And on the whole, the spread of these miracle tales
was tacitly encouraged by Jesus and his followers themselves. Another episode
which appears in different versions in each of the first three Gospels provides
further support for this interpretation of the evolution of Jesus' charisma:
And when he was come into his own country (town), he taught them in their synagogue,
insomuch that they were astonished, and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom, and
these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? and
his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all
with us? Whence then hath this man all these things? And they were offended in him. But
Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in
his own house. And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief(Matt.
13:54-58, and similar accounts in Mark 1:1-6, Luke 4:16-30).
of Joseph, a Jew who, before converting to Christianity, healed a man possessed by a demon
in Tiberias: "He took water in his hand and sprinkled it before the man stricken with madness
making the sign of the cross and saying: In the name of the crucified Jesus of Nazareth, go out,
demon, and he was healed! ... and because he returned to his senses and his right mind, he
often thanked the man and God, for he understood that he had brought him redemption," see
Zeev Rubin, "Joseph the Comes and the Attempts to Convert the Galilee to Christianity in the
Fourth Century CE," Cathedra 26 (1982): 110 (in Hebrew). Such stories provide clear evidence
of the distinction between the miracles in the Gospels and those performed by means of the
name of Jesus. The stories of Jesus' own miracles are cloaked in a heavy shroud of religious
mystery. This mystery is virtually absent from the tales of the later miracles where the source
of power is explicit.
124 EIi Yassif
The story offers a clear explanation for why Jesus did not perform miracles in
his own town of Nazareth: because there was no mystery about him in the place
where he had been known from birth as a flesh-and-blood human being. In the
town where everyone saw him as a normal child playing in the local streets, the
power and charisma that derive from an aura of mystery were impossible. This is
an extremely telling passage as it provides information by way of the negative. It
demonstrates that it was the mystery surrounding the young man who appeared
out of nowhere and performed such extraordinary deeds that was the force which
drew so many people to him. There could be nothing enigmatic abut him in the
town where everyone saw his mother wipe his nose and his bottom.
Another figure who performed miracles and is often compared to Jesus, in
terms of both time and the nature of their deeds, is Honi Ha-Ma'agel, the Circle-
Drawer who could bring rain. He stood before a crowd of believers, uttered a
prayer, and no rain came. Then he drew a circle in the dust, and addressed God
contentiously, invoking "the great name." With many people looking on, he ad-
monished God when the rain was too weak or too strong. Honi was a transparent
figure: he showed his audience what he did and how he felt. But it is impossible
to imagine Jesus acting in the same way. His deeds were invariably shrouded in
mystery and utterly baffling. 50 Consequently, Honi was not a charismatic indi-
vidual. There is no evidence that he attracted a circle of disciples or followers.
Instead, he was simply called on when he was needed. sl In contrast, Jesus and
his disciples thoroughly understood the power of "awe-inspiring mystery" in
creating the charisma of a religious leader, and they made full use of it.
It was this charisma with which the medieval Jewish society was forced to
contend. The rabbis could not ignore the hundreds of written and oral sources
that documented Jesus' miracles, nor the fact that he succeeded in drawing
hordes of Jews and gentiles to him. Exposing the magic powers behind Jesus'
acts in Toledot Yeshu - whether he learned the secrets of witchcraft in Egypt ac-
cording to some versions or he acquired his powers from stealing the Ineffable
Name according to others - had a clear objective: to dismantle Jesus scharisma.
His attempt to perform miracles in Nazareth was doomed to failure because of
the absence of the element of defamiliarization and mystery; revealing that the
501udah Goldin, "On Honi the Circle-Maker: A Demanding Prayer," in idem, Studies in
Midrashic and Related Literature (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1988),
331-36. Maier, A Marginal Jew, 536, presents an important observation which supports my
argument. In his opinion, Jesus is a "miracle worker, performing miracles by his own power,"
the pagan sorcerers and Talmudic rabbis perform these miracles by activating supernatural
power by means of prayers, holy names etc., and conclude that "stories of this type cannot in
the strict sense be called the stories of miracle-worker. " On the charisma ofHoni and other Holy
men see: WiIliam Scott Green, "Palestinian Holy Men: Charismatic Leadership and Rabbinic
Tradition," ANR W 19.2 (1979): 619-47.
51 On this aspect (charisma as leadership) of the charisma of Jesus, see: Martin Henge!, The
Charismatic Leader and His Followers (trans. James C. G. Greig; New York: Crossroad, 1981).
source of his power was witchcraft would have the same effect. He would lose
the awe-inspiring aura of mystery stemming from divinity, and would become
a regular human being performing magic tricks of the sort that anyone clever
enough to learn the secrets of sorcery could imitate. Jesus did not demonstrate
heavenly power, but merely contemptible earthly manipulations laid bare in
the text (by means of Judas' actions in the battle in the sky, which are aimed at
stripping Jesus of his bogus powers). I believe this explains why most stories in
the New Testament so emphatically ignore the question of the source of Jesus'
powers, whereas Toledot Yeshu seeks repeatedly, almost desperately, to insist
that they come from pagan witchcraft or the theft of the Ineffable Name of God
from the Jews.
Toledot Yeshu can not be understood without recognizing the great narrative
effort invested in the attempt to dismantle Jesus' charisma. Clearly, the authors
of the text regarded this attribute as one ofthe major reasons for the threat Chris-
tianity posed for the Jews.
The Ineffable Name
As we have seen, the large majority of versions of Toledot Yeshu contend with
the menace of Jesus' charisma with the help of the motif of the Ineffable Name,
which appears here for the first time in connection to Jesus' actions. Even if the
reasons for the choice of this motif are not entirely clear, the fact remains that it
is employed extensively throughout the text, beginning with its theft by Jesus.
With it he performs miracles, recruits disciples, convinces Queen Helena that he
is the Messiah, and eludes the rabbis. It is given by the rabbis to Judas Iscariot,
who uses it in the battle in the sky to defeat Jesus, and then given to Simeon
Kepha, who uses it to prove he is a faithful apostle of Jesus.
The striking contrast between the absence of reference in the New Testament
to the source of the power that enables Jesus to perform miracles and the insis-
tence in Toledot Yeshu that each of his inexplicable acts is carried out by virtue
of the Ineffable Name is an indication of the importance ofthis motif. It suggests
that for the authors of Toledot Yeshu, it was one of the major, and perhaps the
most significant, change they felt compelled to introduce into the Gospel narra-
tive. The Talmudic tale in which Jesus brought witchcraft from Egypt by means
of scratches on his flesh 52 indicates that the Sages were not yet making use of
the Ineffable Name in their struggle against Christianity. All versions of the story
in Tannaitic and Talmudic sources say only that the secret of Ben Stada's power
was the witchcraft he brought from Egypt. In this period, there is no mention
whatsoever of any connection between Jesus and the Ineffable Name. However,
52 Above, note 42.

126 EIi Yassij
it is interesting to consider the testimony of Epiphanius, Bishop of Cyprus in

the second half of the fourth century, who relates the story of the Jew Joseph
as he heard it from his mouth. Joseph succeeded in expelling a demon from the
body of a raving Jew running naked through the streets ofTiberias by invoking
the name of Jesus and holding a cross up in front of him. Afterwards, "because
(the possessed Jew) returned to his senses, he often thanked the man (Joseph)
and God, for he understood that he had brought him redemption. He published
the name of Joseph in the city, and so his name was known to the Jews for this
miracle. A rumor spread throughout the city saying that Joseph opened the
geniza (books treasury), found the Ineffable Name written there, read it, and
performed great miracles with its aid. And indeed it was true, but not as they
believed (he found copies of the Gospels translated into Hebrew in the secret
archives) and they were the real source of his power."S3 In other words, as early
as the second half of the fourth century, the Jews accused the Christians of per-
forming miracles by means of the Ineffable Name they stole. Nevertheless, we
can assume that neither Epiphanius, nor Joseph from whom he heard the story,
had any inkling that the same accusation was directed at Jesus himself. Had this
been the case, they would not have hesitated to report this "falsehood" as well.
Thus, both early rabbinical literature and the story of the events in Tiberias ap-
pear to demonstrate that the use of the Ineffable Name was only attributed to
Jesus in a later period. It would, in fact, appear to have been a synthesis of two
traditions alluded to in these earlier sources: Jesus stole a device of witchcraft
by hiding it in his flesh (the Talmudic tradition), and that device, which he used
to perform miracles with, was the Ineffable Name (the Tiberian tradition). Like
other narrative motifs in Toledot Yeshu, the key theme of the Ineffable Name
therefore had its roots in the Late Antiquity, but took shape and became central
to the epic biography of Jesus only in the Middle Ages.
It is not surprising to find the Ineffable Name in Jewish folklore and mysti-
cal literature in Late Antiquity and early Middle Ages. It appears frequently in
Jewish traditions as a magical device employed to perform supernatural acts, in
sources from as early as the Second Temple, in Talmudic and midrashic litera-
ture, and in the Geonic period. 54 It was used to bring rain, to heal the sick, to
stave off enemies, and to cross large geographical distances. Almost invariably,
these were acts performed by culture heroes in a given society - people who
were considered holy, righteous, or wise - and were done for the good of the
community. That is to say, they were acts of what is known as "white magic."
53The quotation and its source, in note 26, above.

54 Ephraim E. Urbach, The Sages; Their Concepts and Beliefs (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1987): 124-34; Hennann Leberecht Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Kommentar
zum Neuen Testamentaus Talmudund Midrash (6 vols.; Munich: Beck, 1922-1961),4:527-35;
Joshua Trachtenberg, Jewish Magic and Superstition, (New York: Jewish Publication Society
of America, 1939),78-\03.
The only problem with applying this definition to the miracles in Toledot Yeshu
is that Jesus was not a legitimate figure in Judaism, and he obtained the Ineffable
Name by stealing it. Nonetheless, he performed his miracles by making use of
the legitimate device of the Ineffable Name, and the acts themselves were of a
positive nature: he healed the sick, made the barren conceive, and brought the
dead back to life. However, his primary objective in doing these things was to
establish himself as the Messiah and the Son of God, which is by definition a
negative goal. This ambiguity regarding the classification of Jesus' acts as black
or white magic raises a fundamental question: Why did the authors/tellers of
Toledot Yeshu choose to present the Ineffable Name as the source of Jesus'
power instead of retaining the original depiction of him as a sorcerer utilizing the
witchcraft he brought from Egypt? The earlier explanation makes it much easier
to present him as no more than a magician calling on demons and black magic
for his own purposes. Consequently, the decision to alter this aspect of the story
could not have been trivial. Attributing the power of the Ineffable Name to Jesus
has enormous literary and ideological significance.
The illegitimate use of magical techniques, particularly the Ineffable Name,
was a subject of considerable interest in Jewish folklore as early as the rab-
binic period, ss but drew greater attention throughout the Jewish community in
Babylonia in the Geonic period, the very time and place in which I contend that
Toledot Yeshu was produced. The first story in The Scroll ofAhima 'az from the
mid-eleventh century is a familiar legend relating to R. Aharon the Babylonian:
And in the days of these saints, descended one of the dearest ones, a greatly beloved man,
from the land of the Bagdadites, Head and Father, from the lineage ofYoav, his name was
Aharon ... Before his departure from the land of his birth, his father owned a grindstone
for his subsistence, and the mule which turned it, the lion came and devoured it. At that
time Aharon was away. When he returned to the place, he could not find the mule. In place
of his mule, he brought in the lion and subdued it, forcing it to turn the grindstone for him.
When his father became aware of this, he approached him, screamed at him, raised his
voice, and said unto him, "what have you done, you've brought in the lion, you sought to
subdue its strength, though the Lord made him a king, to (walk erect) you have deployed
him in your labors, to serve you. Now, I swear, you will not stand before me, you shall go
out into exile, and for three years, you shall make amends for your silly acts. 56
According to the calculations of Ahima'az, the author of the Scroll, R. Aharon

left Baghdad for southern Italy shortly before the time of his family ancestor, R.
Shefatya, who lived during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Basil 1(867-886
CE), that is, around the year 800. Again, this is the time and place to which I
ascribe Toledot Yeshu. Here too, R. Aharon refers to a magical technique which
ss Urbach, The Sages, 112-13.

S6 The recent edition and translation of The Scroll of Ahima 'oz, in: Robert Bonfil, History
and Folklore in a Medieval Jewish Chronicle: The Family Chronicle ofAhima 'oz ben Paltiel
(Leiden: Brill, 2009), 238-41.
128 EIi Yossif
immediately afterward is revealed to be the Ineffable Name. In a famous respon-

sum, the later Babylonian scholar R. Hai Gaon (early eleventh century) relates
to the power of the Ineffable Name, providing further evidence that the Jewish
community in Babylonia in the Geonic period was concerned with the issue of
its legitimate and illegitimate use. 57 Toledot Yeshu, like The Scroll ofAhima'az,
unreservedly recognizes the power of the Ineffable Name to perfonn miracles,
and even speaks of the severe punishment incurred by its illegitimate use. The
difference between the texts lies in the person invoking this power. In The Scroll
of Ahima 'az it is a revered religious leader who erred in his youth and subse-
quently went on a journey of repentance; in Toledot Yeshu it is Judaism's great-
est foe who was seeking to undennine the very foundations of Jewish religion.
This comparison with the legend ofR. Aharon the Babylonian may help us un-
derstand why Toledot Yeshu chose to attribute Jesus' power to perfonn miracles
to the Ineffable Name. Miraculous events occur even when R. Aharon, and other
rabbis mentioned in Babylonian sources, make illegitimate use of the Ineffable
Name, since there is no question that it is an expedient means of changing reality,
whether for better or worse. Had the creators of Toledot Yeshu endowed Jesus
with a different power that enabled him to perfonn forbidden miracles, the text
would have implied that witchcraft was as potent as the sacred Jewish name.
They would not have wished to acknowledge such a possibility and popularize
it by means of their text, whether written or oral. Indeed, as we have seen, the
whole story centers on the motif of the protagonist's magical power, which is
both crucial to the narrative turning point and drives the development of the plot.
If all these events were products of some pagan witchcraft, a sin of which Jesus
had earlier been accused, the authors of Toledot Yeshu would be recognizing the
power of black magic, and that they were undoubtedly reluctant to do.
That being said, the shaping of a central motif is invariably intricate, and
does not lend itself to a single straightforward reading. The same is true for the
choice of the Ineffable Name as the literary and ideological leitmotif in Toledo!
Yeshu. The narrative development of the episode describing the theft of the Inef-
fable Name demonstrates the complexity of this issue. The leaders of the Jewish
community created a sophisticated shield around this sacred power designed to
prevent its theft and illegitimate use. Nonetheless, Jesus managed to break the
"secret code" of Judaism, to put his hands on the only sacred force whose effi-
cacy was not in doubt, and to employ it for his own purposes. In order to achieve
his objective, he hid the Ineffable Name in his flesh. That is, for the short time
between the theft and the removal of the parchment from the cut in his thigh,
it was part of his body. Thus, only by suffering the obligatory agony could he
penetrate the protective barrier guarding the holiest and most secret of Jewish
S7 See as an example, Robert Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval
Jewish Culture (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998), 144-45.
forces. In this manner, he succeeded in removing the Ineffable Name from the
Temple, from the bastion of Judaism. In other words, the text is saying that
Christianity took its power from what it stole from Judaism. It has no validity
of its own, but is merely the illicit use of the sacred principles of Judaism. The
argument that Christianity is Verns Israel is thus fraudulent at the core, as it is
nothing but thievery and lies, and like other acts of this sort, it will be exposed
and punished. Indeed, the rest of Toledot Yeshu, from the narrative turning point
on, is an attempt to show the illegitimate use of the sacred power and how Ju-
daism restored it to its proper place. Clearly, then, the choice of the Ineffable
Name as the means by which Jesus performed his marvels was anything but
a trivial decision. In Toledot Yeshu, the Ineffable Name is a metonym for the
Jewish perception of Christianity: its source is pure (Judaism), but its actions
are tainted. Nothing could represent this contradiction better than the Ineffable
Name. The message is clear: the Christians make use of the most sacred power,
the Name of God, for the basest of purposes, worshipping a false messiah and
establishing a new religion that strips J udaism of its values. It exploits Judaism to
achieve material goals: to spread itself among the nations (the way Jesus gained
believers). On the other hand, Judaism only calls on the Ineffable Name when
its survival is threatened (when it is given to Judas Iscariot). Judaism thus con-
ceives of itself as spirit in contrast to flesh, as holy in contrast to profane, as the
original in contrast to a fraudulent imitation. This might be a narrative response
to the classic Christian argument that the Christians are "Israel in spirit" while
the Jews are "Israel in flesh."
The use of the Ineffable Name as a narrative device is fundamental and sym-
bolic. It is a strong ideological contention presented not in the form of polemi-
cal debate, but in the form of narrative. The strength of the text lies not in any
convincing ideological or intellectual arguments, but in its emotional impact.
Using the popular idiom to summarize an episode in the simplest terms, that
is, to say something like "they stole the Ineffable Name from us," with all the
historical, theological, social, and emotional connotations of such a statement,
would undoubtedly have influenced the thinking of large segments of Jewish
society much more than any polemical or ideological discourse. This feature
lends further credence to my contention that the folkloric nature of the text may
help explain why the creators of Toledot Yeshu chose this literary form to voice
their arguments against Christianity, which was posing an ever-growing threat.
From Polemics to Self-criticism
Since the beginning, scholars have justifiably considered Toledot Yeshu to be a

polemical text. However, analysis of its narrative structure, the literary charac-
terization of the main character, the choice of the leading leitmotif, and the de-
130 EIi Yassif
velopment ofthe plot, all demonstrate that there is more to this work than meets
the eye. From the perspective of medieval Judaism, the story of Jesus would also
appear to have served as a sort of test-case that helped to put a fine point on criti-
cism of some of the major aspects of Jewish life and society. We have already
considered two such narrative themes: Jesus' childhood and the Ineffable Name.
As we have seen, according to the text, Jesus' experiences in his childhood
and youth and his going astray as a young man were not necessarily the result
of the sinfulness he was born with, but the product of the odious social cloud
he was under from birth as the "illegitimate son of a menstruate woman." The
constant taunts from his young friends who heard the mean gossip at home, the
unflagging suspicion with which he was treated by his teachers and the ridicule
of the people around him forced the boy out of Jewish society and culture. It is
impossible to ignore the harsh criticism of Jewish social norms contained in the
detailed descriptions of a child driven out of the Jewish nation against his will.
No matter how deserving or exceptional their gifts, young men had no chance
of standing out and advancing in religious or social circles if the slightest im-
propriety was attached to their family or he did not belong to the social elite. In
a set of early versions of Toledot Yeshu, Jesus' gifts made him especially worthy
of rising to the very top of the religious and social ladder, but he was held back
by his family history, for which he himself was not to blame, and therefore had
no prospects in the Jewish world.
Jesus' own critical remarks evoked a similar response. When he exposed
the corruption of his fellow judges, they kicked him out, vilifying him and his
family. Here, too, censure of the Jewish establishment is shown to be voiced by
someone who does not belong to it, who comes from outside, from the remote
periphery (Nazareth), looked upon as foreign and disreputable by the religious
and social elite. A close reading of these portions of Toledot Yeshu inevitably
reveals the sharp criticism of the norms in Jewish society that elevated family
background, social status, and genealogy over talent, integrity, and wisdom.
This interpretation of Toledot Yeshu reinforces my contention regarding the
group that produced the text. The novella-like interest in the erotic (a beautiful
young wife, a man who seduces her, her cuckolded husband, the night of love-
making), as well as social criticism of the Jewish community which judged a
young man by the deeds of his forefathers and his family status rather than by his
own talents and accomplishments, would have been typical of certain circles in
particular. Moreover, in terms of both language and content, the text was clearly
meant for the broad sectors of a society that suffered most from the attitude of
the religious and social elite. s8 All these features lead directly to the students in
58 So describes Salo Baron the historical-social reality in the Babylonian juridical system
in the 9th-lOth century: "Here the top-heavy, self-governmental stmcture itself had serious
drawbacks. Some judges abused their power, conniving the rich and oppressing the poor under
jurisdiction ... We also posses responsum by Hai Gaon in which he cursed, with characteristic
the Babylonian yeshivot. Like youngsters in any closed male society, they were
charged with sexual energy. In addition, many of them came from the poorer
and weaker sectors of Jewish society and from the periphery, and were therefore
treated as inferior to their peers from wealthy, prestigious families. And like
young people everywhere, they would have been critical of their teachers and
social leaders. Thus, the narrative structure, social criticism, and appeal to the
general public all suggest that Toledot Yeshu was the work of in or out the circles
of yeshiva students in Babylonia.
We have already discussed at length the motif of the Ineffable Name as the
element that drives the plot of Toledot Yeshu. However, if we consider it not as
part of the narrative plot, but from an external, critical perspective, it may lead
us to perceive the text not as a story about the past but, as proposed above, as an
example meant to hold a mirror up to basic beliefs of Judaism. In both his per-
sonality and his actions, Jesus displayed what were thought to be the identifYing
signs of the Messiah. He was born to a family that traced its lineage back to the
House ofDavid, in his birth and youth he fulfilled many of the Biblical prophe-
cies about the Messiah (as the text of Toledot Yeshu demonstrates repeatedly),
and he performed the miracles expected of the Messiah: healing the sick, making
the barren conceive, resurrecting the dead, exorcising demons, turning inanimate
objects into living creatures, and flying in the air. It was for these reasons that
he attracted so many believers, as we learn from messianic traditions. But all of
these signs were bogus. Granted he was descended from the House ofDavid, but
he was born in sin, the illegitimate son of a menstruate woman. And while he
had magical powers, he acquired them illicitly, by stealing the Ineffable Name.
However, these facts were unknown to the public, and consequently multitudes
followed him, believing the signs to be genuine.
Here, too, the religious criticism is conspicuous. The text is saying to its read-
ers or listeners: let us consider the story of Jesus as a test case. Suppose someone
obtains the signifiers of the Messiah through deceit or by some other illegitimate
means, convincing whole Jewish communities to believe in him - how can we
tell ifhe is the real Messiah or a false one? How can we, common folk, know if
the charismatic man standing before us and exhibiting all the signs of the Mes-
siah was really sent by God or is a charlatan and a fraud? Indeed, questions of
this sort were actually raised in this very period of time. 59 The case of Jesus,
vigor, those 'judges of Sodom, highwaymen, and robbers' who help wealthy creditors seize the
household furnishings of poor debtors ... In an enthusiastically religious age, using mainly a
religious nomenclature, such discrepand social and political forces often resulted in sectarian
divisions" see Baron, A Social and Religious History, 5:178.
S9 Baron, ibid., 192-94, tells of Severus, a Syrian who in the year 720, abused a Jewish girl
in Sarnaria, was caught by the Jewish crowd, given to the authorities, and they returned him
to the Jews for trial and crucifixion. He claimed that he is the messiah, and thousands of Jews
believed in him. His followers were considered by the rabbis as mamzerim, and thus were not
allowed to return to Judaism. He also describes in detail the messianic fervor in that time and
132 E/i Yassif
related in such detail in Toledot Yeshu, demonstrates that by applying the criteria
laid down by Judaism, even a man who is the illegitimate son of a menstruate
woman and an artful thief may be welcomed as the Messiah. Perhaps, then, the
signs ofthe Messiah that have been accepted in Jewish tradition for centuries,
are inappropriate or inadequate? Proof, says the text, can be found in the case
of Jesus, which illustrates the danger of similar situations arising in the future.
Moreover, in order to smuggle the Ineffable Name out of the Temple, Jesus
makes a cut in his thigh, copies the Tetragrammaton onto a piece of parchment,
and hides it in the cut. In other words, to achieve his goal, he combines the sacred
and the profane: the Ineffable Name, which is the essence of holiness and purity,
is placed within his physical body, the essence of the earthly and impure. When
he seeks to become the leader of the nation by presenting himself as the Messiah,
he uses the Ineffable Name to heal the sick, the lame, the possessed. This, too,
he does not for their benefit but for his own purposes - again the holiest and pur-
est of means is employed to achieve the basest of material, egotistic objectives.
The ultimate instance of combining the pure and the impure occurs in the
episode of the battle in the sky between Jesus and Judas Iscariot. Both rise into
the air with the help of the Ineffable Name, and there Judas urinates on Jesus or
sprays his seed on him or sodomizes him (depending on the version), thereby
defiling him and bringing him down. Whatever act Judas performed, he did so
with his sexual organ while holding the Ineffable Name. That is, the conjunction
of the pure and the impure is explicit, deliberate, and incontrovertible. The goal
is a worthy one - to strip Jesus of his power - but it is achieved by wrongful
means, by mixing the material and the spiritual, the ignoble and the exalted, the
profane and the sacred.
It is difficult to imagine a more blatant depiction of the theme of the thin line
between the pure and the impure than that which appears throughout the narra-
tive of Toledot Yeshu and reaches its climax in the scene of the battle in the sky.
The text offers striking descriptions of the crossing of boundaries and the lack
of clear borders between the profane and the holy, raising questions about the
parameters of the sacred and how it deals with the impure, about where to draw
the line between material reality and spiritual ess6llce. According to the story,
the sacred may be defiled in order to achieve a lofty aim, but does it still remain
sacred? After Judas defiled the Ineffable Name, is it still holy? I phrase these
issues as questions because the episodes in the Toledot Yeshu do not supply the
answers, but merely leave them open and unresolved. What we have here is a
typical liminal state in which the protagonists, and consequently the reader or
area, on pages 177-205. On Severus see also Wasserstrom, Between Muslim and Jew, 54, esp.
note 30. Most important and relevant testimony of these events are by the Karaite al-Qirqisani,
in Ya 'qub al-Qirqisani on Jewish Sects and Christianity (eds. Bruno Chiesa and Wilfred Lock-
wood; Frankfurt a. M. and New York: Peter Lang, 1984).
listener, is caught in the middle, neither here nor there or both here and there.
They hold the Ineffable Name in their hands, but their flesh is at the basest level.
Is it possible to find a connection between the three subjects of criticism out-
lined above (Jewish society, the messianic tradition, the liminal state) and the
reality in which Toledol Yeshu was created? I believe it is. To do so, we must
return to my contention regarding the time, place, and social context in which
the work was produced: the world of yeshiva students in Jewish Babylonia in
the eighth century. Existing evidence regarding the educational practices and
social relations in the Geonic yeshivot points to an expansion of religious edu-
cation and an effort to draw broader circles of the population into the yeshivol.
Young students from all levels of society began to arrive, including boys from
the periphery and from families with no social standing. 6o Then, like now, those
youngsters would not have grown up with the same privileges as their peers
from the social elite, and even within the yeshiva they would have continued
to occupy a lower status whatever their individual talents. 61 This confusing and
discriminatory condition appears to resonate clearly in the description of Jesus'
painful experiences as a child in his school. Only someone who has felt the pain
of social rejection because of his family status or parentage could describe this
distress with such sensitivity.
Criticism of the messianic tradition was also associated with the same social
and historical context. Historical evidence shows that Jewish messianic move-
ments emerged in the east in this period, attracting mass followings. Descrip-
tions of their rise and fall is remarkably similar to the story of Jesus. A man
from a lower-class background claiming to be descended from the House of
David declares himself the Messiah and proves it by performing miracles. He
draws in thousands of believers, despite the opposition of local Jewish leaders,
60 The narrative of Toledot Yeshu sounds almost as an echo of the historical situation de-
scribed by Baron. So describes also Wasserstrom, Between Muslim and Jew, 33, the social
situation in the Jewish community in Babylon in that time: "Though few solid conclusions can
be established concerning the precise profile of the Jewish community in the eighth century, its
occupational and class-differentiated pluralism seems beyond dispute."
61 In The History of the People of Israel in the Middle Ages (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1969 [in He-
brew]), Chaim Hillel Ben Sasson describes the social structure in the Babylonian yeshivot in
this period: "The yeshiYot held classes in the Mishna and Talmud for the boys, most of whom
were sons of the yeshiva's scholars ... These institutions made an interesting attempt to estab-
lish leadership on erudition and study, while basing its continuity and authority on the principles
of hierarchy and genealogy. In other words, the yeshiva students were seen to occupy an ascend-
ing ladder of rank and title, with lineage determining one's place on the ladder ... In each of
the yeshiYot, status was passed down within the scholars' families. The father bequeathed his
fixed status in the yeshiva to the son or close relative deemed most worthy of being his heir in
terms of ability and degree of family relationship ... Whenever Ray Sherira Gaon, a member of
one of the 'geonic families,' referred to a gaon was not from these elite families, he employed
a derisive phrase, such as 'not from these scholars but from the merchants'" (49-50). For the
level of studies and income of the many students from the periphery, see Brody, The Geonim
ofBabylonia, 43-48.
134 EIi Yassif
who pronounce him to be a false messiah and do everything in their power to

stop him. Finally, he is tortured to death. There can be no doubt that word of
such events in the periphery reached the Jewish community in the Babylonian
capital and aroused considerable concern. As I have shown, Toledot Ben Sira,
which originated somewhat later in the same place, deals extensively with the
issue of false messiahs. It seems more than likely, therefore, that the young men
in the yeshivot, who did not represent the religious or social elite but rather the
broader and unpriviledged sectors of the communities, were also preoccupied
by the problem of how to recognize a false messiah. The case of Jesus, and
many others like him in their own time, illustrated that Jewish tradition did not
provide sufficient tools to cope with this dilemma. Criticism of tradition and the
contemporary leaders, who represent it, is typical of adolescents everywhere,
who are at the stage in life when they must learn to deal with the real world and
assume social responsibility.
The cardinal expression of this social and historical situation is the blurring
of borders between the sacred and the profane. Transitioning between the two
domains is a universal feature of human society, and is especially salient for a
youngyeshiva student. Holding the Holy Scriptures in one hand, he satisfies his
natural urges with the other. Indeed, masturbation and homosexual relations are
common in any isolated male society. It is hard to imagine a young Torah scholar
whose sleep was not disturbed by this liminal state.
In this context, the specific historical milieu is particularly relevant. As noted
at the beginning ofthis article, the time and place in which I contend that Toledot
Yeshu originated was characterized by rare social and religious openness, with a
free exchange of ideas between the different religions and sects, public debates,
and forthright criticism and controversy. It seems unlikely that this discourse
stopped at the door of the yeshiva, that the young students did not take an active
part in it, at least to some extent. Such an atmosphere of openness, the recog-
nition that other truths may also be valid, that the leaders and worshippers of
other faiths are not sorcerers or frauds but intelligent people, would have been a
difficult test for these youngsters, as young people always tend to be fervent and
extreme in their beliefs. This, again, would typically produce a liminal state of
confusion, of seeking one's way, of seeing the virtues in more than one opinion
or belief without the capacity to choose between them. The sense of uncertainty
aroused by the complexity and diversity of reality inevitably places a heavy
burden on young people on the personal, social, and religious level. It blurs the
borders between right and wrong, between pure and impure, between good and
evil. I believe the overriding significance of Toledot Yeshu lies in this confusion,
in this liminal state. Most versions conclude with the episode of Si meon Kephas,
the learned Jew sent by the rabbis to stand at the head of the Christian hierarchy
and institute new rules to separate it once and for all from Judaism. Nothing
could better exemplify the liminal state than this scene, which puts an end to the
link between Judaism and Christianity. Simeon Kephas is a Jew who becomes
a Christian and yet remains a Jew. He establishes principles that benefit Chris-
tianity, and yet his aim is to benefit Judaism. He is a Jewish sage who becomes
the foremost scholar of Christian theology. Could anything be more liminal?
The choice of this episode for the conclusion of Toledot Yeshu demonstrates
that the incertitude has not been dispelled, that the indetenninacy between right
and wrong, between the sacred and the profane, which lies at the heart of this
work, remains an open, bleeding wound. The final episode in the text, in which a
Jewish scholar becomes the driving force of Christianity, palpably indicates that
the ambivalence, the indistinct borders, remain unresolved, both in the narrative
itself, and in historical reality.
The Toledot Yeshu in the Context of Jewish-Muslim Debate
Philip Alexander
The Toledo! Yeshu and the Muslim World
What functions, if any, might the Toledot Yeshu have served in Jewish-Muslim
debate? To the best of my knowledge, this question has not often been raised,
but if it makes sense, then it has the potential to open up a whole new front in
our search to contextualize this puzzling work. The setting in which the Toledot
Yeshu is normally placed is Jewish-Christian debate. It is seen as a Jewish anti-
Gospel, showing some knowledge of the canonic Christian Gospels, which was
composed in order to counter Christian claims about Jesus. Thus, when William
Horbury, in his groundbreaking 1970 Cambridge doctorate, raised the question
as to why Jews in the Islamic world read the Toledot, he constructed an answer
largely in terms of demonstrating that Jews living under Islam could have had
continuing knowledge of and contact with Christianity.l He notes, for example,
that the Toledot could have gained a new lease of life among Jews in the Middle
East and Persia with the arrival of Christian missionaries from the west in the
nineteenth century. The Jewish-Christian controversy is unquestionably the
original and primary setting of the Toledot, and there can be no doubt, as we
shall see, that Jews continued to encounter and combat Christianity within Dar
ai-Islam. But this is surely not the whole story. The Toledot Yeshu inevitably
acquired a significant secondary setting in Jewish-Muslim relations, a setting
which would have accorded it interest and relevance, even if Christianity had
not remained a significant presence in the Muslim world. My thesis is simple:
the fact that Jesus and his mother became massively important figures in Islam
raises the question of where the Toledot Yeshu stands in relation to the Muslim
"Gospel," and this question must throw some light on the circulation of the To-
ledot among Jews in the Muslim world. The dynamics of the Toledot s reception
in the Muslim east cannot have been the same as in the Christian west, because
in the east it competed not with one, but with two "Gospels."
I WiIliam Horbury, A Critical Examination of the Toledoth leshu (Ph. D. diss.; Cambridge
University, 1970), 206.
138 Philip Alexander
Copies of the Toledo! from the Muslim world
The evidence that the Toledot did circulate among Jews in the Muslim world
is clear. First, we have five Aramaic fragments from the Cairo Genizah (Cam-
bridge: T-S Misc. 35.87, T-S Misc. 25.88, T-S NS 298.56; Jewish Theological
Seminary New York: 2529 [Adler 2102]). Second, we have, also from the Cairo
Genizah, a number of versions of the Toledo! in Judeo-Arabic (e. g. Cambridge:
T-S NS 264.24, 298.49, 298.55, 298.57). Third, we have at least five Yemenite
manuscripts in Hebrew ranging in date from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries
(Cambridge Or. 557; Sassoon 152 and 902; JTS Adler 4180; Jerusalem JNUL
4° 15 [10eI326]). Fourth, we have a group of texts from Iraq and Persia. One of
these is a Hebrew version of the Toledo! completed in Baghdad in 1846 (Sassoon
793). Two others are in ludeo-Persian, both probably dating to the nineteenth
century, one a lTS fragment from Bokhara, published by Krauss, the other a
manuscript described by Fischel. 2
This list may not be exhaustive, but it is probably sufficiently representa-
tive to aJlow us to draw some tentative conclusions. (1) Four languages are
involved - Aramaic, Hebrew, ludeo-Arabic and Judeo-Persian. The Aramaic is
easily explained since it is by common consent the original language in which
the Toledo! was composed. It is interesting to note, however, that Aramaic ver-
sions continued to circulate until quite late: the Genizah copies are aJl medieval.
Aramaic texts would have been readily accessible in the Middle Ages only to
scholars, as would, to a lesser degree, those in Hebrew as well. The rendering
of the Toledo! into the vernaculars, ludeo-Arabic and ludeo-Persian, testifies to
this, and shows a desire to disseminate the work more widely. (2) Three distinct
geographical regions are involved - Egypt, the Yemen, and Iraq/Persia, which
shows that the propagation of the Toledo! in the Muslim world was widespread.
(3) Knowledge of the Toledot persisted over a long period of time. The dates
of the extant manuscripts range from the early middle ages to the nineteenth
century. Indeed, it seems fair to conclude that, although its popularity may have
waxed and waned, the Toledot in one form or another would have been available
to Jews in the Muslim world from the rise of Islam to the present day. (4) The
number of copies of the Toledot from the Islamic world is quite impressive. True,
when we compare the numbers of eastern and western manuscripts, the western
heavily predominate. Though chance always plays a part in what survives the
ratio probably reflects accurately enough the greater relevance ofthe Toledot in
Christendom. Nevertheless, the number of copies from the Muslim world is by
no means negligible, and this, combined with the range of space and time they
2 Samuel Krauss, Das Leben Jesu nach judischen Quellen (Berlin: S. Calvary, 1902; repr.
Hildesheim: Dims, 1977), 140-41; Waiter J. Fischel, "Eine jiidische-persische 'To1doth Je-
schu'-Handschrift," MGWJ78 (1934): 343-50.
The Toledot Yeshu in the Context ofJewish-Muslim Debate 139
cover, suggests a work that was rather well known and popular - which brings
us back to our opening question of what purpose it would have served in this
setting.
The Toledot and the Christian Gospel in the Muslim world
Before turning to the question of the Toledot Yeshu and the Muslim "Gospel"
it is important to remind ourselves that Christianity did not suddenly collapse
in Asia and North Africa in the wake of the first Muslim conquests, only to be
re-introduced (as an arm of colonialism) by European missionary activity in the
nineteenth century, as popular perception would have it. While the existence
of the Muslim "Gospel" would, on its own, I would argue, have ensured some
sort of continuing role for the Toledot among Jews living under Islam, even
if Christianity had faded away, Christianity did not, in fact, disappear, so the
primary setting of the Toledot in Jewish-Christian debate continued to apply.
What happened was that a second front opened in which the Toledot found itself
playing a new role in defining Judaism over against Islam. It got caught up in
the trialogue between the Abrahamic faiths. The emergence of an interested third
party - one that held political power- altered the whole dynamic of the primary
debate between Jews and Christians.
Even after the triumph of Islam in Asia and North Africa, Christianity re-
mained a very visible presence. The political power of Christianity was rolled
back, all the way to Tours in 732, and to the gates of Vienna in 1529, but this did
not necessarily mean the collapse of Christianity as a religion within the Muslim
world. On the contrary, Christianity survived and, occasionally, even flourished.
In certain regions, such as Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia, Christians remained
a substantial proportion of the population down to the fourteenth century, when
widespread pogroms perpetrated by Muslims on the Christian communities in
their midst shattered the Churches and precipitated the rapid decline of Christi-
anity - a decline that has continued, despite the intervention of European Chris-
tian missions over the last two centuries, down to the present day. During the
first five or six Islamic centuries, however, Christianity remained a force to be
reckoned within the Muslim world. Christians had adopted the Arabic language,
and played a significant part in administration, culture, and science. We know of
Christians holding prominent positions in the Umayyad, Abbasid and Mameluk
bureaucracies, the most famous being, perhaps, John of Damascus. This Chris-
tian Arab culture and the contribution it made to the spectacular flowering of the
Muslim world in its heyday (mid-eighth to mid-thirteenth centuries), has not,
as Sidney Griffith reminds us, received anything like the attention it deserves.
What we think of as "Islamic civilization" in the golden age was by no means
monolithically Islamic: many streams fed into it - Indian, Persian, Jewish and
Christian. Of these tributaries, perhaps the most explored is the Jewish, but the
Christian was as least as large and as important. Again as Griffith comments,
while educated westerners may have heard something of Sa'adia Gaon, Judah
Halevi, Avraham ibn Ezra, and Moses Maimonides, few, even among Christian
medievalists, will recognize the names of Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Theodore Abii
Qurrah, 'Ammar al-Basn, Yahya ibn 'AdI, Bar Hebraeus, or al-Mu'taman ibn
al-'AssaI. 3 So Jews living under Islam would have remained all too aware of
Christianity, which in some regions in the early period would have still been,
numerically speaking, the dominant faith.
The continued pre-occupation of Judaism with Christianity, even after the rise
oflslam, manifests itselfin various ways, but perhaps none is more striking than
Jewish eschatology. The rise oflslam led to a revival of apocalyptic speculation
in the east Mediterranean and the Middle East. The fin de sciec/e mood began
to set in before Islam emerged, but it undoubtedly received a boost when the
new faith burst onto the scene. Apocalypticism swept across the region affect-
ing Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and eventually Islam itself.4 From
our point of view the curious fact to note is that while Christian apocalypticism
registered the rise oflslam, and was inclined to identify the new Arabian prophet
with the Antichrist, Jewish apocalypticism on the whole did not. The most im-
portant Jewish apocalyptic scenarios seemed still to have seen Christianity as
the main eschatological foe of the Jewish people, whom the Messiah would have
to defeat: the Antichrist remained Armillus, the King of Edom. This is what we
find in Sa 'adia 's influential Eighth Book of his Beliefs and Opinions, in Sefer
Zerubbavel, in Tefillat Shim'on ben Yohai, and other works. It is true that here
and there we find attempts to paint the Ishmaelites into the picture, but only in a
half-hearted sort of way. The enemy remains the old enemy - Christianity. Ofthe
texts of the apocalyptic revival the most pertinent for present purposes is Sefer
Zerubbavel, because of its explicit denigration of Mary and Jesus. While this
work may have originated in the early seventh century, just before the Muslim
invasion of the Middle East, there seems little doubt that it continued to circulate
3 Sidney H. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow ofthe Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the
World ofIslam (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), 3. It is interesting to speculate
on the psychology of this neglect. There was undoubtedly an element of shame at the loss of the
heartlands of the Christian faith - a shame which Christendom violently attempted to expunge
with the Crusades. But there were also more practical reasons. While great Judaeo-Arabic texts
were translated into Hebrew and so made available to Jews in the west, few Christian Arabic
texts found their way into western languages, and so remained locked out of the intellectual
development of the politically dominant form of Christianity.
4 On this apocalyptic movement around the time of the rise of Islam see: John C. Reeves,
Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic (Leiden: Brill, 2006); Paul J. Alexander, The Byzan-
tine Apocalyptic Tradition (ed. Dorothy deF. Abrahamse; Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1985); Said Amir Arjomand, "Islamic Apocalypticism in the Classical Period," in The
Continuum History ofApocalypticism (eds. Bernard J. McGinn, John J. Collins and Stephen J.
Stein; New York: Continuum, 2003), 380-4\3.
and undergo reworking for some time after the Muslim conquest. This continued
fixation with Christianity even after it had lost political power is curious. Does
it suggest that the new religion of Islam was regarded as more benign? Does it
imply that Jews expected that Islam's reign would be temporary, that Christianity
would recover lost ground and that Jewish-Christian hostilities would recom-
mence as before? It is hard to say. One thing is, however, clear: the continued
presence of Christianity in the Muslim world, and Judaism's continued concern
as to its intentions, make Jewish interest in the Toledo! Yeshu in principle not
hard to explain.
It would be wrong, however, to think that absolutely nothing had changed.
Though Judaism remained, as before, in dispute with Christianity, the rise of
Islam profoundly altered the dynamics of this debate. It did this in two ways.
First, Jews in Muslim lands were no longer under the constant, grinding pres-
sure to limit the public expression of their faith. The field of engagement
between Jews and Christians was suddenly levelled. Both sides found them-
selves holding the same status as ahl al-dhimma. Christianity must suddenly
have lost its attractiveness to socially aspiring Jews, and Christian attempts to
coerce Jews into the Church must have stopped. The odd thing is that the new
freedom towards Christianity which the Jews gained under Islam does not seem
to have led to indifference but rather to a fresh appetite for debate. As Daniel
Lasker points out, the earliest systematic Jewish anti-Christian treatises that we
have were written in Arabic in the first few centuries of Islam. 5 Lasker may
misstate the position, if he means to imply that there was no Jewish-Christian
debate before the Islamic period. That is manifestly not the case. It is becom-
ing abundantly clear that there was an intense Jewish-Christian dialogue going
on right throughout the Talmudic period, the impact of which on the forma-
tion of Rabbinic theology, and on Rabbinic literature (Midrash and Talmud)
was profound. 6 And, of course, if the Toledo! Yeshu originated in some shape
or form in late antiquity, as many would argue it did, then it is relevant to the
question, because it has clear anti-Christian intent. The debate in late antiquity
was curiously asymmetrical: on the Christian side it was open and noisy: the
Jews are identified as the opponents and directly attacked. On the Rabbinic
side it is much more muted, and often seems to be at its most intense where
Christianity is not explicitly named. This silence, I have argued, was basically
a "loud" silence - an apologetic ploy that allowed the Rabbis to assert prior-
ity: they were the older faith, the true heirs of Moses; they had no need to take
5 Daniel J. Lasker, "The Jewish Critique of Christianity under Islam in the Middle Ages,"
PAAJR 57 (1991): 121-53.
6 See the essays in The Exegetical Encounter between Christians and Jews in Late Antiquity
(eds. Emmanouela Grypeou and Helen Spurling; Leiden: Brill, 2009).
cognizance of the younger, up-start. 7 This silence may, however, have been
reinforced by a fear of speaking out too strongly and explicitly in a Christian
world. Where Islam made the difference was that Jews felt they could now go
public with their objections to Christianity, and compose formal, anti-Christian
treatises that could be put, so to speak, into the public domain.
There was a second way in which the rise of Islam changed the dynamics of
the Jewish-Christian debate. Islam was not simply a referee, it was itself deeply
interested in the points at issue, and took a distinctive view of them, sometimes
agreeing with one side, sometimes with the other. This raised the possibility of
theological alliances between two of the parties against the third. It was, then,
not only Islam's levelling of the playing-field but also its own direct engagement
with the issues that changed the modalities of the Jewish-Christian controversy,
and ensured that it did not go cold. The Qur'an itself set the tone. It constantly
and directly disputes both Judaism and Christianity; it is endlessly putting both
Jews and Christians right. It set up a trialogue which was to continue right
through the Middle Ages. Subsequent Muslim rulers, in the spirit of the Qur'an,
show considerable appetite for disputation, sometimes within the social set-
ting of the majlis. 8 This manifest Muslim interest seems to have sparked off
competition between Christian and Jewish intellectuals to impress their Muslim
overlords - a competition resembling the rivalry between siblings to gain the
attention of a parent. 9
At the same time we should not overestimate how outward-looking this debate
was. Religious apologetics and polemics have a complex and subtle dynamic
which is not always well understood. The default scenario is that they are ad-
dressed to the members of the other faith: what seems to be happening is that
the polemicist attempts to use the power of argument to persuade the members
of the other faith to acknowledge the error of their ways, and embrace the po-
lemicist's point of view. But in reality the polemic seldom reaches this implied
audience. Take, for example, the Jewish anti-Christian treatises of the early
Islamic period. These are, indeed, in Arabic, but they are in Judaeo-Arabic, and,
at a stroke, inaccessible to Christian or Muslim intellectuals. The exception that
proves the rule may have been the Qaraites who ,.egularly used Arabic script.
That may be simply an index of the fact that they, on the whole, at least in the
early Middle Ages, engaged more directly than Rabbanites with the dominant
Islamic culture, and were more outward looking. But why compose elaborate
7 See my essay" 'The Parting of the Ways' from the Perspective of Rabbinic Judaism," in
Jews and Christians: The Parting ofthe Ways A. D. 70 to 135 (ed. James D. G. Dunn; Tiibingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 1992): \-25.
8 Hava Lazaraus-Yafeh, Mark R. Cohen, Sasson Somekh, and Sidney H. Griffith, eds., The
Majlis: Interreligious Encounters in Medieval Islam (Wiesdbaden: Harrasowitz, 1999), esp., the
article by Cohen and Sasson, "Interreligious MajaJis in Early F atimid Egypt," on pages 128-37.
9 A vivid image suggested to me by Ora Limor.
polemics in such a way that it would hard for the other side to read them? The
reason is that apologetic/polemic has often as much, if not more, aimed at an
internal audience - with reassuring oneself and one's fellow believers that the
faith can be defended against attack, and with establishing a distinctive identity.
There is no better way to define a theology than by setting it in opposition to
alternative points of view, whether real or imaginary.lo
This need for reassurance argues uneasiness and insecurity: it suggests an at-
tempt to deny the attractiveness of the other faith. How could this have applied
to Jewish-Christian relations in the early Islamic period, when Christianity no
longer had the power to coerce acceptance, nor offered obvious social advan-
tages? The answer may be simple. In the relatively benign conditions which
existed under early Islam open and free conversion to another faith once again
became a real life-choice. The Muslim rulers were indifferent if a Jewish subject
became a Christian or vice versa: conversion between dhimmis was not really
seen as conversion in Islamic law. It is perhaps no accident that we have evi-
dence of such conversions. The most pertinent for present purposes is the Qissat
Mujiidalat al-Usquf, the first known systematic Jewish anti-Christian treatise,
composed in Arabic possibly in the mid-ninth century. 1I The author was a Chris-
tian priest who converted to Judaism, and wrote the Qissa in order to explain
himself to his former co-religionists. The work was later adapted into Hebrew as
the Se/er Nestor ha-Komer, in which the unnamed original priest was seemingly
identified with Nestorius the great theologian ofSyriac Christianity. The lifting
of the deadening hand of Christianity, whether in its Orthodox Chalcedonian
or Jacobite or Nestorian forms, allowed diversity to emerge within Christianity
in the Muslim world. The generally laissez-faire attitude of the early Muslim
authorities in religious matters may have encouraged diversity also within Juda-
ism. This was, of course, the time when the major split between Rabbanism and
Qaraism occurred. There are grounds for thinking that Qaraism has deep roots
within Judaism, going back to anti-Rabbinic, priestly trends in the Talmudic
period, but it is interesting that these trends only seem to crystallize into an orga-
nized anti-Rabbinic movement under early Islam. Linguistic evidence suggests
that the first Arabic versions of the Toledot Yeshu were done in the ninth century.
That would put them in the same time-frame as the earliest systematic Jewish
anti-Christian polemics. These translations should be seen as part of a new, open
10 This internal audience is very clear in some polemical treatises, e.g. Maimonides Epistle
10 the Yemen. But even in this case the Islamic opponent remains an ultimate target, in that Mai-
monides is surely furnishing the community with arguments which will not only reassure them,
but which they can turn on their opponents, as occasion arises, in public debate. Some polemics
have an implicit third party in view - either the uncommitted public or the authorities. Much
early Christian apologetic, while having ludaism ostensibly in view, has one eye firmly fixed on
the Roman authorities and is obliquely arguing that Christianity is not subversive of the state.
11 Daniel J. Lasker and Sarah Stroumsa, The Polemic of Nestor the Priest: Qi$$at Mujiidalat
al-Usquf and Sefer Nestor Ha-Komer (2 vols.; Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 1996).
Jewish engagement with Christianity, within the broader context ofthe religious
diversity and sectarianism engendered by the rise of Islam. 12
There is one fonn of this sectarianism which may have a particular relevance
for the present discussion. It has been claimed that the early Islamic period saw
the resurgence of Jewish fonns of Christianity. The evidence is confused and
contested, and if the claim is correct it is not at all clear whether we are talking
about the re-emergence into the light of day of an unbroken Jewish Christian
movement going all the way back to early Jewish Christianity which effectively
disappeared from our historical record in the fifth century, or a new Judaizing
movement, that is to say, a movement generated from within the mainline
churches which stressed the Jewish roots of Christianity and adopted certain
Jewish practices and beliefs. The history of the Church is littered with such Juda-
izing movements, sparked into life by the fact that mainline Christianity never
repudiated its Jewish heritage: it is there for all to see in the Christian Scriptures,
and it is hardly surprising if some Christians, from time to time, wonder whether
the older fonn of the faith possesses not only greater antiquity but also greater
authenticity. Jewish or Judaizing Christianity would be thoroughly at home in
the sectarian milieu of early Islam. The new-found religious freedom and the
stimulus the new faith gave to innovative religious thinking could easily have
encouraged the emergence of such hybrid religious identities.
A pointer in this direction may be found in the work of JosefMeri on the cult
of the holy man in medieval Syria. Meri gathers evidence that it was common
for Jews, Muslims, and, indeed, Christians, to participate in each others religious
festivals and venerate each others saints. 13 Like languages in contact, the natural
evolution of religious communities in everyday contact, if they are given half a
chance, is towards religious syncretism, especially at the level of the common
folk. It takes enonnous effort on the part of the religious authorities on all sides
to counter this tendency, to keep their flocks separate, to police the boundaries
between them. If there was, indeed, an upsurge of religious "promiscuity" in
the early Islamic period, and if that "promiscuity" was finning up into sectar-
ian fonns of Jewish or Judaizing Christianity, then we have an obvious context
in which an Arabic translation of the Toledot would have had work to do. As a
text of popular appeal, an anti-hagiography capable of being circulated orally, it
could have played a part in reminding Jews of their distinctive identity, of where
their true allegiance lay.
12 I allude here to John Wansbrough's use of the phrase "the sectarian milieu" to capture the
religious situation under early Islam (Wansbrough, The Sectarian Milieu [Oxford University
Press: Oxford, 1979]).
13 Josef W. Meri, The Cult of Saints among Muslims and Jews in Medieval Syria (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2002). Meri concentrates on the eleventh to sixteenth centuries, but
there is evidence for similar religious promiscuity earlier.
It is important to note the popular character of the Toledot Yeshu. This becomes
obvious when we compare it with other anti-Christian Jewish works of the early
Islamic period. I have already mentioned the anonymous Qi$$at Mujadalat al-
Usquf From only slightly later comes the cIshriin Maqala of Dawiid ibn Marwan
al-Muqammis, the first Jewish anti-Christian polemicist whom we know by
name. 14 The contrast with the Toledot could not be more sharp. The Qi$$a and
the cIshriin Maqala are basically theological, even philosophical works, the
Toledot is a narrative, which offers an alternative to the Gospel story. Lasker
and Stroumsa, to be sure, detect a vulgar tone in the Qissa, a tendency which
becomes more pronounced in the Nestor. They find echoes here of the Toledot,
which they actually suppose the author of the Qissa may have used as a source. IS
But this is rather misleading: there are no close verbal parallels to the Toledot in
the Qissa, and in reality the two works are poles apart in genre. The Toledot has
folkloric elements: it was clearly intended for popular consumption, and was,
so it seems, passed down by the fireside, maybe at times by the women of the
house. Nonetheless it is in many ways a sophisticated work, which shows close
knowledge ofthe Gospels. It is a clever parody, and we should not be fooled into
thinking that, because of its surface simplicity and VUlgarity, it is pure folktale,
its authors uneducated sons of the soil. It is satire, with a large dose of the bur-
lesque, and it is no more the product of an untutored mind than Pentagruel or the
Letters of Obscure Men. But the desire to reach out to ordinary folk is palpable
in the form of the work, and that is suggestive of its Sitz im Leben.
So far we have established that if a (re)-emergence of Jewish/Judaizing
Christianity occurred in the early Islamic period, it would have been thoroughly
at home in the sectarian milieu of the time, and would provide a plausible and
specific context that the Arabic versions of the Toledot Yeshu could have been
meant to address. But where is the evidence for the existence of Jewishl Judaiz-
ing Christianity at this time? The debate has raged around Shlomo Pines's claim
that the long and unusually detailed critique of Christianity in the Tathblt dala 'if
al-nubuwwa of the Mu'tazilite Islamic scholar, 'Abd al-Jabbar (c. 935-1025),
who spent the latter part of his life in Rayy (a few miles south-east of present-
day Tehran), relies on Jewish-Christian sources. Pines' attempt to establish that
Jewish-Christianity lies behind the anti-Christian polemics of the Tathblt extends
over several detailed articles, though he never produced a final, definitive syn-
thesis before he died. 16 He argued that 'Abd al-Jabbar's critique of Christianity is
unusual within the context of early Muslim anti-Christian polemic. He noted that
certain aspects of it have a strong Jewish-Christian ring, such as the claim that,
14 Sarah Stroumsa, Diiwiid ibn Marwiin al-Muqammis s Twenty Chapters f'Ishriin Maqiila)
(Leiden: Brill, 1989).
IS Lasker and Stroumsa, The Polemic of Nestor the Priest, 14 and 21.
16 The articles are conveniently collected by Guy Stroumsa in The Collected Works of Sh-
lomo Pines Volume IV: Studies in the History of Religion (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1996).
since Jesus came to confirm the Torah of Moses, his followers are at fault for not
observing it, or that, since Jesus spoke Hebrew, they should never have given
that language up. He analyses the Gospel quotations in the TalhMI, and shows
that while some of them conform to the Peshitta and some to the Old Syriac
Gospels, others do not. Some of the non-aligned quotations may betray the influ-
ence of the Diatessaron, while others may reflect "the Hebrew Gospel, i. e. the
Gospel according to the Hebrews or some similar Judaeo-Christian Scripture."
Pines argues that these diverse aspects of 'Abd al-Jabbar's critique of Chris-
tianity can be neatly unified by the single hypothesis that he has drawn on a
Jewish-Christian source, probably originally composed in Syriac. If this is the
case, then the implications are clear. The most plausible way that this source
could have reached 'Abd al-Jabbar was in Arabic translation, probably transmit-
ted directly to him by members of a Jewish-Christian group. But this means that
these Jewish Christians must have been around in his time. Pines finds a refer-
ence to just such a group in 'Abd al-Jabbar's statement that "a sect ofthem (the
Christians), who are the elite, believe that their Lord is a Jew, the son of a Jew,
born from a Jew, and that his mother is a Jewish woman." The wording here is
suggestive. It seems to deny the divinity of Christ, and possibly also the Virgin
Birth. Pines is clear that his Jewish-Christian group not only believed that the
Mosaic commandments were still binding on Christians but that, though they ac-
cepted him as a prophet, they denied his divinity. He notes that Sa'adya appears
to know of a Christian sect which equally did not believe in the divinity of Jesus,
but regarded him simply as a prophet, though Sa'adya's group also, apparently,
believed in the abrogation of Torah. A further implication of Pines' hypothesis is
that since his putative Jewish-Christian community had access to early Christian,
including Jewish-Christian sources, it was probably not, on the balance of the
probabilities, a spontaneous Judaizing movement, but rather, somehow, a lineal
descendant of early Jewish Christianity.
Samuel Stem strongly attacked Pines.I7 He argued that 'Abd al-Jabbar's cri-
tique of Christianity is nowhere near as unusual as Pines supposed. Pines had
missed significant Islamic parallels, and several of the elements which he identi-
fied as Jewish-Christian are widespread in Islamic tradition. There is no doubt
that Pines's position is highly speculative, and falls some way short of proof.
But Stem's counter-attack also has its weaknesses. He fails to do justice to the
cumulative character of Pines's argument. He fails to note that finding Islamic
parallels to some of'Abd al-Jabbar's ideas does not solve the problem of origins,
but simply moves it elsewhere. His assumption that because, as everyone knows,
Jewish Christianity disappeared centuries before the Islamic era 'Abd al-Jabbar
17 Samuel M. Stem, "Quotations from Apocryphal Gospels in 'Abd al-Jabbar," JTS 18

(1967): 34-57; idem, '''Abd al-Jabbar's Account of How Christ's Religion was Falsified by the
Adoption of Roman Customs," JTS 19 (1968): 128-85.
The Toledot Yeshu in the Context 0/Jewish-Muslim Debate 147
cannot have relied on Jewish Christian sources begs the question, and rules out
a priori the possibility that it may actually have survived or revived. Interest-
ingly Pines and Stem both agree that the Tathbit probably betrays knowledge of
the Toledot. For Stem 'Abd al-Jabbar drew directly on the Toledot. But this is
problematic: the Toledot, as we shall see, would have been as offensive to 'Abd
al-Jabhar as it would have been to any Christian, and the parallels between it
and the Tathblt would surely have to be much stronger than they are for it to
be plausible that he relied on it as a source. Pines is typically more subtle. He
suggests that the parallelism arises from the fact that the Toledot was aimed
at a Jewish-Christian version of the Gospel. The parallelism is, consequently,
indirect and coincidental. The suggestion that the Toledot was shaped to refute a
specific Jewish-Christian view of Jesus is intriguing, and may explain the rather
puzzling fact that the divinity of Jesus does not figure more prominently in it,
though the issue is implicit. The Jewish-Christian group attacked may not have
believed that Jesus was divine. All this is highly suggestive. The jury is still
out on the Pines-Stem debate, but it raises important questions and points to
several further lines of research. 18 Above all it reminds us just how confused the
religious situation became in the early Islamic period. Jewish Christianity scuffs
the borderlines, and it may have engendered polemic from the establishments on
both sides aimed at re-affirming the differences. The Toledot Yeshu would have
had an obvious function in a context where some Jews were drawn to Christian-
ity, not in an orthodox but in a Jewish form that did not hold to a high Christol-
ogy. A Jewish anti-Gospel could have served the purpose of deterring potential
converts, an anti-Gospel which does not directly take issue with the supposed
divinity of Jesus, but rather focuses on denying his claim to prophethood and
labelling him as a sorcerer who tried to lead Israel astray.
The circulation of the Toledot in the Middle East and North Africa is inevi-
tably bound up with the fate of Christianity under Islam, and we would expect
that the work would drop out of view in the post-medieval period. From the late
middle ages onward, Christianity was decimated in the Muslim world, and went
into precipitous decline. Its ecclesiastical organization was destroyed, its life
disrupted, its members killed, scattered or oppressed. It had neither the leisure
nor resources nor the freedom to engage in proselytizing or in inter-communal
debate. 19 Certainly it no longer offered an attractive alternative to Judaism,
which also suffered severely under Muslim rule. This decline of Christianity
seems to be mirrored in our record of Jewish interest in the Toledot. There is
evidence of continued copying of the work in the Yemen in the early modem
18 For a thorough discussion see Gabriel Said Reynolds, A Muslim Theologian in the Sectar-
ian Milieu: cAbd al-Jabbiir's Critique o/Christian Origins (Leiden: Brill, 2004).
19 Phi lip Jenkins offers an interesting overview and analysis of the decline of Christianity
in the Arab world in The Lost History o/Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age a/the
Church in the Middle East. Africa and Asia - and How it Died (New York: Harper One, 2008).
period, but that might be explained by the presence across the straits of the
Christian kingdom of Ethiopia, with its strong trading links with southern Ara-
bia. The contrast with Christian Europe is striking because it is precisely at this
period that Jewish interest in the Toledot seems to be at its most intense. One
might predict a resurgence of interest in the Toledot with the arrival of European
Christian missions in the Middle East in the nineteenth century. Organizations
such as the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews (now
the Church's Ministry among Jewish People - the CMJ), established in 1809,
were interested not only in the Jews of Europe but also in more remote com-
munities. The London Society, for example, mounted a mission to the Falashas
in Ethiopia, whose existence had been reported to an incredulous Europe by
James Bruce, the Ethiopian traveller. This mission provoked a counter-mission
from the Jews of Europe to save their endangered brethren from the clutches
of Christianity - a counter-mission supported by Azriel Hildesheimer and the
Alliance Israelite Universelle. 2o But I know of no evidence that this raised any
interest in the Toledot Yeshu in Ethiopia, though one wonders if it might explain
the copying of the Toledot in neighbouring Yemen. Claims have been made that
the Toledot was already known in Ethiopia at an earlier date, but they are unsub-
stantial and remain under-researched. 21
One of the earliest of the Christian missions to the Muslim world, and one that
pioneered the principles of many that were to come, was mounted by Anthony
Norris Groves. Groves' party, which included John Kitto, later to become a fa-
mous Bible scholar, F. W. Newman, the brother of John Henry Newman, and a
socially well-connected Englishman, John Vesey Parnell, settled into Baghdad
in 1830-31. It is, of course, immediately tempting to link their presence there.
to the printing of the Toledot in Baghdad in 1846, were it not for the fact that
Groves's mission was a disaster. It got caught up in a local plague which carried
offMrs Groves, and seems to have been abandoned in 1833, leaving no lasting
community. Groves turned his attentions to India where the going was easier.22
Similar comments can be made about the more colourful Christian missionary
Joseph Wolff (1795-1862) whom E. Brauer back in 1930s suggested may have
been responsible for renewed interest among middle eastern Jews in the Toledot.23
Wolff, the son of a Rabbi was particularly interested in Jews and got absolutely
20 The story is well told in Emanuela Tevisan-Semi. Jacques Faitlovitch and the Jews of
Ethiopia (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2007).
21 For Toledot Yeshu in Ethiopia, see Horbury, A Critical Examination. 214, 211 (n. 3), and
see 219 for some remarks on the missionary activity by Henry Aaron Stem.
22 Timothy C.F. Stunt, "Anthony Norris Groves in an International Context: A Re-assess-
ment of his Early Development," in The Growth of the Brethren Movement: National and
International Experiences (eds. Neil T. R. Dickson and Tim Grass; Carlisle: Paternoster Press,
2006),223-40.
23 See Fischel, "Eine jiidische-persische 'Toldoth Jeschu'-Handschrift," 340-49.
everywhere - from Ethiopia and the Yemen to Bokhara. He mounted a one-man

crusade against the Islamic world! But he was no more successful than Groves.
It is a well known feature of missionary literature in the nineteenth century that
colourful tales and much piety often conceal the fact that few converts were being
made. The real impact of these missions was small. The exception that proves
the rule was the Bishopric of Jerusalem established in 1841 by the Church of
England and the Evangelical Church ofPrussia, the first incumbent of which was
a converted rabbi Michael Solomon Alexander. The missionary activities around
the Jerusalem Bishopric were more successful because it was backed by consider-
able political power, it built up institutions, some of which have survived down
to the present day, and its preaching to the Jewish community was reinforced by
social and educational work. There are grounds for thinking that it unsettled the
Jewish leadership of the old Yishuv, but that doesn't seem to correlate with any
increased copying or printing of the Toledot Yeshu.
In short, while there is some evidence of a revival of interest in the Toledo!
among Jews in Muslim lands in the nineteenth century and it is almost cer-
tainly a direct result of the new challenge of European Christian missions, it is
muted, partly because these missions were generally unsuccessful, and partly
because the Jewish communities were religiously isolated, inward-looking and
traditional, with little appetite or interest in responding on their own account to
Christian claims.
The Toledot Yeshu and the Muslim "Gospel"
Let us now turn to the question of the Toledot and the Muslim "Gospel," and
begin by reminding ourselves of some of the key elements of the Toledot's view
of Jesus and his mother. The Toledot, of course, exists in numerous versions,
and one of the most vexing problems it poses is how to model this diversity. Its
textual complexity mirrors that of the Christian lives of Jesus, especially if we
include not only the four canonical Gospels but all the other Gnostic and apocry-
phal Gospels as well. This diversity shows just how alive the tradition was, how
constantly it was being reworked, and interest in it renewed. Its genre is also a
problem, and affects how we read it. There are clearly elements of folklore and
burlesque in it, which counsel against taking it all too literally. It belongs to a
long tradition of polemical satire. Yet at its heart lie three fundamental claims
about Jesus which are common to all the versions, and are clearly meant in
deadly earnest.
First, there was no virgin birth. Jesus was born out of wedlock; he was a
mamzer, and the story of the virgin birth was concocted as a way of cover-
ing up this shameful fact. The versions differ considerably as to the degree to
which Mary was culpable. In some she is tricked and raped, and comes across
as a rather tragic figure. In others the portrait is much more hostile and she is
complicit in adultery.
Second, Jesus was not a true prophet but a charlatan and a sorcerer who led
Israel astray, and it was on that charge that he was tried by the Sanhedrin and put
to death. Curiously, there is no attempt to deny that he perfonned miracles: he
healed the lame and raised the dead. The explanation of this is that he achieved
these genuine miracles through the power of the Ineffable Name, the secret of
which he managed to steal from the 'Even Shetiyyah - the foundation stone of
the world. The implicit charge here seems to be that Jesus was a sorcerer, though
that does not sit easily with his use of the Ineffable Name: sorcery is more com-
monly associated with the use of demonic powers (shedim), but this nicety does
not seem to trouble the authors of the Toledot. 24
Third, Jesus was really and truly put to death, but there was no resurrection,
or ascension into heaven. The missing body in the tomb is explained by a story
about someone removing it and burying it elsewhere, where it was discovered
three days later, and ignominiously displayed in public.
There is, to be sure, much more than this in the Toledot, even in its most
minimal fonns. Some versions carry the story down to the history of the early
Church, to the parting of the ways between Christianity and Judaism, but these
three claims fonn the core message of the text.
Let us now compare this with the Muslim Jesus. This needs to be done with
care, because Jesus is a highly complex figure in Islam who is used, as in Christi-
anity, to illuminate and validate many different points of view. Different pictures
emerge depending on whether we look at the Qur'an, or the Hadith, or the Qi$~
al-Anbiyii', or Sufi, or Adab literature, or the theological writings of heterodox
sects such as the Nusayris. Of all the prophets before Muhammad Jesus is the
one who receives by far the most attention. Tarif Khalidi in The Muslim Jesus
speaks of Islam's "love-affair with Jesus. "25 The bedrock on which this rich
24 While I still think that the Toledot Yeshu does mean to brand Jesus as some sort of magi-
cian, it is possible to argue that magic is not the central charge, but rather using the undoubted
power of the divine name to lead Israel astray: Jesus was guilty of mesit. It is not clear whether
the mere pronunciation and use of the Tetragram was in itself seen as a capital offence. In the
discussion of magic in BavIi Sanhedrin the conclusion seems to be that a magician is one who
does miracles through the power of shedim (see Philip S. Alexander, "The Talmudic Concept of
Conjuring ('Ahizat CEinayim) and the Problem of the Definition of Magic (Kishuf)," in Creation
and Recreation in Jewish Thought: Festschrift in Honor ofJoseph Dan on the Occasion of his
Seventieth Birthday (eds. Rachel Elior and Peter Schlifer; Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005),
7-20, and it is interesting that this is not the Toledot s view of the miracles of Jesus. Its position
is all the more remarkable because already in the canonic Gospels Jesus is accused of invoking
the power of demons to do his miracles (Luke 11: 14--23): it was a very ancient charge. Morton
Smith (Jesus the Magician [London: Gollancz, 1978]) sees the Toledot as continuing this ac-
cusation, but the parallelism is not as clear-cut as he supposes.
2S TarifKhaIidi, The Muslim Jesus: Sayings and Stories in Islamic Literature (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001). This is, to date, the largest collection of Jesus stories
tradition rests is, however, the Qur'an. This devotes long and carefully crafted
passages to Jesus and his mother, which merit and have received close reading
from both traditional and modem commentators. 26 The Qur'anic view of Jesus
can be defined by the following five points.
First, Jesus was virgin born. Qur'an 3.45-47: "Behold! The angels said: '0
Mary! Allah gives you glad tidings of a Word from Him (bikalimatin minhu):
his name will be Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, held in honour in this world and
the hereafter, and one of (the company of) those nearest to Allah. He shall speak
to the people in childhood (ft l-mahdi)27 and in maturity, and he shall be one (of
the company) of the righteous.' She said: '0 my Lord! How shall I have a son
when no man has touched meT He said: 'Even so: Allah creates what He wills,
and when He has decreed a plan, He has but to say to it, "Be," and it is. "'28
Second, Jesus was a true prophet, and the truth of his prophecy was estab-
lished by clear "signs," i. e. miracles. Qur'an 3.48-49: "Allah will teach him
[Jesus] the Book and Wisdom, the Torah and the Gospel, and (appoint him) an
from Islamic sources. See the earlier collection by M. Asin Palacios, "Logia agrapha do-
mini Jesu apud moslemicos scriptores, asceticos praesertim, usitata," Patrologia Orientalis 13
(1919): 335-431, and 19 (1926): 531--624. It is not impossible that Islam may have created
its own counter-narrative to the canonical Gospels, its own Toledot Yeshu, and that this lies
behind the Gospel of Bamabas. But the Gospel of Bamabas is a very late work, first attested
in the sixteenth century, and its sources and origins remain deeply obscure. It is, however, still
invoked by Muslim apologists today as preserving a more accurate account of the life of Jesus
than the canonic Gospels.
26 The bibliography on Jesus in the Qur'an is now vast. In addition to Khalidi, The Muslim
Jesus see, e. g.: Enno Littmann, "Jesus in Pre-Islamic Arabic Inscriptions," The Muslim World
40 (1950): 16-18; Heikki Raisanen, "The Portrait of Jesus in the Qur'an: Reflections ofa Bib-
lical Scholar," The Muslim World 70 (1980): 122-33; Kenneth Cragg, Jesus and the Muslim
(London: Alien and Unwin, 1985); Sidney H. Griffith, "The Gospel in Arabic: An Inquiry into
its Appearance in the First Abbasid Century," OrChr 69 (1985): 126--67; Neal Robinson, Christ
in Islam and Christianity: The Representation ofJesus in the Qur 'an and the Classical Muslim
Commentaries (London: Macmillan, 1991); Jane Damen McAuliffe, Quranic Christians: An
Analysis of Classical and Modern Exegesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991);
David Thomas, "The Miracles of Jesus in Early Islamic Polemics," JSS 39 (1994): 221-43;
Tarif Khalidi, "The Role of Jesus in Intra-Muslim Polemics of the First Two Islamic Centuries,"
in Christian Arabic Apologetics during the Abbasid PeriOd, 750-1258 (eds. Khalil Samir and
J0rgen Nielsen; Leiden: Brill, 1994), 146-56; Geoffrey Parrinder, Jesus in the Qur 'an (Oxford:
One World, 1995).
27 Literally "in the cradle." Yiisuf 'AIi, The Meaning of the Holy Qur 'an (Beltsville, MD:
Amana Publications, 1989), 139 note 388, takes this metaphorically for childhood and sees
an allusion to the Gospel story of Jesus teaching in the Temple (Luke 2) - a story which may
also be alluded to in the Toledot Yeshu. But it is more likely that the reference is to the infant
Jesus in his cradle miraculously speaking to the people. See Q 19.29-30: "But she (Mary)
pointed to the babe. They (the people) said: 'How can we talk to one who is a child in the
cradle (fi I-mahdi)?' He (the infant Jesus) said: 'I am indeed a servant of Allah: he has given
me revelation and made me a prophet. ", Some of the Infancy Gospels also represent Jesus
speaking from the cradle.
28 See also Q 19.16-26. Quotations of the Qur' an and the verse numbering are based on the
translation ofYiisuf'AII, The Meaning ofthe Holy Qur 'an, which is adequate for my purposes.
apostle (rasUlan) to the Children oflsrael (with this message): 'I have come to
you with a sign from your Lord (biiiyatin min rabbikum), in that I make for you
out of clay, as it were, the figure of a bird, and I breathe into it and it becomes a
bird by Allah's leave. And I heal those born blind, and the lepers, and I quicken
the dead, by Allah's leave; and I declare to you what you eat, and what you
store in your houses. Therein is a sign for you, if you believed." Qur'an 5.110:
"Then Allah will say: '0 Jesus son of Mary! recount My favour to you and to
your mother. Behold! I strengthened you with the holy spirit (biriibi I-qudsi), so
that you spoke to the people in childhood (fi I-mahdi) and in maturity. Behold!
I taught you the Book and Wisdom, the Torah and the Gospel. And behold! you
made out of clay, as it were, the figure of a bird, by My leave, and you breathe
into it, and it becomes a bird, by My leave, and you heal those born blind, and
the lepers, by My leave. And behold you bring forth the dead by My leave. And
behold! ] did restrain the Children ofIsrael from (violence to) you, when you
did show them the clear proofs, and the unbelievers among them said: 'This is
nothing but evident magic (sibrun mubinun). "29 In a famous Hadith Muhammad
says that of all the earlier prophets he is closest to Jesus, and the Qur' anic com-
mentator Ibn Kathir calls him the "seal" of the Israelite prophets. 30
Third, Jesus was not the Son of God. Qur'an 4.171: "0 People of the Book!
Commit no excesses in your religion, nor say of Allah aught but truth. Christ
Jesus the son ofMary was (no more than) an apostle of Allah (rasulu I-Iahi), and
His Word (wakalimatuhu), which he bestowed on Mary, and a Spirit proceeding
from him (wariibun minhu): so believe in Allah and his apostles. Say not 'Trin-
ity' (thaliithatun). Desist - it will be better for you. For Allah is one God, glory
be to him. (Far exalted is he) above having a son." The same point is made again.
and again in the Qur'an, often apparently dragged into contexts where it seems
to have little relevance. 31 And yet, it should be noted, that this did not prevent
high christologies from emerging in later Islamic thought, within the mystical
tradition (see especially Ibn cArabj32) and among "heterodox" Islamic groups
29 See also Q 2.253; Q 19.27-34; Q 57.27.

30 Brannon M. Wheeler, Prophets in the Qur 'an: An Intf'fJduction to the Qur 'an and Muslim
Exegesis (London: Continuum, 2002). Sahih Muslim 30.5835: "Abu Huraira reported Allah's
Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: I am most akin to Jesus Christ among the
whole of mankind, and all the Prophets are of different mothers but belong to one religion and
no Prophet was raised between me and Jesus." Sahih Muslim 30.5836: "Abu Huraira reported
manyahadith from Allah's Messenger and one is that Allah's Messenger said: I am mostc\ose to
Jesus, son of Mary, among the whole of mankind in this worldly life and the next life. They said:
Allah's Messenger how is it? Thereupon he said: Prophets are brothers in faith, having different
mothers. Their religion is, however, one and there is no Apostle between us and Jesus Christ."
31 See Q 5.17; 5.73-75; 5.116; 6.100-102; 9.30-31; 10.68-70; 17.111; 18.4-5; 19.88-92;
21.26-29; 37.149-59; 39.4; 43.81-82; 112.1-4.
32 See Andreas d'Souza, "Jesus in Ibn 'Arabi's Fusus al-Hikam," lslamochristiana 8 (1982):
185-200. Further: Yves Marquet, "Les Ihwan al-Safa et le christianisme," lslamochristiana 8
(1982): 129-58.
The Toledo! Yeshu in the Context ofJewish-Muslim Debate 153
such as the Nusayris. A good example of this can be found in the "trinitarian-
ism" of the Nusayri theological treatise the Kitab a/-usus (Book of Foundations),
composed no later than the 13 th century, but extant now in an 18th century ms
in the Bibliotheque Nationale (Fonds arabe 1449, fols 1-179). The influence of
Christian ideas on this text are obvious: it offers a veritable fusion of Christian
and Islamic theology, and it reminds us just how porous the theological bound-
aries between Islam and Christianity could be. 33 The seeds of this high Islamic
Christology are found in the Qur'an itself in the highly suggestive references to
Jesus as the "Word" and "Spirit" of God. 34
Fourth, Jesus did not really die, nor was he buried, but he ascended direct
into heaven. Qur'an 4.156-159: "They (the Jews) rejected faith; they uttered
against Mary a grave slander (waqawlihim ca/a maryama buhtanan Ca;fman);
they said (in boast), 'We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Apostle of Al-
lah' - But they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to
them (walakin shubbiha lahum), and those who differ therein are full of doubts,
with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they
killed him not. Nay, Allah raised him up (rafaCahu) unto Himself; and Allah
is exalted in power, and wise; and there is none of the People of the Book but
must believe in him before his death; and on the Day of Resurrection he will
be a witness against them." There has been much debate whether Muhammad
is here embracing a Docetic view of the death of Jesus: certainly one way of
understanding his words is to suppose that at the last moment God substituted
for Jesus some sort of simulacrum which was crucified in Jesus place, but there
can be no question of Muhammad being a full-blown Docetist. His Jesus is a
fully human, flesh-and-blood Jesus. 35 What Muhammad may be doing here is
quite deliberately cutting out the central claim of the Christian Gospel: if there
was no death, then there was no atonement. This was not an inevitable move: he
33 Meir M. Bar Asher and Aryeh Kofsky, The NU$ayrf-<Alawf Religion (Leiden: Brill, 2002).
The presence of Christian ideas in later Islamic theology is hardly surprising. Many Christians
converted to Islam, either out of conviction or under pressure. Conversion is a complex phe-
nomenon. Some converts mark their conversion by exaggerated rejection of their former faith,
and public hostility to it. Others seek an accommodation with their former faith, and attempt to
retain elements of it, fused with their new faith. Much of what is commonly called heterodox
Islam in the Middle East represents a significant fusion of Christian and Islam ideas. The once
vast Christian presence in the Middle East did not totally vanish. Its spirit lived on in heterodox
Islam.
34 As Khalidi rightly remarks, "If some modem Western Christian Scholars wam us against
attaching overdue importance to the Qur'anic epithets of Jesus as 'Word' and •Spirit' of God,
in the Sufi texts these two epithets are absolutely central to the structure of his image. Indeed,
the great Sufi master Ibn 'Arabi (d. 638/1240) invents a new honorific for him: 'The Seal of the
Saints' (Khatam al-Awliya')" (The Muslim Jesus, 41-42).
35 Mahmoud Ayyoub, "Towards an Islamic Christology, 2: The Death of Jesus - Reality or
Illusion?" The Muslim World 70 (1980): 91-121.
could have accepted the death of Jesus, but portrayed him as a righteous martyr,
like some of the other prophets.
Fifth, like Enoch and Elijah in earlier Judaism, Jesus' escape from death is
bound up with the role assigned to him by God at the eschaton. This second com-
ing of Jesus is (possibly) alluded to in the Qur'an at 43.61: "And (Jesus) shall
be a Sign (for the coming of) the Hour (of Judgment): therefore have no doubt
about the (Hour), but follow Me: this is a straight way."36 But under the direct
influence of Christian eschatology, this role was elaborated in Hadith: Jesus will
descend to the white minaret on the east side of Damascus and join the Mahdi in
the wars against the Antichrist (al-Maslfl ad-Dajjii/). He will kill the Antichrist
and lead both Jews and Christians to accept Islam. 37
The sources of the Jesus traditions in the Qur'an have been much debated. I
am inclined to take a traditional view of the origin of the Qur'an, and to see it
as indeed the work of Muhammad, as against the more radical theories. 38 My
principal reason for this is the strong discontinuity I perceive between the Qur'an
itself and the earliest Taftir tradition. The Qur' an is famously allusive, and much
of this allusiveness seems to have been as puzzling to the early mufassirun as
it is to us today. I find this very hard to explain if, as my late colleague Norman
Calder argued, the Qur'an and Tafsir grew side by side. So, for the sake of the
present argument I am assuming that the sayings in the Qur'an were indeed
composed by Muhammad in the Hijaz in the early seventh century, and the text
we now have reasonably faithfully represents that early work. The Suras about
Jesus and Mary include those traditionally assigned to both the Meccan and the
Medinan periods of his life.
If this is the setting of these Jesus traditions then the question arises as to
where Muhammad got them from. There clearly are Christian sources, but
what can they be? The Qur'an is full of echoes of the Gospels, but there is no
clear evidence of an Arabic rendering of the Gospels to which Muhammad
could have had access, and it is more likely his knowledge of Christianity came
from oral tradition, perhaps conveyed primarily by converts to Islam among
his first followers. The famous miracles of the animation of the clay birds and
Jesus' speaking from the cradle show that Muhaftlmad knew apocryphal tradi-
tions about the life of Jesus: these stories are paralleled in the Arabic Infancy
Gospel, which probably goes back to a pre-Islamic Christian Arabic source, in
turn derived from Syriac. 39 There is also a question as to the form or forms of
Christianity Muhammad would have encountered in the Hijaz. Mecca was both
36 So Yusuf AIi translates, but the Arabic at the beginning of the verse is highly allusive and
obscure (wa-innahu 1a"i1mun lissii'atj).
37 See, e.g., Sahil} Muslim, Kitiib al-Fitiin, ch. 9 (41.6924) and ch. 18 (41.7015).
38 See John Wansbrough, Qur 'anic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scripturallnterpreta-
tion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977).
39 Arabic Infancy Gospel 36 and 46; ef. Infancy Gospel of Thomas 2.
a centre of pilgrimage and an important caravan city, on a trade route that ran
from the Yemen up to Syria: it was not by any means closed to the outside world,
and tradition has it that Muhammad himself led caravans up into Syria where he
was said to have come in contact with Christian monks. But Mecca was far away
from the great centres of Christian orthodoxy, and that its Christianity should
have had "unorthodox" features is widely accepted as probable. Attention has
focused on the Muhammad's possibly Docetic view of the death of Jesus, which
I have already mentioned.
Muhammad was also in contact with Judaism, though the form this Judaism
took is also problematic: note, for example, his famous claim, hard to explain,
that Jews call 'Uzayr (Ezra?) a Son of God, apparently in the same way as Chris-
tians call Christ Son of God (Q 9.30). It is obvious from a close reading of the
Qur'an that Muhammad was fully aware of Jewish rejection of Jesus, and was
carefully positioning himself over against that as much as he was positioning
himself against Christianity. Some references are deeply suggestive. As we saw,
when Jesus presented to the Jews clear signs of his prophethood, they reject them
saying, "This is nothing but evident magic (si~nm mubinun)" (Q 5.110). Exactly
the same phrase is used again in the same context at Q 61.6. Mary is treated with
a reverence and delicacy worthy of the most pious Christian: there is clearly an
attempt to defend her honour against those who would impugn it - obviously the
Jews, who are accused of uttering against her "a grave false slander" (Q 4.156).
The charge is not specified, but it takes little imagination to see it as the claim
that Mary had been unchaste, and that Jesus was born out of wedlock. Now I
am not suggesting that these are direct allusions to the Toledo! Yeshu (though
the possibility cannot be ruled out that later Muslim commenators in elaborating
these passages do know some version of the work): the accusation of sorcery is,
as I have already noted, alluded to in the Gospel's themselves, and the unchastity
of Mary is implicit in the Talmud (b. Shabbat 104b). But it cannot be denied that
these Qur'anic references constitute the framework within which Muslims see
the To/edot down to the present day, and they are the reason why it is as offensive
to them as it is to Christians.
Muhammad's views on Jesus illustrate graphically how carefully he posi-
tioned himself vis-a-vis both Judaism and Christianity. He entered with gusto
into the Jewish-Christian debate, but he did so in a way that avoided him deci-
sively taking sides. Instead he steered a middle course, zig-zagging, so to speak,
between the other two faiths, and negotiating a distinctive Muslim identity. It is
a measure of his success that many within the two older traditions were inclined
to see Islam as a heretical version of their own faith. My point can be graphically,
if rather simplistically, represented by the following grid, in which Judaism is
represented by the To/edot:
Jesus in Christianity, Judaism and Islam

Jesus was ... Christianity Judaism Islam
virgin-born Yes No Yes
Son of God Yes No No
a true prophet Yes No Yes
a worker of miracles Yes Yes Yes
truly died on the cross Yes Yes No
buried Yes Yes No
raised from the dead Yes No No
ascended to heaven Yes No Yes
will return to earth Yes No Yes
It is hardly surprising, given their prominence in the Qur'an, that the figures of
Jesus and Mary should have retained an important position within Islam right
down to the present day, and, as a direct result, for either a Christian or a Jew to
convert to Islam means adopting not just a new attitude towards Muhammad,
but also towards Jesus. A lively polemic was waged throughout the middle ages
between Judaism and Islam, which mirrored the debates between Judaism and
Christianity, and Christianity and Islam. We should see these debates always as
triangular, as a trialogue between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. We should
never consider the relationship between any two of the protagonists without
considering their relationship to the third. Even when the third party is not men-
tioned, they are often there as an unseen presence, and should not be ignored.
Islam posed a real threat to Judaism. Jewish scholars in Muslim lands were well
acquainted with it, would have been able to read the Qur'an, and would hau:
known the Muslim views of Jesus. Islam was attractive to Jews: Jewish scholars
such as Sa'adya and Maimonides hugely admired the Islamic intellectual tradi-
tion, and the circle of Jewish Sufis in Egypt, led by members of the Rambam's
family, had a very positive attitude towards Islamic religious practice. Add to
this the constant danger that some zealous Muslim ruler, ignoring the status of
the Jews as dhimmis, would take it into his head to force conversion on the Jews
within his domain.
On the Muslim side, in the great debate with Judaism, Islamic apologists
increasingly adopted the weapons which Christianity had used to prove itself
over against Judaism. They appealed, for example, to the Jewish Scriptures to
prove that Muhammad was foretold, often applying to Muhammad key Christian
proof-texts for the messiahship of Jesus. A detailed refutation of this approach
can be found in Maimonides Epistle to the Yemen. The debate with Islam must
increasingly have seemed to Jewish apologists like a rerun of the earlier debate
with Christianity. It is also pertinent to note how prominently Christology fig-
ures in the trialogue between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The ditheistic
and even trinitarian tendencies in both Judaism and Islam should warn us not to
separate the theologies of the three traditions into watertight compartments, and
they suggest that the Toledo! may have had work do not only against Christian-
ity and Islam, but even against some forms of Judaism itself. The interplay of
ideas was remarkably dynamic. There have been scattered claims in the past that
some Muslim apologists before the modem period knew the Toledot. William
Horbury collects most of the suggestions that had been aired by the time he
wrote his dissertation: they include Wahb ibn Munabbih, a well known tradent
of /sra 'i1iyyat, and possibly a Jew, who died around 730, al-Jahiz in the ninth
century, 'Abd al-Jabbar in the late tenth (see above), and Samuel ibnAbbas (who
was certainly a convert from Judaism) in the twelfth. The references, it must be
said, are suggestive rather than clear-cut, but, while it is difficult to prove that
any of these Muslims knew the Toledot itself (I know of no manuscript of it in
Arabic script), there can surely be little doubt that they knew the broad position
it adopted, and even some ofthe traditions to which it attests.40 No-one has been
really looking for this kind of evidence, and I suspect this handful of references
is only the tip of the iceberg. It should be borne in mind that Muslim apologists
were precluded by the Qur'an from using the Toledo! as a weapon against Chris-
tianity. Here an interesting contrast can be drawn with early pagan anti-Christian
polemics. In the early centuries of the Church pagans used Jewish rejection of
Jesus as an argument against the truth of Christianity, and Celsus seems to have
known some of the traditions incorporated into the Toledot. But this line of attack
was not open to Muslim apologists, because the Qur'an had chosen to adopt a
conspicuously respectful attitude towards Jesus.
Summary and Conclusions
Texts like the Toledo! Yeshu, with its sharp, polemical tone, arise in situations
where a community is under pressure and fighting for its identity, striving to draw
boundaries, and to resolve confusion. Jews in the Arab world found themselves
in just such a situation in the first few centuries after the rise ofIslam. The emer-
gence of the new order shook the old certainties, social and religious, blurred
the boundaries between the faiths, and provoked religious controversy. The fight
against the old enemy, Christianity, had to be renewed, but there was now a new
enemy to be confronted in the shape ofIslam. The Toledo! originated as an anti-
Christian tract in Aramaic in late antiquity. Its place of origin was probably the
GaIilee. The circles in which it originated may not have been Rabbinic, though
traditions similar to those it contained were known to the Rabbis. 41 It gathered
40 Horbury, A Critical Examination, 206--19.

41 It has, perhaps, not been emphasized enough that the lack of correlation between the
Toledot Yeshu and the Talmudic traditions about Jesus is as important as the overlap. It raises
the possibility that the Toledot may not be in origin a Rabbinic text. There are Jesus traditions
together stories about Jesus, Mary and the early disciples that had been circulat-
ing among Jews, some from at least the second century, and, with one eye on the
Christian Gospels, wove them into a Jewish anti-Gospel. A version of this text
was taken east where it was heavily reworked, and where it doubtless played a
role in Jewish-Christian debate in late Sasanian Babylonia. The rise of Islam,
far from making it redundant, gave it a new lease of life: it was translated into
Judeo-Arabic (possibly in Egypt), and, along with more philosophical polemics,
served once again to buttress a distinctive Jewish religious identity - not only
against Christianity, but now also against Islam. With the precipitous decline of
Christianity in the Muslim world from the fourteenth century onwards, it would
inevitably have lost some of its appeal, because its usefulness in dialogue ex-
clusively between Judaism and Islam is nowhere near as great as its usefulness
in tria/ogue between the "Abrahamic" faiths, but it was sparked back into life
in the nineteenth century with the arrival from the west of aggressive Christian
missions bent on making Jews in the Middle East followers of Jesus.
In this short paper I would claim to have done no more than outline an hypoth-
esis. To substantiate it would require much painstaking and detailed research.
The recensions of the Toledot that emanate from the Islamic world, especially
those written in Arabic, would need to be examined to see ifthey betray distinc-
tive elements that could be related specifically to their Islamic milieu. Muslim-
Jewish polemics would have to be scanned to discover if Jesus has a significant
part to play in them. In particular, do Muslim views of Jesus and Mary in Qur'an,
Hadith, Tafsir, and the other genres of Arabic literature, contain anti-Jewish
elements which might be aimed at rebutting the Toledot Yeshu, and so betray a
knowledge of that work, or the traditions it contains? This research has barely
begun and its outcome remains as yet unclear. What cannot be denied is that the
Toledot Yeshu distances Judaism not just from the Christian Gospel but from the
Muslim "Gospel" as well, and this means it plays a more complex role in the
Islamic world than it does in the Christian west.
in Rabbinic literature which are absent from the Toledot, and vice-versa, and those which are
paralleled often contain important differences. In this context two points gain in significance.
(I) The Toledot was popular among Qaraites, and they may have played a role in transmitting
it. This might suggest that they did not regard it as a Rabbanite work. (2) There seems to have
been an attempt in the Yemen to collect the Rabbinic traditions about Jesus from the Talmud and
other Rabbinic sources, and weave them into a distinctively Rabbinic anti-Gospel (Horbury, A
Critical Examination, 216-18). Whoever did this may have recognized that the Toledot Yeshu
was not a kosher Rabbinic composition. The presence of named "Rabbis" (e.g. Shim'on ben
Shetai) in some Toledot traditions does not invalidate this claim, any more than the presence
of Rabbinic names in the Aramaic incantation bowls or the Hekhalot literature turns these into
Rabbinic compositions.
Hanged and Crucified: The Book of
Esther and Toledot Yeshu*
Sarit Kattan Gribetz
Introduction
In an Aramaic poem composed in Byzantine Palestine in the late fifth century,

Haman, the antagonist of the Purim story, converses with various other doomed
biblical characters: Nimrod, Pharaoh, Amaleq, Sisera, Goliath, and Zerah the
Ethiopian. I These men's punishments are recounted in the poem's rhyming
dialogues, and throughout the many stanzas Haman asserts that the other men's
violent fates were deserved, while his execution (hanging from the gallows)
was unjust. But then Jesus chimes in: "Do you really believe that you alone
were crucified? I too share your lot!"2 Jesus does not stop by likening Haman's
death on the gallows to his own crucifixion; he describes his death in gruesome
detail: "Nailed to a cross, my flesh slashed at hand-breadth length, I am the son
of one who carried wood (a carpenter)! ... Pierced with nails, my limbs clamped
into place, a barley eater is better off than me. This is the end of the pierced
one. disgraced in every town."3 In addition to the physical pain of crucifixion
(the nailing. the piercing, the slashed flesh, the clamped limbs), Jesus alludes to
• Thanks to Peter Schiifer for encouraging me to pursue this subject and for helpful feedback
on this article, to Michael Meerson for his help locating specific manuscripts and references in
them, to Gabriel Wasserrnan, who pointed me to many sources (and on whose translations of
Rabenu Avigdor and Avraham Fraenkel I rely below), and to John Gager, Simi Chavel, Shira
Billet and Jonathan Gribetz for reading earlier drafts.
I The poem appears in Joseph Yahalom and Michael Sokoloff, eds., Jewish Palestinian
Aramaic Poetry from Late Antiquity (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities,
1999),204-19. For various interpretations of the poem's tone and details, see the footnotes in
Yahalom and Soko10ff as well as: Joseph Yahalom, Poetry and Society in Jewish Galilee ofLate
Antiquity (Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 1999), 57-59; Ophir Miinz-Manor, "Camiva1esque
Ambivalence and the Christian Other in Aramaic Poems from Byzantine Palestine," in Jews
in Byzantium: Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures (eds. Robert 80nfil et al.; Leiden:
Brill, 2011), 831-45; Menahem Kister, "Jewish Aramaic Poems from Byzantine Palestine and
Their Setting," Tarbiz 76 (2008): 161-62, n. 302; Hagit Sivan, Palestine in Late Antiquity (Ox-
ford: Oxford University Press, 2008). 152-55. I read the poem's tone as mocking and interpret
it as a biting parody.
2 The translation of this poem is problematic at various places. I have provided here the
translation in Sivan, Palestine, 152-53.
3 Sivan, ibid.
160 Sarit Kattan Gribetz
the embarrassment such a death caused him, paralleling the humiliation Haman
endured as he paraded Mordecai around the streets of Shushan as a hero (and,
later, his hanging on the gallows). Despite the dramatic, violent imagery and the
emotional self-pity, Jesus' words contain a glimmer of self-mockery, too. In the
middle of describing his execution, Jesus alludes to the irony of his situation:
"lashed by rods, of woman born, they called me Christ ... " Jesus admits his hu-
man birth and his tortured death, and exclaims, ironically, that despite all this he
was (foolishly) called Christ, the savior! Read or performed on Purim, this poem
presents Jesus as a latter-day Haman. 4 Just like the antagonist of the Book ofEs-
ther, who is presented, on the one hand, as threatening the very existence of the
Jews, and, on the other, as a fool who meets his all-too-deserved and shameful
end at the gallows, Jesus is presented at once as an enemy of biblical proportions
and also as the object of derision in this Purim poem. In the end, both men are
humiliated and hanged, and the poet beseeches God to "revive these miracles ...
[and] bring, now, in these days salvation to beloved children ... just as once it
was in Shushan the capital ... "5
This poem is an early and particularly evocative example of the association,
in the minds of Jews, between Haman and Jesus, but it was not the last. Another
parody, more widespread and enduring, links these two characters as well. In
many versions of Toledo! Yeshu - a set of Jewish parodies of Jesus' life - refer-
ences to Haman and the Book of Esther are subtly intertwined into the narrative
of the life of Jesus. In this article, I explore the ways in which Toledo! Yeshu
employs tropes and images from the Book of Esther, and then I place these liter-
ary allusions into their broader social-historical context, in which the holiday of
Purim was linked with anti-Christian polemics and practices. It is my contention
that a careful study of these literary allusions within their proper context permits
us better to understand the aims of Toledo! Yeshu and its authors as well as the
way in which the text(s) was (were) received by subsequent readers. The Book
of Esther was simultaneously regarded by its Jewish readers as a factual histori-
cal narrative of events in the Persian Empire and as a parody of that empire and
its leadership (and, later, as a prototype for Jewish triumph over their enemies).6
The Toledo! Yeshu authors' allusions to the Book" of Esther suggest their inten-
tion to create a work of a similarly dual genre: an accurate account of Jesus' life
and a mockery of it. The link between the two texts is not merely one of genre,
however. The argument of Toledo! Yeshu is more clearly discerned as well when
4 On the poem's liturgical use, see Yahalom and Sokoloff, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic
Poetry,204ff.
5 Sivan, Palestine, 148.
6 See for example Harold Fisch's analysis of the Book of Esther as history and parody in Po-
etry with a Purpose: Biblical Poetics and Interpretation (Bloomington, lnd.: Indiana University
Press, 1988), 8-14. On medieval Jewish interpretations of the story of Esther, see Barry Dov
Wa1fish, Esther in Medieval Garb: Jewish Interpretation of the Book of Esther in the Middle
Ages (A1bany: SUNY Press, 1993).
Hanged and Crucified: The Book of Esther and Toledot Yeshu 161
attention is paid to the allusions to Haman and the Book of Esther. Just as Haman
posed a serious threat to the Jews during Persian times, Jesus and, by extension,
Christianity, also represented an existential danger to new generations of Jews,
the narrative of Toledot Yeshu appears to insinuate. But Haman was ultimately
defeated, and so too, the authors imply, Jesus and Christianity would be as well.
Toledot Yeshu thus functions simultaneously as a polemic against Christianity
and as a story of encouragement to those Jews for whom Christianity appeared
to be an insuperable threat. Moreover, Toledot Yeshu's incorporation of elements
from the Book of Esther might also reveal the text's communal function. I thus
conclude my analysis with a tentative suggestion about the use of Toledot Yeshu
as a liturgical or perfonnative text on Purim or at another time in the Jewish
calendar.
Toledot Yeshu and the Book of Esther
It should be emphasized that I do not intend to argue that the Book of Esther
is the only, or even the most important, text to which Toledo! Yeshu alludes.
Toledot Yeshu is filled with quotations and references to many biblical passages
and stories (e. g. the story of Joseph, the relationship between Moses and Jethro,
Moses' miracles, scattered verses from Psalms, Isaiah, etc.) as well as rabbinic
ideas, laws, and characters (e.g. humility in front of one's teachers, laws of
nidah and mamzer, the figure of Shimon ben Shetah) and post-rabbinic features
(legends about Shimon bar Yitzhaq bar Avun's son Elhanan, the schism between
Nestorius and the Christians). Rather, the Book of Esther serves as one of many
texts upon which Toledot Yeshu draws in its presentation of Jesus' birth, life,
and death, and interpreting these specific allusions yields fruitful results that
further our understanding of the text as a whole. While the allusions employ
specific motifs from the Book of Esther, they are also intended, I argue, to trig-
ger a broader association between the two stories of Jewish endangennent and
eventual triumph. Finally, my argument about Toledot Yeshu's use of tropes
and imagery from the Book of Esther is not limited to a specific manuscript or
manuscript group. As I will demonstrate, allusions to the Book of Esther appear
in all Toledot Yeshu manuscripts I have examined from the different manuscript
groups in Aramaic and Hebrew; though the allusions are not the same in each
version, there are several references to the Book of Esther in each text. 7 I use
7 I have consulted the following manuscripts: Cambridge 35.87, Adler JTS 2529.1, Cam-
bridge 35.88, Cambridge 298.56, Adler JTS 2529.2, St. Petersburg NL 105.9, JTS 6312, St.
Petersburg 274, Strasbourg BnU 3974, New York JTS 2221, Cambridge 557, New York JTS
1037, London Sassoon 793, Leipzig BH 17, Ox. Cod. Heb. 2407, Harvard 57, Philadelphia 361,
and Amsterdam HS Ros 442. I have not checked the Yiddish and Arabic manuscripts.
"Toledot Yeshu" as a generic term for the various manuscripts that are available.
Below, see my footnotes for the particular manuscript that I cite in each case.
Just as the Aramaic poem above links Haman and Jesus through their similar
deaths, so too Toledot Yeshu draws a parallel between Yeshu's crucifixion and
the hanging of Haman. Toledot Yeshu, however, goes beyond simple analogies
between hanging and crucifixion and preserves a tradition about Haman's hang-
ing found in an Aramaic targum of the Book of Esther and other midrashic col-
lections. s In Toledot Yeshu, Yeshu is crucified on a cabbage stalk. 9 For example,
in Strasbourg BnU 3974, each tree upon which Yeshu is hanged breaks, until a
cabbage stalk is brought and he is hanged on it instead. \0 The text reads:
When they brought (Yeshu) to be hanged on a tree, it would break, because the ineffable
name was with him, and when the fools (Yeshu's followers) saw that the trees broke be-
neath him, they thought that this happened because of his righteousness, until they brought
him the stalk of a cabbage. For when he was alive, he knew that it was the custom of Israel
to hang him, and he knew that he would die and at the end they would hang him on a tree,
so he arranged through the ineffable name that no tree should accept him. But to the stalk
of cabbage he did not say the ineffable name, for it is not a tree but a plant (and so he did
not consider it an option for his crucifixion). Thus he rose to heaven (on a cabbage stalk) ...
The image of trying to find the proper tree on which to crucify Yeshu resembles
a tradition in the Second Targum of Esther, in which various trees (the vine, wild
fig, fig, olive, palm, citron, myrtle, oak, pomegranate) give excuses for why they
cannot be used for Haman's hanging. 1I For example, the vine declares: "I am
unable (to bear) that he be hanged on my top, because from me wine is taken for
oblations ... " and the olive tree chimes in: "I would not be able (to bear it) ifhe
were hung on my top, because from me the oil for the lamp stand is taken-... "
and the pomegranate tree argues, "Were he to be hung on my top, I would not be
able (to bear it) because the righteous are compared to me." Finally, the cedar
suggests that Haman and his ten sons be hung on the same (cedar) gallows that
8 Bemard Grossfeld, The Targum Sheni of the Book of Esther: A Critical Edition Based on
MS Sassoon 282 with Critical Apparatus (New York: Sepher-Hennon Press, 1994), 66-{)7;
idem, The Two Targums ofEsther: Translated, with Apparatus and Notes (Collegeville, Minn.:
Liturgical Press, 1991), 180-83. A number of midrashim contain parallels of the Haman story
(Abba Gurion VII, p. 41 f.; Panim Acherim 11, p. 77; Esth. Rab. IX:2; Agg. Esth. 7:9, p. 60; Agg.
Esth. 5:14 p. 58; Yalq. Shim. #1054). For a comparison of the versions, see Grossfeld, The Two
Targums of Esther, 213-16 (Table 12).
9 Much has been written on this peculiar detail of the cabbage stalk; for two interesting
pieces and more bibliography, see Hillell. Newman, "The Death of Jesus in the 'Toledot Yeshu'
Literature," JTS 50 (1999): 59-79, and Michael Meerson's article in this volume.
10 Parallels are found in JTS 2221, Cambridge 557, JTS 1037, Sasson 793, Leipzig BH 17,
Ox. Cod. Heb 2407 (Opp. Add. 4145), Harvard 57, and Philadelphia 361.
11 David Biale notes this parallel between Toledot Yeshu and both Midrash Esther Rabbah
and the Targum Sheni as well; see his article "Counter-History and Jewish Polemics Against
Christianity: The Se/er Toledot Yeshu and the Sefer Zerubavel," Jewish Social Studies 6 (1999):
135.
Hanged and Crucified: The Book ofEsther and Toledot Yeshu 163
Haman prepared for Mordecai. 12 In Midrash Esther Rabbah, it is not the cedar
on which Haman is hung but a mere thorn bush.
These two passages from Toledot Yeshu and the Second Targum of Esther are
far from identical. Yeshu uses magical means (the ineffable name that he stole
from the temple and sewed into his thigh) to avert his crucifixion, causing each
tree to break beneath his body's weight. In the end, though, rather than being
spared, Jesus is hanged in the most humiliating fashion, on a cabbage stalk. In
the Haman episode, it is not Haman who outwits the trees, as in the Jesus tale,
but the trees that cleverly avoid being desecrated with Haman's body. It is the
cedar tree (or the thorn bush), finally, that finds the perfectly ironic solution, to
hang Haman on the gallows he himself built. Despite the differences, the stories
share a common theme - the difficulty of identifying a tree to hang the culprit.
While the particular trees are different in the two cases, in both narratives, the
type of tree used is of utmost importance to highlight the added humiliation of
their deaths. This trope of tree-selection links the two stories and, thus, Haman
and Jesus. 13 Indeed, the version preserved in one Yemenite manuscript of Toledot
Yeshu (Jerusalem JNUL b 32-4 = 15) explicitly connects these two narratives
of tree-selection. The text explains that ''they stood to hang him (Jesus) on a
tree, and that evil one cursed all the trees so that they would not accept him, as
Haman the Aggagite did, and each tree upon which they hung him broke im-
mediately ... "14
12 Grossfeld, The Targum Sheni, 66-67; idem, The Two Targums of Esther, 180-83. The
stories about Haman and Jesus might be loosely based on Jotham's parable in Judges 9. There,
Jotham tells a parable to the citizens of Shechem about trees that try to appoint a king for
themselves. They approach the olive tree, but the olive tree does not want to relinquish its oil
in order to rule over the others. The fig tree, too, does not want to give up its fruit, and the vine
refuses to give up its wine. Finally, the thombush (hardly a tree!) agrees to become king if the
rest take refuge in its shade; ifnot, they will all be consumed by fire.
13 Sivan discusses another Purim poem that associates Haman with Jesus and alludes to these
parallel traditions about the trees; the poem is found in Yahalom and Sokolotf, Jewish Palestin-
ian Aramaic Poetry, 183-87 (Piyyut 29). In the poem, each tree refuses to give its wood for
Haman and Jesus' hanging/crucifixion; see the discussion in Sivan, Palestine, 149-50.
14 Emphasis added. In addition to this particular manuscript's explicit reference to Haman,
the Aramaic Targum of Esther might reference Jesus as well. A peculiar turn of phrase in the
Second Targum of Esther's account of the disputing trees (at least as it is preserved in certain
manuscripts) makes reference to "Ben Pandera," a name used for Jesus in Toledot Yeshu and
elsewhere. After begging Mordecai, in vain, to spare his life, Haman begins "lamenting and
weeping for himself in the midst of the palace garden," crying "listen to me, you trees and
plants, which 1 have planted from the earliest times" (Grossfeld, The Two Targums ofEsther,
180). Perhaps the image of Haman praying and weeping in the garden is an allusion to Jesus in
the garden ofGethsemane, e.g. Luke 22:39-46. Before the parable of the trees begins, the nar-
rative interjects a line that is difficult to translate: "devar hamedata ba'e lemisaq le'aleksanria
devar pandir() 'itkanshu kulhon ve'etsu 'etsah" (Grossfeld, The Targum Sheni, 66; translation
and notes in idem, The 7Wo Targums of Esther, 180--81). The references to Alexandria and
Bar-Pandera are problematic, and have been interpreted in various ways, as Grossfeld points
out. One interpretation reads Haman's desired destination not as Alexandria (Ie'aleksanri 'a) but
Beyond the conflated details of the executions of Haman and Yeshu, Toledo!
Yeshu's language and tenninology describing its central characters also recall
the Book of Esther and associated traditions. For instance, Toledo! Yeshu refers
to Yeshu as yeshu harasha " perhaps a play on the name haman harasha' (this
name is not actually used in the Book of Esther, but it appears in rabbinic litera-
ture and frequently in post-classical midrashim).ls In one manuscript (Sasson
793), Yeshu is called ha 'arur yeshu and yeshu ha 'arur, perhaps an allusion to the
phrase arur haman used to describe Haman in the Palestinian and Babylonian
Talmuds and other rabbinic texts. 16 The phrase arur haman was also appended to
rather, according to a variant reading, understands 'aksanri'a (MS Sasson 282) as a nasalized
version the Greek ezedra, a vestibule or covered hall, that is, an Exedra. In such an Exedra,
musicians would sit and play their drums so as not to hear the hanging of the person outside.
(Pander, in this reading, refers to musical instruments.) In this case, Haman expresses his wish
to be in such a room, rather than to be the one hanged. Another interpretation reads the phrase
as "the son of Hammedatha wanted to go up to Alexandria (Egypt), where the son of Pandera
(that is, Jesus) was." While the first explanation is more often understood as the correct, original
meaning, it is telling that certain manuscripts preserve a reading that is most easily deciphered
as a reference to Jesus. Beyond associating Haman's death with Jesus, there is another subtle
allusion to the relationship between Haman and Jesus in the Targum Sheni. When Haman is
introduced into the text of the targum at 3:1, his full genealogy is traced all the way back to
Esau, who was already associated with Rome and Christianity by the time of the targum's
composition. The targum might allude to the idea that Haman and Jesus/the Christians are
related not only metaphorically but also genealogically! See Grossfeld's discussion of Ham an 's
genealogy in The Two Targums of Esther, 140, 143--44, and 211. On the identification of Esau
with Rome and Christianity, see Gershon Cohen, "Esau as Symbol in Early Medieval Thought,"
in his collection of essays Studies in the Variety of Rabbinic Cultures (Philadelphia: Jewish
Publication Society of America, 1991), 243-{)9; Gtinter Stemberger, "Die Beurteilung Roms in
der rabbinischen Literatur," in ANRWII 19.2 (eds. Hildegard Temporini and Wolfgang Haase;
BerlinlNew York: Waiter de Gruyter, 1979): 338-96; Carol Bakhos' modification to Cohen's
analysis in lshmael on the Border: Rabbinic Portrayals of the First Arab (Albany: SUNY
Press, 2006), 63-{)4, and Burton Visotsky's analysis of Esau and Edom in Leviticus Rabbah:
Visotsky, Golden Bells and Pomegranates: Studies in Midrash Leviticus Rabbah (Tubingen:
Mohr Sibeck, 2003), 154-72.
15 Yeshu harasha' appears in the majority of Toledot Yeshu manuscripts that I consulted
(including Strasbourg BnU 3974; ITS 2221; Cambridge 557); in the Aramaic fragment Cam-
bridge 35.87, it is yyeshuu rshi 'a; ITS 1037 and Ox. Cod. Heb 2407 (Opp. Add. 4 145) call
Yeshu rasha " and Sasson and Leipzig BH 17 harasha " an"d Philadelphia PA 361 both of these.
For rabbinic references to haman harasha' see: y. Megillah 1:60,4/4; y. Megillah 3:64, Ill; b.
Megillah lOb; b. Pesahim 117a; Masekhet Sofrim 21 :2, Exodus Rabbah 31; Leviticus Rabbah
11, 13, 15,27,28; Ruth Rabbah; Esther Rabbah 6, 10; Lamentations Rabbah 3:33. The epithet
haman hara' is used in the Book of Esther at 7 :6. The epithet harasha' is also used for some
other characters deemed evil in rabbinic literature, for example: Balaam (e.g. m. Avot 5:17;
b. Berahot 7a; Avot de Rabbi Natan A chapter I, in which the snake and Titus are also called
harasha'); Tumus Rufus (b. Baba Batra lOa); Nevuchadnesar (b. Berahot 55bf.); Esau (b.
Gittin 66b); Nimrod (b. Hagigah 13a); Hadrian (y. Peah 7:20, Ill), but it appears particularly
associated with Haman as early as this literature but certainly later even more so.
16 The Palestinian Talmud mandates, in the name of Rav, that the lines "arur haman arurim
banav" must be recited on Purim (y. Megillah 3. 5.7). Genesis Rabbah 49:1 seems to indicate
that the line "cursed is Haman!" was declared each time Haman's name was read from the
Book of Esther on Purim. The term "arur" is also used to describe Haman in b. Megillah 7b.
the famous piyyut Shoshanat Ya 'aqov, which was recited in many communities
on Purim after the recitation ofthe Book of Esther.H Similarly, the way in which
Toledot Yeshu describes Miriam, Yeshu's mother, reminds the reader ofthe main
character in the Purim story. Miriam is introduced at the beginning of the nar-
rative in JTS 2221 as ye/ah to 'ar vetovat mar 'eh, nearly identical words used to
depict Esther's beauty in Esther 2:7 (ye/at to 'ar veto vat mar 'eh). 18 In addition to
commenting on Miriam's beauty in a way similar to the description of Esther's
beauty, one manuscript also identifies Miriam as belonging to the tribe of Ben-
jamin, like Esther (Esther 2:5).19 Both women are described as betulot, virgins. 20
Additional tropes from the Book of Esther - letter-sending, fasting and pray-
ing for three days before approaching a royal figure - are also employed in
the text of Toledot Yeshu. In the longest Aramaic fragment of Toledot Yeshu
(Cambridge 35.87), Tiberius Caesar asks John the Baptist and Yeshu about their
occupations. The men answer that they are the sons of God - they heal the sick,
resurrect the dead, even cause virgins to conceive. To demonstrate his magical
abilities, Yeshu causes the Caesar's daughter to conceive and even promises
to custom-make the embryo male or female according to the Caesar's request.
During the nine months of pregnancy, Pilate keeps the two men, Yeshu and John
the Baptist, bound, and the Jews find themselves in a great deal of distress at
the prospect that Yeshu's miracle will come to fruition and Israel's accusations
against him will be proven false. R. Joshua ben Perahiah sends letters to all of
the provinces in which the Jews dwell declaring a three-day fast, and the people
follow the rabbi's instructions for fear that Jesus' miracle will occur and they will
suffer potentially devastating consequences. In another manuscript (Leipzig BH
17), the Jews are instructed by Queen Helen to reveal the cross on which they
17 On the piyyut Shoshanat Ya'aqov, see Avraham Fraenkel's article, "Asher heniya -
toldoteha shel berakhah mefuyetet," http://www.piyut.org.illarticles/834.html(accessed 23
February 2011).
18 Ox. Cod. Heb 2407 (Opp. Add. 4 145) has yefatto 'ar uyefat mar 'eh; Strasbourg BnU 3974
has yafa mar 'eh, perhaps a contraction of the longer phrase (the text is ambiguous enough that
the description could compellingly be applied to either Miriam or Joseph grammatically and
conceptually, but given the reading of JTS 2221 and the sentence structure, I am inclined to
read it as a description of Miriam). Leipzig BH 17 has yefat to 'ar and Amsterdam HS Ros 442
(Huldreich) proclaims that Esther was yefat mar 'eh 'ad me 'od.
19 Amsterdam HS Ros 442 (Huldreich) notes that Miriam was from the tribe of Benjamin in
the same sentence that it mentions Miriam's beauty.
20 Esther is described as a bewlah along with all of the other girls vying for the king in
Esther 2:3, a term certainly associated with Miriam (e.g. Philadelphia 361). The term betulah
also refers to other women in the Bible (to Rebecca in Genesis 24: 16, who is also identified as
beautiful like Esther and Miriam; women ofYavesh Gilead in Judges 21: 12; Tamar in 2 Samuel
13 :2; Avishag in I Kings I :2; other references use the term to refer to a category of women,
rather than to specific characters). I am not arguing that the term is reserved exclusively for
Esther and Miriam, but that the term, because of its association with both women, links them
in this way, too.
166 Sarit Kauan Grihetz
had crucified Yeshu years earlier or face death. 21 R. Judah the Elder is chosen for
the task of identifying the three pieces of wood, but before he agrees to uncover
the place of their burial, he makes a request of the queen: "Give me three days,
and I will fast and pray to God." At the conclusion of the three days, the text
describes how the rabbis came before the queen (vayehi bayom hashlishi) and
led her, through seemingly magical means, to the exact spot of Yeshu's cross.
R. Joshua ben Perahiah's actions - sending letters and declaring a fast to last
three days - and R. Judah the Elder's steps - fasting and praying for three days
prior to appearing before the royal figure - allude to Esther's actions as well as
Mordecai's communication with the Jewish people. At the end of chapter four
of the Book of Esther, prior to Esther's unannounced visit at the king's palace,
Esther declares a three-day fast in order to evoke God's sympathy (Esther 4: 16).
Esther, like R. Judah the Elder, appears before the king on the third day (Esther
5: I, vayehi bayom hashlishi, precisely the same language used in the story of
the finding of the crosS).22 Later, Mordecai sends letters to all of the Jews in the
empire informing them about Haman's downfall and encouraging them to fight
back on the day intended to mark their destruction (Esther 8:8-11).
Other elements of Toledo! Yeshu's narrative might also invoke or evoke as-
pects of the narrative of the Book of Esther (especially in conjunction with the
clearer allusions), though these next examples are not as direct as the parallels
discussed above. The beginning of Toledo! Yeshu's narrative resembles the Book
of Esther's first few chapters. After brief introductions, both texts open their
narratives with highly sexualized scenes. In Toledo! Yeshu, Yeshu's conception
entails a detailed story of rape or adultery (depending on the manuscript).23 Ac-
cording to Ms. Strasbourg BnU 3974, for example, Miriam, in a state of ritual
impurity and betrothed to Yohanan, is raped by Joseph in the middle of the night
and thereby conceives Yeshu. In the Book of Esther, the king hosts a party and
requests the presence of his wife, Vashti (rabbinic sources explain that he asked
that she arrive naked).24 Vashti refuses the king's invitation, a fatal decision,
and the king conducts a search for a new queen. Despite obvious differences in
.
details, in both texts the women - Miriam (according to all but one manuscript)
21 In many versions of Toledot Yeshu, as in the Book of Esther, a woman is in a position of

royal power; Strasbourg BnU 3974 explicitly states that Queen Helen ruled Israel, while Esther
is married to King Ahasuerus. Though subtle, the parallel female royal figures also connect TV
with the story of Esther; see Leipzig BH 17, Ox. Cod. Heb 2407 (Opp. Add. 4145), Cambridge
557, and JTS 1037, in which Queen Helen governs the entire land.
22 The phrase vayehi hayom hashlishi occurs a few other times in the Hebrew Bible as well
(Genesis 34:25, 40:20; Exodus 19: 16; 2 Samuel 1:2; 2 Kings 3: 18), but the context of the Book
of Esther provides the closest parallel to the scenario described in Toledot Yeshu.
23 Most manuscripts depict a rape scene, though the Huldreich version presents Mary as
promiscuous.
24 h. Megillah 12b.
and Vashti - decline aggressive sexual maneuvers but ultimately do not succeed
(Vashti is killed, Miriam is raped).
What happens next in the two narratives is also similar. Yeshu, as a child, is
described passing the gate of the synagogue or house of study, where the rabbis
sit; at the gate, he acts disrespectfully to the rabbis, causing them to publicize the
identity of his real father and thus setting Yeshu on his path toward heresy.25 The
text elaborates on Yeshu's insolence: rather than walking bent over, with his face
covered, Yeshu strides proudly, standing up impudently and not greeting any of
the rabbis, as the text deems appropriate. Most egregiously, according to the text,
Yeshu recites halakhot from Masekhet Neziqin; Yeshu not only acts disrespect-
fully, but through his behavior he challenges the authority of the rabbis. 26 The
rabbis declare that Yeshu is violating the rabbinic prohibition that declares: "one
who expounds halakhah before his teacher deserves the death penalty," foreshad-
owing his death and claiming that Yeshu deserved his crucifixion because of his
disrespect for rabbinic authority. The Book of Esther also provides a story about
characters who act disrespectfully of authority (and even conspire to depose that
authority) at a gate. Immediately following Esther's entry into the royal palace
as the king's new companion, Mordecai is described sitting at the palace gates
(Esther 2:21). There, he overhears two men (Bigthan and Teresh) conspiring to
kill the king. The conversation is reported and both men are hanged for their plot
(Esther 2:23). Both texts tell similar stories, but from different vantage points:
in the former, Yeshu's threat to the rabbis' authority at the gate of the house of
study (their "palace") is presented as the reason for his eventual death (hanging
and crucifixion), while in the latter, the king's eunuchs also threaten the king's
authority through their assassination plot (which they reveal in front ofthe king's
palace gates) and therefore are killed (also by hanging).
I would propose that the accumulation of these parallels serves not only to
highlight specific motifs, but also to relate the overall narrative themes of the
2S The passage is from Strasbourg BnU 3974, while other manuscripts place the scene in vari-
ous locations such as the market (e. g. Leipzig BH 17 and Ox. Cod. Heb 2407 Opp. Add. 4 145)
or the Sanhedrin (Harvard 57); several manuscripts do not include a section on Yeshu's sins.
26 In several manuscripts (e. g. Strasbourg BnU 3974), Yeshu reverses the hierarchy between
himself and the rabbis by referring to the biblical story of Jethro and Moses. "Who was the
teacher and who was the student, Jethro or Moses?" asks Yeshu. Yeshu describes how Moses
was considered the most illustrious of prophets and the greatest of all sages (indeed, Deuter-
onomy declares that no greater prophet arose in Israel), and yet Jethro was older and taught
Moses the ways of the world when he imparted to his son-in-law the details of a system of
judges. Thus both men, lethro and Moses, were each other's teachers and students, blurring
the hierarchy between instructor and instructed. Yeshu uses this interpretation of scripture to
declare that he has the authority to teach the rabbis even though he is their students' teacher,
just as Moses was Jethro's teacher. Just as Jethro was able to teach Moses and the reverse, so
too, according to Yeshu's reasoning, Yeshu does not only need to learn from the rabbis but is
also able to teach his rabbis halakhot and thus act in a less than deferential fashion towards
them. Yeshu's disregard for social and religious hierarchy is interpreted as dangerous and one
of the causes of his downfalL
Book of Esther to Toledot Yeshu. The presentations of Jesus as a Haman-like

figure and the devout Jews as comparable to Esther and Mordecai, allude to the
gravity of the threat Toledot Yeshu's authors perceived in Jesus (and, by exten-
sion, Christianity). Haman sought physically to destroy the Jews, "young and
old, babies and women," as the Book of Esther puts it (Esther 3: 13, 8:5). Jesus
of the canonical Gospels, of course, desired nothing of the sort. But for Toledot
Yeshu's authors, we might sunnise, the Jewish community was at risk: Christian-
ity, like Haman, represented an existential threat to Judaism, whether because
of the threat of Christian violence, or (ironically) because of the allure ofChris-
tianity. On the one hand, Jesus' followers, the Christians, seem to be destroying
Judaism through hostility; the Jewish community is often threatened with death
because of their unwillingness to accept Jesus. On the other hand, Jesus' fol-
lowers blur the lines between Judaism and Christianity by attracting (unwitting)
Jews to the Christian faith, another fonn of danger to the Jewish community that
posed a threat to the survival of the Jews as Jews. 27 In both cases, however, the
authors of Toledot Yeshu were detennined to battle the threat or draw of Chris-
tianity through polemicizing against the faith and, especially, its central figure
Jesus. The parallels relating to the Jews' sense of insecurity - especially the
dissemination of letters and the three-day fast - highlight this association. The
link between the story of Christianity's founding and the story of Purim has a
dual nature; it at once reflects the sense of Christianity's threat felt by the authors
and is a tool of the polemic (the readers are meant to associate the two enemies).
However, the association with the threat of Haman implies that the threat is not
insuperable. Rather, the Toledot Yeshu authors seem to be suggesting, the peril
of Christianity has been or can be overcome just as Esther, Mordecai, ·and the
Jews of Shushan triumphed over Haman and his evil plot to decimate the Jewish
people. 28 The text takes seriously the presence and power of Christianity, and
offers a (satirical) counter-narrative that might have emboldened those readers
who lived in a Christianized Roman Empire, and, later, in Christian Europe. A
scribal error in one manuscript reveals that the allusions to the Book of Esther
27 Some versions of Toledot Yeshu provide an antidot~ to this second type of threat: a narra-
tive is constructed in which Paul/Simon Peter works as a double-agent to finalize the parting of
the ways between the two religions. Different versions of this narrative are found in: Strasbourg
BnU 3974, ITS 2221, Cambridge 557, London Sasson 793, LeipzigBH 17, Ox. Cod. Heb2407
(Opp. Add. 4145), Harvard 57, Philadelphia 361, and Amsterdarn HS Ros 442. John G. Gager's
article in this volume discusses this tradition extensively.
28 One form of triumph proposed in some Toledot Yeshu manuscripts is the final schism be-
tween the Jews and the Christians, brought about by Paul. Another, less explicit form of victory
is the uncovering of Jesus' true life story as it is recounted in Toledot Yeshu itself. Some of the
account is told in earnest, as the historical biography of Christianity's central figure. But the
true story itself, Toledot Yeshu's authors propose, is laughable and highly ironic in its details,
proving even more emphatically that Jesus and the religion that emerged from him are not to
be taken seriously by Jews. In addition, the connection between the Book of Esther and Toledot
Yeshu reinforces the farcical picture the authors of Toledot Yeshu paint of Jesus.
probably did play such a role of encouragement. In one section of the text, when
the Jews attempt to separate fully from Christianity and pray to God, asking for
sufficient strength in their hearts to act bravely in challenging times, the scribe
refers, mistakenly, to God as the "God of Esther." Upon noticing his error, the
scribe crossed out the word "Esther" and replaced it with "Israel. "29 Even though
the final text does not contain an explicit reference to or citation of the Book of
Esther, the story of the Jews' persecution and eventual victory during the time
of Haman was apparently so present in the mind of the scribe as he copied the
text of Toledo! Yeshu that he accidentally referred to his God not as the God of
Israel but as the God of Esther!
Purim and Anti-Christianity
The scribe's mistake - confusing the God oflsrael with the God of Esther- is not
surprising. Toledo! Yeshu's allusions to the Book of Esther are best understood
in a broader historical context, in which the paradigm of the Purim story was
applied to present circumstances, the celebration of Purim oftentimes included
anti-Christian practices, and the figure of Ham an frequently became a prototype
for Christian villains. The association between Haman, Jesus, Purim, and anti-
Christianity can be found as early as the late fourth or early fifth century, and
extends in various forms through the medieval period and beyond. The associa-
tion between Purim and anti-Christianity, thus, was common to the numerous
historical contexts into which the compositions of Toledo! Yeshu fit, regardless
of the precise dating of the various traditions in and the numerous versions of
Toledo! Yeshu. 30
29 Jerusalem Schocken 04088 (Wagenseil).

30 The dating of Toledot Yeshu's traditions and versions has been the subject of much debate;
estimates range from the second century to the ninth century or later. See Samuel Krauss, Das
Leben Jesu nachjiidischen Quellen (Berlin: S. Cavalry, 1902; repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1994);
William Horbury, A Critical Examination of the Toledoth Jeshu (Ph. D. diss.; Cambridge Uni-
versity, 1970); Riccardo Di Segni, "La tradizione testuale delle Toledoth Jeshu. Manoscritti,
edizioni a stampa classificazione," La rassegna mensile di Israel 50 (1984): 83-100; idem, [/
vangelo del ghetto (Rome: Newton Compton, 1985); Yaacov Deutsch, •Toledot Yeshu' in Chris-
tian Eyes: Reception and Response to 'Toledot Yeshu' in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern
Period (MA thesis, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1997 [in Hebrew]); idem, "New Evi-
dence of Early Versions of Toldot Yeshu," Tarbjz 69 (2000): 177-97 (in Hebrew). See also the
brief summaries in Newman, "The Death of Jesus," 59-63, and Daniel StOkl Ben Ezra, "An An-
cient List of Christian Festivals in Toledot Yeshu: Polemics as Indication for Interaction," HTR
102 (2009): 483-85, and Michael Sokoloff's linguistic analysis of the Aramaic fragments, in
his article in this volume. I follow Peter Schlifer with regard to dating the Toledot Yeshu collec-
tion; see his article in this volume, in which he identifies the earliest written form or recension
of a composition called Toledot Yeshu to somewhere between the seventh and ninth centuries
and cautions against assuming an earlier dating based on isolated traditions. Moreover, I do
not imply that the association between Purim and anti-Christianity in late antiquity and the
Haman was a particularly appropriate biblical villain to compare with Jesus

because of the similarities of their recorded punishments: hanging and cruci-
fixion - "and they hanged Haman on the gallows ... " (Esther 7: 10), "and they
crucified him" (Mark 15:25; John 19: 18). These acts, after all, appear very
much the same. In both cases, the victim dies while hanging upright in public.
Moreover, crucifixion is often referred to as a type of hanging in Roman and
Christian sources; there does not seem to have been much of a distinction in
late antiquity.3l Beyond the visual and conceptual similarities, a verbal associa-
tion appears in Greek and Latin renditions of Haman's death, in which Haman
is depicted as crucified. 32 As early as the Septuagint (Esther 7:9, 16:17) and
Josephus (A. J. 11.246, 261, 266, 267, 280), the term stauro is used to describe
Haman's hanging. 33 In Latin sources, too, Haman's execution is translated us-
ing the language of crucifixion (crucem in Jerome's commentary on Galatians
medieval period manifested itself in the same ways at all times; this would be too simplistic
an argument and would ignore changing historical, cultural, and polemical circumstances. See,
for example, Katrin Kogman-Appel's compelling analysis of visual depictions of the hanging
of Ham an in Jewish medieval manuscripts from the I 260s-1270s and the way in which the art-
ists invoked and subverted Christian imagery of the Tree of Life and the Tree of Jesse that was
particular to those very decades in order to convey historically-specific polemical messages.
Kogman Appel, "The Tree of Death and the Tree of Life: The Hanging of Haman in Medieval
Jewish Manuscript Painting," in Between the Picture and the Word: Manuscript Studies from
the Index ofChristian Art (ed. Colum Hourihane; University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State
University Press, 2005), 187-208. What I do argue, though, is that from late antiquity through
the medieval period, Purim was associated, in various ways, with anti-Christian sentiment and
that Toledot Yeshu's allusions to the Book of Esther were invoked and interpreted by authors
and readers within their particular contexts. For example, the references to Esther might have
resonated differently to those in early medieval Lyon, in a climate ofrelative Jewish freedom,
and to Jews in later periods, particularly in the more violent times of the Crusades and especially
the thirteenth century. The relationship between Jews and their Christian neighbors was continu-
ously evolving and changing; at times, the invocation of the story of Esther and Haman might
have alluded to the sense that Jews were overcoming the pressures of Christianity, while at other
times the same references might have reflected a longing for such triumph or hope for eventual
success and salvation, as unlikely as it seemed at those difficult moments. Though beyond the
scope of this paper, it would be interesting to plot each.manuscript's allusions to the Book of
Esther and see if any chronological or geographical patterns emerge in the way in which Haman
and the story of Purim are invoked within the texts of Toledot Yeshu.
31 Livy 1.26, Dig. 48.13.7 (Ulpianus Iibro septimo de officio proconsulis), Dig. 48.19.38
(Paulus libro quinto sententiarum); see Meerson's article in this volume and the discussion in
Kogman-Appel, "The Tree of Death," 187 and 191.
32 The deaths of Haman and Jesus can also be connected linguistically through references in
the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. In the Book of Esther, Haman is hanged 'al ha 'ets,
that is, on a tree (wood) or gallows (also wood) (Esther 7:10); Jesus, too, dies on a wooden
cross. In fact, in Galatians 3:13, Paul quotes the verse from Deuteronomy 21 :23, "Cursed is he
who hangs on a tree ('al 'ets)," in reference to Jesus' crucifixion. The same Hebrew word ('ets)
is used to describe the manner of Jesus' death and Haman's hanging - both are hung 'al 'ets.
To readers familiar with these biblical passages, the association is clear.
)3 T. C. G. Thornton, "The Crucifixion of Haman and the Scandal of the Cross," JTS 37
(1986): 421. The Greek (J·talJQo~ is a cross or instrument for crucifixion.
3:13; erneem and ernci in the Vulgate's translation of the Book of Esther at
5:17,8:7,9:25; examples appear also in Paulinus of Nola, Eucherius of Lyons,
Isidore of Seville, Rabanus Maurus, Sulpicius Severus).34 Thus the two forms
of death penalty - hanging and crucifixion - were conflated such that Haman is
described as crucified, and, eventually, associated with Jesus' death on the cross.
A medieval piyyut recited on the fast of Esther (the day preceding Purim) cap-
tures the image poetically in four short words: lohem veninav nitlu tsluvim, "the
belligerent one (Haman) and his offspring were hanged crucified."35 An early
modem Yiddish alternative title of Toledo! Yeshu - 44Mayse Tole" (The Story of
the Hanged One) - encapsulates the opposite phenomenon, that is, presenting
Jesus as hanged, like Haman, rather than Haman crucified, like Jesus. 36
As early as the fifth century, there is evidence of anti-Christian rituals per-
formed by Jews on Purim inspired, perhaps, by earlier traditions linking Haman
and Jesus through the image of crucifixion. 37 In 408, Emperor Theodosius 11
banned the Jews from burning an effigy of Haman on Purim. 38 The law reads:
The governors of the provinces shall prohibit the Jews, in a certain ceremony of their
festival Aman in commemoration of some former punishment, from setting fire to and
burning a simulated appearance of the holy cross, lest they should associate the sign of
our faith with their revels; they should restrain their rites from bringing Christian law into
contempt; they will certainly lose what has been permitted to them up until now unless
they refrain from unlawful actions. 39
The text of the law indicates that certain Jews - how many, we do not know,
but enough to gamer the attention of the emperor - performed a ceremony to
commemorate Haman's hanging that entailed reenacting the scene of his death.
Whether the Purim ritual only appeared anti-Christian because the burning of
the effigy resembled the burning of a cross, or whether it was actually intended
to ridicule and offend Christianity is unclear. A few years before Theodosius'
decree, Socrates, the fifth-century Byzantine historian, records a similar such
occurrence in a Syrian town called Inmestar. He writes thusly in his Historia
Eeclesiastiea (VII.16):
34 Thomton, ibid., 421-22.

3S The title of the poem is "bimte mispar," authored by the otherwise-unidentified "Me-
shullam." The poem can be found in Seder 'avodat yisra 'el, Western Ashkenazic version (ed.
Seligman Bar; ROdelheim, 1868),621-
36 See Michael Stanislawski's article in this volume.
37 In my presentation of the material, I rely exclusively on primary sources; scholars have
been too creative, in my opinion, in reconstructing Purim celebrations based on a few scattered
references; on this phenomenon, see Elliott Horowitz's historiographical remarks in "The Rite
to Be Reckless: On the Perpetration and Interpretation ofPurim Violence," Poetics Today 15
(1994): 9--54, and idem, Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy ofJewish Violence (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2006).
38 Horowitz, "The Rite to Be Reckless," 24.
39 Latin text and translation in Thornton, "The Crucifixion," 423.
Sometime after this, the Jews renewed their absurd and impious practices against the
Christians, and were punished (again). At a place called Inmestar, situated between Chal-
cis and Antioch in Syria, the Jews were amusing themselves in their usual way with a
variety of sports. In this way they indulged in many absurdities, and at length, impelled by
drunkenness they were guilty of scoffing at Christians and even Christ himself. In derision
of the Cross, and those who put their trust in the Crucified One, they seized a Christian
boy, and having bound him to a cross, began to laugh and sneer at him. But in a little while
they carried away their fury, and they scourged the child until he died under their hands.4O
According to Socrates, the Jews amuse themselves by crucifying a Christian boy

and burning him to death. Though Socrates never mentions the holiday ofPurim,
he accuses the Jews of drinking, a ritual certainly associated with Purim. 41 Given
the description in the Theodosian rescript, it is possible to imagine a similar cir-
cumstance here: Socrates accuses the Jews, in their drunken revelry, of reenact-
ing something that resembles a mock crucifixion. Socrates heightens the stakes
by describing the victim not as an effigy of Haman-confused-for-Jesus but as an
actual young Christian boy instead! Socrates very well might be inventing the
details - he seems to be most concerned with emphasizing the Jews' punishment,
a theme with which he begins and ends the section - but this account reveals
that, at least according to this Christian author, the Jews marked the holiday of
Purim by engaging in anti-Christian behavior. 42
In another contemporaneous source - Evagrius' Altercatio Simonis Iudaei et
Theophili Christiani (5 th c.) - the Jewish character, Simon, refers to Haman's
crucifixion on Purim and the annual Jewish practice of celebrating his downfall,
but denies (presumably because of accusations to the contrary) that such festivi-
ties equate Haman's death to Jesus' crucifixion:
We know plainly that Haman, cursed by our ancestors, was crucified through his own
offense. He had driven our race into ruin, and on the occasion of his death every year
we rejoice and hold festivals of prayer, which we have received by ancestral tradition ...
However, if Christ endured the yoke of this death and hung from the cross, why have we
not heard this very fact from our ancestors or found any passage in our scriptures so that
we would rejoice as ifhe were an enemy to our race?43
40
.
Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica VII.16. Giinther Christian Hansen, Sokrates Kirchenge-
schichte (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1995), 361; English translation in Eusebius, The History of
the Church,from Our Lords incarnation, to the twelfth year of the Emperor Mauricius Tiberius.
or the year of Christ 594 (London: Awnsham and John Churchill, 1709), 377.
4\ As early as rabbinic literature, e. g. b. Megillah 7b.
42 Socrates insinuates by the placement of this episode a connection with the murder and
dismembering of another Christian, a teacher named Hypatia, renowned and admired for her
philosophical genius (about which he writes in the section immediately preceding). The trope
of the Jews killing or sacrificing a human is not uncommon, and functioned as stock polemics.
Apollonius Molon (apud Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.148), for example, accuses the Jews of sacrificing
a Greek at the Jerusalem temple each year. See John M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean
Diaspora (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 272.
43 For the text and translation, see William Varner, Ancient Jewish-Christian Dialogues:
Athanasius and Zacchaeus. Simon and Theophilus, Timothy and Aquila: introductions, Texts,
Hanged and Crucified: The Book of Esther and Toledo! Yeshu 173
Though the Altercatio does not preserve a historical dialogue, the text might
reflect the way in which Jewish Purim celebrations - whatever rituals they
entailed - could have been interpreted by some neigh boring Christians, and the
ways in which such accusations were denied by Jews.
Later texts attest to persistent fears concerning rituals commemorating or re-
enacting Jesus' crucifixion on Purim among Jews during the medieval period. An
eighth-century Byzantine formula of abjuration reads: "I next curse those who
keep the festival of the so-called Mordecai on the first Sabbath of the Christian
fasts (Lent), nailing Haman to wood and then mixing with him the emblem of a
cross and burning them together, subjecting Christians to all kinds of impreca-
tions and a curse."44 According to this source, too, Purim ("the festival of the so-
called Mordecai") was marked by hanging Haman and burning him along with
a cross. During the season of Lent, when Christians prepared for the upcoming
commemoration of the death and resurrection of Christ (with prayers, almsgiv-
ing, self-denial), the Jews had the audacity to busy themselves with dramatic
performances (or parodies) of the crucifixion, as if the first time was not enough.
Thus Haman is Christianized and Purim is presented as an anti-Christian festival,
a day on which Christians were cursed by Jews - indeed, an anti-Lent!
So far, all of our sources for anti-Christian behavior on Purim were written
by those accusing the Jews of offensive behavior and blasphemy. A passing ref-
erence to the burning of Haman's effigy also appears in a fragmentary Geonic
responsum from the Cairo Geniza, in the context of a discussion about molekh
and b. Sanhedrin 64b. In this responsum, its Jewish author describes the intrica-
cies of the ritual, confirming that some Jews did, in fact, hang Haman and bum
him on the holiday:
... the young men make an effigy of Haman, and hang it on their roofs for four or five
days. And on Purim they build a bonfire, into which they cast this effigy, while the young
men stand around joking and singing, and holding a ring hung into the fire, waving it and
jumping from side to side through the fire. 45
This passage confirms the act of performing Haman's hanging. Their intent may
be surmised by texts such as the later commentary of one of the last Tosaphists,
Rabenu Avigdor of Vienna (13 th c.), who elaborates on the connection between
Haman's hanging and Jesus' crucifixion in his exegesis of the verse in Deuter-
and Translations (Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen Press, 20(4), 113. On the dating of The Disputa-
tion of Simon and Theophilus, see Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik eds., Jewish Believers
in Jesus: The Early Centuries (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2007), 569--70; see
also Andrew S. Jacobs, "Dialogical Differences: (De-)Judaizing Jesus' Circumcision," JECS
15 (2007): 291-335.
44 Thomton, "The Crucifixion," 424; for the text, see PG 1: 1457c; see also Jean Juster, Les
juift dans ['empire romain: leur condition juridique, economique. sociale (Paris: Paul Geuthner,
1914),1:115-19.
45 Louis Ginzberg, "Genizah Studies. First Article: Geonic Responsa," JQR 16 (1904): 652.
The text is a thirteenth-century fragment from a collection of Geonic responsa.
174 Sari! Kattan Gribetz
onomy 21 :23 ("cursed is he who hangs on the tree").46 Rabenu Avigdor justifies
the commandment to curse Haman on Purim (found in rabbinic literature) by
arguing, contra the usual interpretation ofthe biblical verse, that because Haman
was hanged, he must be cursed according to the biblical verse. The Babylonian
Talmud, the author reminds his reader, "makes this clear: anyone who has not
said 'cursed be Haman' has not fulfilled the obligation" of Deuteronomy 21 :23.47
Rabenu Avigdor then shifts his focus to Jesus:
... the Torah is teaching us that it is proper to curse a certain hanged man, who made him-
self into a god, for he was not hanged the way that most convicted criminals are hanged.
For most are hanged on a tree, and God was concerned that their honor not be utterly
disgraced, so He commanded: thou shalt not let the hanged man's corpse stay on the tree
overnight. But this man, Jesus, was hanged not on a tree, but on a [cabbage stalk]; and
concerning him, God commanded us a positive commandment to curse him any time that
we need to mention him, and thereby to fulfill this positive commandment. And he was
called Yeshu, which is [an acronym for] 'may his name and memory be blotted out.' And
anyone who mentions a wicked person, and does not immediately follow the name with a
curse, violates a positive commandment, as it is written, 'let the name of the wicked rot'
(Proverbs 10:7).48
As opposed to all other criminals who are hanged on trees and removed before
night, as per the biblical commandment, and are therefore not cursed, Jesus was
hanged on a cabbage stalk instead of a tree and left overnight. and thus he is a
curse ("for an impaled body is an affront to God ... ") and must be cursed by
others. 49 The end result, of course, is that there is a commandment, a biblical
sanction, to curse not only Haman but also Jesus. Though Rabenu Avigdor does
not specify that such cursing should occur on Purim, such a custom would make
perfect sense to those who follow the logic of this kind of argument. Moreover,
Rabenu Avigdor's discourse on Jesus' crucifixion on a cabbage stalk relies on
the same tradition from Toledot Yeshu; here, again, Toledot Yeshu is linked to the
story of and practices associated with Purim.
Beginning in the fifth century and continuing through the medieval period, the
celebration ofPurim was, as our evidence suggests, entangled with anti-Christian
rituals, and Haman was often identified with Jesus. Purim, with its increasingly
canivalesque features and reversal of social roles, continued to be a day for acting
46 Avigdor ben Yitshak haKohen, Se/er peroshim upesaqim 'al hatorah lerabenu avidgor
tsar/ati (ed. I. Hershkovitz; Jerusalem: Mekhon Harere Kedem, 1996),414. This is, admittedly,
a late source. I bring it here to illustrate one of the many ways that Haman and Jesus have been
paralleled, not to suggest that this source preserves an older interpretation or introduces the
association of the two figures for the first time.
47 Ibid.; the commandment to curse Haman is found more explicitly in Bereshit Rabbah 49: I.
48 Ibid. The brackets within the text indicate that the text has been reconstructed according to
printed editions and manuscripts. The last line refers to a passage from Bereshit Rabbah 49: J.
49 The section about Jesus' crucifixion on a cabbage stalk relies on the tradition from Toledol
Yeshu.
out anti-Christian sentiments well into the early modern and modern periods. For
example, a 1705 document preserved in the Berlin State Archive depicts Jews
celebrating Purim during Holy Week with masquerade, music, and the hanging
of Haman, and the 1750 charter of Frederick the Great ofPrussia urged the Jews
to abstain from various practices that offended Christians, including "all improper
excesses in their festivals, particularly during the so-called Feast of Haman, or
Purim."50 Haman - mocked, hanged, burned on Purim - was perceived by many
Jews during these times as a double or counterpart of Jesus. Moreover, Haman
became a prototype for Christianity more generally in the medieval period. 51 Not
only was Purim highly polemical, it also contained elements of hope and per-
ceived strength. The Book of Esther- the story of the salvation of the Jews from
the hands of the evil and dangerous Haman - and the celebration of Purim thus
also symbolized the hoped-for triumph of the Jews over their present-day Chris-
tian enemies. Toledot Yeshu's use oftropes and motifs from the texts associated
with the holiday ofPurim, then, can be understood not as aberrant exceptions but
as part of a broader, widespread, and long-lasting historical trend.
Let us end this historical section with one last vivid visual example that paral-
lels in several ways Toledot Yeshu's use of allusions to the Book of Esther. In the
Worms Mahzor (late thirteenth century), the hanging of Haman and his ten sons
is depicted almost identically to contemporaneous Christian images of Jesus
and the Tree of Jesse, and several other mahzorim (e. g. the Dresden-Wroclav
Mahzor, the Leipzig Mahzor, and the Hamrnelburg Mahzor) depict Haman's
hanging in ways that strongly parallel, and thus invert, Christian manuscript il-
luminations of Jesus and the Tree of Life from the same period. 52 Haman is visu-
ally conflated with Jesus in these Jewish manuscript paintings, again reinforcing
the association of the two characters in the imagination of the artists and then
of those who used the manuscripts. Kogman-Appel interprets the message of
these images in two ways. On the one hand, they invert the Christian anti-Jewish
implications that the original images of Jesus held by presenting the scene as
the humiliating denouement of Haman 's plans. On the other hand, however, the
violent illustrations also served to dissuade Jews from accepting Christianity
through demonstrating the violent punishment of Haman-as-Jesus (it is no longer
50 Horowitz, Reckless Rites, 39. One need not look to the medieval or modem period,
however, for Purim's camivalesque character. Already the Babylonian Talmud records Rava's
instructions, that a person must get drunk on Purim until he cannot distinguish between "cursed
be Haman" and "blessed be Mordecai," and then recounts a story about two rabbis who became
so drunk that one killed the other (b. Megillah 7b). Celebration and violence are already inter-
woven in this text (the story might attempt to temper the injunction).
SI See Kogman-Appel's vivid demonstration of the association of crusaders with Haman in
medieval midrashim, "The Tree of Death," 196--99.
52 See the images collected by Kogman-Appel in Between the Picture and the Word (Figures
262-67), and her analysis of the texts ("The Tree of Death," 187-203). On other depictions of
Haman's hanging, see Horowitz, Reckless Rites, 93-99.
the tree of everlasting life that is depicted in these Jewish images but the tree
of violent death!). These two goals - retelling a Christian narrative on Jewish
terms (both mocking the Christians and empowering the Jews), and discourag-
ing affinity with Christianity by those who were attracted to the faith - are two
concerns shared by Toledo! Yeshu, as I have argued above. Rather than beginning
with the Book of Esther and incorporating inverted Christian symbols, as these
mahzorim do, Toledot Yeshu is an example of the reverse phenomenon: the text
begins with an inverted story about Jesus and incorporates allusions to Haman
and the Purim story. Both draw on the association between Haman and Jesus
and the long tradition of anti-Christianity on Purim to convey their anti-Christian
ideas and sentiments, but in different - indeed opposite - ways.
Toledot Yeshu as Megillah
The allusions to the Book of Esther may not have been utilized only to fore-
ground certain themes in Toledot Yeshu. There may have been another purpose,
or another reason, and here I begin a tentative suggestion that I propose with
some hesitation due to the inconclusive nature of the evidence. Perhaps these
allusions to the Book of Esther within the text of Toledot Yeshu hint at the litur-
gical use of Toledot Yeshu, similar to the use of the Megillah of Esther, a text
read aloud liturgically on the holiday ofPurim. In medieval Europe Jewish com-
munities celebrated their triumphs in various local disputes with Christians by
establishing festivals in the month of Adar, around the holiday of Purim, called
"Special Purims" or "Second Purims." In honor of these days, they wrote ac-
counts ofthe events that led them to the celebration and then recited the accounts
publicly, as one would the Book of Esther in synagogue. 53 They equated their
own situations with the story of Esther such that the Christians assumed the roles
of Haman and his sons in the different renditions. For example, when the Jewish
community was saved in 1236 from an anti-Jewish riot following the murder ofa
Christian fisherman by Jews, the Jews ofNarboqne, in Southern France, declared
a Special Purim to commemorate their salvation. 54 Toledot Yeshu might be seen
in a genre similar to that of Second Purim megillot, even if it was not associated
with a particular Second Purim celebration as such. 55 The allusions to the Book
of Esther would thus point to a performative use of the text of Toledot Yeshu.
53 Joshua E. Bums, 'The Special Purim and the reception of the Book of Esther in the Hel-
lenistic and early Roman Eras," Journalfor the Study ofJudaism 37 (2006): 15-16; YosefH.
Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 1982),47-48.
54 Yerushalmi provides numerous other examples as well, Zakhor, 47-48.
55 I write "similar to" because the phenomenon of "Second Purims" begins later than the
typical dating of Toledot Yeshu's earliest compositions and because there is no evidence that
"Second Purims" applied to past historical events such as the life or crucifixion of Jesus.
Hanged and Crncified: The Book of Esther and Toledo! Yeshu I 77
If Toledot Yeshu was recited or even performed, when might this have oc-
curred? One possible communal context for the reading of Toledot Yeshu beyond
the month of Adar is the fast of the 9th (or even lOth) of Tevet, commemorated
during the winter, often around or sometimes even on Christmas day. Megillat
Ta 'anit Batra states that on the 9th day ofTevet, fasting is required, but rather than
providing an explanation for the fast, as it does for all the other fasts it lists, it
suspiciously adds that "the rabbis did not record why."56 Some medieval Jews be-
lieved that this date was the day of Jesus' birth (in 1122, Abraham bar Hiyya cal-
culated that 25 December fell out in certain years on the 9 th ofTevet, including the
year of Jesus' actual birth).57 It would be reasonable to read Toledot Yeshu, which
begins in most manuscripts (though not in the Aramaic fragments) with Jesus'
birth narrative, on the day on which he was said to have been born. This theory of
the ninth of Tevet as the day on which Toledot Yeshu might have been recited is
further supported by the fact that others associated the ninth ofTevet with the day
on which Shimon Qefa, the hero of the Toledot Yeshu narrative, died (a tradition
traceable to the eleventh century).58 To be sure, these explanations are not mutu-
ally exclusive. Jews may have at once linked the day with Jesus' birth and with
the death of Shimon Qefa. The connection between both the problem (Jesus) and
the solution (Shimon Qefa) on the same day would have made the ninth ofTevet
a most appropriate date for the recitation of this text. Further strengthening the
link between this text and the holiday of Purim, it is worth noting that the ninth
ofTevet was also considered by some (including R. Moses Isserles) to be the day
on which Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus, based on Esther 2: 16. 59
While the ninth ofTevet was not among the most popular fasts ofthe year, the
tenth of Tevet, just one day later, was widely commemorated as the day on which
a siege was placed on Jerusalem during the time of Nebuchadnezzar. This day,
too, became an opportunity for reciting anti-Christian liturgy in the synagogue
because of its proximity in certain years to the celebration of Christmas, Jesus'
birthday. Avraham Fraenkel, in a comment on a piyyut most likely composed for
the Fast of the Tenth ofTevet, writes that the poem's anti-Christian character is
not surprising, given that it was recited on this particular day:
This fast day often falls right around the time of Christmas, according to the Julian
calendar (though it did not in the year 1044 [the year of this poem's composition]). In
twelfth-century Ashkenaz, there was a phenomenon that paytanim would write bitterly
anti-Christian piyyutim to be recited on the Tenth of Tevet ... 60
56 For a detailed study of the significance of the fast of the 9th ofTevet. see Sid Z. Leiman,
"The Scroll of Fasts: The Ninth of Tebeth," JQR 74 (1983): 174-95.
57 Leiman, ibid., 182-85.
58 Leiman, ibid., 185-92.
59 Leiman, ibid., 180.
60 Avraham Fraenkel, Piyyute R. Yehi 'el bar Avraham meroma: avi R. Natan ba 'al he 'arnkh
(Jerusalem: Mekize Nirdamim, 2006), 57, n.10, emphasis added. Fraenkel has indicated that
178 Sarit Kaftan Gribetz
Again, Toledot Yeshu would complement such anti-Christian poetry written for
the fast of the Tenth of Tevet.
Whether or not the Jews chose to recite or perfonn Toledot Yeshu on the ninth
or tenth of Tevet, there is (albeit relatively late) attestation of the custom of re-
citing the text on Christmas Eve. In the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century,
Johann Pfefferkom writes that the Jews read Toledot Yeshu secretly on Christmas
night, as does the Jewish convert to Christianity Emst Ferdinand Hess in his
1598 Juden Geissel. 61 Samuel Friedrich Brenz and other converts mention this
custom in the early seventeenth century as well. 62 In addition to these secondary
accounts about this custom, the text of Toledot Yeshu might also allude to such a
practice. The Strasbourg manuscript preserves the bizarre story in which Judas
Iscariot defeats Jesus following a magical flying contest by urinating on him.63
The story ends with an etymology: Christmas is called Weihnachten because the
Christians weep (weinen) on this night (nacht), to commemorate Jesus' defeat
and defilement. 64 It is possible that the author concludes his story with this (in-
correct) etymology because the story (along with the rest of the text) was recited
on Christmas day. In another version of Toledot Yeshu, it is not Christmas (Wei-
hnachten) that is referenced but Easter (Pascha), perhaps a corruption of the text
or a deliberate change that might allude to the text's use on Easter night, another
he plans to elaborate on the subject of these anti-Christian poems composed for the tenth of
Tevet in a future publication.
61 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 9 if.; Marc Shapiro, "Torah Study on Christmas Eve,'tJourna/ of
Jewish Thought and Philosophy 8 (1999): 334-35.

62 Samuel Friedrich Brenz, Judischer Abgestreiffier Schlangenbalg reprinted in Johann Wiil-
fer, Theriacajudaica ad examen revocata (Nilrnberg, 1681),2; Stanislawski mentions this in
his article in this volume. See also Elisheva Carlebach, Divided Souls: Converts from Judaism
in Germany, 1500-1750 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 213f., and the references
in Marc Shapiro, "Torah Study," 319-53.
63 The act of Judas defiling Jesus could evoke the medieval Jewish practice of insulting
images of the Holy Family by connecting them to latritv:s. Ivan Marcus, "A Jewish-Christian
Symbiosis," in Cultures of the Jews: A New History (ed. David Biale; New York: Schocken
Books, 2002), 479 fr. Marcus mentions that Jesus is already connected to excrement in b.
Giftin 56b and in Eliezer ben Nathan's account of the martyrs of Worms in 1096: "in the end
they regarded the object of the enemy's veneration as no more than slime and dung." He also
mentions Rigord's list of reasons for the expulsion of the Jews in 1182 (King Philip Augustus
of France's ecclesiastical court biographer) and a letter written by Pope Innocent IIJ in 1205 to
the archbishop of Sens and the bishop of Paris detailing the excesses of the Jews as evidence
for accusations of this type of be havi or (Marcus, "A Jewish-Christian Symbiosis," 479-80).
64 In this particularly vivid scene, Jesus and Judas Iscariot engage in a magical flying contest.
Jesus raises his hands to the heavens and flies into the sky like an eagle. Judas follows suit,
but neither man is victorious until Judas urinates on Jesus, bringing him to the ground. "And
because of this act, they weep on their night ... " This line might allude to the cries of the Jews
as they feared death in the desert and threatened to return to Egypt in Numbers 14:1, "and the
nation wept on that night."
Hanged and Crucified: The Book 0/ ESlher and Toledot Yeshu 179
time during which Jews did not leave their homes for fear of Christian violence
and might have been encouraged by such a tale. 6s
While in the first half of this paper I argued that Toledot Yeshu's allusions to
the Book of Esther drew connections between the story of Purim and the story
of Christianity's origins within the context of existing anti-Christian overtones
on the holiday of Purim, in this section I have suggested that the parallel drawn
between Yeshu and Haman casts the text of Toledot Yeshu as a type of megillah
that could be (and may have been) performed in a communal setting, similar to
the Book of Esther.
Conclusion
Above, I have made three arguments about the relationship between Toledot
Yeshu, the Book of Esther and the holiday of Purim. First, I analyzed textual
allusions to the Book of Esther in several Toledot Yeshu manuscripts and argued
that the authors of Toledot Yeshu had the Book of Esther (among other biblical
texts) in mind as they constructed the story of Jesus' life. The references to the
Book of Esther served primarily two functions. First, equating the threat of Jesus
and Christianity to kill or spiritually destroy the Jews with Haman's plans to
decimate the Jewish people served to portray Christianity as an existential threat
to the Jewish people. The implicit parallel, however, also suggests that the Jews
can defeat Christianity just as they defeated Haman. Moreover, Toledot Yeshu,
understood not only as a polemic but also as a parody of the story of Jesus' life,
fits well with the spirit ofPurim, a carnivalesque holiday associated with drink-
ing and merrymaking and, eventually, parodies and mocking storytelling. 66 In
my second argument, I sought to explain Toledot Yeshu's references to the Book
of Esther in light of evidence that the celebration of Purim was already associ-
ated with anti-Christianity as early as the fifth century and through the medieval
period. Imperial documents, ecclesiastical accounts, fictional adversus judaeos
dialogues, and internal Jewish texts such as a responsum and a biblical commen-
tary confirm that Jews engaged in rituals on Purim that were at least interpreted
as, but likely also intended to be, anti-Christian. The association between Purim
and anti-Christianity has been noted by previous scholars (as early as Jacques
Basnage and Heinrich Graetz, and most recently by T. C. G. Thornton, ElIiott
Horowitz and Kogman-Appel), but not usually in connection with Toledot Yeshu
65 See Stanislawski's paper in this volume.

66 Daniel Sperber, Minhagei Yisra 'el: Meqorol veloledol (8 vols.; Jerusalem: Mossad Harav
Kook, 1989-2007), 6:201-2 ("Purim Spiel" and "Masks"). The Aramaic poem with which I
began the paper might be a very early example of this phenomenon as well.
and its narrative construction. 67 The authors or compilers of the various Toledot
Yeshu compositions must have drawn on existing associations between Purim
and anti-Christianity as they employed allusions to the Book of Esther in their
text. Toledot Yeshu's allusions to the Book of Esther, understood within this
historical context, thus served not only as isolated allusions but also triggered
broader associations between the tale of Esther and Haman and the story of Jesus
and the origins of Christianity. Beyond the intent of the authors, the readers of
Toledot Yeshu must have understood the text's allusions to the Book of Esther
within this broader cultural context as well (the scribal notes above are but two
examples). In the third argument, I suggested that Toledot Yeshu might have been
used liturgically or performatively as a megillah in a similar or parallel way to
the use of the Book of Esther on Purim or other megillot on Second Purims. J
identified 9 and 10 Tevet, Christmas, Easter and even Purim as likely days of
the year on which Toledot Yeshu could have been read; at least for later periods,
there is some evidence for the recitation of Toledot Yeshu on Christmas Eve. This
final argument, however, remains merely a tentative suggestion.
Much scholarship on Toledot Yeshu has focused on delineating the text's
genre and purpose. 68 Was Toledot Yeshu considered a sincere historical account
of Jesus' life, a parody of Jesus, a counter-gospel, a polemic, a folktale? Was
Toledot Yeshu written in order to mock Christian beliefs about their foundational
figure or to earnestly tell the ("true") story of Jesus from a Jewish perspective
(that is, to reveal what really transpired at Jesus' conception and throughout his
life)? By studying Toledot Yeshu's use of allusions to the Book of Esther, I have
reconsidered the questions of Toledot Yeshu's genre and purpose. Like the Book
of Esther, which interweaves history with parody, Toledot Yeshu migltt best be
understood as straddling these two genres, presenting the historical story of
Jesus' life as worthy of mockery and ridicule. The purpose of Toledot Yeshu's
composition, when read through its allusions to the story ofPurim, was not only
to present a historical-satirical account of Jesus' life but also to emphasize the
gravity of Christianity's danger and to encourage the Jews with the promise of
their eventual triumph over the competing religiQn based on the precedent of the
Jews of Shushan 's defeat of Haman.
67 The one exception [ have found is Biale's passing reference to Midrash Esther Rabbah in
his analysis of Toledot Yeshu, as discussed above ("Counter-History," 135).
68 See for example Biale, "Counter-History," 130-45.
Meaningful Nonsense:
A Study of Details in Toledot Yeshu
Michael Meerson
A statement that the Toledot Yeshu contains many weird passages sounds hope-
lessly banal, like saying that there is a tree in a forest. Apparently, the authors
of Toledot Yeshu, whose main goal was to mock and offend their religious
opponent(s), could not care less about realistic presentation of anything in their
satire. On the other hand, why would they use empty metaphors that would
mean nothing either to their enemies or their friends, instead of exploiting con-
temporary symbolism and well-known circumstances of their lives? Here, the
word contemporary is key, signifying that not only modem scholars, but, also,
medieval scribes and editors of the Toledot Yeshu, could be puzzled by separate
motifs in this treatise, which, once detached from their original environment,
had lost all significance. While most modem scholars ignore these motifs as
nonsense, the medieval copyist tried to adjust them to the story, to present them
as logical, if not natural, embellishments of the narrative. Why did Judah and
Yeshu have to fight in the air?, the reader of the Aramaic Toledot might ask, and
the later versions readily explain: it is because Yeshu wanted to surpass Judah
in magical powers, and to prove that the Biblical passage Icy yqqaheny selah
(Psalms 49: 16) refers to him.' Why didn't the priests foresee that Yeshu was go-
ing to steal the Ineffable Name from the temple? It is because, at the moment of
Yeshu's entering to the temple, he already was a skilled magician, able to evade
the priests' notice. 2 Is not Yeshu right, arguing that Moses was inferior to Jethro,
since he had learned practical wisdom from him? No, he is not! For the true
superiority of Moses was revealed through his ability to learn. 3 Such educated
I In manuscripts of the Wagenseil group, Yeshu boasts of being able to rise to the heaven,
while Judah is not: ve- 'atahyhudah 'al tavo 'shamah (e. g., London JC 54, Leipzig BH 17.35-
51, Paris AIU H 222a). The passage from Psalms 49:16 is quoted in the longer Italian (e.g.,
Rostock Orient. 38) and the longer Yemenite manuscripts (e. g., Cambridge Univ. Lib. T.-S. Or.
455), and also in Mss. Strasbourg BnU 3974 and Amsterdam Hs. Ros. 414.
2 See, e. g., Cambridge Harvard Houghton Lib. 57 (Wagenseil): 'ekh henikhu ha-kohenym
bene 'aharon ha-qedoshym likanes 'ella' vadda 'y be-shem tum 'a ve-kyshufpa 'al 'et ha-kkol.
The "Slavic" version (for this classification see Riccardo Di Segni, 11 vangelo del ghetto,
(Rome: Newton Compton, 1985) explains that Yeshu learned magic in the Galilee before com-
ing to Jerusalem.
3 New York JTS 2235 ("the shorter Italian"): shelomoh 'aderabbah shom 'a le- 'etsa hakham
182 Michael Meerson
explanations could more or less satisfY the reader of the Toledot, but they still
may disappoint the scholar eager to unearth initial microforms concealed under
the debris of these explanations and embellishments. Thus, the goal of the pres-
ent study is to treat the apparent nonsense seriously, assuming that the author of
the Toledot did not speak absurdities because ridiculous things popped up in his
mind, but, rather, that he considered these things completely normal because he
saw, heard or read them.
The "meaningless" details which I am going to discuss here are far more
extreme than those mentioned in the examples above, and, although there are
a lot of them throughout the story, I shall focus only on those found in the pas-
sage describing Yeshu's death and burial. The demonstrably earliest narrative of
Yeshu's execution appears in De Judaicis superstitionibus of Agobard,4 a bishop
of Lyon, and stands in total disagreement with all other versions of the Toledot:
being caught and condemned as a despicable sorcerer, Yeshu was suspended on
aforkifurca), and then killed with a stone in the head. Since it is unlikely that a
bishop of Lyon could confuse thefork with the cross, Agobard must have actu-
ally transmitted this peculiar detail from his Jewish contemporaries. But may
this observation have more than an antiquarian value?
The Fork
The answer would follow from an explanation of why the authors of Agobard's
Toledot had supplanted the cross with the fork. According to Plutarch, the fork
denoted a piece of wood tied to a pole of a wagon - a very vague biit the best
available description; the rest is the scholar's conjectures. s Perhaps we can
imagine the fork as an A-shaped gallows holding a head inserted in the triangle,
and hands tied to the side beams. Plutarch also describes how the fork was used:
primarily, it was considered to be the slave's punishment, and a slave who had
committed a fault was severely scourged and had to carry afork around through
the neighborhood. After that, he would be contelllPtuously calledforcifer, and no
one who saw this slave undergoing his punishment would ever trust him again.
ve-zeh hayah bosh IiImod mi-shefel ha- 'anashim ve-ken david 'amar mi-kkol melamde hiskalti
ve-nitbatel Ito 'anal ha-mamzer be-naqel.
4 PL 104:87-88. On this subject see the article of Peter Schlifer in this volume.
5 Cor. 24: ~v {}e flEYUAT] xOAao~ obwmu ltAT]flIlEAr,oavto; d !;UAOV clflU!;T]£ 4> tOV QUIl-0V
UltEgEl{}OUOLV, CtgUI-lEVO£ {}LE!;EA8OL ltaga t~V ymVlaOLv. 0 yag muto lta8wv xai OIjJ8Ei£ UltO
tr,v ouvoLxwv xai YELtovwv OUXElL ltWlLV ElxEv. fxaAEito bl:: IjJOUgXLIjJEg: (, yag ot"EllivE<;
UltOOtUt1]V xai mr,gLYflu, toUto 'PWflUtOL ljJOuQxuv 6VOfLU~OUOLV. - "And it was a severe
punishment for a slave who had committed a fault, ifhe was obliged to take the piece of wood
with which they prop up the pole of a wagon, and carry it around through the neighborhood.
And he was called 'furcifer'; for what the Greeks caU a prop, or support, is called "furea" by
the Romans."
Meaningfol Nonsense: A Study 0/ Details in Toledot Yeshu 183
In fact, however, not only slaves but also those found guilty of high-treason
were sometimes condemned to the scourging on afork. In the Epitome of Livy,
a deserter was "sent under afork, chastised with rods," but then again, sold as a
slave for one penny, because, as Livy explains, people who refuse fighting for
their freedom don't deserve it, and should be punished in a way appropriate for
slaves. 6 The important thing demonstrated by these passages is that the fork was
not a tool of death per se. To be sure, the scourging could serve as a prelude to
the capital punishment, and a criminal, in exceptional cases, could be beaten to
death. 7 While the deserter of Livy obviously survived the punishment, another
soldier, Horatius, who, in a spasm of patriotism, killed his sister Horatia because
she fell in love with an enemy of the state, had to be scourged to death as a
usurper or the state's prerogative of punishment and, therefore, a traitor (A b Urb.
1.24--26). Nevertheless, in most literary sources the suspension on afork appears
as a separate punishment that means only the scourging, regardless of whether
this did, or did not, lead to death.
Speculations aside, the suspension on a fork - involving, potentially, either
the scourging or the killing - cannot be confused with the standard methods of
capital punishment in the Republic and early Empire: crucifixion (causing death
from strangulation), decapitation, burning alive, and throwing to wild beasts.s
This group of penalties can be found also in the sixth-century Corpus Juris Ci-
vilis (529 CE), with one difference, however: the fork has now supplanted the
cross. 9 Ulpian in his treatise concerning the proconsul's authority explains that
6 Periochae 55: P. Cornelio Nasica (cui cognomen Serapion fuit ab inridente Curiatio
trib. pleb. impositum) et Dec. Iunio Bruto coss. dilectum habentibus in conspectu tironum res
saluberrimi exempli/acta est. Nam C. Matienius accusatus est apud tribunos pi., quod exer-
citum ex Hispania deservisset, damnatusque sub furca diu virgis caesus est et sester/io nummo
veniit. - "When the consuls Publius Cornelius Nasica (whose surname Serapio was invented
by the irreverent tribune of the plebs Curiatius) and Decimus Junius Brutus were holding the
levy, something happened in front of the recruits that served as an example: Gaius Matienus
was accused before the tribunes because he had deserted the Spanish army, and was, after he
had been condemned, sent under the "fork," chastised with rods, and sold for one sesterce."
7 E. g., the scene ofNero's suicide in Svetonius: Inter moras perlalos a cursore Phaonti codi-
cil/os praeripuit legitque se hostem a senatu iudicatum et quaeri, ut puniatur more maiorum,
interrogavitque, quale id genus esset poenae; et cum comperisset nudi hominis cervicem inseri
furcae, corpus virgis ad necem caedi ... - "While he hesitated, a letter was brought to Phaon by
one of his couriers. Nero snatching it from his hand read that he had been pronounced a public
enemy by the senate, and that they were seeking him to punish in the ancient fashion; and he
asked what manner of punishment that was. Then he learned that the criminal was stripped,
fastened by the neck in a/ork and then beaten to death with rods."
8 See, e. g., 19natius, Ad Rom. 5: 1tuQ xal m:auQO£ BTJQuilv OUm:<lOfLC; ... E1t' fIlE EQXE08woav,
110VOV Lva 'ITJoou XQL<TtOU E1tL1:Uxw. - "Let fire and the cross; let the crowds of wild beasts ...
come upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ"; and Tertullian, Ad Nat. 1.18: Et utique non
gladio aut cruce aut bestiis punienda sunt nomina (i.e., Chrestiani). - "Surely, surely, names
(Christians) are not things which deserve punishment by the sword, or the cross, or the beasts."
9 Dig. 48.19.28: Callis/ratus libro sexto de cognitionibus: pr. Capitalium poenarum/ere isli
gradus sum. Summum supplicium esse videtur ad furcam damnatio. item vivi cremalio: quod
184 Michael Meerson
"persons guilty of sacrilege should be thrown to wild beasts, others be burned

alive, and still others be hanged on afork." Those, however, who deserve such
harsh penalties are not petty debauchers, but the leaders of "an armed gang,
(who) have broken into a temple, and carried away the gifts of the gods by
night."1O Another passage from Paul summarizes crimes and punishments in
perfect accord with all aforementioned sources from the Early Republic to the
Late Empire:
(I) Deserters who go over to the enemy, or who reveal our plans, shall either
be burned alive, or hanged on afork.
(2) Instigators of sedition and of tumult, which result in the uprising of the
people, shall, in accordance with their rank, either be hanged upon afork, thrown
to wild beasts, or deported to an island. 11
Taking into account that all jurists whose works were included in the 48 th book
of the Digest, namely, Ulpian, Calli stratus and Paul, wrote in the third century
CE, one can be surprised to find no mention of the cross (crux) among the capital
penalties. This must be the result of the editor's zeal: since the crucifixion was
abolished by Constantine, the crux was excerpted, and the forea interpolated
retrospectively in the legal sources. In addition to this, certainly, thefork actually
took the place of the cross, and a criminal sentenced to the suspension on afork
was not only scourged and dishonored as before but always scourged to death.
Thus, in the eyes of Agobard, the suspension on afork had nothing to do with
the crucifixion: the former was reserved for the vilest criminals of his time, and
perhaps still bore the old connotation of the extreme indignity. For the Toledot
Yeshu, however, everything fell into the right place, for it was a criminal accused
of sacrilege, of leading an armed band, of the theft in a temple, and: finally, of
instigating a tumult, who should be sentenced to death on a fork. It is hard to
believe that, on the part of Jews, it was an intentional perversion of the Christian
tradition regarding the crucifixion; it was, rather, negligence of this tradition, on
quamquam summi supp/icii appellatione merito contineretur; tamen eo. quod postea id genus
poenae adinventum est, posterius primo visum est. Item capitis amputatio. Deinde proxima
morti poena metalli coercitio. Post deinde in insulam df!fJortatio. - "The following is the grada-
tion of capital crimes. The extreme penalty is considered to be sentence to the fork, or burning
alive. Although the latter seems, with good reason, to have been included in the term 'extreme
penalty,' still, because this kind of punishment was invented subsequently, it appears to come
after the first, just as decapitation does. The next penalty to death is that of labor in the mines.
After that comes deportation to an island."
10 Dig. 48.13.7 (6): Ulpianus Iibro septimo de officio proconsulis: Et scio multos et ad
bestias damnasse sacrilegos, nonnullos etiam vivos exussisse, alios vero inforca suspendisse.
Sed moderanda poena est usque ad bestiarum damnationem eorum, qui manu facta templum
efJregerunt et dona dei in noctu tulerunt.
11 Dig. 48.19.38: Paulus libro quinto sententiarum: pr. Si quis aliquid ex metallo principis
vel ex moneta sacraforatus sit, poena metalli et exilii punitur. I. Transfogae ad hostes vel con-
siliorum nostrorum renuntiatores aut vivi exuruntur aut forcae suspenduntur. 2. Actores sed-
itionis et tumultus populo concitato pro qualitate dignitatis aut infurcam tolluntur aut bestiis
obiciuntur aut in insulam deportantur.
Meaningful Nonsense: A Study ofDetails in Toledot Yeshu 185
the one hand, and good acquaintance with contemporary juristic and punitive
practices, on the other.
Not surprisingly, the fork could not mean much for those who lived consid-
erably later than the ninth century, and far away from southwest Europe. As a
result, it never surfaced again in any of the numerous Toledot Yeshu manuscripts.
In the Aramaic version, Yeshu died on a cross (tseliva ,), although at a certain
point he managed to escape, since he was able to fly. Instantaneously, he took
abode in Elijah's cave and closed the entrance, but Judah, who followed him,
commands, in quite the Ali-Baba spirit: "Entrance, entrance open up!" Yeshu
was recaptured, and the execution continued. Certainly, the tseliva' is not the
jurea, but on the other hand, both versions do agree in talking about one execu-
tion leading to Yeshu's death.
Juxtaposing the Aramaic and Agobard versions of the Toledot with their
thirteen-century "successors" leaves no place for a possibility of the direct
textual transmission. The Toledot Yeshu translated in 1285 by Raimundus Mar-
tinus l2 and, one hundred and fifty years later, by Thomas Ebendorfer l3 provides
the earliest evidence for a totally different narrative, using some of the familiar
motives, but clearly resonating with the canonical gospels, instead of a suppos-
edly genuine source. As expected, Yeshu now undergoes the "normal" bipartite
execution, borrowed from the New Testament's flagellation and crucifixion. The
author of the Toledot, however, split the execution and inserted, in between, the
motif ofYeshu 's escape, known already from the Geniza versions. Germinating
in a fertile soil of a religious satire, this motif soon developed into a story within
a story: in all manuscripts ofDi Segni's "Primo" group, Yeshu, being arrested,
imprisoned and tortured, nevertheless manages to escape to Antioch.14 He then
returns and commands his followers to accompany him on the Passover ascen-
sion to Jerusalem. A certain man, Gisa, betrays Yeshu; he get caught, tried again,
and finally executed. ls The Wagenseil manuscripts insert also the story of Judah
sneaking into Yeshu's camp and stealing the Ineffable Name from his leg. '6 Ar-
guably the latest, and most elaborate Tam u-Mu 'ad version uses the opportunity
to incorporate all suitable traditions that were not yet utilized by the preceding
12 Raimundus Martinus, Pugio Fidei (Paris: Apud Mathurinum Henault, 1651),2.8.6.

13 Falsitates Judeorom 1.1-12.16 (See Brigitta Callsen et at. eds. Das jiidische Leben
Jesu, "Toldot Jeschu ": die a/teste /ateinische Ubersetzung in den "Falsitates Judeorom" von
Thomas Ebendorfer [Wien: Oldenburg, 2003]).
14 Including all Yemenite and Bukhara manuscripts plus Di Segni's "Primo b" (Mss. New
York ITS 1491, Strasbourg BnU 3974, Budapest Kaufmann 299) and "Primo c" (Mss. Amster-
dam Hs. Ros. 414, New York ITS 2221).
IS Yeshu's disciples are tried in "Primo b" (see above), and he himse1fis tried by Pilate and
the Sanhedrin in "Primo c."
16 E.g, Mss. Cambridge Harvard Houghton Lib. 57, and a shorter version, Jerusalem Schock-
en Institute 04088.
186 Michael Meerson
portion of the Toledot:17 after the torture, Yeshu escapes to Antioch, and then to
Egypt (to learn or upgrade his magical skills). Upon his return to Jerusalem, Ye-
shu is betrayed, arrested and ... half-executed, for he escapes again, right from
the cross, in order to undergo the purifying baptism in the Jordan and regain his
magical powers. The sages and Judah then lure Yeshu to Jerusalem (compare to
Wagensei/); he and his disciples submit themselves to one more trial (compare
to "Primo"), and after all, Yeshu is killed.
There is a detail, however, equally meaningless in the Hebrew and Aramaic
Toledot, regardless of whether it is connected to Yeshu's escape (as in the Geniza
manuscripts), or the final stage of his punishment: the tool ofYeshu's execution
is replaced. The earliest version of this strange act (Ms. Cambridge Univ. Lib.
T.-S. Misc 35.87) is a complete puzzle - Yeshu flies away from the cross, but
he returns onto a cabbage root, where he finally dies. The author indicates no
reason for this substitution, allowing the future scribes and interpreters of the
Toledot to ask why and wonder.
The Flower
A cabbage plant could hardly make a decent gallows. Yet, according to later
versions of the Toledot Yeshu, it proved to be the only option, because all other
trees, thanks to Yeshu's magical tricks, refused to hold the weight of his body,
and broke immediately when sages tried to hang him. Fortunately, Judah recol-
lected that there was a marvelous plant in his garden, big like a tree, though not
really a tree - the giant cabbage; and, since cabbages escaped Yesfiu's notion,
the plant accepted him and did not break.
The earliest manuscripts of the "second wave" (late medieval) Toledot felt
compelled to explain this botanical paradox, adopting and slightly rewriting a
passage from b. Ketubbot 111 b that speaks of the Messianic era, when crops will
be plentiful and weeds gigantic. "No need to marvel at this," says R. Hiyya, "for
a fox once made his nest in a turnip and when the (remainder of the vegetable
was weighed), it was found (to be) sixty pounds in the pound weight of Sep-
phoris." "Why go so far?" related R. Simeon. "Our father left us a cabbage stalk
and we ascended and descended it by means ofa ladder." This conversation was
a source of the allusion in the corresponding passage in the Toledo!:
(Seeing that), they went and brought a stalk of some cabbage that does not belong to the
wood but to herbs and hanged him on it. And this is not a miracle because every year one
such cabbage springs up in the Sanctuary, and one hundred pounds of seeds fall from it. 18
17 E.g., Ms. Amsterdam Hs. Ros. 467.

18 Martinus, Pugio Fidei, 2.8.6: Abierunt itaque et adduxerunt stipitem unius caulis qui non
est de lignis. sed de herbis. et suspenderunt eum super eum. Nec est hoc mirum quia singulis
annis crescit tantum unus caulis in domo Sanctuarii. ut descendant de eo centum librae seminis.
MeaningfUl Nonsense: A Study ofDetails in Toledot Yeshu 187
Certainly, the giant cabbage stalk was considered a miracle, despite the effort of
the Toledo! editors, which at some point was redirected to rid the story of this ap-
parent nonsense instead of making sense of it. In ninetieth-century manuscripts
from Baghdad and Yemen, the cabbage stalk turns into a cabbage tree, or a "dif-
ferent tree of cabbage," or a "carob tree,"19 while the Italian editor makes it a
kind of palm-tree, figuratively called "cabbage,"20 or rewrites the story entirely:
Yeshu hid a parchment with the Ineffable Name under the trees in his garden.
One of the sages saw this and dug the parchment out. After that, sages were able
to hang Yeshu on a regular tree. 21 At the same time, these eighteenth-century
manuscripts still resonate of the explanatory tactics derived from the Ketubbot
passage: one of the sages had inherited a garden with a "cabbage" palm-tree
together with a detailed instruction in regards of who should be hanged on it,
and why.22It is clear, that the editors of the Toledot were literally wrestling with
the tradition of hanging Yeshu on a cabbage.
Similarly, modem scholars approach this botanico-philological enigma with
only two options: one, to explain the importance of cabbage in the Toledot by
another textual parallel, and another, to deny the importance, because of a scribal
mistake or sheer mockery that supposedly stood behind the first mention of a
cabbage as Yeshu's gallows. The suggestion of Schonfield that keruv (with the
kav) was a misspelling of haruv (carob; with the het) did not find support among
scholars, for the simple reason that there is no kharuv elsewhere in the texts,
except for one ninetieth-century manuscript from Yemen (see above).23 The
position of folklorists, who believe that the Toledot Yeshu chose the cabbage as
the most ridiculous plant for the most effective scorn, is better warranted. In the
Targum Sheni, when Haman was sentenced to death, all trees except ofthe cedar
declined being his gallows. 24 As well the story of Jack and the Bean-Stalk, with
all its possible prototypes, and the Baldur myth come to mind. 25 These findings
19 E.g, Ms. Letchworth Sassoon 793: ve-kelum gazar 'aleyhem huts mi- 'eylan haruv she-Io'
'alah 'al dde 'ato laqkhohu ve-talu 'oto 'ad ha- 'erev.
20 Ms. London Brit. Lib. Or. 10457: u-be- 'oto gan hayah 'ets 'ekhad shel keruv she-Io' hayah
ets 'amyty nivra' mi- 'ets ttamar (or: ttomer).
21 Ms. London Brit. Lib. Or. 3660.
22 Ms. Rostock Orient. 38.
23 Hugh Joseph Schonfield, According to the Hebrews: A New Translation of the Jewish life
of Jesus (the Toldoth Jeshu) with an Inquiry into the Nature of its Sources and Special Rela-
tionship to the Lost Gospel According to the HeblY!Ws (London: Duckworth, 1937),221-24.
Similarly rejected is a position of Louis Ginzberg, who himself misread berosh ( cypress) for
keruv. see "Ma'aseh Yeshu," in Genizah Studies in Memory of Doctor Solomon Schechter
(Ginze Schechter) (ed. Louis Ginzberg; 3 vols.; New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary
of America, 1928 [in HebrewD, 1:324-38.
24 Targum Sheni to Esther 7:9 (10).
25 The mother of Baldur, adjuring various plants that may harm his son, overlooked the
mistletoe, of which an arrow was made that killed Baldur. James George Frazer, Golden Bough:
A Study in Magic and Religion (3 vols., London: Macmillan and Co., 19(0),3:236-50.
188 Michael Meerson
of Helier, however, called up a stonn of criticism on the part of Krauss, who

accused him of picking curiosities regardless of context. 26 Indeed, the context
is important, unless a folklorist does not mind blending the Toledot Yeshu with
Nordic tales.
A hypothesis of Newman stands out as the only attempt to treat the cabbage
stalk as a pointer to a certain cultural phenomenon, however peculiar it may
seem. According to Newman, the legend of Adonis' death stands at the basis of
the "cabbage-motif' in the Toledot: a wild boar had pursued and killed Adonis;
after that, Aphrodite buried her lover in a garden of lettuces. 27 Finally, New-
man concludes that in the Toledot, the cabbage stalk appears to point the finger
at pagan ideas so amiably appropriated by the Christian tradition. Regardless
of whether I do or do not support this conclusion, I would like to emphasize a
couple of important details in Newman's argumentation: first, it was the Chris-
tian tradition, albeit derived from pagan, that introduced the "cabbage-motif':
in addition to John 19:41, there is Acta Pilati IX S (Sth c. CE), both talking about
a garden (hence Gethsemane) as the place of the crucifixion; and more specifi-
cally, there is the Coptic Book ofthe Resurrection of Christ by Bartholomew the
Apostle (Sth_ 7th centuries), where a gardener, Philogenes, takes the body of Jesus
away from a garden of vegetables, although with noble intentions, to embalm
it. Second, most scholarly discussions regarding the cabbage stalk, for some
reason, overlook the earliest and most important evidence for this tradition: in
the Aramaic versions of the Toledot Yeshu, the cabbage clearly conceals its own,
original and unexplained importance, while the tree-conjuration stories come
from a later embellishment that rather distract the researcher's attention than
help revealing the meaning of a cabbage stalk as Yeshu's gallows.~The same
holds true for all of the earliest references to the story crystallized in the Toledot:
"This is He," Tertullian writes, "whom His disciples secretly stole away, that it
might be said He had risen again, or the gardener abstracted, that his lettuces
might come to no hann from the crowds ofvisitants."28 Finally, Amulo repeats
this passage, with a particular reference to the Toledot Yeshu:
26 See Bemhard Helier, "Ober Judas Ischariotes in der jiidischen Legende," MGWJ 76
(1932): 33-42, and idem, "Ober das Alter der jiidischen Judas-Sage und des Toldot Jeschu,"
MGWJ 77 (1933): 198-2 \0 (esp. 201-4), and Samuel Krauss, "Neuere Ansichten iiber 'Toldoth
Jeschu,'" MGWJ 76 (1932): 586-603. Krauss, in his turn, assumes that the authors of the To-
ledot refer to a cherub (kheruv) or seraphim that can elevate a worthy person to heaven - show-
ing, at the same time, how different was the kheruv that "elevated" Yeshu.
27 See Hillel I. Newman, "The Death of Jesus in the 'Toledot Yeshu' literature," JTS 50
(1999): 59-79 (esp. 75-79), where he lists numerous references to this story as well as sup-
portive evidence to the fact that the legend of Adonis was well known among both Jews and
Christians, and that the similarity between Jesus and Adonis was obvious in the eyes of pagans.
28 Tertullian, Spect. 30.6: hic est, quem clam discentes subripuerunt, ut surrexisse dicatur. vel
hortulanus detraxit, ne lactucae suae frequentia commeantium adlaederentur.
... and their teacher Joshua cried out and ordered that he be quickly taken down from the
tree, and he was cast into a grave in a garden full of cabbages, lest their land be contami-
nated ... 29
While Newman was looking for mythological implications of the cabbage, I am

going to approach the question from a different perspective, namely, by looking
more closely at the cabbage plant. There is, perhaps, a simple explanation for
why this direction of inquiry has been heretofore ignored: our common percep-
tion of cabbage does not usually go beyond our own dietary habits, familiar, as
we are, with only a leafy globe chopped on our plates for soups or salads. Not
many of us can answer a simple question of what the notorious cabbage stalk
actually looks like, or, if it has flowers, what they look like. The most basic
observations about such facts may, however, show our negligence ofthese ques-
tions to be quite ill-advised.
Thus, the cabbage is a biennial plant, meaning that it takes two years to com-
plete its biological lifecycle. The garden cabbage must be harvested during the
first year, but the wild cabbage shows what can be expected in the second year of
its life - shortly before it begins to die, it shoots out a stem, unusually high for a
weed or vegetable, and sometimes reaches ten feet high. In fact, because of this
enormous stem, the cabbage was already by the fourth-century BCE considered
to be a "tree-herb":
For of under-shrubs and those of the pot-herb class some have the character of a tree, such
as cabbage and rue; wherefore some call these tree-herbs. 3o
The modern botanist, speaking about cabbage, lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli,

and turnip, refers to them as "cruciferous vegetables" or "crucifers," clearly
without any religious connotationY The yellow, cross-shaped flowers covering
the tall, tree-like stem of the cabbage plant can be accounted the origin of the
name "crucifer." Botanists, certainly, are not the only ones who might make such
associations, a fact that, itself, could make a decent conclusion to the present
inquiry. Yet there is more than this, and the cabbage appears in the Toledot Yeshu
not only because of its tall stem and cross-shaped flowers.
The next lead can also be found in Theophrastus' Enquiry. He knew three
kinds of cabbage: one with a smooth leaf (OUA,oql'lJA,Ot;), another with curly leaf
(A,£LoqnJA,Ot;), and Q<l<pavot; ayqi,a -literally, the field cabbage, identified as wild
29 Amulo of Lyon, Liber contra judaeos ad Carolum regem, ch. 25 (PL 116): (e)t concla-
mante, ac jubente magistro eorum Josue, celeriter de Iigno depositum; et in quodam horto
caulibus plena, in sepulcro projectum, ne terra eorum contaminaretur ... On this source also
see the article of Peter Schiifer in this volume.
30 Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. 1.3.4: "tWV "tE yo.Q q>Quyavw/')wv xat Aaxavw[)G>v EVta
110VOO"tEA£XTJ xat OLoV OEVOQOU q>umv EXOVl:a yivE"taL, Xa6altEQ Qaq>avo~ lttjyavov, 06Ev
xat xaAouoL nVE~ "to. "totau"ta OEVOQoAaxava.
31 See, e. g., Daniel Zohary and Maria Hopf, Domestication ofPlants in the Old World (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 199.
190 Michael Meerson
cabbage or wild mustard; surprisingly, both of these names refer to one and the
same plant, today known as Brassica oleracea, a kind of weed for modern bota-
nists, but a quasi-tree in antiquity.32 To be more specific, modern botanists argue
that the wild Brassica oleracea, including wild cabbage and wild (white) mus-
tard, have a common ancestor with Sinapis arvensis, wild black mustard; while
the first of two species has evolved into the cultivated cabbage and turnip (Bras-
sica rapa), the second has become the cultivated mustard (Brassica nigra).33
Brassica oleracea and Sinapis arvensis are hardly distinguishable, especially for
an untrained eye of a philologist, being the reason of a persistent inconsistency
in commentaries to Theophrastus, where gU<pClVOC; aYQlCl is sometimes identi-
fied as wild cabbage and sometimes as wild mustard. This inexactness is all the
more vindicated by the fact that the specific word for black mustard - OlVCl:rn -
is late. 34 In Greek literature, its earliest occurrence is in Matthew 13:31, while
Latin authors, who themselves knew many species of Brassica, borrow the word
instead of translating it. 35
The famous parable from Matthew 13:31-32 is certainly the climax of my
argument:
The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed (XQxxq> OLVUn:EW\;) that a man took and
sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest
garden plant and becomes a tree (!l£U;ov t&v A.UXUVWV EatLV XUL YLVEtat bEVbQov), so
that the wild birds come and nest in its branches.
Since, provided the common acquaintance with this gospel, no one would be
surprised by an occurrence of mustard in Christian or anti-Christian literature,
its twin-sister cabbage plant should not surprise us either. It is impossible to
tell exactly how these two branches of one tradition developed. Were there
two variants of the parable, both referring to the same plant but with different
words? Did they actually mean two different plants - wild cabbage and wild (be
it black or white) mustard - which were so similar that one finally supplanted
the other? Were cross-shaped flowers ever important for the authors and listeners
of the parable (provided that the cross became ~ manifest symbol of Christianity
only in the fourth century)? Although these questions remain without answers,
our hypothesis is not undermined: wild cabbage and wild mustard are almost
32 Theophrastus, Historia Plantarum 7.4.4; see also Don R. Brothwell and Patricia Broth-
well, Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples (New York: Praeger, 1969),
117-118.
33 K. M. Song et aI., "Brassica Taxonomy Based on Nuclear Restriction Fragment Length
Polymorphisms," Theoretical and Applied Genetics 75 (1988): 784-94; Geoffrey R. Dixon,
Vegetable Brassicas and Related Crucifers (Reading: Columns Design Ltd., 2(07), 4-8.
34 There is an opinion, however, that both olvam (first century CE and later) and vti:7tU (be-
fore the first century CE), refer to Brassica alba (white mustard; see LSJ) - a direct offspring
of Brassica orelacea.
3S Pliny (Nat.) mentions five, and Ps.-Dioscorides (De herbis femininis, and Curae her-
barum) twelve subtypes of cabbage (Brassica).
Meaningfol Nonsense: A Study ofDetails in Toledot Yeshu 191
indistinguishable subtypes of one floral kind; in oral transmission of Matthew's

parable, both of them might appear to signify the triumph of Christianity, while,
in a satire of this parable, both of them could be effectively used to signify its
ultimate failure. It is only, therefore, the luck of the draw that Brassica oleracea
sprang up as a mustard tree in Matthew and as a cabbage tree in the Toledot
Yeshu.
An occurrence of the cabbage-tradition in a Christian source, beside anti-
Judean attacks of Tertullian and Amulo, may support my argumentation. It is
not until the late Middle Ages, however, that we witness such an occurrence - a
remarkable story of "the cabbage-stalk ofEppendorf." In this legend, one female
gardener had planted a consecrated bread of Eucharist in her cabbage garden
in the hope that her cabbages would grow better, but, instead, a cabbage stalk
resembling the crucified Jesus grew up in the place where she had planted his
"body." This cabbage stalk was revered by the Cistercian nuns of Harvestehude
during the fifteenth century and was subsequently acquired by the Emperor
Rudolph the Second for the Imperial Schatzkammer.36 Such an amazing mirror
reflection of the Tertullian's lettuces could hardly travel from its source to the
Cistercians via the Toledot Yeshu, and must, therefore, testify to the existence
ofa Christian tradition (in addition to the Jewish satire) associating Jesus with
a cabbage stalk.
Having Yeshu executed, the Toledot soon grants us the next oddity. According
to Jewish law, a corpse may not remain on a tree overnight. Therefore, the sages
decide to bury Yeshu in ... a water trench. This is "generally speaking," because
places ofYeshu's burial vary in different versions of the text.
The Water
According to Agobard's version, Yeshu was buried next to an aqueduct. On the

following night the aqueduct was flooded, Yeshu's body disappeared, and was
never found. In an approximately contemporaneous version of the Geniza manu-
scripts, the place of burial is indicated as rahata' de-mayya' (Cambridge Univ.
Lib. T-S Misc 35.87), bet shaqeyya' de-mayya' (New York JTS 2529.1), and
barezya' (New York JTS 2529.1 37 and 2). These terms are not as unambiguous
as aqueduct, but ultimately can hardly mean anything else but a water conduit
or a reservoir. In both the aforementioned versions, Pilate commanded the Jews
to find Yeshu's body, and, while they failed in Agobard, R. Judah of the Geniza
36 Otto Beneke, Hamburgische Geschichten und Sagen (Hamburg: Perthes-Besser & Mauke,
1854), 153-56; Eduard Krohse, "Der Verbleib der wunderbaren Kohlwurzel aus Eppendorf,"
Milleilungen des Vereinsftir Hamburgische Geschichte 10 (1908): 58--60; Silke Urbanski, Ge-
schichte des Klosters Harvestehude 'In valle virginum' (Hamburg: Universitat Hamburg, 2001).
)7 This one reads barevya '.
192 Michael Meerson
version proved able to demonstrate Yeshu to Pilate (since it was he who removed
the body). After that, Judah reburied the corpse in the same water installation,
arguably despite the strict order of Pilate to bury Yeshu in a proper place, that
is, a cemetery. This persistent disobedience to the order of Pilate is all the more
strange because of the dubious importance of the act of disobedience. Was it re-
ally so significant to put Yeshu's body in water instead of earth, such that Judah
was willing to risk his life for it?
As in the case with the cabbage stalk, the authors of the Toledot Yeshu were
struggling to explain the situation, which in the later versions involves the aque-
duct of Agobard, the garden of Amulo, the water trench/ reservoir of the Geniza,
and even a sewer. Ms. Strasbourg BnU 3974, and the entire Wagenseil group38
tell that Yeshu was initially buried at the place where he was stoned, but R. Ju-
dah reburied him in his garden under an aqueduct, dissembling it first, and then
restoring it on the top ofYeshu's body. Mss. Amsterdam Hs. Ros. 414, New York
JTS 2221, and all Yemenite manuscripts 39 have this differently: Yeshu was bur-
ied near the Pool (or river) of Siloam; after that, either Judah or an anonymous
gardener stole his body to stuff a hole in his garden fence. Another explanatory
version is presented by Huldreich: 4o Judah himselftook down the body ofYeshu
from the tree and threw it into a sewer in order to fulfill the prediction of sages
sentencing Yeshu to boil in excrement in hell (b. Gittin 56b-S7a). The arguably
latest editions of the Toledot present thoroughly sanitized versions of Yeshu's
burial: in Ms. Philadelphia University Lib. 361 ("Slavic" version), Judah bur-
ies Yeshu in his garden under a water-pipe that just happens to be there, while
the Italian manuscripts simply get rid of the "aqueduct-burial" as they have got
of the "cabbage-stalk-crucifixion" - Judah steals the corpse and buries it in his
garden, in the family burial chamber!41
It is remarkable that some protestant scholars, Baldensperger and then Ken-
nard, trying to reconstruct the historical burial of Jesus on the basis of the gos-
pels, present the same picture that appears in the reductionist Italian version. 42
Kennard's analysis starts from the statement that "the empty tomb may point
rather to a removal of the body from the place where the women had seen it laid
and to its burial elsewhere." Then, Kennard argues that the events of Jesus' death
and burial can be restored in the following order: since 12:30 pm is the deadline
38 E.g., Mss. Cambridge Harvard Houghton Lib. 57, Jerusalem Shoken 04088, Leipzig BH
1735-51.
39 E. g., Mss. Cambridge Univ. Lib. T-S Or. 455, New York JTS 2343, Princeton Firestone
Lib. 19.
40 E. g., Mss. Amsterdam Hs. Ros. 442, Frankfurt Hebr. 8 249, Princeton Firestone Lib. 24.
41 E. g., Rostock Orient. 38: ve-hevy 'a 'et pe[ony miqevero ve-qavar 'oto be-gano be-qever
yhudah ha-ganan.
42 Guillaume Baldensperger, Le tombeau vide: la legende et I 'histoire (Paris: F Alcan, 1935);
Joseph Spencer Kennard, "The Burial of Jesus," JBL 74 (1955): 227-38.
Meaningful Nonsense: A Study of Details in Toledot Yeshu 193
for a Passover-offering,43 Jesus must have been taken from the cross no later than
I :00 pm, and these were the soldiers who "took him from the tree, and laid him
in a tomb" (Acts 13:29). When "evening had come," Joseph of Arimathea, "a
respected member of the council" (Mark 15:43), "took courage" (Mark 15:42)
to come to Pilate and ask him for the body of Jesus. Authorized by Pilate, Joseph
"took away'>44 the body and placed it in his own sepulcher.
In addition to this speculation on account of the two-fold burial, there is a
far more certain attestation to the ancient tradition of Jesus burial in a water
reservoir: "But they blaspheme more (saying that) he was cast in a well," wrote
Commodian (Gaza, 3rd c. CE [?]) in reference to an opinion of his contempo-
raries. 45 Thus, the picture presented in the Toledot Yeshu may eventually lead to
an antique source of any kind, which we must try to reveal. This means that in
addition to considering a figurative meaning of a burial in a water reservoir, it
might be useful to consider actual water conduits and cemeteries in first-century
Jerusalem. 46
In that time, two aqueducts brought water to the city. The high-level aqueduct,
which conveyed the water from the Pool of Siloam, was built by the Hasmoneans
and improved by Herod,47 and the lower, as Josephus reports, was built by Pilate,
who used the temple's money for its construction:
At another time he (Pi late) used the sacred treasure of the temple, called korban, to pay
for bringing water into Jerusalem by an aqueduct from a distance of four hundred stadioi
(B.J.2.175-77).
Even more sacrilegious than usurping the temple's fond, however, was the route
of this aqueduct for it cut its way through a cemetery that was evidently in use
in that period, and even went directly through one of the family tombs which, of
course, ceased to be used at that moment. 48 lt was the fact of building the water
conduit through the unclean grounds that led to a legal refonn, starting from a
regulation that forbids building an aqueduct at a cemetery:
43 "Six hours and a half' (Pesahim 5.1).

44 ~QEV instead of xaTE81)XEV (take down): John 19:38; Mark 15:46.
45 Commodian, Carmen apologeticum 440: Sed magis in/amant: In puteum misimus ilium.
46 Newman, "The Death of Jesus," 74, summarizes the hypotheses concerning Yeshu's burial
in a "water channel": Erich Bischoff connects it to a local Jerusalem tradition locating the grave
of Jesus in the vicinity of the Siloam springs (ap. Samuel Krauss, 1902. Das Leben Jesu nach
judischen Quellen [Berlin: S. Calvary, 1902; repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1977]), 30. Schlichting
considers the abyssal waters beneath the temple (GUnther Schlichting, Ein judisches Leben
Jesu (Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1982),218, and Krappe compares Yeshu's burial to the burial
of Alaric in a river bed (Alexander Haggerty Krappe, "Les funerailles d' Alaric," Annuaire de
I 'institut de philologie et I 'histoire orientales et slaves 7 [1939-44]: 234).
47 Ehud Netzer, The Architecture of Herod, the Great Builder (Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2(06),136.
48 Joseph Patrich, "A Sadducean Halakha and the Jerusalem Aqueduct," The Jerusalem
Cathedra 2 (1982): 25-39. See also David Amit, et aI., The Aqueducts of Israel (Portsmouth,
R.I.: Journal of Roman Archaeology; Supplement series 46, 2(02).
194 Michael Meerson
People do not conduct an aqueduct out from the graves, and one shall not make there a
way. (Ebel Rabbati 14)
Then to the controversy:

The Sadducees say, "We protest against you, Pharisees, for you declare clean the nyzoq."
The Pharisees say, "We protect against you, Sadducees, for you declare clean the aqueduct
that comes from among the graves." (Yadayim 4.7)
And eventually to a new law ruling that water attached to the ground is not
subject to contamination:
R. Nehemia said: why is it said that the purity did not depart? Since water in [that vessel]
is not subject to contamination until it is detached from its source, the purity prevails over
defilement. (t. Miqva '01 1.1)
In any case, the building of the Jerusalem aqueduct through the cemetery was
a remarkable event to be noticed and remembered. In fact, inhabitants of Jeru-
salem enjoyed the use of this aqueduct until the 16th century, contemplating the
close neighborhood of tombs and the water conduit. Isn't it the most natural
explanation of why Yeshu's body was buried near an aqueduct, or even in an
aqueduct, and why Judah, being required to rebury Yeshu in a proper cemetery,
brought him back to the aqueduct's surroundings? For indeed, it was a proper
cemetery.
In summary, "deciphering" the Toledot's "nonsense" may have a two-fold
significance: on the one hand, it demonstrates that the Toledot Yeshu does con-
tain ancient traditions, which present interest for researchers of both Roman
Christianity and Judaism, and, on the other, it shows that, by the time that these
traditions were crystallized and coalesced into a literary form, their readers were
unable to digest them. It was this inability that started a chain of interpretative
additions to the story that appear so simple and coherent in the Agobard's Su-
persitiones, and so complex and repetitive in the Tom u-Muad.
Despite its importance, a study of details in the Toledot Yeshu must be limited
to non-strictly-textual details. In other words,.since the exact correspondence
of the text in different Toledot manuscripts is rather an exception than a rule,
it does not make sense to discuss, for example, whether Yeshu was buried in,
under, or beside some water installation, and whether this water installation was
designated with a proper name meaning specifically an aqueduct, an irrigation
equipment, a water-pipe, or a channel. The manuscripts contain all of these, and
only the forthcoming comprehensive study of all the available manuscripts shall
be able to guide our preference. 49
It must also be noted that the inevitably speculative argumentation, involved
in a study of one specific detail, cannot help to date the composition and to re-
49 This edition is currently in preparation, see http://www.princeton.edul-judaic/toledotye

shu.html
veal the origin of its traditions. There will always remain a place for a different
approach and interpretation. A number of details, however, can be organized
like tessarae in a mosaic, provided that only matching tessarae can display a
comprehensible picture, while mismatches must be adjusted. It is likely that
there were antique traditions connecting the death and burial of Jesus with the
Jerusalem aqueduct-cemetery and with the mustard-cabbage tree; yet the Toledot
as a complete narrative seems to adapt these traditions in a later period, when
the cross-shaped flowers became symbolic, the/urea supplanted the erux, while
the Jerusalem aqueduct was still functional.
Judas Iscariot: Revealer of the Hidden Truth*
Ora Limor and Israel Jacob Yuval
Tristram Shandy, in Laurence Sterne's famous novel by that name, dwells upon
the reasons of his father, Waiter Shandy, in giving him his name. First, he elabo-
rates on his father's theory of names: "His opinion, in this matter, was, That
there was a strange kind of magic bias, which good or bad names, as he called
them, irresistibly impressed upon our characters and conduct."1 To sustain this
argument he brings as an example the name Judas:
Your son! - your dear son, - from whose sweet and open temper you have so much
to expect. - Your BILLY, Sir! - would you, for the world, have called him mDAS?
( ... ) - Would you, Sir, if a Jew of a godfather had proposed the name for your child, and
offered you his purse along with it, would you have consented to such a desecration of
him? ( ... ) - IfI know your temper right, Sir, - you are incapable of it; - you would have
trampled upon the offer; - you would have thrown the temptation at the tempter's head
with abhorrence. Your greatness of mind in this action, which I admire, with that generous
contempt of money, which you shew me in the whole transaction, is really noble; - and
what renders it more so, is the principle of it; - the workings of a parent's love upon the
truth and conviction of this very hypothesis, namely, That was your son called Judas - the
sordid and treacherous idea, so inseparable from the name, would have accompanied him
through life like his shadow, and, in the end, made a miser and a rascal of him, in spite,
Sir, of your example. 2
A somewhat similar claim was put forward lately, though for different reasons,
by the noted Israeli author, Abraham B. Yehoshua. In an article published in the
newspaper Ha 'aretz, Yehoshua issued a call to forego the description of Israel
as "the Jewish state." In his opinion, the name "Israel" is the proper name of
the country and of the people who reside in it. According to Yehoshua, since the
time of the Bible and throughout the age of the Exile, the word "Jew" has car-
ried a negative connotation, because it evokes "the memory of Judas Iscariot."3
• A shorter Hebrew version of the last part of this article (the figure of Judas in the Golden
Legend) was published by us in 2005: "Oedipus in Christian Garb: The Legend of Judah Iscar-
ioth in the Golden Legend," Zmanim 91 (2005): 12-21.
1 Laurence Steme, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (ed. Graham Pet-
rie; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967),77.
2 Steme, ibid., 78.
3 Ha 'aretz. 10 June 2009.
198 Ora Limor and Israel Jacob Yuval
Yehoshua's claim is a striking example of how images travel from one camp
to the other. Astonishingly, in his statement, Yehoshua internalizes the Christian
position, whose origins are to be found in the New Testament, according to
which Judah, the name of Judas Iscariot, arouses associations with the Jew, a
traitor, with one who greedily pursues wealth, with Satan.
Judas' figure does, indeed, loom large in Christian imagination, and, in view
of its implications, there is little wonder that it reverberated in Jewish culture
as well. 4 In what follows, we shall examine the image of Judas Iscariot in three
literary works, one Jewish and two Christian. Sefer Toledot Yeshu will be at the
center of our discussion; to this we shall add the Legend of the Finding of the
Trne Cross and the "apocryphal" biography of Judas in the Golden Legend. Our
claim is that, despite the dispute between Jews and Christians regarding the
ethical qualities of Judas, a broad agreement exists regarding many facets of his
personality, behavior, and his central role in the story of Jesus. This agreement is
based upon an evidently unchallenged axiom, according to which the man Judas
represents the Jewish people, and his behavior represents the Jewish attitude to
Christians and to their savior. As in the New Testament, so too in these texts, Ju-
das is presented as a subversive figure, who acts clandestinely in order to destroy
Christianity and to save Judaism or, on the contrary, to destroy Judaism and to
save Christianity - all depending upon the identity of the text.
Who is Judas Iscariot in Christian eyes? If every great drama revolves around
the titanic struggle between good and evil, then in the Christian drama Judas
plays the role of evil - and not just mundane evil, but the worst possible evil,
diametrically opposed to Jesus, who represents the absolute good,: Judas' evil
is, indeed, great. As one of the twelve disciples, he was among those who were
particularly close to Jesus, but he betrayed Jesus for the sake of a handful of
coins, turning him over to the Jews who were pursuing him, then tortured him
and precipitated his crucifixion by the Romans. Judas thus represents the Jews,
as indicated by his name. According to the Christian tradition, Qeriyot (from
which derives the name, "Iscariot," Ish-Qeriyot, "the man from Qeriyot") is the
city in Judaea mentioned in Jehoshua 15:24. Irso, Judas was the only one among
Jesus' disciples to come from Judaea rather than from the Galilee. The Galilee
was the cradle of the faithful, while Judaea was home to the Jews and traitors. 5
4 For a recent survey on Judas Iscariot's role in the Christian anti-Jewish imagination see:
Jeremy Cohen, Christ Killers: The Jews and the Passion from the Bible to the Big Screen (Ox-
ford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 255-61. Interest in Judas figure increased lately, follow-
ing the publicized discovery of the Gospel of Judas. See inter alia, Bart D. Ehrrnan, The Lost
Gospel of Judas Iscariot: A New Look at Betrayer and Betrayed (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2006). Nevertheless, it seems that this text that raised much interest in academic circles,
is not destined to change the long accepted, traditional image of Judas as the arch-traitor of
Christian culture.
S Hieronymus, In Matheum 10.4 (CCSL 77; eds. D. Hurst and M. Adriaen; Tumhout:
Brepols, 1969), 64.
Judas Iscariot: Revealer ofthe Hidden Truth 199
Another theory explains that the name Iscariot implies that Judas was a member
of the Sicarii. 6 This theory, however, is problematic chronologically.
Judas' great sin was his betrayal of Jesus. The lowest level in Dante's Inferno
is named Iudecca, after Judas Iscariot, in which all those who betrayed their
masters are punished. Lucifer, the archetype of all betrayers, who is placed in
the center of this level, is also punished there. All the rivers of guilt flow towards
him. Lucifer has three mouths, in each one of which an arch-traitor is ground in
his teeth: Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and Cassius. Judas is stuck in the central mouth,
as the worst of these three traitors; indeed, he is the worst of all the sinners in
Hell. 7
The Christian Gospels do not elaborate upon the story of Judas. The infor-
mation about him is spread among several different books, and the details are
not always consistent with one another. Nevertheless it is possible to put them
together from the following story: Judas was one of the twelve disciples, whom
Jesus appointed as a kind of treasurer, who held the collective money-purse (in
Christian art the purse is one of his known attributes). This task enabled Judas
to deceive the others and steal from them, and even act in a miserly manner
in using the money to serve Jesus. In the final analysis, as he betrayed trust
regarding money so he betrayed trust in general. Tempted by Satan, Judas com-
mitted the greatest sin of all - he betrayed his master. He turned to the high
priest, offered to turn Jesus over to him, and in return received thirty coins. That
evening, Judas participated in the Last Supper together with the other disciples,
and Jesus, who knew what was going to happen, gave Judas bread dipped in
wine, saying that the one who would receive the bread would betray him, even
asking that he hasten the deed. Judas left the table to meet the priests, while
Jesus went with his disciples to Gethsemane, where he prayed. His disciples
fell asleep. Soon Judas returned with the entourage of the high priest and kissed
Jesus, thereby identifying him and turning him in. Jesus was arrested, tried,
tortured and executed. After Judas saw that Jesus had been convicted, he regret-
ted his betrayal, threw the money down in the Temple, and hung himself. With
the money the priests bought a field for burying strangers, which they called
"the field of blood" (Aramaic: hakel dama). According to the account in Acts
(I: 15-26), it was Judas who bought the field with the money he received for
the betrayal and then, "falling headlong, he burst open in the middle, and all
his bowels gushed out." After Judas' death, Matthias was chosen in his place
and joined the disciples.
6 Robert Eisenman, James. The Brother ofJesus (New York: Penguin, 1998), 516, 811-16.
7 Dante, Inferno, 39. See Sylvia Tomasch, "Judecca, Dante's Satan and the dis-placed Jew,"
in Text and Territory: Geographical Imagination in the European Middle Ages (eds. Sy1via
Tomasch and Sealy Gilles; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998),247-67.
Se/er Toledot Yeshu
In Sefer Toledot Yeshu, Judas Iscariot plays a far more central role than he does
in the New Testament. This Jewish text reworks the facts related in the New
Testament: its dispute is not about the facts, but rather about their interpretation.
Our reading of the work is based upon two theoretical approaches. The first is a
historical approach, based in large part on Amos Funkenstein's famous definition
of the genre of "counter-history."8 Toledot Yeshu clearly belongs to this genre;
indeed, Funkenstein himself used it as an example to characterize the genre.
The second is a literary approach, building on the work of Frank Kermode, who
sees the various versions of the Gospels as a midrashic attempt to reinterpret
the tradition that stands before them - and this, not by interpretation of the text,
but by the addition of various elements to the plot that create a different story.9
Following this approach, we consider Toledot Yeshu also a midrash and as such
as an open-ended text that has different versions and is subject to various addi-
tions and deletions. Similar to the New Testament itself, Toledot Yeshu is a text
of an exegetical nature but, unlike the Gospels, where alongside the story of
Jesus' life we find parables, sermons, ethical aphorisms and prophecies, Toledot
Yeshu expresses its viewpoint by means of narrative alone, using various devices
such as thickening of the plot, additions, and changes according to the creative
imagination of the various narrators.
Like the Gospels, Toledot Yeshu weaves within its plot verses from the Bible
which serve as "testimonies" (testimonia). Their function is to refute the New
Testament claim that the Old Testament had already anticipated tpe biography
of Jesus. Toledot Yeshu makes satiric use of these selfsame verses, exposing the
distorted use made by the Gospels.
Kermode takes note of the fact that Judas Iscariot is the figure who moves the
Passion story forward in the New Testament. 10 Judas is "a case of a character be-
ing possessed by his narrative role." The story is moved forward by his betrayal
of Jesus; indeed, Judas becomes the very embodiment of treachery. 11 The act of
betrayal thus acquires a human image, whose life and actions have a narrative
of their own. Unlike the New Testament, which creates a story out of an abstract
idea, in Toledot Yeshu the story already exists, and the function of the narrator is
to change its course and meaning and to turn it upside down.
In addition to the New Testament, Se/er Toledot Yeshu, in its various versions,
engages in dialogue with earlier versions of Jewish legends and stories about
8 Amos Funkenstein, "History, Counterhistory and Narrative," Perceptions of Jewish His-

tory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993),32-49.
9 Frank Kermode, The Genesis of Secrecy: On the Interpretation of Narrative (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979), 75-99.
10 Kermode, ibid., 84.
1\ Kermode, ibid., 94.
Judas /scariot: Revealer of the Hidden Truth 201
Jesus found in the Talmud, and makes use of them. We assume that each of the
extant versions of Toledot Yeshu confronts and interprets Christian and Jewish
texts, by making additions to the plot, reorganizing the narrative, and inserting
new emphases, and so on.
As noted, the place attributed to Judas in Toledot Yeshu is far greater than
the one he is given in the Gospels, at least in terms of the number of words and
verses. Unlike the villain that emerges towards the end of the New Testament
drama in order to advance the story of the Crucifixion, in Toledot Yeshu he ap-
pears on the stage earlier in the narrative and disappears later (at least in some
of the versions). Moreover, in Toledot Yeshu, Judas is the only active figure
from the Jewish side among those participating. He alone saves the Jews with
his own powers. 12
Judas "stars" in three central scenes in Toledot Yeshu. In the first, he reveals
the fact that Jesus is a deceiver who performs miracles by means of deceit, by his
having stolen the Shem Hameforash - the holy name of God. No inverted mirror
image of this scene appears in the New Testament. It copes with the miracles that
Jesus performed, by whose means he acquired his followers. The background to
this section comes from the law of the false prophet in Deuteronomy 13, which
warns against believing in false prophets who perform miracles. With the Sages'
consent, Judas decides to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and to imitate his das-
tardly acts. He enters the Holy of Holies, and he too steals the Shem Hameforash.
A competition ensues between the two figures, in which each of them uses the
Shem Hameforash to fly in the air, while attempting to make the other fall to the
ground. 13 Judas contaminates Jesus by urinating or ejaculating semen on him -
the various versions differ on this point - causing Jesus to fall to the ground. 14
This scene, with its homosexual overtones, may contain echoes of Judas' kiss
in the New Testament. IS Judas thereby removes the mask from Jesus' face, and
heroically destroys his claim to be the Son of God. Judas' acts are justified by
means of the verses in Deuteronomy 13:7-12: "If your brother, the son of your
12 Bemhard Dieckmann, Judas als Sundenbock: Eine verhiingnisvolle Geschichte von Angst
und Velgellung (MUnchen: Ktisel, 1991), 126.
13 This scene has its roots in the Christian Apocrypha, in stories such as Simon magus' flying
in the air. See Acta Petri (Acts of Peter) in New Testament Apocrypha. Edited by Wilhelm Sch-
neemelcher, et al. (London: Lutterworth, 1963, 1965. 2nd edition: Cambridge: James Clarke;
Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1991, 1992),290.
14 This scene goes hand in hand with Christian descriptions of Jews transgression ofnonna-
tive codes of physical conduct, especially through spitting. According to Anthony Bale, "the
spitting Jew may have an intertext in late medieval images of the 'judas kiss'; Judas's kissing
was certainly discussed in tenns of defilement of Christ's body ... ": Anthony Bale, The Jew
in the Medieval Book: English Antisemitisms, /350-/500 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2006), 152. Susan Gubar elaborates on oral and anal motives in Judas image, describing
him as "leaky Judas." Susan Gubar, Judas: A Biography (New York and London: W. W. Norton
& Company, 2009), ch. 3 (esp. pp. 107-10).
15 On the homosexual motive see Gubar, ibid., 158-210.
mother ... entices you secretly, saying: Let us go and serve other gods ... you
shall surely kill him." Jesus is thus exposed by Judas as an impostor and a false
prophet. He is also described as "the son of your mother," following the words of
Deuteronomy concerning the false prophet; this reference also relates, of course,
to Jesus' depiction as a son without a father.
The second scene is that of Jesus' betrayal by Judas. Whereas, according to
the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus came to Jerusalem only once, on which occasion he
was crucified, according to the Gospel of John he had visited there in the past,
and even aroused the hatred of the Sanhedrin, who sought to kill him (John
5: 16-18). According to this version, Jesus' return to the Galilee was essentially
a flight from Jerusalem. This being the case, why did the Sanhedrin need Judas
in order to identify Jesus? Wasn't he already known to them? The Gospel ac-
cording to John gives no answer to this question, but in some versions of Toledo!
Yeshu, an explanation is offered. According to the Wagenseil version, after Judas
exposed Jesus' deceit and Jesus is condemned to death, Jesus goes to the Jordan
River and purifies himself anew, thus recovering the magical powers that Judas
had taken from him. Wagenseil's version continues in a consistent manner to the
next stage. If urinating or ejaculating semen do not help, it becomes necessary
to deprive Jesus of his magical powers by taking the Shem Hameforash away
from him by force. Here, Judas again volunteers to act on behalf of the Sages and
secretly, in the dark of night, while Jesus is sleeping, tears the Shem Hameforash
from his flesh.
Jesus, left with none of his magical powers, understands that the hour has
come and his destiny has been sealed. He therefore decides to retu,m to Jerusa-
lem, the city from which he had fled. This time, however, he and his disciples
arrive in disguise. The motif of the disguise does not appear in the New Testa-
ment, and it should be seen as a dramatic device intended to explain why Judas
and his act of betrayal were needed in order to identify Jesus. The Jewish version
thus invents a secret visit of Jesus and his disciples to Jerusalem - perhaps in
order to steal again the Shem Hameforash. Judas continues to act on behalf of the
Sages and identifies Jesus again; that which is portrayed in the New Testament
as treachery is shown here as a heroic mission.
The course of the story in Toledot Yeshu matches only the Gospel of John.
According to the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew 3, Mark I, Luke 3), Jesus was
baptized by John the Baptist at the beginning of his activity, even before he
performed miracles. In contrast, according to John, Jesus had previously visited
Jerusalem, aroused the wrath of the Jews (2: 13-25), and only thereafter was he
baptized in the Jordan (3:22). Moreover, as we noted, according to John, the
Jews already sought to kill Jesus after his first visit in Judaea (John 5: 16-18;
7: I ), a sequence that Sefer Toledo! Yeshu follows.
The third scene in which Judas plays a central role is the story of Jesus' burial
in Judas' garden. Here, too, a number of versions follow the Gospel of John, as
Judas lscariot: Revealer of the Hidden Truth 203
only in that account is Jesus buried in a garden (19:41-42). In order to prevent

Jesus' followers from stealing the body and claiming that he had risen from the
dead, Judas conceals his body and buries it beneath a water conduit in his gar-
den. The Jewish narrator thus admits that Jesus' grave was found empty, but has
his own explanation as to how this came about. The discovery of Jesus' body
in Judas' garden is intended to refute the claim of the Resurrection. Here, too,
Judas both conceals and reveals.
From all that has been said thus far, it is clear that the main purpose of Toledot
Yeshu in general, and of the portrayal of the character of Judas in particular is,
as Funkenstein put it, to present a counter-narrative to the Christian story. But
alongside this central design, there exist other, secondary aims that are expressed
in several scenes behind which there is no original Christian story.
The Burial
According to one of the versions of Toledot Yeshu, Judas buried Jesus in his
garden, in a cesspool. This is a fulfillment of the words of the Talmud, "One
who mocks the words of the Sages is judged in boiling excrement."16 However,
the Talmud speaks of a punishment imposed upon Jesus in the World to Come,
whereas Toledot Yeshu speaks of his being shamed and insulted in this world.
Judas is the one who actively fulfills the words of the Sages and does not wait for
Heavenly punishment. Moreover, whereas the Talmud deals with Jesus and his
punishment, Toledot Yeshu is concerned also with the actual place of burial. The
site of Jesus' burial- the Holy Sepulcher - is the holiest place of Christianity, a
site of adoration and pilgrimage. It is the Christian alternative to the Temple (in
Jerusalem), and takes its place. 17 Se/er Toledot Yeshu mocks the cult of the holy
place by transforming the Holy Sepulcher into a latrine. IS In the Hebrew sources
relating to the First Crusade, the redemption of the Holy Sepulcher is portrayed
as the main goal ofthe Crusaders; 19 this version of Toledot Yeshu may thus reflect
a Jewish answer to the Crusader enterprise, and may help to explain the appear-
ance of this motif ofthe cesspool in Christian tales of the High Middle Ages.
16 10hannes Jacobus Huldricus, Historia Jeschuae Nazareni (Leiden: J. du Vivie, 1705), 88;
b. Gil/in 57a.
17 Ora Limor, "Conversion of Space," in Conversion: Practice and Perceptions (eds. Miri
Rubin and Ira Katzenelson; forthcoming).
18 Interestingly, Muslims ascribed to the Holy Sepulchre the name: Kanisat AI-Qumamah-
Church of Dung (a play on the name KanisatAI-qiyamah - Church of Resurrection).
19 Eva Haverkamp, ed., Hebriiische Berichte iiber die JUdenveifolgungen wiihrend des er-
sten Kreuzzugs (MGH, Hebriiische Texte aus dem mittelalterlichen Deutschland, I; Hannover:
Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2005), 561.
Much has been written about the cesspool as a place to humiliate, disgrace and
profane the most sacred assets ofthe other religion. 2o In Christian imagination,
the Jews throw icons to the latrine; they stab Hosts (thus reconstructing the cru-
cifixion) and leave it in the cesspool in order to disgrace it, and they kill Christian
children, throwing their saintly bodies to the privy. An example of the connec-
tion between disbelief and filth is brought forth also in the Christian widespread
exemplum about a Jew who fell into a latrine on Saturday "but would not permit
himself to be extracted out of reverence for his Shabbath." The Lord of the place
"did not permit him to be extracted the following Sunday out of reverence for
his Shabbath. And so the Jew dies."21
The burial of Jesus in a cesspool in Toledot Yeshu should be analyzed in the
framework of the Talmudic motif on the one hand and the medieval Christian
libels and anti-Jewish exempla on the other. In a more direct way it could also be
a Jewish reaction to the description of Judas' loathsome death in acts: "and faIl-
ing headlong, he burst open in the middle, and all his bowels gushed out.'>22 As
Anthony Bale writes, "the reciprocity of the narrative forces us to link Christian
and Jew, speaking an identical language.'>23
The Curse
An example of the tendency to add narrative elements to create a new and richer
story is found in the Huldreich version. This version was most probably created
in a German-speaking environment, as Jesus is referred in the te,\t as "Yesus"
and it is related that the Jews of Worms advised the king not to kill Jesus. This
anecdote coincides with a local tradition from Worms, according to which a Jew-
ish community already existed there in the time of Jesus, so that the Jews ofthis
city cannot be blamed for the Crucifixion. The medieval background likewise
emerges from the Vienna version, whose origin seems to be Italian, as Judas is
referred to as "Judas Scarioto." In this version it is stated that all the sages of
the Gentiles "curse and revile Judas Iscarioto: and when they have a quarrel or
20 Israel J. Yuval, Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions ofJews and Christians (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2006), 196-97; Christoph Ciuse, '''Fabula Ineptissirna' Die
Ritualrnordlegende urn Adam von Bristol nach der Handschrift London, British Library, Harley
957," Aschkenaz 5 (1995): 293-330; Bale, The Jew in the Medieval Book, 30-43.
21 See Anthony Bale's illuminating analysis of "The Jew ofTewkesbury" exemplurn: Bale,
ibid., 23-53.
22 Acts I: 18. See Gubar, Judas, 110-27; Annette Weber, "The Hanged Judas of Freiburg
Cathedral: Sources and Interpretation," in Imagining the Self. Imagining the Other: Visual
Representations and Jewish-Christian Dynamics in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period
(ed. Eva Projrnovic, Leiden: Brill, 2002), 165-88.
23 Bale, The Jew in the Medieval Book, 33.
Judas Iscariot: Revealer of the Hidden Truth 205
rivalry with one another they say: 'May it be done to you as Judas Iscariot did
to Jesus. "'24
A legal curse directed against a person who violates a commitment, that his lot
shall be like that of Dathan and Abiram, Gehazi and Judas Iscariot, was already
widespread in late Antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages. In the novella of
the Justinian Code, following the section of the obligations, a series of curses
against one who makes a false oath is presented:
But ifI will not observe all these things, may I dwell henceforth under the awesome judg-
ment of the Lord, the Great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. And may my portion be
together with Judas, and may I be struck with the leprosy of Gehazi, and with the dread
of Cain, and may I be subject to the punishments written in the book ... 2S
Curses that mention Judas as a trope for punishment were widespread in the
Middle Ages. Judas' name was part of a judicial-magical sanction: Whoever
violates his oath will suffer as Judas. Such a curse is mentioned in the Middle
Ages, for example, in a legal document from 11th century Lucca:
sit deme[rsus de altitudine celi in profundo inferni, sit socius cum] Iuda sch[ariotim qui
prop ]ter cupiditatem vendidit Dominus et Magistrum suum et cum diabolurn qui in in-
fernum ligatus est. 26
May you be thrust down from the heights of Heaven to the depths of Sheol; may you
be a neighbor of Judas Iscariot who, because of his greed for wealth and money, sold his
master and teacher, and is chained to Satan in Hell.
In the Christian curse, Judas is portrayed as a scoundrel who gets his just due.
The author of Toledo! Yeshu knows full well that, in the Christian curses, Judas
is the one who is accursed as, according to his words, the Sages of the Gentiles
"curse and revile Judas." However, when he invokes the language of the curse,
he turns it upside down and says: "May it be done to you what Judas Iscariot did
to Jesus." According to this text, Judas is the one who punishes and Jesus the
one who bears the punishment - a position consistent with the overall tendency
of the entire work to turn things around, making Judas the one who is blessed,
and Jesus - the one who is accursed.
24 Samuel Krauss, Das Leben Jesu nach jiidischen Quellen (Berlin: S. Calvary, 1902; repr.
2S Corpus luris Civilis, vo\. 3, novo 8, tit.3. on Judas' curse see: Archer Taylor, "The Judas
Curse," AJP 42 (1921): 234-52; On Judas' curses inscribed on tombstones in Southern Atica:
Bradley McLean, "A Christian Epitaph: The Curse of Judas lscariot," QCP 58 (1992): 241-244.
26 We are grateful to Katrin Dort of Trier for this information. See another example: Auguste
J. Bernard and Alexandre Brue1, eds., Recueil des Charles de l'abbaye de Cluny (6 vols; Paris:
Collection de documents im!dits sur l'histoire de France, 1876-1903), 3, no. \753, 20: "Et si
ullus homo qui carta ista contradicere vo1uerit, ... et otoritatem Patri et Filii et Spiritus Sanctus
sit excommunicatus, et cum Datan et Abiron permanead in infemum, et cum Juda, traditore
Domini, in infemum sit demergatus."
The Joke
Another example is the following story that is told in the Huldreich version.
During the course of their journey to Jerusalem, Jesus, Peter and Judas look for
a place to sleep. They come to an inn and wish to eat, but the inn-keeper has only
one roast goose, which would be adequate for only one of the three figures. How
shall they divide it? Jesus proposes that they go to sleep on an empty stomach,
and the one who has the best dream will get the entire goose. In the middle of
the night, Judas gets up and eats the goose. The next morning Peter relates his
dream, in which he was sitting at the feet of the throne of God. Jesus says: my
dream is better than yours, because I dreamt that I am the son of God and that
you are sitting at my feet; therefore the goose is mine. Then Judas says: and I
dreamt that I ate the goose. 27
This joke relates ironically to the treacherous image of Judas in the New Testa-
ment, of a person who takes care of himself and behaves sneakily with Jesus. But
unlike the New Testament text, the Jewish version portrays a figure with whom
it is possible to identify, perhaps a figure one might even like; it joins the well-
known genre of Jewish jokes about the clever rabbi who deceives the priest and
thereby proves the superiority of Judaism over Christianity.28
The Pogrom
In another version, published by Samuel Krauss in Revue des Etl!.des Juives,29

an independent passage is added to the story of the hiding of Jesus' body and
its discovery by Judas. After the empty tomb was discovered, the Jews claim
that the body had been stolen in order to invent the resurrection of Jesus. Queen
Helena gives the Jews a reprieve of three days during which they are to present
the body - and ifnot, she would kill them all, not leaving their slightest remnant.
The plot develops as a story of salvation an~ deliverance, in which the danger
27 Huldricus, Historia Jeschuae, 51.

28 The story of the goose could be a far echo of the ancient legend about Judas and the cock
that appears first in Acta Pilati: Judas returns home after betraying Jesus. His mother is devas-
tated by his deed, claiming that he handed over the son of God and ifhe indeed will rise from the
dead they all will suffer terrible punishment. Judas swears that the cock which is being roasted
in the oven would rise more easily than Jesus. Immediately the half roasted cock flies out of the
oven, grows back his feathers and cockscomb and heralds Jesus' resurrection. The same cock
later cries trice at the negation of Peter. Seeing this, Judas goes out and kills himself. See Paull
Franklin Baum, "The English Ballad of Judas Iscariot," Publications of the Modern Language
Association of America 31 n.s. 24 (I916): 181-89 (Baum believes the story to be of oriental
origin); Paul Lehmann, "Judas Ischarioth in der lateinischen Legendeniiberlieferung des Mit-
telalters," Stud; Medievali n.s. 2 (1929): 289-346; Dieckmann, Judas als Sundenbock, 34-36.
29 Samuel Krauss, "Une nouvelle recension hebratque du Toldot Yeshu," REJ 103 (1938):
65-73.
passes at the latest possible moment. At the last moment, Judas hears about the
edict and discovers the place where the body had been buried in his garden; it
is tied by its hair to a donkey, dragged to the queen, and presented to her - a
reverse picture from that of Jesus entering Jerusalem as the Messiah, riding on
a donkey.30 The victorious Judas also returns to his home riding on a donkey-
again, a reversal of Jesus' triumphant entry to Jerusalem.
At this point, this version adds a detailed description of what can only be
described as a pogrom perpetrated by the Jews against the Christians in Jerusa-
lem, during the course of which "the Jews killed among the Christians several
thousand people, including women and children." Following the pogrom "there
did not remain from among the Christians even one from a city and two from a
family," and Jerusalem remained empty of Christians. The description brings to
mind the story of the Book of Esther, and especially the motif of the reversal,
in which the Jews are transformed from potential victims into victors who take
vengeance against their enemies. Undoubtedly, the narrator takes pleasure in
this fantasy, which he adorns with numerous details that add to the picture and
strengthen its expressive power.
What is the significance of this imaginary pogrom perpetrated by the Jews
against the Christians, appearing in a medieval Jewish source? One may perhaps
see the story as a distant reflection of the slaughter inflicted by the Jews against
the Christians of Jerusalem in 614, upon its conquest by the Sassanian Persians.31
This incident has occasionally received the attention of historians, almost al-
ways with a certain feeling of unease. According to what is told in Christian
sources - and there alone - the Jews participated in the Persian campaign against
the Byzantine Empire, and then presented the Christians of Jerusalem with the
alternative of conversion to Judaism or death. The Christians preferred to die
as martyrs; the number of those who were killed has been estimated from any-
where between 4,000 and 90,000 people. At the site of the slaughter - Mamila
Pool - a mass grave was discovered in archaeological excavations conducted
some time ago. 32
However, the historical connection between the story of the pogrom in Toledot
Yeshu and the Persian conquest of Jerusalem is rather dubious, and it seems more
reasonable to assume that the story is no more than a product of the imagination.
However, even fantasies speak history. One can see in this story testimony to a
militant Jewish consciousness, whose wishes are remarkably similar to the acts
of the Christian rioters against Jews, reflecting the wish to do to the Christians
30 Luke 19: 29-39.

31 Brannon M. Wheeler, "Imagining the Sasanian Capture of Jerusalem," OCP 57 (1991):
69-85; Averil Cameron, "The Jews in Seventh-Century Palestine," SCl \3 (1994): 75-93.
32 Yoram Tsafrir, "The Topography and Archaeology of Jerusalem in the Byzantine Period,"
in The History ofJerusalem: The Roman and Byzantine Periods (70-638) (eds. Yoram Tsafrir
and Shmuel Safrai, Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Istitute, 1999), 34\.
what they had done to the Jews. As opposed to the myth of the passive victim
that has gained wide acceptance in modem Jewish historiography, the Jews who
wrote and read this text sought vengeance, if only of a virtual kind. This text is
outstanding in its clearly non-apologetic nature, which fits well with the general
tendency of this work to compete with the Christian story, without claiming self-
justification and weakness. The pogrom against the Christians takes place after
proving their error, and it brings the religious victory to its realization through
the removal of the Christians from the Holy City.
The Legend ofthe Finding of the True Cross
In many versions of Toledot Yeshu, there appears the enigmatic figure of Queen
Helena, who serves as a kind of mediator between the followers of Jesus and
the Jews. At times, she is convinced by Jesus' miracles and believes in him,
while at other times the Jews, led by Judas, have the upper hand. Who is this
Helena? Is she Helena, queen of Adiabene, who converted to Judaism during
the first century CE, not long after Jesus' crucifixion?33 Or is she the mother of
Constantine, whose highly publicized visit to Jerusalem was a landmark in the
Christianization of the city? Ifso, how are we to understand the anachronism in
this Jewish text?
The presence of Helena in Se/er Toledo! Yeshu may be related to another
well-known Christian legend, which likewise tells of a momentous discovery -
the legend of the finding of the true CrosS. 34 In the most famous version of this
legend, a Jew named Judas discovers the location of the Cross. According to
this legend, Helena came to Jerusalem in order to find the Cross. She gathered
together all of its inhabitants, including the Jews living there and in its environs,
and preached a Christian sermon to them in which she rebuked them for seeing
darkness rather than light, and asking them to send her one thousand learned
Jews. After she had preached to these thousand Jews in a similar manner, she
demanded that she be presented with scholats who were truly learned in the
Torah. This time, five hundred learned Jews were chosen, and she preached
to them as well, and again asked to be presented a chosen group from among
them. One of these Jews, named Judas, understood what the queen wanted. He
explained to the other Jews that she wished to locate, with their help, the Cross
33 Josephus Flavius, Antiquities of the Jews, 20, 2-4.

34 Jan Willem Drijvers, Helena Augusta. The Mother of Constantine the Great and the
Legend of her Finding of the True Cross (Leiden: Brill, (992); Stephan Borgehammar, How
the Holy Cross was Found: From Event to Medieval Legend (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell
International, 1991); Han J. W. Drijvers and Jan Willem Drijvers, eds., The Finding of the True
Cross: The Judas Kyriakos Legend in Syriac: Introduction, Text, and Translation (CSCO 565,
Subsidia 93, Louvain: In aedibus Peeters, 1997).
upon which Jesus had been crucified, and warned them that its discovery would
be the end of Judaism. Judas, according to the legend, was a relative of Stephen,
the first martyr, who believed in Jesus and was thus stoned by the Jews; Judas'
ancestors had also believed in Jesus as the Messiah. The Jews prohibited Judas
from revealing the place of the Cross, but when the queen threatened to kill all
of them they turned him over to her. The queen demanded that Judas show her
the site of Golgotha; when he replied that he did not know where it was he was
thrown into an empty well where he was left to starve for a week. Exhausted
by hunger and by fear of death, Judas revealed his secret. He went to the place
and prayed to God that, if the Cross was indeed buried in the place to which he
had pointed, then a fragrant odor should arise from it. Immediately, a thunder
clap was heard and a wonderfully sweet and fragrant smell ascended from the
place. Judas began to dig until he found three crosses: that of Jesus and of the
two thieves who were crucified with him. At Judas' suggestion, the crosses were
placed one after another upon the body of a young man who had just died. When
the third cross was placed upon him, he rose from the dead, to the frustration of
Satan, who now intervened in the story and scolded Judas: "By the hands of the
first Judas I brought about treachery and caused the world to sin, while now I am
pursued by the second Judas." In the wake of the discovery, Helena built a mag-
nificent church at the site, expelled all the Jews from Judaea, and showered gifts
upon Christian Jerusalem. Judas was baptized and, when the bishop of Jerusalem
died, he was nominated bishop of the city and was renamed Kyriakos - "of the
Lord." In the days of Julian the Apostate, Judas died as a martyr for his new faith.
As in Sefer ToJedot Yeshu, this legend also features the pair Helena and Ju-
das - Helena is the one who seeks, while Judas is the one who reveals. In To-
ledot Yeshu, Judas reveals the body of Jesus and then hides it in order to reveal
it anew at the decisive moment, thereby refuting the Christian claim that he had
been resurrected from the dead. In the Legend of the Finding of the Cross, Ju-
das' function is to reveal to Helena the place of the grave and the Cross. In this
Christian legend, it is Satan who draws an analogy between Judas Iscariot and
Judas Kyriakos: whereas the first Judas was encouraged by Satan, the second
Judas defeats him. In this way Judas who discovers the Cross redeems the sin of
Judas who betrayed Christ. It is thus clear that the name Judas is not accidental,
and that in both stories it has representative significance - he represents Juda-
ism. Whatever may be the theological significance of the story of the finding of
the Cross, it expressed an optimistic prospect as to the possibility of correcting
the satanic acts of Judas Iscariot. Judas the Jew is the one who knows the truth,
reveals it to Helena, converts to Christianity, and brings about the conversion
of all the Jews. The transformation of the negative figure of Judas Iscariot to a
positive one also underlies Sefer Toledot Yeshu. Similarly, it takes Judas Iscariot
of the New Testament and proposes a positive alternative, changing him from
an ally of Satan into a redeemer. In both stories, the truth is found in the hands
of Judas, as representative of the Jews. It is Judas who knows the location of the
Cross in the Christian story and, in the Jewish story, knows the location of Jesus'
body and his falsehood and deceptiveness. This image of him is consistent with
a rooted Christian concept according to which, by virtue of their antiquity, the
Jews possess arcane knowledge that they pass down from generation to genera-
tion; this knowledge is essential for confirming the fundamental principals of
the Christian faith.35 One expression of this approach may be found in the idea
of the Hebrew Truth, the Veritas Hebraica - acceptance of the authority of the
Hebrew version of the Bible as the authentic text.
This similarity of concepts and ideas may imply that Toledot Yeshu was famil-
iar with the Legend of the Finding of the Cross and used several of its motifs in
order to create a Jewish counter-narrative, just as it did with the New Testament.
The assumption that Toledot Yeshu relies, in one way or another, upon the Leg-
end ofthe Finding ofthe Cross also explains why, in addition to the discovery of
the chicanery of Jesus, Toledot Yeshu attributes to Judas the discovery of Jesus'
body as well. Whereas, in the New Testament, Judas plays no role in the story
of the burial and resurrection, in the Legend of the Finding ofthe Cross he is the
one who discovers the grave and the Cross.
The suggested connection between the two legends may explain the sUfllris-
ing presence of Queen Helena in several versions of Toledot Yeshu. The authors
of Toledot Yeshu incofllorated her name in an anachronistic manner, in order to
counteflloise the Christian legend with another Jewish story about Judas, the
revealer of the truth - only the truth that he reveals is not that of the Cross, but
rather that of the false nature of the Christian religion as a whole.
The connection between these two legends was already noted by'the author of
one of the versions of Toledot Yeshu, preserved in a Vienna manuscript from the
18th century, in which a Jewish version ofthe legend of the finding of the Cross is
brought.36In this version, the Jewish story confronts the famous Christian legend
with a counter-version, which reverses its message. When Helena threatens the
Jews with death if they do not reveal to her the location of the Cross, the Jewish
Judas - referred to here as .oR. Judah the Elder" - suggests to the Jews that they
take three crosses and bury them. When the queen tortures Judas so that he will
reveal the site of the Cross, he asks for three days to pray, and then points to the
place where the three crosses had been hidden, as if it was revealed to him from
Heaven. Using the power of the Shem Hameforash which he had learned previ-
35 Ora Limor, "Christian Tradition - Jewish Authority," Cathedra 80 (1996): 31-62 (in He-
brew); Ora Limor, "Christian Sacred Space and the Jew," in From Witness to Witchcraft. Jews
and Judaism in Medieval Christian Thought (ed. Jeremy Cohen, WolfenbiitteIer Mittelalter-
Studien 11; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1996),55-77; Andrew S. Jacobs, Remains o/the
Jews: The Holy Land and Christian Empire in Late Antiquity (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 2004), 14,178-82.
36 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 141-43.
JuOOs Iscariot: Revealer of the Hidden Truth 211
ously, Judas revives the dead person upon whom the cross had been placed - and
thus everybody believes that this is the true Cross. When the Christians, who had
supposedly seen the power of the Cross, decide to kill all the Jews, Judas offers
to give his own life for his people and disguises himself as one of the disciples
of Jesus. Here too, this anti-Christian legend preserves all the details of the
Christian story, but gives them a new interpretation, reversing their significance.
Judas, the hero of the Christian story, is also the hero of the Jewish legend - but
not because he discovered the Cross and converted to Christianity, but because
he outwitted the Christians and fooled them, and because he pretended to be a
Christian and thereby saved the Jews. Ram Ben-Shalom has shown recently
that the Legend of the Finding of the true Cross was known to Jews in the 15 th
century.3? In view of the wide circulation of the legend in the Christian world, it
is only reasonable that Jews will know of it and try to cope with it.
The Biography of Judas in the Golden Legend
In the Legend of the Finding of the True Cross, the figure of Judas undergoes
a transformation: from a traitor who betrays his master, he becomes the one to
discover the truth about his master. The assumption that Jewish existence in the
Christian world is temporary and that the Jews will in the near future overcome
their blindness and convert to Christianity is what underlies the Christian doc-
trine of tolerance towards them. However, this optimistic assumption gave way
in the Middle Ages to a far more pessimistic stance, according to which the sin
of the Jews is terminal and not subject to atonement.
An echo of the loss of Christian hope in the conversion of the Jews, and of
the aggravation of Christian attitude to the Jews in general, is expressed in the
third text presented here, which takes us into the twelfth and thirteenth century.38
The New Testament does not relate where Judas came from, who his parents
were, or how it came about that he joined the circle of Jesus' disciples. As the
biographies of heroes, even of negative ones, inevitably arouse great interest in
human hearts, it is not surprising that such a biography found its way into the
Legenda Aurea (The Golden Legend), a collection of stories of saints that was
gathered and edited in the thirteenth century by Jacobus de Voragine, bishop
of the city of Genoa and a Dominican monk. 39 The collection also includes the
37 Ram Ben-Shalom, Facing Christian Culture: Historical Conciousness and Images of the
Past among the Jews of Spain and Southern France during the Middle Ages (Jerusalem: Ben
Zvi Institute and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2006 [in Hebrew)), 195-202.
38 On the image of Judas in the Christian Middle Ages see Dieckmann, Judas als Siinden-
back; Peter Dinzelbacher, Judastraditionen (Vienna: Selbstverlag des Osterreichischen Muse-
ums fUr Volkskunde, 1977).
39 Jacobus a Voragine, Legenda Aurea (ed. Th. Graesse, Dresden and Leipzig: 1846), 183-
86; English translation: Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints
Legend of the Finding of the Cross. Judas was, of course, not a Christian saint,
and his story is brought in the book as an aside, in connection with the story of
Matthias, the disciple who was chosen to join the other eleven in place of Judas.
The origins of the legend are unknown. The editor himself, who refers to it as
"apocryphal," casts doubt upon its validity, leaving the reader with the choice
as to whether or not to accept its authenticity. Indeed, at the last moment his
doubts become stronger and he proposes rejecting it. 40 Nevertheless, he himself
overcame his doubts, and included the story in his collection, thereby leading to
its wide dissemination in the medieval Christian world.
According to the legend, Judas was born in Jerusalem to his father, Reuben (or
Simeon) from the tribe of Dan, and to his mother, Cyborea. Before he was born,
his mother had a dream that she would give birth to a son who would destroy his
people. In order to prevent the realization of this dream, his parents abandoned
him. They placed him in a basket in the sea, and the waves of the sea carried
him off to an island known as Iscariot. The queen of the island, who was child-
less, discovered the basket with the child in it and adopted him as her own son.
Thereafter, the queen had a child of her own, and enmity developed between the
two boys. Judas was in the habit of tormenting the true son and, when it became
known in public that he was a foundling, killed his "brother." He then fled to
Jerusalem, where he became Pontius Pilate's right-hand man. One day, Pilate
desired an apple he saw in a garden beneath his palace and sent Judas to bring it.
A quarrel broke out between Judas and the owner of the garden, who happened
to be Reuben, Judas father, and Judas killed Reuben without realizing that the
latter was his father. Pilate gave Judas all of Reuben's property, ipcluding his
wife, Cyborea, whom Judas married. After discovering his true identity, Judas
sought atonement for his sins from Jesus and joined Jesus' disciples.
From here on the legend follows the New Testament stories, with a few vari-
ants: Jesus made Judas his disciple and chose him as apostle. Judas became a
favorite of him to such an extent that he became his purse-bearer. Judas held
the purse and used to steal from the alms donated to Jesus. Angered by the fact
that the ointment of the value of three hundreds pence was bestowed upon Jesus
and was not sold, he betrayed his master for thirty pieces of silver, each of them
worth ten pence. Another explanation is that Judas used to take a tenth part of all
monies entrusted to his care and thus sold Jesus for the profit which would have
come to him had the ointment been sold. Then he regretted his deed, gave back
(trans. WiIliarn Granger Ryan; 2 vols.; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), I: 166-71.
On the Golden Legend, see Sherry L. Reames, Legenda Aurea: A Reexamination of its Para-
doxical History (Madison, Wisc: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1985); on Judas' legend,
see "Judaslegende," Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Veifasserlexikon 4 (1983),882-87;
Migne, Dictionnaire des Legendes du Christianisme (Paris: 1855, reprint: Brepols, 1989),
714-726; Elizabeth Archibald, Incest and the Medieval Imagination (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2001),104-25; Gubar, Judas, 141-57.
40 Jacobus De Voragine, The Golden Legend, I: 168.
the money and hung himself from a tree "and burst asunder in the middle, and
all his bowels gushed out." Thus, the legend brings together both New Testament
versions concerning the form of his death - the hanging41 and the gushing-out
of his bowels. 42 The narrator adds an explanation to this horrible death: ''Thus
his mouth was spared defilement since nothing came out through it, for it would
have been incongruous that a mouth that had touched the glorious lips of Christ
should be so foully soiled. It also was fitting that the bowels that had conceived
the betrayal should burst and spill out, and that the throat from which had
emerged the voice of the traitor should be strangled by a rope. Moreover, Judas
perished in the air, so that the one who had offended the angels in heaven and
men on earth was kept out of the region belonging to angels and to men, and was
left in the air, in the company of demons.''''3
The Golden Legend was very popular throughout Europe during the High
and Late Middle Ages. About a thousand Latin manuscripts of it have survived
and it was also translated to the various spoken languages. The Judas legend
has also come down to us in dozens of other Latin manuscripts unrelated to the
Golden Legend. Beginning in the thirteenth century vernacular versions started
to be circulated alongside the Latin ones. It was known all over Western Europe
and survived also in Greek and in East European languages. 44 In England, the
legend continued to be published until 1828, and was especially popular in the
eighteenth century.4S True, one does not find it in theological or exegetical Iitera-
ture. Nevertheless, we may assume that it was used in sermons in the churches,
and its negative influence may only be imagined.46 If Judas was, as is implied
by his name, the archetype of the Jew, then his negative qualities represent the
qualities of the Jews as a whole. 47
The roots of the "apocryphal" parts of the legend can be sought for in the story
of Oedipus, and it also echoes the stories of Cain and Abel, of the birth of Moses,
and the Christian legend of the Antichrist. A literary analysis of the legend will
take the reader along exciting paths of popular literature, psychoanalysis, and the
41 Matt 27:5.
42 Acts 1:18.
43 Jacobus De Voragine, The Golden Legend, 1:168--69.
44 Paull Franklin Baum, "The Mediaeval Legend of Judas Iscariot," Publications of the
Modern Language Association ofAmerica 31 n.s. 24 (1916) (reprinted 2008): 481-632; Lehm-
ann, "Judas Ischarioth." According to Lehmann, the earliest version of the legend comes from
twelfth century France (p. 312); Richard Axton, "Interpretations of Judas in Middle English
Literature," in Religion in the Poetry and Drama ofthe Late Middle Ages in England (eds. Piero
Boitani and Anna Torti, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 179-97.
4S Baum, "The Mediaeval Legend ofJudas Iscariot," 571.
46 See Weber, "The Hanged Judas of Freiburg Cathedral." Weber believes that the figure of
the hanged Judas in the west tympanum ofFreiburg cathedral was inspired by the Judas legend.
47 Kim Paffenroth, Judas: Images of the Lost Disciple (Louisville and London: Westminster
John Knox Press, 2001), 33-57; Mary Flowers Braswell, "Chaucer's Palimpsest: Judas Iscariot
and the Pardoner's Tale," The Chaucer Review 29 (1995): 303-10.
study of religions. The "biography" of Judas is one example of incest stories that
started to appear in written texts in increasing numbers from the twelfth century
on. According to Elizabeth Archibald, "this was not merely because of the grow-
ing audience for Latin and vernacular narrative fiction in this period, though of
course the 'rise of romance' ... must have been a contributing factor. Incest was
a very topical subject in the twelfth century because of the Church's attempt to
define marriage in precise legal terms ... There was also a new emphasis in this
period on the importance of contrition, inner consciousness of guilt and repen-
tance, and also on the value of confession ... "48
Yet, a comparison with other incest legends only accentuates the negative
message of the Judas' legend. Like Judas, Oedipus also committed terrible
sins, because of the decree of fate, but precisely for that reason, he enjoys the
observer's sympathy. He suffers despite having done no (deliberate) wrong; he
is imprisoned in the chains of a fate imposed upon him from birth.49 Such is
not the case of Judas who, after sinning repeatedly, is given the opportunity to
atone for his sins and to repent - but who then augments his sin by committing
the greatest sin of all, the betrayal of Jesus. As a matter of fact, Judas betrays
everyone - his father, his mother, his master, his people. 50 In Kermode's words:
"Betrayal becomes Judas."51
A comparison between the legend of Judas and another legend from the
Middle Ages, built of similar materials, only exacerbates the uniqueness of Judas
as the arch-sinner. This legend, set down in writing in the Late 12th or beginning
of 13 th century by the German poet Hartmann von Aue, tells the story of Grego-
rius I ("The Great," who served as pope in the years 590--604), 'X.ho was born
as the result of incest between a brother and sister, the children of a king. 52 The
infant, who was born in secret, was placed in a chest on the river together with
a tablet disclosing his origins. A fishermen saved him and raised him, and the
48 Archibald, Incest and the Medieval Imagination, 106.

49 Thomas Hahn, "The Medieval Oedipus," Comparative Literature 32 (1980): 225-37;
Lowell Edmunds, "Oedipus in the Middle Ages," An(ike und Abendland 22 (1976):140-55;
Hippolyte Delehaye, The Legends o/the Saints (trans. Donald Attwater; Portland, OR: Four
Courts Press, 1998), 63.
50 Judas was guilty for fratricide, parricide, and incest, but his gravest sin was betrayal.
Hahn reminds us that in the Middle Ages the feudal ideals turned betrayal the most abhorrent
sin of all (Hahn, "The Medieval Oedipus"). As Archibald writes, in Judas' legend, incest and
parricide "were clearly added to show what an incorrigible villain Judas was." His deeds are
"extreme transgressions of the fifth, sixth, and seventh commandments" (Archibald, Incest and
the Medieval Imagination, 108-9).
51 Kermode, The Genesis o/Secrecy, 85
52 Hartmann von Aue, Gregorius, (cd., Hermann Paul, Tiibingen: Niemeyer, 1984); English
translation: Hartmann von Aue, Gregorius: A Medieval Oedipus Legend (trans. Edwin H. Zey-
del; Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1955). The story is also included in Gesta
Romanorum (eds. and trans. Charles Swan and Wynnard Hooper; London, 1891), 141-54.
To the same family of stories belong also the legends of Saint Andreas of Crete and of Saint
Albanus. See Archibald, Incest and the Medieval Imagination, 119-23.
Judas lscariot: Revealer of the Hidden Troth 215
abbot of the local monastery baptized him and gave him his name - Gregorius.
After his origin became known, Gregorius decided to go off and wander about
in the world. He arrived at a kingdom of whose queen had been placed under
siege by a certain duke whom she refused to marry. Gregorius defeated the duke,
married the queen, but continued to be tormented over the terrible secret of his
birth. The queen, curious about his unhappiness, discovered the tablet, and it thus
became clear to her that she was the mother of her own husband. Gregorius then
went into exile. He came to a hut of a wicked fisherman and asked him to chain
him to a stone in the sea and throw the key into the sea. Thus he lived over the
course of many years. After seventeen years the pope died, and two cardinals,
who saw in a dream the intended heir, set out to look for him. They arrived at
the fisherman's hut and were invited to dine with him. During the course of the
meal they discovered the key in the belly of a fish, which was understood as a
sign from heaven that Gregorius's sin had been forgiven. He was then released
from his chains, crowned as pope and became an admired spiritual leader. Upon
his death he was canonized as saint.
Like Judas, Gregorius also sinned by committing incest with his mother, but
he repented and his sin was forgiven. He even became a saint of the church,
purified through the power of his atonement. Judas also attempted to atone for
his sins, but even after these sins were forgiven he continued to sin. Evidently,
sin was imprinted within him. While in the Gregorius legend "the characters
retain their nobility and the reader's sympathy throughout,"S3 Judas loses both.
What exacerbated Judas' sin in particular was the fact that he committed
suicide rather than seeking forgiveness. According to Christian teaching, there
is no sin for which one cannot receive atonement, but one must believe in
God's kindness and forgiveness and in His ability to atone for sin. Judas did
not believe but instead hung himself - and this was the greatest of all his sins.
Friedrich Ohly, who in his book The Damned and the Elect: Guilt in Western
Culture 54 deals with psychology of self damnation, writes that Judas, unlike
Gregorius, "fell far away from God because he did not trust in the grace that
follows on repentance. "55 He despaired and was unable to ask for forgiveness
and to believe in it. "The real question is not how one gets into guilt but how
one gets out of it," writes Ohly.56 This is the difference between the saintly sin-
ner (Gregorius) and the damned sinner (Judas). The historical implications of
this difference are brought up by George Steiner in his foreword to the English
53 Archibald, ibid., 118-19.
54 Friedrich Ohly, The Damned and the Elect: Guilt in Western Culture (teans. Linda Ar-
chibald; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 1-34; from the German, Der Ver-
ftuchte und der Erwiihlte: vom Leben mU der Schuld (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1976).
55 Ohly, ibid., 31. Indeed, In the Gregorius legend Gregorius warns his mother not to abandon
herself to despair (verses 2698-702): "Despair not of God's ends / You shall still find salvation/
I've read of consolation/That God will true repentance heed/ As penance for each evil deed."
56 Ohly, ibid., 5.
edition of Ohly's book: "It is ironic that OR Friedrich Ohly's work itself lies
under a certain shadow. Nowhere does he bring himself to touch on the obvious
central crux that, of the disciples, only Judas is, by his very name, defined as a
Jew ... It is countless Jewish men, women and children who suffered ostracism
and martyrdom in the black light of Judas' fate as it has been proclaimed and
imaged by Christianity ... "57
And, indeed, the appearance of the legend in Europe in the twelfth century and
its broad dissemination is further testimony to the aggravation in the Christian
attitude towards the Jews at that time. The negative image of the Jews became
now a satanic one. The Jews were understood to be sinners and scoundrels by
their very nature, without any possible hope of correction. Even if they did re-
pent, like Judas, and even converted to Christianity, nothing could change their
sinful nature. All that is left is for Christians to be wary of them and to expel
them from their midst.
Students of literature, and particularly of folk literature in past generations,
have dealt with this legend, documented its dissemination, and attempted to un-
derstand its sources. 58 The legend also caught the attention of psychologists, who
dealt with its psychoanalytic significance. 59 In 1986, again in a psychoanalytic
journal, the medieval scholar Alain Boureau analyzed the significance of the
legend for medieval society in the context of feudal laws of inheritance, the cult
of veneration of the Virgin, and anti-Semitism. 6o Surprisingly, the story barely
engaged in the interest of scholars who dealt with Jewish-Christian relations, a
subject that since World War 1I has occupied an important place in research, both
within the framework of the question of the sources of anti-Semit.ism, and in the
context of recent tendencies towards rapprochement between the two religions. 61
57 Steiner in Ohly, ibid., xiii-xiv. Steiner goes on saying: "Half a century after Auschwitz, it
seems as if German scholarship is still lamed when it draws near the unspeakable; a condition
which gives to this essay on 'life and guilt' constraining pathos."
58 Baum, "The Mediaeval Legend of Judas Iscariot"; V. Istrin, "Die griechische Version der
Judas-Legende," Archiv for Slavische Philologie 20'( 1898): 605-19; Lehrnann, "Judas Ischar-
ioth"; Axton, "Interpretations of Judas."
59 Norman Reider, "Medieval Oedipal Legends about Judas," The Psychoanalytic Quarterly
29 (1960): 515-27; Sidney Tarachow, "Judas, the Beloved Executioner," The Psychoanalytic
Quarterly 29 (1960): 528-54; Mordechai Rotenberg, "The Oedipal Conflict and the Isaac
Solution," in: Mordechai Rotenberg, Re-Biographing and Deviance: Psychotherapeutic Nar-
rativism and the Midrash (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1987),93-110.
60 Alain Boureau, "L'inceste de Judas: Essai sur la genese de la haine antisemite au XIIC
siecle," Nouvelle Revue de Psychanalyse 33 (1986): 25-41.
61 A clear exception is the book recently published by Jonathan A. Silk, Riven by Lust: Incest
and Schism in Indian Buddhist Legend and Historiography (Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 2009). The author, who is a scholar of Buddhism, arrived at similar conclusions as ours.
He stresses the anti-Jewish character of the Judas legend and puts it rightly in historical context,
as an expression of the deterioration in the Jewish position in the High Middle Ages. An earlier
exception is Hyam Maccoby's short treatment of the Legend in his book Jud(11l Iscariot and the
Myth ofJewish Evil (New York: Free Press, 1992), 101-7.
Modem scholarship of Jewish-Christian encounters follows in the footsteps of

fonner Jewish writing. Indeed, the total silence of Jewish sources with regard to
this story is quite surprising. If the Jews knew what Christians were telling about
Judas - and it is difficult to imagine that they were not familiar with a juicy,
colorful and widespread story as this - why did they not see fit to deny the story,
to cast doubt as to its reliability, or at least to point out its absurdities? The Jews'
ignoring of this story may be seen as a deliberate strategy, whose significance
one is left to ponder. It is consistent with the feeble Jewish reaction towards ac-
cusations and libels widespread in the Christian world from the twelfth century
on - particularly the ritual murder, the blood libel and libels of the desecration
ofthe Host, as well as poisoning of wells and other acts of treachery. The Jewish
responses to all these accusations were few and weak and do not reflect much
intellectual interest. 62
The absence of a Jewish response to the figure of Judas Iscariot as presented
in the Golden Legend is in striking contrast to the colorful response of Toledot
Yeshu to the New Testament figure of Judas, and should be understood in tenns
of the exacerbation in relations of the Christian majority to the Jewish minor-
ity during the High Middle Ages. Evidence of the existence of internal Jewish
censorship and fear of exposing anti-Christian expressions in public can already
be found at the beginning ofthe twelfth century, but a striking change took place
in the thirteenth century with the strengthening of Christian pressure on Jews,
Christian criticism of Jewish literature and the proliferation of a Satanic image
of the Jew. It would seem that Jews lost any interest in confronting such images
and did not believe there is a way to refute them. Whereas, in the New Testa-
ment, Judas Iscariot is presented as a human figure, treacherous and avaricious
as he may be, in the Golden Legend he is depicted as pathologically distorted, a
depiction that leaves no place for an answer, much like the tales of ritual murder
or the accusations of ritual desecration of the Host.
Hence, in place of the open and frank discussion found in Late Antiquity,
when various versions of the life of Jesus and of Judas developed (the period
during which the apocryphal Christian stories concerning them were themselves
born), the High Middle Ages developed a strangling and depressing atmosphere
which allowed no place for alternative narratives. Rather than a competition
among narratives, we now find a denial ofthe other and of his narrative, and feel-
ings of frustration as to the very possibility of changing the position of the other
side. It would seem that Jews now preferred to ignore the Christian neighbor
rather than to answer him. Indeed, some versions of Toledot Yeshu continued to
be circulated among Jews even at the end of the Middle Ages and into the begin-
62 Israel J. Yuval, .. 'They Tell Lies: You Ate the Man': Jewish Reactions to Ritual Murder
Accusations," Religious Violence Between Christians and Jews (ed. Anna Sapir Abulafia,
Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan Press, 2002), 86--106.
ning of the modem period, and it seems quite likely that at least some of them
were created during this period. They thereby preserved a genre that was born in
the distant past and dealt with ancient story, but was unable to provide an answer
to the new narratives that prevailed now in Christian culture, representing the
Jew as ally to the Satan - sinful from birth, desecrating the body of Christ, and
requiring the blood of Christian children.
When Christians in medieval Europe listened to the abhorrent story about
Judas the arch-traitor, the betrayer of the son of God, Jews of the same countries
listened clandestinely to the story of Toledot Yeshu, in which Judas is the hero
and savior. The same Judas thus assumed two radically opposed images, and his
character expressed in a concise manner the deep chasm that opened up between
believers of the two religions.
Epilogue: Judah, Jew, and Israel
These two opposed stories, as well as the story about Judas who discovered
the Cross in the legend of Helena, assume their full significance in view of the
identification between the individual hero who carries the name Judas, and the
Jewish collectivity.63 A quick look at the sources shows that the term "Jew"
(Yehudi, Yehudim; Iudeus, Iudei) was widespread in Jewish literature through-
out the Second Temple period.64 In tannaitic and amoraic literature, however,
we note a significant change - the term "Jew" is hardly encountered at all, in
its place we find "Israel." While "Jew" is mentioned only once In the Mishnah,
"Israel" appears hundreds of times. Moreover, in those isolated cases when
"Jew" is mentioned in Talmudic literature, it is almost always in a derogatory
way and put in the mouths of non-Jews. A similar process occurs with regard to
the name of the land. The term "the Land of Israel" is rarely found in biblical
and Second Temple literature, the land being referred to by the names of its vari-
ous regions - Judaea and Galilee - whereas in Mishnaic literature it is referred
to almost exclusively as Eretz Yisrael. These developments acquire their full
significance when compared to Christian literature, which uses almost solely the
term Jew (and not Israel) for the Jewish people.
63 See Dieckrnann: "Die mittelalterliche Tendenz, Personen typologisch zu deuten, fUhrte

dazu, Judas als Typ, als Inbegriff des jiidischen Volkes zu betrachten. Ansiitze dazu gibt es
schon in der Alten Kirche, etwa bei Augustinus und Hilarius von Poitiers" (Dieckmann, Judas
a/s Siindenbock, 69).
64 Graham Harvey, The True Israel. Uses of the Names Jew, Hebrew and Israel in Ancient
Jewish and Early Christian Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1996); David Goodb1att, Elements of
Ancient Jewish Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Martin Good-
man, "Romans, Jews and Christians on the Names of the Jews," in The Other in Second Temple
Judaism: Essays in Honor ofJohn J. Collins (eds. Daniel C. Harlow, Karina Martin Hogan and
Joel S. Kaminsky; Grand Rapids, forthcoming).
In medieval Jewish literature, the term "Jew" gradually came to assume a

somewhat more central role. In Ashkenazic sources, "Jew" is often used, es-
pecially in the Responsa literature, which deals with concrete cases and occur-
rences. The same holds true for Sefer Hasidim, which brings daily anecdotes and
exempla. However, its use seems to be limited to defining the ethnic identity of
the contemporary individual or group, whereas "Israel" remains the definition
used for the religious, mythic and historical identity. Proof of this can be found
in Jewish liturgical literature - the Siddur, the Mahzorim for the various holi-
days, and the piyyut - in which the term "Israel" is used exclusively to refer to
the Jewish people. In his Mishne Tora, Maimonides uses the term "Israel" more
than 2000 times, whereas "Jew" is mentioned only six times. The book of Zohar
mentions "Israel" 5700 times and "Jew" only 20 times.
Why did Jews refrain from using the term Jew, which was widely used by their
Christian neighbors? We can think of several answers to this question:
The first is that what we have here is an internal Jewish development - still
in need of explanation - that has nothing to do with the Christian world. Jews
preferred the term Israel for their own internal reasons and the Christian label
did not bother them at all. 65
On the other hand, another answer could be that the Jews felt the need to
refrain from using the term Jew because of its negative connotations. The name
Israel thus served for them both as a declaration of their identity as the true Israel
and as a means of eliminating the negative connotations that Christianity affixed
to all Jews because of Judas Iscariot.
If so, then it would seem that Jews had two ways of tackling the negative
Christian portrayal of Judas. One is the route taken by Toledot Yeshu, which
adopts the Christian standpoint, but in an inverted manner: In all versions of
that work, Judas Iscariot is the explicit representative of the Jewish people and
its leadership: he is both hero and leader. This is a bold attempt to reverse the
negative image of Judas by turning the picture portrayed in the New Testament
upside down. The second way was to refrain from using the name Judas alto-
gether. This was the solution adopted by the Sages, as well as by many, although
not all, medieval writers and some modem ones as well.
Thus the circle is closed. What a contemporary Israeli author (Abraham B.
Yehoshua) felt about the term "Jews" was also felt in Late Antiquity and the
65 Eyal Ben Eliyahu, "Judea and Israel: The Territorial Dimension of National Identity," Zion
72 (2010): 127-151 (in Hebrew). According to Ben Eliyahu, the alteration in name from Judah
to Israel during the tannaitic period derived from the moving of the religious and political center
of the Jews in the land oflsrael from Judaea to the Galilee. Israel J. Yuval is of the opinion that
the change in the name of the land is related to a change in the sense of self-identity and the
desire to propose an alternative geographical definition to the Roman name, "Palestinian Syria,"
following the Bar-Kokhba rebellion. See "The Myth of the Jewish Exile from the Land of
Israel," Common Knowledge 12 (2006): 16-33. This tendency was weakened in amoraic litera-
ture, in which the term "Jew" is again used alongside "Israel," albeit in a much lower intensity.
Middle Ages by many Jews, for whom the term "Israel" represented their mythi-
cal, liturgical and historical identity. The term "Jew" remained risky, because it
could easily be used derogatively by those who identified it with Judas Iscariot.
Simon Peter, Founder of Christianity
or Saviour of Israel?
John Gager
My goal in this paper is to trace a remarkable transformation of the figure of Pe-

ter and to ask two questions: (I) How did the first Christian martyr, the first pope
of the roman catholic church and the leading disciple of Jesus in the early gospels
become an underground double-agent of the Jewish sages? How did this pseudo-
believer bring about the final separation of Christianity from Judaism - first by
passing himself off as the leading disciple of Jesus, and then single-handedly
creating Christianity as little more than a deformed Jewish heresy with but one
valid teaching, to wit, that Jesus had commanded his followers to leave Jews in
peace and to cease doing them any harm?1 (2) How did he come to be regarded
as the composer of numerous liturgical poems (piyyutim) and ofthe Yom Kippur
liturgy, the most solemn service in the Jewish calendar?
But before beginning this task, I need to make a couple of things quite clear.
First, I don't actually believe any of this: there were no popes for at least 100
years after Peter's death; there is no solid evidence that Peter was ever in Rome,
let alone martyred there; and there is just as little evidence that he played the
role of a Rabbinic double-agent who saved Israel by giving birth to Christianity
and then insisting on their total separation. I should note in passing, however,
that there is one significant point of contact between these two radically opposed
images of Peter - and I will come back to the issue of such contacts later on -
namely, that in both cases he is treated as the primary founder of Christianity - in
one case as an authentic faith, i. e., Judaism, in the other as an inauthentic reli-
gion, i. e., Christianity.2 Second, we need to keep in mind one fundamental fact
I I have benefitted from the following studies, each dealing with the figure of Peter in Jew-
ish tradition: Julius H. Greenstone, "Jewish Legends about Simon-Peter," Historia Judaica 12
(1950): 89-104; Simon Legasse, "La legende juive des Apotres et les rapports judeo-chretiens
dans le haut Moyen Age," BLE 75 (1974): 99-132; Wout van Bekkum, "The Rock on which
the Church is Founded: Simon Peter in Jewish Folklore," in Saints and Role Models in Judaism
and Christianity (eds. Marcel Poorthuis and Joshua Schwartz; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 289-307;
and idem, "The Poetical Qualities of the Apostle Peter in Jewish Folktale," Zutot (2003):
16-25. Samuel Krauss, Dos Leben Jesu nachjudischen Quellen (Berlin: S. Calvary, 1902; repr.,
Hildesheim: Olms, 1977) remains essential on all aspects of the Toledot Yeshu (Ty), along with
Riccardo Di Segni, 11 vangelo del ghetto (Rome: Newton Compton, 1985), 33, 51--66.
2 In the Vienna manuscript. ofthe TY, Peter is called ha-pa 'pa' ha- 'a, i.e., "the first pope"
(Krauss, Dos Leben Jesu, 87).
222 John Gager
that emerges from these preliminary comments, namely, that 'Peter' was like a
lump of soft clay in the hands of Jewish and Christian writers in the early cen-
turies of the common era. They could shape him into whatever form they liked
or needed. He could become - and this is exactly what happened - all things to
all people. The number of Peter images in early Christian literature, beginning
with the New Testament (NT) gospels and extending well into later centuries, is
simply overwhelming. Unlike his counterpart Paul, Peter was unencumbered by
the burden of having left behind any solid historical traces. No one possessed any
reliable information about him; the best proof of this is the unending series of
pious histories of Peter written by Christian authors right down to the present day
(I will come back to this one later on, too). And third, all of the various threads
in the process of Peters' literary transformations will lead us to and through the
Toledot Yeshu (TY).
I begin with an enigmatic comment in a little known Jewish text of uncertain
date - the Hebrew Scroll of Fasts, known in its many versions as Megillat Ta 'anit
or Megillat Ta 'ani! Batra. 3 Unlike the better known Aramaic Megillat Ta'anit
which pro-scribes fast days - that is, it specifies days in the Jewish calendar
when fasting is prohibited - this one pre-scribes fast days, and in most cases
gives a reason for the fast, usually as a commemoration of some great hero from
the Jewish past. As Sid Z. Leiman, on whose work I rely, has written, there are
many peCUliarities to this text: our Hebrew Megillah requires fasts on the 8th and
lOth of Nisan, whereas the Aramaic scroll expressly forbids fasting altogether
from the 8th to the 21 sI of Ni san; and its opening line states that what follows is a
list of days set aside for fasting in the Torah, whereas the Torah contains no such
guidelines for fasts as a way of commemorating Biblical heroes. But it is another
anomaly in the text which concerns us here; in this case, the only instance in the
scroll where a fast day lacks any mention of the reason behind it. For the 9th of
Tevet, the text reads: betish 'ah bo 10 katvu rabotenu 'af mah hu ("On the [fast
for] the 9th ofTevet our teachers did not write the reason for it"). This anomaly
has prompted imaginative speculations from various readers. One such attempt
argues that the fast anticipated by some 1000 years the martyr-death ofR. Joseph
ha-Levi ha-Nagid in 1066; another states that this was the date when Esther
was taken to the court of Ahasuerus. Certainly the most interesting of these
traditional efforts was the argument put forward by several 19th century Jewish
historians (Leopold Zunz, Solomon Judah Rapoport and Nehemiah Briill), based
on a statement by the 12th century Jewish philosopher and astronomer, Abraham
bar Hiyya, that Dec. 25 in the year ofJesus' birth fell on the 9th ofTevet! In short,
3 See Sid Z. Leiman, "The Scroll of Fasts: The Ninth of Tebeth," JQR 64 (1983): 174-95;
Leiman dates the text to the 9th century. On the Megillat Ta'anit, see the recent volume of
Shulamit Elizur, Wherefore Have We Fasted: Megilat Ta'anit Batra and Similar Lists ofFasts
(Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, The Rabbi David Moses and Amalia Rosen Foun-
dation, 2007 [in Hebrew)).
Simon Peter, Founder of Christianity or Saviour ofIsrael? 223
the fast commemorated the birth of Jesus and the rabbis acted out of prudence by
suppressing this unfortunate and unacceptable calendrical coincidence. 4 Having
dismissed these and other efforts as baseless, Leiman points us to yet another
explanation for our enigmatic saying, an explanation even more outrageous than
any of those he has just demolished. This one takes us directly to Peter, or rather,
under a different name, to Shimon Kaipha or Simon Peter, as he is known in a
variety ofNT texts:
- Matt 4.18 - "Simon called Peter/Petros" (= "rock" in Greek).
- Matt 16.18 - "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my
church ... "
- John 1.42 - "Jesus looked at him, and said, "So you are Simon, the son of
John? You shall be called Cephas" (kifa = "rock," etc. in Aramaic - Cephas
in Greek), which translates as Petros (= "rock").
- Galatians 2.11 - "But when Cephas (= Peter) came to Antioch, I (= Paul) op-
posed him to his face, because he stood condemned ... "
Leiman's explanation of the passage in the Hebrew Scroll of fasts begins with
two obscure comments by 19th century rabbinical scholars:
Rabbi Baruch Fraenkel-Teomim (d. 1828) reports that he discovered the
following gloss in a manuscript of Josef Karo's (d. 1575) Shulhan Arukh: "on
the 9th of Tevet, Shimon Qalpos died, the one who saved the Jews from a great
misfortune in the time of "the violent ones" (peritsim); the day of his death was
established in Jerusalem as a fast forever." And Aaron of Worms, Rabbi at Metz
(d. 1861) reports that in a se/er zikhronot he found a report that the 9th of Tevet
commemorates the death of Shimon Qalponi.
Now it is highly unlikely that either one of these scholars knew who this Shi-
mon was, although in the case of Aaron of Worms it is clear that he is aware of
our enigmatic phrase in the Hebrew Megillat Ta 'ani!. But for us the question is,
Who is this Shimon ha-Qalpos or Qalponi whose death is commemorated on the
9th ofTevet? The answer would appear to lie in the famous or infamous version
of the Toledot Yeshu published in 1705 (Leiden) by Johann Jacob Huldreich (also
referred to variously as Ulrich and Huldricus), under the title Histaria Jeschuae
4 My colleague, Sarit Kattan-Gribetz, has made a suggestion that deserves to be taken seri-
ously. Her view is that the author(s) of the Toledot Yeshu may have chosen the 9th of Tevet as
the date of Shimon Kaipha's death, based on Abraham bar Hiyya's (d. ca. 1136) calculation,
as a polemical thrust against the Christian celebration of December 25 as the birth of authentic
Christianity. The Jewish reply would thus be that the real significance of December 25/9th of
Tevet lay in celebrating not the birth of Jesus, the false messiah, but rather the death of Shimon,
the saviour of Israel! It is also possible that bar Hiyya himself chose to make December 25
coincide with the 9th of Tevet for the same polemical purpose and that he did so based on his
knowledge of prior Toledot Yeshu traditions regarding the observance of Shim on's death on that
date. See the discussion of bar Hiyya in Leiman, 182-85.
224 John Gager
Nazareni a Judaeis blaspheme corrupta. s The hero of this version is called Rabbi
Shimon Qalpos throughout the text. 6 When the people of Ai (= Rome) begin to
outnumber and oppress the Jews, the sages turn for help to a Rabbi Shimon,
identified as an uncle of Jesus and an honored elder among the Jews. I will
give here a brieflist ofthe various means by which Rabbi Shimon deceived the
Christians in the Huldreich text:
- he spoke to the Christians al da 'at Yesus which they took to mean that he
taught according to the religion of Jesus; but our text comments that in the
language of the sages, the phrase al da 'at means lashon anus or something
like forced or cryptic speech and thus misleading speech for which one is not
held responsible;
he performed miracles by using the shem ha-meforash (the secret and power-
ful name of god) and thus persuaded the Christians to accept his authority on
all matters;
- he informed them that Jesus wanted his followers to cause no harm to Jews;
- he forbade Christians to impose forced baptism on Jews; 7
- summoned and persuaded by the sages, who take upon themselves responsi-
bility for any sins Rabbi Shimon might commit by becoming the leader of the
Christians (the account is much compressed here and is described more fully
in other versions), Shimon agrees to lay down bad laws for the Christians and
to bring Christian oppression of the Jews to an end;
5 Huldreich transcribed a complete version of the TY from a Hebrew manBscript; unfortu-

nately that manuscript subsequently disappeared. The Huldreich manuscript is Amsterdam HS
Ros 442.
6 The name "Qalpos" and its variants is undoubtedly derived, probably through Jewish-
Christian channels, from the figure of Shim on son of Cl eophas, cited as a cousin of Jesus, and
a leader of the Nazarenes, who died as martyr under Trajan. There is good reason to believe that
this Shimon was a hero among Jewish-Christians; see Eusebius, HE 3.11.2; see also the discus-
sion in Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 171 and Di Segni, Il vangelo del ghetto, 134 f. and 209-11. This
Shimon, son of Clopas, was in turn probably derived trom either the Clopas mentioned in John
19.25 ("Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas,
and Mary Magdalene") or the Cleophas cited in Luke 24.18 ("Then the one whose name was
Cleopas answered and said to Him, i. e., Jesus, 'Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem, and
have you not known the things which happened there in these days?''').
7 The passage appears in the Vienna manuscript (Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 87): "From now on
and in the future you shall not force anyone to come to your teachings or to baptism (bastomo)
through force; if you do this and the Jews come to your faith, they will harm your faith and it
will be clear to them that your faith is not good. For this reason everyone who wishes to come
to your faith should come willingly; even ifhe says that he comes willingly, nonetheless you do
not receive him until he has spent 30 days in the house of good people; and he (Peter) instructed
that they should take no child under 9 years for a child is does not order his affairs through wis-
dom." The issue offorced baptism for Jews had been a controversial matter in Christian circles
for many centuries, with strong advocates both for and against. There is an extensive scholarly
literature on the issue. Still useful is Bemhard Blumenkranz, Juijs et chretiens dans le monde
occidental. 430-1096 (Paris: Mouton, 1960; repr., Paris: Peters, 2006), 96 ff.
Simon Peter, Founder o/Christianity or Saviour 0/ Israel? 225
- he rides on a cloud, complete with thunder and lightning; all of this so im-
pressed the Christians that they agreed to do whatever he might command
them; but at one point, when some of the Christians ride with Peter on his
cloud, he suddenly splits the cloud in two and the Christians fall to their death;
- he introduced a new alphabet (the letters are given in Hebrew letters but when
read aloud it is clear that the alphabet itself is German), under a new name, so
that the Christians would understand nothing; in truth, when properly under-
stood, the alphabet condemns Christians as sons of Esau, as "epikouros" (a
standard Hebrew term for a heretic), and as believers in a false god;
- in a related tradition, this one attributed to Paul rather than Peter, the apostle
commands his followers to replace the Jewish holidays and festivals with new
Christian celebrations;8
- he wrote a number of false books (clearly the reference here is to the gos-
pels - evangelion/a in Greek) and called them aven (= "wrong/perversion") +
killayon (annihilation). But the Christians misunderstood the name and called
them even (= "stone") + gilayon (= "revelation");9
- Rabbi Shimon wrote the book ofYoanus (= the book of Revelation in the NT),
once again in a coded language, which proved that Jesus himself is the beast
in chapter 13 of that book;
- finally, Rabbi Shimon drove the followers of Jesus away from Jerusalem and,
as the text states repeatedly, put an end to Christian persecution of the Jews.
Now there are two further details in Huldreich's text that support Leiman's
thesis about Peter as the hero celebrated in the Megillat Ta 'anit. First, at the end
of the account, when Rabbi Shimon dies, the children of Israel mourn his death
and decree a fast to be celebrated every year thereafter on the 9th ofTevet. This,
of course, is exactly what is contained in the two glosses cited just above. And
second, the term used consistently to refer to the Christians is peritsim, the same
term used in the gloss to Karo's Shulhan Arukh: "on the 9th of Tevet Shimon
Qalpos died, the one who saved the Jews from a great misfortune in the time of
the violent ones (peritsim); the day of his death was established in Jerusalem
as a fast forever" In fact, peritsim is a virtual technical term for Christians in
B The passage appears in the Strasbourg manuscript (Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 48) and is
written in Aramaic, whereas the language of the manuscript otherwise is Hebrew. For an il-
luminating discussion of the passage see Daniel Sttikl Ben Ezra, "An Ancient List of Christian
Festivals in Toledot Yeshu: Polemics as Indication for Interaction," HTR 102 (2009): 481-96.
The fact that this particular passage appears in Aramaic is a strong indication that it represents
relatively old material.
9 This passage recalls and probably derives from the passage in the Babylonian Talmud,
Shabbat ll6a, which refers to the books of the minim, here probably referring to the gospels,
as aven gilayon = "falsehood of blank page" (or of "revelation").
226 John Gager
numerous versions of the TY. JO As for the name or names of Qalpos I Qalponi I
Qalpasi applied to Peter here, there seems little doubt that they were borrowed,
perhaps via Christian-Jewish channels, from the figure of Shimon Clopas or
Cleopas, identified by Hegesippus as an uncle of Jesus and a martyred leader of
the Christian-Jewish community in Jerusalem. I I
To sum up this far: Rabbi Shimon Kaipha is the saviour of the Jewish people
and his memory is to be celebrated forever with a fast on the 9th ofTevet. This
information seems to have been widely circulated, not just in versions of the TY
but in other Jewish sources as well.
But there is more to the story of Peter than this. No less an authority than Rashi
(d. 1105) must have known a version of the story like the one in Huldreich's
manuscript for he reports the following in his commentary on the Babylonian
Talmud, Avodah Zarah lOa:
"Others wrote for them all of the heretical books - Yochananl John, Paul and
Peter. They were Jews. LashonlSpeech is grammatica (i.e., the Latin), which
the priests speak. They changed and complicated this language l2 and created
nonsense for them in order to keep them apart from them (i. e., Israel) and to
remove them from Israel. They were not heretics I converts (i. e., to Christianity)
for they did everything for the benefit of Israel. Rather when they saw Israel in
severe distress from the deceptions/trickeries of Jesus, they pretended that they
were with him in his piety and ordained for them everything, as is explained in
(the book of) The Hanging of Jesus."13
In other words, while Huldreich himself, and probably his Hebrew manuscript
version of the TY, date from the early 18th century, both incorporate traditions
that were much earlier, in this case earlier than the 12th century. Rashi clearly
knew a version of the TY and summarizes a part of it in his commentary on
Avodah Zarah.
A further measure of how widely known the TY was at this time - the 12th
and 13 th centuries - and in these regions - France and Germany - becomes clear
when we survey the widely disseminated references to it by Jewish authors, not
10 The tenn originates from a passage in Daniel 11.14: u-vne paritse amekha = "the children
of the violent ones from your people ... "
11 See above n. 6.
12 The language here is drawn from Ezekiel3.6 ("For you are not sent to a people offoreign
speech and a hard language, but to the house of Israel - not to many peoples of foreign speech
and a hard language, whose words you cannot understand") and Isaiah 33.19 ("You will see no
more the insolent people, the people of an obscure speech which you cannot comprehend, stam-
mering in a tongue which you cannot understand"). I am indebted to my colleague, Naphtali
Meshel, for his assistance on these matters.
13 See Leiman, "The Scroll of Fasts," 191 f. for another translation. Rashi's observation was
preserved independently by two authors: by Profiat Duran in his Kelimat ha-Goyim 7.3; and
by Jacob ibn Habib in his 'En Ya 'aqov, reprinted by Raphael Rabbinovicz, Dikduke So/rim -
Avodah Zarah (Munich: L. Rosenthal,1879), 23, n. 9. The translation given here is based on
the version of Jacob ibn Habib, as rendered by Rabbinovicz.
Simon Peter. Founder of Christianity or Saviour of Israel? 227
to mention the numerous manuscripts of the TY itself. At the same time, these
further references open up an entirely new dimension of Peter's subversive anti-
Christian and pro-Jewish career, this time as the composer of major elements in
the Jewish liturgy, including the Nishmat and a hymn (piyyut) for Yom Kippur.
I offer here a brief survey of the major texts.
1. Rashi's grandson, Rabbenu Tam (d.1171).
a) In a manuscript commentary on the Mahzor Vitry, the following comment
appears: "In all the works (devarav) of Rabbenu Tarn (we find) written that
Shimon Kaipha is the one who composed the liturgy (seder) for Yom Kippur,
(namely) 'eten tehillah. "14 Samuel Luzzatto reports seeing a similar gloss in a
commentary to the Machzor: "there is a commentary on the 'eten tehillah and
the 'atah konanta; 15 at the beginning of the 'eten tehillah is written, 'Shimon
ben Kaipha whom the Catholics of Rome call Piero (pyero) produced this hymn
of praise (shevach) after he ordained the religion of Jesus and he put himself in
a tower in Rome for the rest of his life with simple bread and water (as suste-
nance) ... "'16
2. About the Nishmat, a fundamental prayer in the daily liturgy, two texts
report Peter as the author:
a) "Nishmat: I found that Shimon ben Kaipha established it; some say it was
Shimon ben Shetach" Herz Treves reports this comment in his Tefillah com-
mentary.17
b) "Nishmat: ] heard from Rabbi Yehuda bar Yaacov that Rabbi Shimon Kai-
pha established the Nishmat, as far as mi yidmeh lach/"Who is like unto yoU?,'18
3. Two comments in the Mahzor Vilry itself, a collection of halachic rulings
produced by Simchah ben Samuel of Vitry (d. 1105), a pupil of Rashi:
14 The comment is reported by David Oppenheim, "Notizen," MGWJ7 (1858): 468.

IS 'Eten tehillah ("I will give praise ... "), attributed here to Simon Peter, is elsewhere at-
tributed to Yose ben Yose; it was introduced into the Yom Kippur liturgy in French circles at
an uncertain date in the middle ages. See the discussion in Ismar Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy. A
Comprehensive History (New York: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1993) 239. 'Atah
Iwnanta ("You established the world ... ") was part of the Yom Kippur liturgy in parts ofmedi-
eval France and still today in some communities of northern Italy; see Elbogen, ibid. There are
brief discussions of both poems in Michael. D. Swartz and Joseph Yahalom, Avodah: Ancient
Poems ofYom Kippur (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005); see also
van Bekkum, "The Rock," 307 f.
16 See Oppenheim, "Notizen," 468; Greenstone, "Jewish Legends," 103, n. 25; and van Bek-
kum, "The Rock," 307. Luzzatto's comments appear in his introduction to the Italian Prayer
Book! Mavo 'le-mahzor ke-minhag bene roma (Livorno, 1856), 7.
17 David Oppenheim, "Ueber den Verfasser des Nischmath und das Alter der Piutim," MG WJ
\0 (1861): 213.
18 Oppenheim, "Ueber den Verfasser," 217, based on a personal communication from Kirch-
heim, who found the comment in a manuscript edition of a Tefillah commentary.
228 John Gager
a) "There are those who say about this villain, Shimon Peter the ass/ donkey
(peter hamor), 19 that great error of Rome (i. e., the church founded by Peter), that
he established this prayer (i. e., the Nishmat) and other prayers when he sat on the
rock. God forbid that such a thing could happen in Israel! "20 Here the author is
obviously aware of the tradition that regarded Peter as the author of the Nishmat,
and expresses his dismay at such a possibility.
b) "It is permitted to expand/ add them, such as qerovot, teft/ot and se/ihot,
handed down to us by our revered teachers/rabbis from the days of Shimon
Kaipha who established the liturgy ofYom Kippur, namely, 'eten tehillah, and
(from the days of) Eleazer Kalir. And he established qerovot for the holiday of
the New Year. "21 This comment appears in the context of a debate over whether
it is permissible to add hymns/piy'yutim to the liturgy. While the substance of the
two reports is nearly identical, namely, that Peter composed piY.)lUtim, the nega-
tive assessment of the first report cited above is missing in the second. Moreover,
in this second instance, Peter's is cited as an authority for settling the debate in
favor of those who allowed additions.
There is much more to be said about these texts, but my immediate concern is
to show that they reflect a thorough familiarity with versions of the TY; that these
versions circulated widely in Jewish circles, including distinguished scholars;
and that they were taken seriously in those circles. All of the themes and terms
in the texts just cited stem from different versions of the TY.22 Here I offer a
partial survey of those versions of the TYthat contain these elements of the story:
a) Vienna manuscript (Krauss, 64ff.):
- Peter/Shimon agrees to take on his mission on behalf of the Jews;
- the Christians build him a tower as his permanent residence;
- he drinks only water and eats only bread;
19 In his "The Converso as Subversive: Jewish Traditions of Christian Libel," Journal ofJew-
ish Studies 2 (1999): 259-83, Ram Ben-Shalom draws attention to a passage in the Ashkenaz
Sefer Hasidim which directly echoes this reference to peter as an ass! donkey (hamor): "If a Jew
converts he is given a disreputable name ... Even a tsadik who leads on others is called such."
Thus, Shimon Kaipha becomes Peter Hamor; exactly as in the passage from the Mahzor. The
passage appears in Yehudah Wistinetzki and Jakob Freimann, eds. Sefer Hasidim (Frankfurt
a.M.: M.A. Vahrmann, 1924), 197. The Sefer Hasidim is now available, with all manuscripts
and published editions, in Peter Schafer and Michael Meerson, eds., The Princeton University
Sefer Hasidim Database: https:lletc.princeton.edulsefer_hasidim! .
20 Shimon Halevi Hurwitz, Mahzor J1itry (Berlin: Itzkowski, 1889),282.
21 Hurwitz, ibid., 362. Eleazer Kalir (his date is highly uncertain) a noted composer of
liturgical hymns.
22 It must be noted that these themes do not show up in all versions of the TY, notably, the
Aramaic fragments from the Cairo Geniza; the report of Agobard; the Firkovich manuscript
from St. Petersburg, which appears to have been translated from an Aramaic source; and ver-
sions of the TY that lack any treatment of the Jesus-story after his death, e. g., the Adler manu-
script from Yemen (Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 118 ff.). On the Firkovich manuscript and related
texts see the discussion ofYaacov Deutsch, "New Evidence of Early Versions of To/dot Yeshu,"
Tarbiz 69 (2000): 177-97 (in Hebrew).
Simon Peter, Founder o/Christianity or Saviour 0/Israel? 229
he writes many songs and hymns and sent them out to Jews in the exile where
they were received and used with delight;
- this Shimon was called Saint Peter/So Pierro (s pyyerro ') by the goyim (=
Christians).23
b) Strasbourg manuscript (Krauss, 38 ff.):
- Peter / Shimon agrees to take on his mission on behalf of the Jews;
- he drinks only water and eats only bread;24
- he wrote many songs and hymns and sent them out to Jews in the exile where
they were received and used with delight.25
c) Slavic version: 26
- Peter / Shimon agrees to take on his mission on behalf of the Jews;27
- he drinks only water and eats only bread;
- he writes many songs and hymns and sends them out to Jews in the exile
where they were received and used with delight;
- Shimon is opposed by an evil man, clearly the figure of Paul;
- Shimon receives an honorific title, Rashbaq, for "Rabbi Shimon son of
Kuphi."28
d) Tarn u-Muad: 29
- Peter / Shimon agrees to take on his mission on behalf of the Jews;
- he drinks only pure food;
- he writes many songs and hymns and sends them out to Jews in the exile
where they were received and used with delight;
- Shimon is opposed by an evil man, called Abba Shaul, clearly meant to rep-
resent the figure of Paul;
23Ch. 21 of the Vienna manuscript; Krauss, Dos Leben Jesu, 87 f.

24One interesting feature in this account of Shimon's eating habits is the comment that food
was placed in a basket and lifted up to him, a practice long observed by Christian monks who
chose to live as hennits, often high on C\ifffaces accessible only by ladders and ropes.
25 The passages appear in ch. 12 (chapter headings are Krauss' addition); Krauss, Dos Leben
Jesu,48ff.
26 Published by Samuel Krauss, "Une nouvelle recension hebraique du Toldot Ye~(j," REJ
103 (1938): 65-90. Krauss came into possession of the manuscript through private hands.
27 Krauss comments that Shimonl Peter "travaille pour le bien du judaisme et se sacrifle pour
sa cause," Krauss, "Une nouvelle," 71.
28 The passages appear on pp. 86 f. of Krauss' edition.
29 In the excellent edition, with full commentary, Gennan translation and a synopsis of
themes in the major versions of the IT, of Giinter Schlichting, Ein jiidisches Leben Jesu: Die
verschollene Toledot-Jeschu-Fossung Tarn u-mu 'ad (Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1982).
230 John Gager
- another figure, Yochanan,3o appears in some manuscripts where he performs

many of the same functions as Shimon/Peter. 31
By now several things have become clear: first, that the TY, whatever its origins,
was not just a "popular" text; second, that it was well known in both Jewish and
Christian circles32 no later than the mid-9th century; third, that it was taken seri-
ously on both sides; and that it produced a long series of Christian responses. It
was, in the words of Daniel Stokl Ben Ezra, "a worldwide bestseller"33 among
both Jews and Christians, at least from the mid-9th century when Latin versions
first appear in Agobard and Amulo, successive bishops of Lyon.
But now we must face another question: how did this remarkable transforma-
tion of Shimon I Peter take place? How did the leading disciple of Jesus in the NT
gospels, the prototype of the Christian martyr and first pope in Rome, how did
he become a subversive pseudo-convert to Christianity, the creator of Christian-
ity as a false religion, the author of numerous Jewish liturgical poems and the
saviour of the Jewish people? Is this purely a product of Jewish imagination? I
will not be able to do anything more than offer an outline of my answer, but my
basic premise is that this was not a difficult transformation to bring about at all.
My answer requires several initial assumptions: first, that Jews and Christians
were in regular in contact with each other; second, that Jews were familiar with
Christian texts, practices and beliefs; third, that Christianity in its many forms
was seen as a serious threat by Jews; and fourth, that from the very beginning
Jews felt obligated to respond to the Christian threat in a variety of ways. What
I want to focus on here is the figure of Peter in the earliest Jestls-movement,
30 Yochanan is described as "one of the great sages of Rome" (Schlichting, Ein jildisches
Leben Jesu, paragraph 291).
31 The passages appear in paragraphs 345 ff. of Schlichting's edition.
32 The first Christian author to provide unambigijous evidence of the TY as a document is
Agobard, bishop of Lyons, in his anti-Jewish writing, De judaicis superstitionibus, written
around 830. From that time forward, the TY is widely attested in Christian circles; see Krauss,
Das Leben Jesu, 7 ff. On Abogard's text, see the discussion in Arthur Lukyn Williams, Adversus
Judaeos: A Bird's-Eye new of Christian Apologiae until the Renaissance (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press,1935), 348-55; text and translation in Hillell. Newman, "The Death
of Jesus in the Toledo! Yeshu," JTS 50 (1999): 68 f.
33 Daniel Stokl Ben Ezra, "An Ancient List of Christian Festivals in Toledo! Yeshu: Polemics
as Indication for Interaction," HTR 102 (2009): 484. In his essay, "The Converso as Subversive:
Jewish Traditions or Christina Libel?" JJS 2 (1999), Ram Ben-Shalom remarks that by the 11 th
century" 'The Life of Jesus' was well known to both Ashkenazic and Sephardic communities"
(270). To this must be added a number of references to the TY in Islamic writings as well; see the
discussion in Ben-Shalom, 'The Converso," 273 f.; Emst Bammel, "Eine iibersehene Angabe zu
den Toledoth Jeschue," NTS35 (1989): 479 f.; Samuel Miklos Stem, "'Abd al-Jabbar'sAccount
of How Christ's Religion was Falsified by the Adoption of Roman Customs," JTS 19 (1968):
I 76ff.; and Pieter Sjoerd Koningsveld, "The Islamic Image of Paul and the Origin of the Gospel
of Bamabas," Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 20 (1996): 200-228.
Simon Peter. Founder a/Christianity or Saviour a/Israel? 231
specifically in the gospel ofMark. 34 What do we learn about 'Peter' from Mark-
not, of course, the historical Peter but the image of Peter as created and projected
by the author?
We first meet him in 1.16, under the name ofSimon (which would be Shimon
in Aramaic or Hebrew), where Jesus drafts him, his brother Andrew and the two
sons of Zebedee, James and John, to be his followers; at this point nothing more
is said of him. Every bit as low-key is the next encounter, in 3.16 ff., where Jesus
appoints the enigmatic group of 12 and adds the name of Peter to Simon. But
nothing is said of his significance. The fact that his name appears first on the list
is simply due to the tradition that had come down to the author. That tradition
("I handed down to you ... what 1 had received") is reflected in 1 Corinthians
15.3-7, written some two decades before Mark, where Paul reports that the
risen Christ appeared first to Cephas/Peter and then to others. 35 Peter disappears
from Mark's story for the next five chapters only to re-emerge at the literary and
theological turning point of the gospel, namely, the Christological lesson and
first prediction of Jesus' suffering and death in ch. 8. Here, for the first time, we
learn something substantial about him. When Jesus asks his followers who they
take him to be, Peter answers, "You are the Christ/Messiah." As the overall view
of the gospel makes plain and as Jesus' stem rebuke of Peter emphasizes, this
in the wrong answer. "He rebuked (epitimesen) them, so that they would not to
talk to anyone about him" (8.30) And the lesson continues with Jesus' prophecy
about the coming suffering of the Son of Man. 36 Peter then compounds his mis-
understanding of Mark's Christology, i. e., that Jesus will the achieve glory but
only through suffering, by pulling Jesus aside and rebuking him again. And at
this point the story reaches its stunning climax in Jesus' withering repudiation
of Peter, "Get behind me, Satan, you are thinking human thoughts, not divine
ones" (8.33). It is difficult to imagine a more blatant attack on Peter's status. 1
34 The gospel of John accords even less space to Peter. In 6.28 Peter asks a stupid question,
"What should we do to perfonn the works of God?" Jesus' reply makes it clear that the issue
is not doing 'works' but believing in him. Later, in 13.36, Jesus predicts Peter's denial of him
and in 18.17-27 the prediction is fulfilled. Peter's appearance at the tomb in 20.2-10 is almost
certainly a later intrusion into the story, as part ofetforts to redeem Peter's image. Chapter 21,
where the resurrected Jesus commissions Peter to "feed my sheep" is certainly part of the same
rehabilitation project. Matthew and Luke, each in their own way, seek to burnish the inconve-
niently negative image of Peter bequeathed to them by their primary source, the gospel of Mark.
35 It may be relevant here to take note of what Paul does with this tradition. While the list
begins with Cephas/Peter and ends with Paul himself (verse 8 - "last of all, as to one untimely
born, he appeared also to me"), in Paul's own mind he clearly ranks himself ahead of Peter!
In other words, Peter's name at the top ofthe list does not qualify him for any special status in
Paul's world. Other negative views of Peter appear in a variety of early Christian texts, e. g.,
the Coptic Gospel of Thomas (sayings 12 and 114) and the various writings associated with the
name ofMary Magdalene (see the brief discussion in Smith, 104-7, below note 39).
36 While the figure of the Son of Man may have been understood as someone other than
Jesus before the time of Mark, it is clear that the author here understands Jesus to be talking
about himself.
232 John Gager
take this passage to be Mark's commentary on Peter's role in general.J7 And it is

hard not to see the very next saying (8.38: "Those who are ashamed of me and
my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them will the Son of Man
also be ashamed when he comes ... ") as directed primarily at Peter.
Immediately after ch. 8 comes the scene of the transfiguration, where Jesus
takes Peter, James and John - Peter again comes at the top of the list - as wit-
nesses to his miraculous appearance with Elijah and Moses. Once again, Peter
misses the point of the episode by addressing Jesus as "Rabbi" and urging his
friends to build dwellings (skenas) for the three apparitions. But as the author
of the gospel makes clear, Peter has misunderstood the whole affair and has
simply reacted out offear (9.6: "He did not know what to say, for they were ter-
rified"). This series of misunderstandings then continues in 10.28, where Peter
boasts of having left everything to follow Jesus, only to be reminded that Jesus'
previous saying was not about Peter but about future generations. 38 Next, in the
story about the cursed fig tree, Peter again addresses Jesus as "Rabbi" (11.21)
and seems to assume that the fig tree is a revelation of Jesus' magical power.
But the summit of this series is not reached until ch. 14, where, in response to
Peter's boast that he will never abandon Jesus, Jesus predicts that Peter will in
fact deny him three times that same day. But before Peter has an opportunity to
carry out the prediction, he falls asleep three times, while Jesus prays at Geth-
semane. Jesus' rebuke here is telling: "Enough! The hour has come. The Son of
Man is betrayed into the hands of sinner ... My betrayer is at hand" (14.41 f.). I
find it difficult not to see these words as both proleptic and retrospective, that is,
anticipating the scene with Judas that follows immediately and summing up the
preceding scene with the dozing Peter. Thus it can hardly be coincidental that
in the very next episode, another one of Jesus' own followers - Judas - betrays
him into the hands of the "chief priests, the scribes and the elders" (v. 43). And
he does so by addressing Jesus,just as Peter had done earlier, as "Rabbi." Surely,
by the juxtaposition of these two scenes, the author of the gospel is drawing
attention to the close analogy between Peter'and Judas, two insider betrayers.
Finally, in the scene of Jesus' arrest and examination before the Sanhedrin
(sunedrion - 14.55), Peter fulfills Jesus' earlier prediction:
- "'You also were with Jesus, the man from Nazareth.' But he denied it, saying,
'I do not know or understand what you are talking about. ", (14.68)
37 It is more than a little embarrassing to see how modem Christian exegetes ignore or play
down this and other passages about Peter in Mark. One can only suspect that apologetic mo-
tives have overridden sound interpretation in these cases. For a survey of Petri ne debates in the
early centuries, see Terence V. Smith, Petrine Controversies in Early Christianity (Tubingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 1985). Smith's conclusion represents one of the few exceptions to the standard
apologetic strain: " ... Peter, who remains blind throughout the Gospel" (170).
38 Mark makes it clear that Peter misses the point here by stating in v. 26 that the disciples
were completely perplexed by Jesus' words, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom"
(v. 25).
- '''This man is one of them.' But again he denied it." (14.69 f.)
- "Certainly you are one of them; for you are a Galilean." But he began to curse
(anathematizein) and to swear an oath (omnunai), 'I do not know this man you
are talking about'(14.71). And with this carefully constructed and powerfully
phrased, three-fold denial, Peter disappears from Mark's gospel.
By now and in summing up, the thrust of my argument has become clear. In
producing their counter-history of Christian origins,39 Jewish defenders of their
faith needed to look no further than the figure of Peter in the gospel of Mark. 4o A
strong reading of that gospel readily yielded a picture of a false believer, in fact
two of them, Peter and Judas. In this instance, the authors of the TY, who clearly
knew the gospel of Mark and had read it carefully, were able to use the weapons
of the Christians, i. e., Mark, against the Christians and their elevation of Peter
to the status as the founder of in Christianity and the first pope. I note that this
inversion of the Christian story, and using Christian texts to do so, also enabled
Jews to turn a standard anti-Jewish argument against their Christian opponents.
In this reversal, it is the Christians, not the Jews, who have misunderstood their
own scriptures and traditions. Finally, the authors of the TY made ample use of
the universal cultural type or figure of the subversive convert, the undercover
double agent, the converso-emissary.41 Examples of this type were everywhere
in ancient Judaism, Christianity and Islam - Joseph in Egypt; Esther in the court
of Ahasueros; Gamaliel as a hidden Christian deceiving his fellow Jews so as
to promote his new faith;42 the conversos in Spain;43 Jewish pseudo-converts
to Islam whose mission was to subvert early anti-Jewish tendencies in the new
faith;44 and more. This cultural type made it possible to provide an answer to the
question, "If it seems obvious that Peter was not a follower of Jesus, what was he
39 1 borrow the tenn from Amos Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History (Berkeley:
University ofCalifomia Press, 1993),36-40, where he applies the tenn to the TY.
40 On the question of whether educated Jews were familiar with Christian literature and
teachings, the consensus today is overwhelming in affinning a positive stance. Here 1 fol-
low Krauss, "das NT war den Juden keine terra incognita und sie lasen es wenn schon nicht
griechisch oder lateinish so doch in hebriiische Obersetzung," "Neuere Ansichten iiber 'To1doth
Jeschu,'" MGWJ76 (1932), 600. It may be noted here that the gospel of John presents a similar
picture of Peter and that the passages cited from Mark appear also in Matthew. Both of these
gospels were well known in Jewish circles; see Peter Schiifer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2007), 128 f.
41 The tenn is used by Ben-Shalom to designate a broad theory advanced by Abravanel (d.
1508) according to which the conversos were to be seen as a necessary preparation for the final
redemption (262 f.).
42 See the discussion of this and other examples in William Horbury, "The depiction of
Judaeo-Christians in the Toledot Yeshu," in The Image of Judaeo-Christians in Ancient Jew-
ish and Christian Literature (eds. Peter J. Tomson and Doris Lambers-Petry; Tiibingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2003), 280-86.
43 See Ben-Shalom, "The Converso," 259-64.
44 Ben-Shalom, "The Converso," 272-74.
234 John Gager
doing among them?" Answer: "He was a subversive double-agent." And one at
the very top! Taken together, these techniques eventually produced the quartet of
subversive pseudo-converts who engineered the subversion of Christianity and
the salvation of Israel in many versions of the TY - the mysterious Yochanan,
PeterlShimon, Paul/Elijah, and Judas/Yehuda.
There remains one puzzle in this Peter I Shimon story, namely, how did he
come to be imagined to be a refined poet, specifically of liturgical texts. This is
a puzzle because in the earliest traditions Peter is a simple Galilean fisherman,
anything but a sophisticated liturgical poet! But by the end of the first century or
soon thereafter, Peter's name came to be associated with a wide variety of writ-
ings - various Acts of Peter, an apocalypse of Peter, a gospel of Peter and several
letters attributed to him, including the two that bear his name in the NT. In a
way this development was inevitable. Given Peter's elevated status in emerging
Christianity and given Christianity's rapid emergence as a literary culture, Peter
was destined to assume the role of prolific Christian author.
But still, none of these writings speaks of him as composing Jewish liturgical
poetry. And so the puzzle remains. 45 Various solutions have been proposed and
J will review them briefly:
The first is associated with the name of the great 19th century Jewish historian,
Heinrich Graetz. Unwilling or unable to imagine an internal Jewish explanation
for Shimon/Peter's role as payyetan, Graetz invented an otherwise unattested
poet by the name of Shimon Kaipha who was later mistakenly identified with the
Christian Shimon Kaipha. In other words, the Shimon Kaipha of the texts dis-
cussed above is not Simon Peter at all but rather a Jewish poet ofthe same name,
mistakenly identified at a late date with Peter. 46 A second solution, proposed
by van Bekkum, holds that the Peter story may have been shaped by the story
of the legendary Jewish pope Elchanan47 and his father R. Shimon. According
to one version of the story, the young Elchanan was abducted from his Jewish
parents as a young boy, raised as a Christian and eventually elevated to the pa-
pacy. But following a crise de foi and a reunion with his Jewish father, Elchanan
abandoned Christianity and returned to Judaism, whereupon his father, Rabbi
Shimon, celebrated the occasion by composing the New Year hymn, 'el hanan
nahalato. This Shimon was further assimilated to yet another poet, Shimon ben
Isaac ben Abun ofMainz (ca. 950) and thus came eventually to be connected to
45 Van Bekkum, "The Rock," 308 speaks of "the problematic nature ofSimon's authorship
of so many liturgical hymns."
46 Heinrich Graetz, History of the Jews (edited and in part translated by Bella Lowy; 6 vols;
Phildalephia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1949), 3: 115; also in MGWJ 8 (1859):
40 I and 9 (1860); 19 fT. See the discussion in Oppenheim, "Ueber den Verfasser," 212-15. Op-
penheim's objection to Graetz is summed up in his words that "Unter diesem Namen ist immer
der Apostel Petrus gemeint"; see Oppenheim, "Ueber den Verfasser," 221.
47 On the Elchanan story see Joseph Bamberger, The Jewish Pope: History of a Medieval
Ashkenazic Legend (Ramat-Gan: Bar Han University Press, 2009 [in Hebrew])
Simon Peter, Founder of Christianity or Saviour of Israel? 235
our Shimon / Peter. 48 A third solution, proposed initially by Oppenheim in 1861 49

and followed up by Legasse in 1974,50 focuses on those texts which speak of
Shimon Kaipha's authorship of the Nishmat, an ancient prayer recited on the
Sabbath and other holidays, including Passover. 51 Oppenheim and Legasse,
among others, have drawn attention to elements ofthe prayer that can be read as
expressing anti-Christian and specifically anti-Pauline themes. For Oppenheim
in particular, the Nishmat is an anti-Pauline composition from the beginning. But
whether the prayer was composed originally (Oppenheim) as an anti-Christian
hymn or only came to be understood that way later on (Legasse), both see it as
the basis for all of the other claims about Peter as payyetan.
As a final note, I draw attention to the apocryphal letter of Peter to James that
introduces the Homilies, part of the hugely popular Pseudo-Clementines which
date from the late 2nd or early yd century and circulated widely in later centu-
ries. 52 In that letter we find most of the themes associated with the role of Peter
as poet in the TYand other texts:
- he speaks several times of "my books of preaching";
- he asserts his loyalty to the Torah of Moses ("as though I were of such a mind
but did not freely proclaim it, which God forbid!") and rails at length against
those who have misrepresented him as a teacher opposed to the Law;53
- he speaks of his enemy (clearly Paul) from among the Gentiles, who pro-
claims a lawless, i. e., Torah-free, gospel;
- he sends his books to James for others to read, but only by those carefully
instructed and examined.
Here finally, in a "Christian" text we have the full package: Peter as author of
liturgical material; his fierce loyalty to Judaism; Paul as Peter's mortal enemy;
and the sending of his writings to James, whom we may call the head of the new
Diaspora. I believe that we have now located all of the elements that will even-
48 Van Bekkum, "The Rock," 308 f. See his fuller discussion in van Bekkum, "The Poetic
Qualities"
49 Oppenheim, "Ueber den Verfasser," 212-24.
50 Legasse, "Legende juive," 115-17.
51 The prayer is named in h. Pesahim 118b, in answer to the question, "What is the hirkat
ha-shir recited over the fourth cup at Passover?" R. Yochanan (d. 279) replies, "The Nishmat."
The same Yochanan quotes a line from the prayer in h. Berakhot 59b. Oppenheim observes
that the recitation of the Nishmat at Passover, would have been a fitting time and setting for
anti-Christian polemic.
52 Oppenheim, "U eber den Verfasser," 21 7, mentions the Pseudo-Clementines but not the
letter of Peter to lames.
53 Surely this statement is directed at the mainline Christian view of Peter and specifically
at the NT book of Acts, where Peter is portrayed as undergoing a divinely-inspired conversion
(Acts 10), as a result of which he abandons the observance of ludaism and thus his former
Jewish identity.
236 John Gager
tually coalesce in the figure of Peter as a loyal Jew and the composer of central
elements in the Jewish liturgy.
I also believe that we have now answered the questions raised earlier: how
did Peter come to be seen in the TYas the subversive agent of the Jewish sages,
sent on a mission to create Christianity a false religion and to return peace to
Israel by separating Christians from Jews and bringing Christian persecution of
Jews to an end; and how did he later he come to be celebrated as a great Jewish
hero and the author of major elements in the Jewish liturgy. At the same time, the
underlying goal of the TY becomes clear: to reclaim as Jews the major figures of
foundational Christianity. But at the same time, a fundamental contrast between
the Jesus narratives and the "Acts" also reveals itself. Jesus is reclaimed as an
insolent Jew, deserving of death; Peter is reclaimed as loyal Jew, the saviour of
Israel.
Appendix: Dating Issues
The majority of the Hebrew manuscripts of the TY comprise two parts: first, the
Jesus narratives, from his conception to his burial(s); and second, the "Acts,"
which cover a series of figures and events after Jesus' disappearance, with a
primary focus on four figures - Simon Peter, Eliahu/Elijah, Paul and Yochananl
John.54 Astonishingly, these figures in the "Acts" function as Jewish heroes, false
believers in Jesus and saviours ofIsrael. There seems little doubt that these two
parts were meant to replace - whether as satire and parody andi or as Jewish
counter-history - the NT gospels and book of Acts.
Dating issues have accompanied scholarly discussions of the TY from the very
beginning. The first serious treatment appears in Krauss' Das Leben Jesu (1902).
His view was that the two parts belonged together from an early date, just as,
from the second century onward, the NT gospels and the book of Acts always
appear together. 55 But we cannot fail to notice that aII of these TY manuscripts
54 As of 1902, Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 263 f., noted that the majority of manuscripts includ-
ed the "Acts." He listed the following: W, B, Ms. Adler, the Slavic versions, H, Ms. Gildemann.
Agobard, Ms. Strasbourg, Ms. Jellinek, Ms. V, de Rossi 96, and Ms. Jablonski. Those lacking
the "Acts" he notes as: Ms. Gaster, Raimundus Martinus, and Hrabanus Maurus. Of course,
the number in both categories would be much greater today. At the present time no complete
survey is possible.
55 The contrary view is taken by Legasse, "Legende juive," 102-\ 04. He argues (I) that the
theme according to which Peter and Paul steal the ineffable name to accomplish their wonders
must have been borrowed from earlier Jesus narratives and (2) that the basic goals of the two
parts are fundamentally different, i. e., the Jesus part seeks to undermine the founder of Christi-
anity while the "Acts" seek to separate Christianity from Judaism. But as Legasse himself notes
(102) the purpose of both parts is to undermine the authenticity of Christianity and to defend
Jews against Christian anti-ludaism.
are late, dating from the sixteenth century and beyond. In addition, when we look
at the earliest surviving manuscript evidence of the TY - the Aramaic fragments
from the Cairo Geniza (11 th century?); the recently published Firkovich manu-
script of the Ty56 which differs significantly from the other Hebrew versions and
shows numerous parallels to the Aramaic fragments; and the Latin translations of
the TY cited in the writings of Agobard and Amulo in the early ninth century - we
find virtually no trace of the extensive "Acts" found in the majority of Hebrew
manuscripts; only Jesus narratives. And, we should note in passing, that these
early witnesses also lack any birth narratives of Jesus. But several other features
of these early witnesses are worth noticing and may well point us toward a new
model for understanding the composition and dating of the TY in both of its parts.
First, the Latin versions of Agobard and Amulo, close associates and suc-
cessive bishops of Lyon in the mid-9th century, are not identical. This lack of
similarity suggests that the two clerics had access to and made use of different
versions of the TY, even though they lived at the same time and in the same
place. Second, both versions do contain brief references to events following
Jesus' death. Agobard comments that Cephas was among Jesus' disciples and
acquired the name Peter ("rock" in both Greek and Latin) "because of his duri-
tiam ('insensibility') and hebetudinem ('dullness')."57 And Amulo observes that
the Jews insist that 'the tomb of Jesus "stands empty and is fouled with stones
and filth, which they are in the habit of throwing in."s8 To be sure, these are not
full blown "Acts," but they can be taken as signs of stories beyond the death
and burial of Jesus.
Thus one is tempted at first glance to conclude that in the long literary devel-
opment ofthe TY, the birth narratives and the "Acts" came into being later than
the central Jesus narratives. This tentative conclusion may seem appealing but
it is not convincing. Other possibilities need to be considered. One is that the
Aramaic fragments from the Cairo Geniza give an incomplete picture of what
was available in Aramaic. After all, they are fragments. 59 It is also possible that
Agobard and Amulo knew more than they quote from their versions of the TY
and that they quoted only those portions that suited their polemical purposes.
And so the dating question remains open. What other options are there? Are we
56 Deutsch, "New Evidence." The manuscript was copied in 1536 by Israel ben Yequtiel, but
its origins are clearly much earlier.
57 See the discussion in William Horbury, "Tertullian on the Jews in the Light of de spec. xxx.
13," JTS 23 (1972): 455-59, reprinted in idem, Jews and Christians in Contact and Controversy
(Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1998), 176-79.
58 For the text, see Newman, "The Death of Jesus," 68f. The passage appears in Amulo's
Epistula contra Judaeos. For the version of TY in the works of Agobard and Amulo, see the
article of Peter Schiifer in this volume.
59 So also Krauss, "Neuere Ansichten," 45. He remarks of the Aramaic fragments that they
are "nur Fragmente." See the discussion in the Schiifer's article.
238 John Gager
faced, as Legasse complains, with an impenetrable mass of scrub-brush (maquis)

and painful confusion?60
Recent studies of the TY have made it clear that there never was a single,
original Tf6 1, or at least none that we will ever recover, and that throughout
their history they remained open texts. Even a cursory glance at the Strasbourg
manuscript, a typical example of westem Hebrew manuscripts of the Wagenseil
type, shows that these texts underwent constant revision at various levels - in
modifying the details of the narratives as well as in importing whole new blocks
of material. It is obvious, for example, that the section of the TY in which the
sages label Jesus as a mamzer (bastard or illegitimate child) and ben ha-niddah
(conceived during his mother's menstrual period) was borrowed from the rab-
binic tractate Kallah, one of the so-called minor tractates found in some manu-
scripts of the Babylonian Talmud.62 Kallah was written no earlier than the 8 th
century and so its impact on the TY must have taken place after that, perhaps as
late as the 9th or lOth century.
Thus a third option regarding the origins and date of the "Acts" of the TY may
now be considered. One of the striking features of the many TY versions, as we
have just seen, is the manner of its composition. Quite often the text will finish
one block of material or episode and proceed to another with little or no liter-
ary transition. 63 In other words, the mode of composition somewhat resembles
a child paying with building blocks. One block is placed on another, in random
fashion, with no apparent connection among the blocks. Thus, for example,
immediately following the episode in which Jesus' teacher label him a mamzer
and a ben ha-niddah the narrative jumps to Jesus' successful attempt to steal he
ineffable name from the holy of holies in the Jerusalem temple. Other examples
occur further on. At one point Jesus ftees to upper Galilee where he is summoned
to appear before Queen Helen. His followers become incensed and wage war
against Jesus' pursuers. But in the very next line, linked only by a recurrence
of the phrase "the people of upper Galilee," we find the familiar story, known
from various infancy gospels, in which Jesu~ comes upon local people making
birds out of clay. He pronounces the ineffable name, at which point the birds
60 Legasse, "Legende juive," 102.

61 This is contrary to the view expressed by Samuel Krauss in his 1938 article, "Une nouvelle
recension hebraique du Toldot Yeshu," RE.! 103(1938): 65-90. In this article Krauss follows
the line developed by Hugh J. Schonfield, According to the Hebrews (London: Duckworth,
1937), who argued that the "original" TY was written as a response to the ephemeral Gospel
of the Hebrews.
62 Abraham Cohen, ed., The Minor Tractates of the Talmud (2 vols.; London: Soncino Press,
1965). See also David Brodsky, A Bride without a Blessing. A Study in the Redaction and Con-
tent of Massekhet Kallah and its Gemara (Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), esp. 148, n. 74 on
the relationship of Kallah to the TY.
63 There are occasional weak exceptions to this rule, such as in the phrase "when the sages
heard this."
Simon Peter, Founder of Christianity or Saviour of Israel? 239
come alive and flyaway. One final example: following the episode in which one
of Jesus' disciples (Yehuda/ Judas) offers to reveal his identity to the sages, we
find the scene in which his five disciples are questioned as to the origins of their
names. The episode, with many variations at the level of detail, appears in vari-
ous manuscripts of the TY, including both Hebrew and Aramaic versions. But it
also appears in a totally different context, in the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin
63a.64 Whether the TY borrowed the episode directly from the Talmud or whether
they all relied on an earlier common source cannot now be determined. But the
significant divergences in the different versions would appear to point in the
latter direction.
The point of this third option should now be evident. Just as the birth stories
and the theft of the ineffable name existed as floating independent building
blocks, moving from place to place and introduced into the narrative at various
points in the long development of the TY, so too the "Acts" stories (I emphasize
the plural here to make it clear that the "Acts" too were never a single, unified
narrative) most likely emerged at an early date, close to the time of the Jesus
narratives and came to be attached to these narratives at some later date.
As to the likelihood of a relatively early date for the "Acts," or at least for
some of its elements, a recent article by Daniel Stokl Ben Ezra has made an
important contribution. 65 StOkl proposes an early date for the block of material,
somewhere between the late 4th and the early 5th centuries. In this block Eliahu
(later identified as Paul in the same block of the Strasbourg manuscript66) urges
his followers to cease observing Jewish religious holidays and instead to sub-
stitute a new series of Christian festivals: Easter for Passover, Ascension for
Shavuot and so on. Several features of this episode point to an early origin: first,
the name of the festivals, both Jewish and Christian, are rendered in Aramaic;
and second, the replacement festivals on the Christian side correspond not to
the order and names ofiater, medieval festivals but to a much earlier time when
Christian holidays were still in a state offlux; and third, these earlier festivals are
attested mostly in the Christian east, from eastern Syria to Babylonia. 67
A similar argument may be made of another block of material, which shows up
in some but not all of the Hebrew manuscripts, namely, the so-called Nestorius
account. Stephen Gero has demonstrated that that the story attached to Nestorius
in the TY was originally told of Barsauma of Nisibis and only later transferred
64 See the discussion of the Talmud version in Schlifer, Jesus in the Talmud, 75-81. A serious
treatment of the mutual relations among the various versions of this material remains to be done.
6S Sttikl Ben Ezra, "An Ancient List," 481-96.
66 This identification of Elijah with Paul comes at the very end of the passage and is clearly
a later gloss; see Krauss, p. 48. In Krauss' Adler manuscript (Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 121),
Elijah performs the same heroic work for Israel but is not identified with Paul. In the Cambridge
manuscript 557, closely parallel to the Strasbourg manuscript, Elijah is identified with Paul.
67 As we should expect by now, this block appears in some manuscripts, e. g., Ms. Strasbourg,
but not in all.
240 John Gager
to Nestorius. 68 He concludes that the story "can be traced to Babylonia ... in the
second half of the sixth or the early seventh century.'>69
To be sure, these observations cannot prove that a complete version of the
"Acts," such as we find in the many Wagenseil versions, came into being in the
5th to the 7th centuries. But they do show that important elements existed well
before the 9th century (Abogard and Amulo) and before the date of the Aramaic
fragments from the Cairo Geniza (11th century).70 But there is also good rea-
son to suppose that some versions of the "Acts" came into being in the eastern
regions of the Christian world and at roughly the same time at the central Jesus
narratives. For a time they may well have traveled in separate channels, but at
some point, perhaps after the 9th century, the two blocks came together, prob-
ably in the West, to create the complete TY versions known under the name of
Wagenseil and illustrated by the Strasbourg manuscript.
This new model may also shed light on an aspect of the Aramaic fragments
that has not received serious attention. Two of the central stories in those frag-
ments - the account of Jesus' failed attempt to produce a child, without sexual
intercourse, in the emperor's daughter; and the story of his escape from captivity
by turning himself into a bird and flying into the cave of Elijah - do not show
up in later Hebrew versions ofthe TY. At the same time, these stories, or at least
some of them, do underlie the account of Agobard ("he was imprisoned by Ti-
berius, whose daughter had given birth to a stone although Jesus had promised
that she would produce a son without male intervention"') in the 9th century
and the text of Ibn Shaprut (" ... a woman who has never given birth I can make
pregnant without a husband/ man. They said to him, 'Bring her to us.' He ordered
his overseer; he brought her; they [from the Aramaic fragments it is clear that
'they' refers to Jesus and John the Baptist] whispered to her and she became
pregnant ... ") in the 14th century. 71 But other elements found in the Aramaic
68 Stephen Gero, "The Nestorius Legend in the Toledoth Yeshu," OrChr 59 (1975): 108-120.
This block, too, appears in some manuscripts but not a\1.
69 Gero, "The Nestorius Legend," 120. •
70 I should make it clear that these Aramaic fragments were not first composed in the 11 th
century but much earlier; these fragments are themselves copies of earlier prototypes.
71 The passage appears in Ibn Shaprut's 'Even Bohan, a polemical work aimed at Jews who
converted to Chrsitianity. Text and German translation in Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 146-49. At
this point in his text, Ibn Shaprut is attacking the Jewish convert, Abner of Burgos, known also
as Alfonso of Valladolid, who had become an anti-Jewish zealot following his conversion to
Christianity. It is apparent that Abner himself had access to and quoted two versions ofthe TY
(one in Hebrew, the other in Aramaic; the citations from the TYappear in his polemical writing
against Jacob ben Reuven), for the purpose of illustrating Jewish anti-Christian texts. Ibn Shap-
rut begins his counter-attack by quoting Abners' text: "So you will find among them (= Jews)
many books on the (on the miracles and wonders of Jesus), such as the book they composed on
the Deeds Of Jesus the Nostri and that he was in the time of Helena the Queen ... ( the quota-
tion from Abner continues in Aramaic). And in the second book they say ... " See also the Ph. D.
dissertation from the University of Toronto by Libby R. M. Garshowitz, Shem Tov ben Isaac Ibn
Shaprut's 'Touchstone' (Even bohan) (Toronto, 1974), Chapters 2-10 and the brief discussion
Simon Peter. Founder of Christianity or Saviour ofIsrael? 241
fragments - notably, the trial of Jesus' disciples and the elaborate accounts of
Jesus' multiple burials - do have parallels in the Hebrew manuscripts. In other
words, unless we make the unlikely assumption that later authors of the TY
made use of our Aramaic fragments but eliminated large portions of them, we
must conclude that the Geniza fragments did not serve as direct sources for the
later Hebrew manuscripts and cannot serve as models for those manuscripts. 72
And it goes without saying that many themes in the Hebrew versions, e. g., the
cursing of trees by Jesus, do not appear at all in the Aramaic fragments. Thus as
far as the majority of the later Hebrew manuscripts are concerned, the Aramaic
fragments are a dead-end.
Conclusions
The preliminary conclusions that I would draw so far are these: 73

(a) We must imagine that materials - small blocks as well as larger ones - that
show up in different versions traveled in separate channels. Thus, for instance,
in the case of the Aramaic fragments, their channel did not lead to the later He-
brew versions, although their own channels continued well into the 14th century
(lbn Shaprut). Some channels held stories in common with other channels and
stories occasionally crossed over into other channels. As we see from the various
manuscripts, the process of transmission produced changes in many details of
similar stories (e.g., the trials of Jesus' five disciples). Thus, among the Aramaic
fragments, the text first published and translated by Zeev Falk contains several
narrative elements not found in other, parallel fragments 74 and the two parallel
texts published by Louis Ginzberg show numerous differences of detaiI.75
in Hanne Trautner-Kromann, Shield and Sword. Jewish Polemic against Christianity and the
Christians of Spain from II 00-1500 (Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993), 151-54.
72 In his 1933 article, "Neuere Ansichten," 44-61, Krauss proposes a different explanation,
namely, that Jews did eliminate these passages from the Aramaic texts because they were p0-
tentially too offensive (44 f.).
73 Three sentences in Newman's "The Death of Jesus" read like a condensed version of my
conclusions. They drew my attention after I had completed this essay. "Toledot Yeshu is not a
single composition, so much as 'a process of extended evolution' (here quoting Di Segni, 11 van-
gelo del ghetto, 218). Nor does the process unfold linearly. Rather, we are witness to the simul-
taneous development of distinct - though occasionally converging - strands oflradition" (59).
74 See Zeev W. Falk, "A New Fragment of the Jewish 'Life of Jesus,'" Tarbiz 46 (1977):
319-22 (in Hebrew) and "ANew Fragment of the Jewish 'Life ofJesus,"'Imm 8 (1978): 72-79.
Daniel Boyarin published corrections and comments to Falk's publication, Daniel Boyarin, "A
Revised Version and Translation of the 'Toledot Yeshu' Fragment," Tarbiz 47 (1978): 249--52.
The fragment is T-S n.s. 298.56 in the Cambridge University collection.
75 "Ma'aseh Yeshu," in Genizah Studies in Memory of Doctor Solomon Schechter (Ginzei
Schechter) (3 vols.; ed. Louis Ginzberg; New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of
America, 1928 [in HebrewD, 1:324-338. A series of important corrections to Ginzberg's edition
was published by WilIiam Horbury, "The Trial of Jesus in Jewish Tradition," in The Trial ofJe-
242 John Gager
(b) The cumulative evidence discussed above, along with the linguistic argu-
ments presented by Michael Sokoloff in the current volume, points to the like-
lihood that one version of the "Acts" first took shape in the regions of eastern
Christianity - Syria to Babylonia - somewhere between the 5th and the 7th cen-
turies and probably alongside the composition of the central Jesus narratives. A
partial confirmation of this conclusion emerges from S. Pines' comments on con-
nections between the TYand Christian-Jewish traditions, probably originating in
the region of Mosul (northern Iraq).76 Referring to the "Acts" of the TY, and in
particular to Paul's role in bringing about the separation of Christians from Jews,
Pines writes: "the last section of the Toldot seems in great measure to have been
composed in reaction to the Jewish Christian views of the events which led to the
separation of Judaism and Christianity, and in order to counteract this view.'>77
Pines' Jewish Christian text laments the separation, whereas the TY celebrates it.
(c) Individual elements in these various channels reach back as far as the early
2nd century, most notably in the Jewish source(s) cited by the pagan philoso-
pher Celsus in his polemic against Christianity, known from Origen's lengthy
response to Celsus (Contra Celsum, ca. 250). These elements, all familiar from
later versions of the TY, include the following: Jesus' illegitimate birth; accusa-
tions of adultery aimed at his mother; Jesus' sojourn in Egypt during which he
learned to perform wonders through magic; Panthera, a soldier, as Jesus' real
father; Jesus' mother turned out by her fiance when he learns of her adultery; and
so on. Similarly, Tertullian (d. ca. 220), in his De spectaculis 30.5--6, recounts
a brief tale that sounds very much like the central stories of the Ty.78 In neither
case, can it be determined ifCelsus and Tertullian derived their information from
written Jewish sources, but this latter possibility cannot be ruled out. 79
(d) As a general rule we should not make too much of the distinction between
oral and written stages in the development of the TY. Not all books in antiquity
were written. Whether their sources were written or not, Celsus and Tertullian
clearly knew something like an early version ofthe TY. Moreover, long after the
sus: Cambridge Studies in Honour ofe. F. D. Moule (ed. Emst Bammel; Naperville: AlIenson,
1970), 103-11. The manuscripts are respectively Cambridge T.-S. Mise. 35.87 and 35.88.
76 Shlomo Pines, "The Jewish Christians of the Early Centuries According to a New Source,"
PIASH2 (\968): 237-307.
77 Pines, ibid., 279.
78 So also Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 3: "Den ganzen Inhalt der jiidischen 'Schmiihschrift'
... kennt auch bereits Tertullian ... " He specifies the major elements in Tertullian's account
as follows: Jesus as son of a carpenter; as son of a prostitute; Jesus as violator of the Sabbath
and a practitioner of magic; details of the crucifixion; burial in a garden; the role of Judas in
taking Jesus' body; the plan of the disciples to steal Jesus' body in order to claim that he had
risen from the dead.
79 In a recent paper, as yet unpublished ("Did Celsus' Jew belong to the milieu of Jewish
scholarship in Alexandria"), Maren Niehoff has argued persuasively that the Jewish source
used by Celsus was written.
Simon Peter, Founder o/Christianity or Saviour 0/ Israel? 243
first written texts appeared, oral traditions persisted alongside these texts and
continued to influence them.
(e) Stephen Gero has pointed to a Christian martyr text, the martyrdom of
Conon (5 th century?) as relevant to the dating of early versions of the TY.80 The
Roman prefect addresses the recalcitrant Christians as follows: "I have learnt
accurately from the Jews what his, i. e., Jesus', family was, the works he showed
forth to his people. They brought me his accounts (hupomnemata) and have read
(epanagnosan) them to me ... "81 Further to the dating question, Newman, along
with others, notes that the location of Jesus' trial in Tiberias, in the Aramaic
fragments, points to a date after the 3rd century when Tiberias became the new
center of Jewish activity.82 Taken together, these bits of information point not to
a single, stable and integrated story but rather accounts with different elements
at different places and times. 83
(t) The evidence from Origen's Contra Celsum and Tertullian's De spectacu-
lis, cited above, points to another important conclusion. That evidence, geo-
graphically speaking, is Western. This fact points to the likelihood that separate
versions, or elements of the "Acts" originated or circulated in the Western and
Eastern of the Christian and Jewish worlds. The Peter stories offer an interesting
test case. Several authors have taken the reference to the tower constructed for
Peter in numerous versions of the "Acts" as pointing to the origin of the story in
Syria, that is, the tower is taken to be a reference to the well-known phenomenon
of Syrian Christian stylites or pillar-sitters. 84 But various considerations point
instead to a Western origin for this motif. First, the figure Peter was much more
important in the West than in the East. Second, the story speaks not of a pillar
80 Stephen Gero, "Jewish Polemic in the Martyrdom of Pionii and a 'Jesus' Passage from
the Talmud," JJS 29 (1978): 165, n. 5. See also the brief discussion in Newman, "The Death
of Jesus," 61.
81 See the translation and brief discussion in Herbert Musurillo, Acts o/the Christian Martyrs
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), 188-91.
82 Newman, "The Death of Jesus," 61.
83 Newman, ibid., has pointed to two Coptic texts, both dating from the fifth or sixth centu-
ries, both of which look like Christian responses to the TY.ln the "Book of the Resurrection of
Christ by Bartholomew the Apostle," Philogenes plays the role of the "good" gardener to Judas'
"bad" gardener in the TY. Mary's question, "If you have taken away his body, tell me where
you have laid it" reads like the question put to the sages in various versions of the TY. Further,
the Jews are said to have taken Jesus' body by night and buried it in a garden. Philogenes then
gives the "true" account of what happened to Jesus' body: "the Father came forth out of the
height with His tabernacle of light ... and raised Him up from the dead." Newman comments
that" 'Bartholomew' reads like a Christian rejoinder to the antagonistic claims of Toledot
Yeshu" (68). The Gospel of Gamaliel, likewise of the fifth or sixth century, reports that Jesus'
body mysteriously disappeared while the guards slept; when they awoke they found it buried
below water in a garden. When the spot is examined a body is found, along with wrappings
from Jesus'corpse; but 'neutral' witnesses reply that the body is that of the robber who was
crucified with Jesus. Again Newman comments: ''the Christian apocryphon offers its readers a
denatured Jewish tradition ... " (71).
84 So Newman, "The Death of Jesus," 60, n. 7.
244 John Gager
but of a tower. Third, Peter sat in the tower, not on it. Fourth, a drawing based
on frescoes from the original church of St. Peter in Rome portrays the apostle,
holding his key, and standing in front of a tower, while the figure of Simon
Magus plunges earthward from the sky.85 Fifth, as Legasse has pointed out,
numerous details in the Peter story (e. g., his name given as san pyetro and his
designation as papa') indicate an Italian, and more specifically a Roman setting.
Finally, there is the curious reduplication of stories about different Jewish heroes
(variously Peter, Eliahu, Paul and Yochanan) in the same manuscript, each of
whom plays the role of pseudo-disciple of Jesus and each of whom carries out
the same task of separating Christians from Jews. This reduplication points to
the existence of separate tales about different Jewish heroes; these tales trav-
eled in different channels of transmission and were joined only at a later date.
Thus, for example, in the Strasbourg manuscript, Eliahu first comes to Israel's
rescue. 86 That episode is followed immediately by the Nestorius/Bar Sauma ac-
count, which then leads directly to the lengthy story of Peter's heroic efforts on
behalf of the Jews, with apparent disregard for the fact that just a few lines earlier
Eliahu had already accomplished the same deed. We may thus speculate that the
Paul version in the "Acts" originated in the east and migrated westward where
it was eventually inserted, somewhat clumsily, alongside the Peter version. 87
(g) We may also speculate that the "Acts" in their eastern guise traveled to the
West at the same time and via the same routes that brought the Babylonian Tal-
mud and other rabbinic literature to the West in the ninth and tenth centuries. 88
Once arrived in the West, the two (and possibly more) traditions were merged,
producing the mixed results revealed in the later Hebrew manuscripts.
85 The drawing was made by a papal archivist and represents a fresco created in Old St Pe-
ter's under Pope John VII (705-7). The archivists drawing is preserved in the Vatican Library,
manuscript Barberini lat. 2733, fol. 89 recto. For a discussion see Peter Harbison, Pilgrimage
in Ireland: The Monuments and the People (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1991), 170. Legasse,
"Ugende juive," 112, presents further literary evidence of a tower in Rome associated with
Peter and Simon Magus. I am grateful to my student, Christopher Sahner, for this reference.
86 At the conclusion of the Eliahu account the Strasbourg adds "and the Christians call him,
i. e., Eliahu, Paul." This final comment is clearly a secondary addition. In the Adler manuscript
from Yemen (Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 118-128), Eliahu is the hero but there is no identifica-
tion with Paul. See the illuminating discussion of the Eliahu/Elijah connection in Legasse, "La
legende juive," I 04 f., Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 176 f., discusses the various permutations in the
names of these rescuers of Israel.
87 This solution seems preferable to the one proposed by Legasse, "La legende juive," 103,
according to which the Paul version preceded the Peter version and served as its model..
88 So, among others, Kenneth Stow, Alienated Minority: The Jews of Medieval Latin Europe
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 138. In an important essay, Robert Bonfil has
argued that the arrival of Jewish texts, including the TY, in France during or just prior to the time
of Agobard, betray a primarily Palestinian character; see "Cultural and Religious Traditions in
Ninth-Century French Jewry," in Jewish Intellectual History in the Middle Ages (ed. Joseph
Dan; Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1994 [Binah, vol. 3]), 1-17.
Simon Peter. Founder o/Christianity or Saviour 0/ Israel? 245
(h) Finally, along with Newman 89 and Di Segni, we may dismiss the notion
of a single point of origin for the Toledot Yeshu. There was no Ur- TY. Di Segni
speaks ofthe quest for the "mythic" Ur- Toledot as a false problem and a useless
academic exercise. Our versions of the TY are the products of multiple initial
nuclei and a long process of convergence and accretion. 9o
89 Newman, "The Death 0/ Jesus," 61 n. 76.

90 Di Segni, II vangelo del ghetto. 217 f.
Polymorphic Helena - Toledot Yeshu as a Palimpsest
of Religious Narratives and Identities*
Galit Hasan-Rokem
Miscomprehension, incomprehension, dead letters,

unread masterpieces, absolute heterogeneity of mean-
ing - these are some of the perils of writing in the
contact zone. (Marie-Louise Pratt)
The presently available texts that have been understood to compose the corpus
of Toledot Yeshu impress and puzzle the reader with their intense variability as
well as the inconsistency in the logic of the plot and the lack of regularity of
the characterization in the texts of the COrpUS,l The inherent irony of the saying
"la donna e mobile" notwithstanding, it should not be a surprise that the female
figures identified as Helena, including the variants Heleni, Helene, Helenit and
Eleni, are a prime example of both the variability and the inconsistency exhib-
ited in Toledot Yeshu. Helena is, indeed, one of the most polymorphous figures
populating the diverse and scattered Toledot Yeshu texts. In the context of some
of the texts that will be included in the following discussion, polymorphism
means more than a mere formal aspect ofliterary characterization and may have
• Without the conference of November 2009 at Princeton this article would probably never
have been completed, for which I am deeply grateful to the organizers (I hope they are too ... ).
My work on "Helena" has been inspired by many colleagues, friends and students, especially
Oded Irshai, Israel J. Yuval, Tali Artman-Partok, Haim Weiss - all mistakes are mine. I am
grateful to Daniel R. Schwartz and Michael Satlow who carefully read the manuscript and cor-
rected many mistakes. My temporary home at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago
provided bountiful sources of wisdom. The scholarly environment of the Scholion Center for
Interdisciplinary Research in Jewish Studies at the Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies of the
Hebrew University has been ideal in every sense. I am especially indebted to the administra-
tive and technical support provided by its wonderful staff. I thank Sharon Katz for outstanding
research assistance and Matthijs den Dulk in addition to the same, for making Rabbi Hanina's
words in b. Ta 'anit 7a come true.
I The main resource until the completion of the Princeton Toledot Yeshu database is still
Samuel Krauss, Das Leben Jesu nach jiidischen Quellen (Berlin: S. Calvary, 1902; repr.:
Hildesheim: Olms, 1977), based on a copy from the University Library of Erlangen. Some
bibliographical and textological aspects have since been updated: Riccardo Di Segni, "La
tradizione testuale delle Toledoth Jeshu: Manoscritti, edizioni a stampa, ciassificiazione," La
Rassegna mensile di Israel 50 (1984): 83-100. Separate publications of Toledot Yeshu texts not
included in Krauss' compilation will be respectively referred to.
248 Galit Hasan-Rokem
deep religious and ontological resonance, in the sense that the ability to appear in
many forms may in and of itself characterize holiness and even divinity. 2
I was initially drawn to read Toledot Yeshu through the lens of the Helena
figure because of my earlier interest in a woman bearing the same name in
rabbinic literature, namely Queen Helene of Adiabene. 3 I then realized that the
Helena(s) in Toledo! Yeshu also provided an exemplary object of research along
the methodological lines known and preferred by me, namely the study of nar-
ratives in inter-religious and inter-cultural perspective as vehicles of exchange
and dialogue (not necessarily irenic), the consideration of the oral and popular
trajectories of cultural creativity and transmission, and the feminist perspective
of ancient texts traditionally viewed as productions of patriarchal institutions. 4
These methodological aspects also enable me to view Toledo! Yeshu in the con-
text of the wider theoretical perspective pervading most of my scholarly work,
that is, Jews and Jewishness as a thought figure of mobility and instability es-
pecially as articulated by Jews as well as Christians in the context of Christian
civilizations and its dialectic tension with utopian yearnings for eternal stability. 5
Five not terribly surprising observations have emerged from this study: I. To-
ledot Yeshu cannot be viewed as one work ofliterature, but must, instead, be seen
as a quite loosely related complex of texts that have been compiled into some
kind of an associatively connected whole only by early modem and modem re-
2 E. g. The Acts of John, Wilhelm Schneemelcher, ed., New Testament Apocrypha (trans.
R. McL. Wilson; vol. 1: Gospels and related writings; vol2: Writings relating to the Apostles,
Apocalypses and related subjects; rev. ed.; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press,
1991-1992),2: 180--181; Jan Bremmer, "Marginalia Manichaica," ZPE 39 (1980): 31 (29-34),
refers to Acts of John, Acts of Peter and Acts of Thomas; Gedaliahu G. Stroumsa, "Form(s) of
God: Some Notes on Metatron and Christ," HTR 76 (1983): 281 (269-88).
3 m. Yoma 3,10; m. Nazir 3,6; t. Yoma 2,3; t. Suk4Ph I, I; b. Sukkah 2b--3a; Bereshit Rabba
46.11 (Theodor-Albeck, 467). Tal Han (Integrating Women into Second Temple History [Pea-
body, MA: Hendrickson, 2001],46,66-71) believes that she was an adherent of Bet Shammai.
4 E. g. Galit Hasan-Rokem, "Narratives in Dialogue: A Folk Literary Perspective on Inter-
Religious Contacts in the Holy Land in Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity," in Sharing the
Sacred: Religious Contacts and Conflicts in the Holy Land (eds. Arieh Kofsky and Guy G.
Stroumsa; Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 1998), 109-30; eadem, Tales of the Neighborhood:
Jewish Narrative Dialogues in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).
5 E. g. Galit Hasan-Rokem, "Homo viator et narrans - Medieval Jewish Voices in the Eu-
ropean Narrative of the Wandering Jew," in Europiiische Ethnologie und Folk/ore im interna-
liona/en Kontext: Festschriftfor Leander Pelzoldt (ed. Ingo Schneider; Frankfurt a.M.: Peter
Lang, 1999),93-102; eadem, "Ex Oriente Fluxus: The Wandering Jew - Oriental Crossings of
the Paths of Europe," in L 'orient dans I'histoire religieuse de I 'Europe: L 'invention des origins
(eds. MohammadAliAmir-Moezzi and John Scheid; Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), I 53-<i4; eadem,
"Material Mobility vs. Concentric Cosmology in the Sukkah: The House of the Wandering Jew
or a Ubiquitous Temple" in Things: Material Religion and the Topography of Divine Spaces
(eds. Dick Houtman and Birgit Meyers; New York: Fordham University Press, forthcoming).
Polymorphic Helena 249
search. 6 Hillel Newman has beautifully formulated this fact as follows: "Toledot
Yeshu is not a single composition, so much as 'a process of extended evolution'
(quoting Di Segni)," adding the all important observation "Nor does the process
unfold linearly."7 This accounts for the variation and inconsistency and almost
totally forecloses a consideration of the various texts as regularly transmitted in
written form. 2. Even if we assume that in most cases the authors or narrators
of the Toledot Yeshu were Jews, the heavy dependence on identifiable Christian
sources may explain the fact that in many cases the narrative does not necessarily
depict the Jews in favorable light and that many Christian claims about the Jews'
conspiring against Jesus and his disciples and followers are confirmed. 3. The
6 Stephen Gero, "The Stem Master and His Wayward Disciple: A 'Jesus' Story in the Tal-
mud and in Christian Hagiography," JSJ 25 (1994): 287-311 calls it "an extraordinarily fluid
text" (308). Incidentally, exactly the same term was used in May 20 I 0 by Hans Dieter Betz to
describe the Acts of Paul at a seminar led by Margaret Mitchell at the Divinity School of the
University of Chicago. A similar history of late and external canonization famously character-
izes, e. g. Thousand and One Nights also known as Arabian Nights. Cr. Christine M. Thomas,
"Stories without Texts and Without Authors: The Problem of Fluidity in Ancient Novelistic
Texts and Early Christian Literature," in Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative (eds.
Ronald F. Hock, 1. Bradley Chance and Judith Perkins; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1998),
273-91. See also eadem, "Revivifying Resurrection Accounts: Techniques of Composition and
Rewriting in the Acts ofPeter," in The Apocryphal Acts ofPeter: Magic, Miracles and Gnosti-
cism (ed. Jan N. Bremmer; Leuven: Peeters, 1998),65-83.
I suggest that the so called book Toledot Yeshu actually never existed and unlike other
examples of mUltiple versions for a text, there was never a process of selection producing a
privileged version. Thus appropriately, the first mention of the Toledot Yeshu is not in a Jew-
ish text but by Agobard of Lyon, on which topic see further in the article by Peter Schiifer
in this volume. Anna Beth Langenwalter, Agobard of Lyon: An Exploration of Carolingian
Jewish-Christian Relations (Ph.D. diss.; Toronto: University of Toronto, 2009) (cited II Sep-
tember 20 I 0). Online: https:lltspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstreamJI8071I905I1I1Langenwal-
ter_ Anna_ B_200911 ]hD_ thesis.pdf. According to Langenwalter the TY known to Agobard
"seems ... to be a version of the Toledoth Jeshu which has otherwise never been written down,
or has since been lost" (169). Following Stephan Gero she suggests that "(t)he various versions
of the Toledoth Jeshu began as oral tales during Late AntiqUity, drawing upon materials in the
Talmud and a knowledge of New Testament writings, both canonical and apocryphal" and ac-
cepts his dating "perhaps in the sixth century."
Similarly to the Talmudic mentions of Jesus that remain sporadic and fragmented, Jews seem
in general not to have devoted full-fledged literary compositions to their negative feelings about
the person of Jesus, but rather composed polemic texts against Christian theological precepts,
mostly much later than Agobard's times, and in central Europe rather than in Byzantine and
Muslim countries. See for instance Daniel J. Lasker's review of David Berger's edition of the
"Nizzahon vetus" in Speculum 56 (1981): 583-85, esp. 583; Daniel Lasker and Sarah Stroumsa,
The Polemic ofNestor the Priest: Introduction, Translations and Commentary (Jerusalem: Ben
Zvi Institute, 1996), 14; see also my review of Schlifer's book referred to below (n. 21). The
text published by Lasker and Stroumsa invites further discussion with regard to the Nestorius
episode in a few manuscripts of TY, cf. Step hen Gero, "The Nestorius legend in the Toledoth
Yeshu," OrChr 59 (1975): 108-120.
7 HiIlel!. Newman, "The Death of Jesus in the Toledot Yeshu Literature," JTS 50 (1999): 59.
Newman privileges, unlike me, a strictly polemical line of interpretation of the Toledot Yeshu
literature, possibly correlating to his focus on the, earlier, "Pilate" versions of the narratives and
my focus on the "Helena" versions.
traditional attribution of Toledot Yeshu to Jewish authors should be revised to

include both historically identifiable marginal modes of Jewish identity and cul-
tural practice, as well as areas of intercultural communication between Jews and
others, most probably Christians. Notably, the Christians to be taken into account
for this discussion naturally also encompass a great variation, including variants
that have been termed as heretical in certain institutional formations. 4. The
"textual milieu" where Toledot Yeshu 8 best fits in is neither Rabbinic literature
nor the canonical gospels, but rather some texts of the early Christian literature
known as apocryphal, both the gospels and in particular some of the apocryphal
Acts of the Apostles, which carry on the prose tradition of the Hellenistic novel,9
which has also been found to reverberate, although in less consistent modes in
late antique Jewish, rabbinic, literature. 10 The presence of satire, parody, and the
grotesque in the context of sacred literature and ritual is prevalent although often
considered subversive and thus repressed. 11 5. It is all about Jerusalem.
In the following pages I shall try to layout some textual evidence for my
conclusions.
Multiple distribution, one of the main explanations for variability in the trans-
mission of narratives, has in folklore research been identified as one of the
distinguishing features of folk literature. In fact, this mode of distribution is
common to most forms of verbal communication preceding the invention of the
printing press. Manuscripts, like oral performances of texts, exhibit the instabil-
ity of verbal forms even in cases where canonization has occurred, and all the
more in non-canonized texts. The variation in the texts that have been compiled
under the moniker TY, seems, however to exceed the concepts of both variant
and version that serve in the study of multiple distribution. 12
8 Hereafter quoted in the text as TY.

9 Schneemelcher, ed., New Testament Apocrypha. For the connection with the Hellenistic
novel, e.g.: 2:78; see also: Hans-JosefKlauck, The Ap~cryphal Acts of the Apostles (trans. Brian
McNeil; Waco, Tx.: Baylor University Press, 2008), 7-14; Oliver Ehlen, Leitbilder und roman-
hafte Ziige in apokryphen Evangelientexten: Untersuchungen zur Motivik und Erzahlstruktur
(Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2004) who employs a reconceptualized version of Rosa SOder's
typological model from the nineteen thirties to make the comparison especially with regard to
the Protoevangelium Jacobi and Acta Pilati (A and B recensions).
10 E.g.: Joshua Levinson, "The Tragedy of Romance: A Case of Literary Exile," HTR 89
(1996): 227-44; David Stern, "The Captive Woman: Hellenization, Greeo-Roman Erotic Nar-
rative, and Rabbinic Literature," Poetics Today 19 (1998): 91-127; Daniel Boyarin, Socrates
and the Fat Rabbis (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009), 220-22.
11 Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World (trans. Helene Iswolsky; Bloomington, Ind.:
Indiana University Press, 1984),7-15.
12 A prime example of a research methodology using these terms is the geographical-histor-
ical ("Finnish") method in folk narrative research, based on the concepts of "motif' and "tale
type" which constitute standard forms by which variation is assessed. Antti Aame, The Types of
the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography (trans. and enlarged by Stith Thompson; 2d rev.
ed.; Folklore Fellows Communications 184; Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 196\);
Even given the fact that oral and other popular narratives are often transmit-
ted without any title, the great range of variation in the TY corpus of the titles
introducing some but not all of the versions may serve as an example of the
phenomenon of multiple distribution resulting in variation. While the variation
in titles is neither the most substantial nor the most significant of the differences
between the various versions of TY, it is a concise example of them: ma 'ase
yeshu,13 ma 'aseh de- '010 ve- 'el beno,14 ma 'aseh yeshu ha-nolsri, 15 'uvda' de-
yeshu bar pandera', 16 are some of the alternatives suggested in the material. The
terms ma 'aseh and 'uvda' are both the most frequent respectively Hebrew and
Aramaic introductory formulae for narratives in rabbinic literature. Although
the TY otherwise bears only few marks of connection with rabbinic literature,
this would seem to point in that direction. On the other hand the terminological
parallel with Acts - JtQU'/;EU;17 - is also suggestive because ofthe striking con-
nections between some of the TYtexts and some of the Christian Acts, especially
the Acts of Peter, but also with the Acts of John and Acts of Paul, as well as the
canonical Acts of the Apostles.
One of the ways to approach the affinities between TYand the above mentioned
Christian texts is through the concept of genre. Genre is probably the literary
category most often used to classify and to compare literary texts. The criteria
for defining a particular genre vary according to the theoretical background of
each particular scholarly practice. The scope of this article does not allow for a
thorough discussion of the genre issue and I shall thus resort to a phenomeno-
logical descriptive genre terminology based more on contents than on analyti-
cally stringent structural, functional or contextual criteria, rooted in the study of
narratives in classical rabbinic literature, and based on the scholarly corpus of
folk literary studies. IS This theoretical background does not mean that I consider
Hans-Jorg Uther, The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography

Based on the System ofAntti Aarne and Stith Thompson (3 vols.; Folklore Fellows Communica-
tions 284--86; Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 2004).
J3 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 118.
IS Krauss, ibid., 38.
17 NB: ma 'aseh and 'uvda' are very common terms in Rabbinic literature and their occur-
rences cannot be limited to a particular connection with praxeis. Moreover, unlike praxeis in
the plural, both ma 'aseh and 'uvda' are in the singular. One should also not forget that praxeis
as a literary genre is based on classical examples, from the telling about the acts and deeds of
the hero Heracles, continuing with many later Greco-Roman examples, e. g. the Acts of Al-
exander. The Latin terms res gestae and his/oria rerum gestarum likewise connect narratives
with activity.
18 Galit Hasan-Rokem, Web ofLife: Folklore and Midrash in Rabbinic Literature (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2000); EIi Yassif, The Hebrew Folktale: History, Genre, Meaning
(Bloomington, lnd.: Indiana University Press, 1999).
252 Galit HQ.'ian-Rokem
all narrative in rabbinic literature folk literature,19 certainly not in the sociologi-
cally stereotypical view of folk literature as the literature of the uneducated that
fortunately has almost disappeared from scholarly discourse. The phenomeno-
logical similarities between the largely orally created scholarly discourse of the
Rabbis,2o transmitted for centuries in manuscript form, and various modes of
folk literary creativity render, I suggest, many of the research methods of folk
literature applicable for the study of Rabbinic literature.
A review of traditional genres extant in late antique Jewish texts that would
seem the feasible point of reference for the TY texts, do not disclose genre
models that will suffice for interpreting the genre character of this particular
text. Certainly the major corpora of Jewish texts ofthe era, the Talmuds and the
midrashim, provide no firm parallels to the narrative formations recognizable in
the TY.21 Neither the typical midrashic narrative based on a scriptural passage,
nor the characteristic enhancement of a biblical motif;22 neither the everyday
life account exemplifying a halakhic discussion23 nor a biographical or hagio-
graphical account about the sages and their milieu,24 a parable or fable,25 or even
a historical account of Jewish matters;26 the TY texts echo other tunes than the
ones known from the classical Rabbinic ones.
The genre of the TY is, however, not unique, but its cognates are, as has been
briefly indicated above, to be found elsewhere, more exactly in the writings of
the early Church. 27 Most closely it resembles the Apocryphal Acts of the Apos-
19 Daniel Boyarin, Socrates and the Fat Rabbis, 195-98 conducts an interesting dialogue
with my method of folk literary research of Rabbinic narratives, generally representing it
adequately, an overly essentializing footnote later in the book (278, n. 69) notwithstanding.
20 Birger Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission
in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity (Foreword by Jacob Neusner; Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1998); Martin S. Jaffee, Torah in the Mouth: Writing and Oral Tradition in Pales-
tinian Judaism 200 BCE--400 CE (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); Yaakov Suss-
man, "Torah she-heal-pe pshuta ke-mashma'ah: koho shel kutso shel yod," Mehqere Talmud
3 (2005): 209-384. •
21 Cf. the recent work on Jesus in the Talmud, amply referring to the vast preceding research
on the topic: Peter Schiifer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007),
cf. my review of the book inJQR 99 (2009): 113-19.
22 E. g. Joshua Levinson, "Dialogical Reading in the Rabbinic Exegetical Narrative," Poet-
ics Today 25 (2004): 497-528; idem, "Literary Approaches to Midrash," in Current Trends in
the Study of Midrash (ed. Carol Bakhos; Leiden: Brill, 2006), 189-226, esp. 207ff.; Richard
Kalmin, "Midrash and Social History," in Bakhos, Current Trends, 133-58.
23 E. g. Barry S. Wimpfheimer, Narrating the Law: A Poetics of Talmudic Legal Stories
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).
24 E. g. Jeffiey L. Rubenstein, Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture
(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999).
25 David Stem, Parables in Midrash: Narrative and Exegesis in Rabbinic Literature (Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991).
26 E.g. Hasan-Rokem, Web of Life, 146--90.
27 I am using the singular form when discussing TYonly for convenience, without thereby
confessing its unity as a literary work, as stated above.
tles. 28 Notably, the kinship between the Christian Apocrypha and TY has been
recognized by several scholars. 29
TY thus introduces into the inter-religious discourse not a dichotomy between
gospel and a satire thereof,30 but rather the more diversified scale from gospel as
kerygma through less canonized and less sacramental forms of narrative motifs
of the gospels and the acts. In these forms narrative mechanisms dominate the
discourse, abounding in miracle, magic (and once again displaying the inter-
changeability of the twO),31 and absurd and grotesque, until at the end of the
range satire with its polemical edge appears.
This picture enables - indeed necessitates - us to see TY not in the narrow
paradigm of polemics, but in the culturally wider context of shared narratives
with changing contextualizations, ranging from outright polemic to parody, ad-
aptation, and borrowing - and allowing for multiple combinations of all these. 32
28 I am aware of the caveat formulated by Stephen Gero in his outstandingly informa-

tive article "Apocryphal Gospels: A Survey of Textual and Literary Problems," in ANRW 11
25.5:3969-3996. On 3995-3996 he states the following: "In fact one must guard against an
assumption that 'apocryphal gospels' or 'post-canonical' traditions represent a distinct literary
genre, and that one can make generalizations applicable to the genre on the basis of more or
less random sampling." Gero reveals the target of his attack in note 167: "So E. P. Sanders,
The Tendencies of the Synoptic Tradition (Cambridge 1969),258-259, asserting a preference
for direct discourse in 'apocryphal' accounts, compared to the use of indirect discourse in the
synoptic discourse." A further target is revealed in the closing sentences of the article where he
regrets the "sensationalism" involved in the publication of some of the Nag Harnmadi materi-
als. Since the concept of genre is here not applied for the classification of the entire corpus of
early Christian or late antique Jewish texts, but rather to point out similarities between texts
transcending the lines of the canonical and the non-canonical (the NT Acts of the Apostles are
also included in the discussion, as we shall see) as well as the borders of religious identity, I
don't think its present use actually conflicts with Gero's views. Contra Gero's view: Matthew
Baldwin, Whose Acts ofPeter?: Text and Historical Context of the Actus Vercellenses (WUNT
2.196; TUbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 23 makes a categorical distinction between canonical
and apocryphal texts with regard to structure as well as distribution. For contacts with Jewish
texts see also Lasker and Stroumsa, Polemic of Nestor the Priest, 16, about the employing of
some apocryphal Acts in the Jewish polemical text Qissa that they published.
29 Gero, "Apocryphal Gospels," 3969-3996, without necessarily formulating the kinship in
terms of genre; Hans-JosefKlauck, Apocryphal Gospels: An Introduction (trans. Brian McNeil;
London: T & T Clark International/Continuum, 2003), 211-20 who goes very far by including
TY in his review of apocryphal gospels.
30 This does not necessarily contradict Amos Funkenstein's dichotomous proposal to read
TY as a counter-history in his "History, Counterhistory and Narrative," in Perceptions ofJewish
History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 22-49, esp. 39-40, since his discus-
sion relates to the text in the context of a generalized paradigm running from Manetho, through
Marx to Nazism, whereas I am addressing the phenomenological particularity of the concrete
literary formations.
31 The literature addressing this issue is abundant, some of it I have reviewed in my "Did
the Rabbis Recognize the Category of Folk Narrative?" European Journal of Jewish Studies
3 (2009): 19-55.
32 For the discussion of adaptation to varying contexts folk narrative research has created the
concept of ecotype ("oikotyp") that I shall elaborate on below.
Looking back for roots of the relevant literary modes, the apocryphal Gospels
and especially Acts, which have been mentioned as relevant for the comparison
with Ty'33 may be seen as partly inspired by the Jewish Hellenistic genre of the
rewritten Bible, offering alternative plots to the canonical text. 34 In addition to
the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish Hellenistic literature - with its manifold inspira-
tions from classical Greek and Hellenistic sources - constitutes one of the main
shared foundations upon which both the writings of the early Church and the
literature of the Rabbis extensively draw, especially in their more imaginative
and literarily rich parts.
Since the approach developed here addresses questions of inter-religious, inter-

cultural, as well as trans-religious and trans-cultural phenomena, it may be
useful to employ the concept that Marie Louise Pratt has fruitfully theorized
as "contact zones,"35 in her own words "social spaces where cultures meet,
clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical
relations of power. "36 One has to assume that the power relations were indeed
asymmetrical in any or all of the locations where TY was created, although it is
not clear whether it was in a Muslim or Christian realm. 37 The case that Pratt
analyzes in her 1991 essay exemplifies how an indigenous Andean "took over
the official Spanish genre (chronicle) for his own ends." Although TY surely
does not resemble the genre of autoethnography and unlike the Spanish text of
the conquered that she analyzes TY is not written in the hegemonic language but
rather in the language of the subaltern, one can discern in it too "a conquered
subject using the conquerors (sic) language38 to construct a parodic, oppositional
representation ofthe conquerors (sic) own speech."39
33 As mentioned, mainly the (canonical) Acts of the Apostles and the (apocryphal) Acts of
Peter, Acts of Paul and Acts ofJohn.
34 James Kugel,In Potiphar's House: The Interpretive Life ofBiblical Texts (San Francisco:
Harper Collins, 1992); Steven D. Fraade, "Rewritte,p Bible and Rabbinic Midrash as Com-
mentary," in Bakhos, Current Trends, 59-78; idem, "Rabbinic Midrash and Ancient Jewish
Biblical Interpretation," in The Cambridge Guide to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature (eds.
Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert and Martin S. Jaffee; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2007),99-120.
35 Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London: Rout-
ledge, 1992).
36 eadem, "Arts of the Contact Zone," Profession 91 (1991): 33-40. Cited I1 September 2010.
Online: http://www.c1ass.uidaho.edulthomaslEnglish_ 506/Arts_oCthe _Contact_Zone.pdf.>
37 Cf. Andrew S. Jacobs, Remains of the Jews: The Holy Land and Christian Empire in Late
Antiquity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004) has theoretically illuminated his discus-
sion of the discourse on Jews by Late Antique Christians with Pratt's insights.
38 The term language must in the case of TY be understood in the wider sense of cultural
vocabulary.
39 Pratt, "Arts of the Contact Zone." Theoretically this discussion could be carried even
further by relating to Homi Bhaba's concept of "mimicry" and James Scott's model of "hidden
scripts" in similar situations, which however must be postponed to another occasion.
Folklore research has developed a concept to interpret adaptations of cultural

materials emerging in contact zones that, although originally quite oblivious to
the socio-political context of the contact and especially the power relations in
which they are embedded, may still be useful for thinking on TY in the Jewish-
Christian "contact zone." It may also be fruitful to think that the contact zone
does not always mark an interface between recognized groupings, but, possibly,
cuts through some ofthe groups that are usually thought of as intact. 40
The concept of ecotype was formulated by the Swedish folklorist Carl Wil-
helm von Sydow41 and elaborated by Finnish Lauri Honk042 and has proven
one of the most versatile analytical concepts produced by folklore scholarship.43
Von Sydow engaged a botanical idiom referring to the adaptation of plants to
new and strange ecological conditions in order to describe the way adaptation
occurs in elements of tradition that are transmitted to new environments. Un-
like the earlier dominant geographical-historical school in folklore research that
emphasized the quest for the original form and attempted to reconstruct lines
of transmission,44 von Sydow's study of the ecotype focused on the process
of adaptation in a specific habitus (to borrow an especially useful term from
Pierre Bourdieu).45
Due to its many affinities with non-canonical narratives mentioned above, TY
may be viewed as a particular ecotypical formation of the life of Jesus, adapted
to the incompatibility between Jewish beliefs and some of the beliefs underlying
the Christian gospel narrative, such as the divinity of Jesus and virgin birth.46
Honko's elaboration and refinement of the concept distinguishes between the
adaptations to the morphology of the milieu and adaptations to the morphology
of the tradition on one hand and functional adaptation on the other hand. The
only one of his more specific categories applicable to the analysis of the utterly
4Q Jewish-Christian, at least; however the Jewish-Muslim and the Christian-Muslim contact
zones may have to be considered as well, as I shall point out later.

41 Primarily in an oral presentation in 1932, and then in writing: Carl Wilhe1m von Sydow,
"Geography and Folk-tale Oicotypes," Bealoideas 4 (1934): 344--55; idem, Selected Papers on
Folklore (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1948),44--59. Regrettably, recent publications
make it very clear that von Sydow's position towards Nazism in Germany was far from stead-
fastly critical: Nils-Arvid Bringeus, Carl Wilhelm von Sydow: A Swedish Pioneer in Folklore
(trans. John Irons; Folklore Fellows Communications 298; Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum
Fennica, 2009), 178-86.
42 Lauri Honko, "Four Forms of Adaptation to Tradition," Studia Fennica 26 (1981): 19-33.
43 Galit Hasan-Rokem, "Okotyp," Encyclopiidie des Miirchens (Berlin: Waiter de Gruyter,
2000).
44 Kaarle Krohn, Folklore Methodology (trans. Roger L. Welch; Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1971).
45 Pierre Bourdieu, "Structures, Habitus, Practices," in idem, The Logic of Practice (trans.
Richard Nice; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990),52-79.
46 The application of the concept of ecotype to the variation of the Helena figures in the TY
texts will be seriously limited by the meager contextual information that we have about the
versions with regard to time and place of composition.
context-less TY texts is the adaptation to the internal morphology of the tradi-

tion. The ecotypical aspect of the Helena figures in the various versions can thus
be investigated with reference to the narrative context, i. e., what other figures,
motifs and narrative elements surround the specific ecotypical formation.
An attempt to introduce and explicate the appearances of the queen named Hel-
ena in the TY texts in a systematic manner soon seems like a dog running after
its own tail. One relatively concrete method is to investigate the chronological
markers associated with the figure. Several texts date the events opening the
narrative with a biblically garbed rhetorical formula situating the events under
the rule of Queen Helene, without however giving a clue as to the historical
context of her own lifetime, leaving the reader to conclude that she was simply
a contemporary of the events recounted, i. e. the lifetime of Jesus:
Cod. Hebr. 2240 (Oxford, Bodleiana): "In the fifth year of El eni."
Cod. Hebr. B. H. 17 (Leipziger Stadtbibliotek) and Cod. Hebr. 2178, with
orthographical changes: "In the fifth year of Queen Helene a great decree was
set upon the enemies of Israel.'>47
The version titled tarn u-mu 'ad that was re-published by Michael Krupp: "In
the year 3708 after the creation of the world, that is the year 320 after the found-
ing of the second Temple, Queen Helene of the seed of the Hasmonean dynasty
rules and reigns over Israel and Jerusalem."
Other versions insert Helena's presence at later stages of the narrative.
In the manuscript titled by Krauss Ms. Vindobona48 Helena enters after the
complicated birth story: "In those days all the land was under the rule of Queen
Helene, the wife of Kostantin (sic)."49 In this manuscript she plays a diverse and
active role.
Scholars have named some of the versions of the Toledot Yeshu "the Helena
versions" after her name, and in those versions she as a rule is the legal authority.
As clear cut as her characterization may seem, Queen Helena of Toldot Yeshu is
however a multiply ambiguous figure. Unlike-other historical figures appearing
in the narrative who are evidently identifiable from the New Testament - Mary,
Jesus, Pi late, Peter, Simon, Paul and even Joseph and Yohanan (John) - Queen
Helena does not appear in the New Testament. Any attempt to identifY her with
a historical figure must take into account at least two possibilities: Queen Helene
of the kingdom of Adiabene - roughly a contemporary of the events supposedly
narrated in the Toldot Yeshu - who converted to Judaism, on the one hand, and
47 "The enemies ofIsrael" is a periphrastic expression referring to the Jews themselves, here
however possibly ambivalently also referring to Christians. The ambivalence is characteristic
ofTY.
48 I shall use Ms. Vienna below.
49 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 68, has KOSlantino as a variant reading from the Gaster manu-
script.
Helena Augusta, the mother of Constantine the Great, who began the Christian-
ization of the Roman Empire in the fourth century on the other hand.
The presence of these two possibilities constitutes a hermeneutical palimp-
sest in the heart of the text, pointing at other ambiguities and conundrums of
meaning emerging from this complex and uneasy work of literature. 5o The
two historical queens echoed by the literary figure of Queen Helena of the TY
involve three various geographical locations: northern Mesopotamia, Con-
stantinople and the Holy Land. Incidentally these are also the major locales to
which the emergence of the TY text itself has been attributed. This is another
ambiguity or tension in addition to the obvious chronological bifurcation that
the two queens present.
In the following I shall analyze the different Queen Helena figures in the vari-
ous TY versions, attempting to determine which traits are derived from which
one of the historical figures and what the implications of these variations are.
But before that I shall present the occurrences of the Helena figures in the texts,
following partly the order of the versions as presented in Krauss' edition. In the
first example quoted by Krauss the Ms. Strasbourg,5l Queen Helena appears in
medias res after the temptation and birth episodes. Ms. Strasbourg: 52
And the rule over all of Israel was in the hands of a woman whose name was Heleni 53
and in the Temple was the foundation stone etc. '" When the sages saw that the people
believed in him so much they took him and brought him before Queen Heleni who held
in her hands the Land of Israel. 54 They told her: "This man holds in his hands sorcery55
and he misleads the world. "Jesus answered her, saying: "Already the prophets prophesied
how soon' A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse' (Isaiah 11: I )56 and I am that one,
and about them (the sages) scripture says: 'Blessed is the man who does not walk in the
counsel of the wicked' " (Psalms I: I a). She said to them (the sages): "Does your teaching
(lit., your Torah) include what this man says?" They said: There is in our teaching, but it
was not said about this man but about him it is written: 'But a prophet who (presumes to
speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks
50 The tenn palimpsest is deeply related to one of the dominant modes of distribution of the
TY. manuscripts, but this has no implication for the metaphorical use that I have suggested.
51 Krauss orthography in Gennan "Strassburg."
52 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 38-50 (Hebrew), 50-64 (Gennan). The translations are mine. I
am using Krauss' annotation and naming of the versions with minor changes.
53 Krauss, ibid., 40, n. 20 lists the following variant readings: Cod. De Rossi, Helenit (the
Hebrew feminine noun ending); Codd. Oxford, Eleni (Helenif?); L - Ms. Sonkilew from Rus-
sia; B - Ms. Rawl Or 37 Oxford and Ms. Jablonski from Leipzig Heleni; Wagenseil Helena
(Olyana?). I shall provide variant readings only in those cases where a real difference in mean-
ing emerges.
54 Krauss, ibid., 41 refers to m. Yoma 3:2.
55 Krauss, ibid., translates idiomatically: "Dieser Mann ilbt Zauberei." I have preferred to
maintain the Hebrew idiom "holds in his hands" because of the intriguing parallel to the descrip-
tion of Queen Heleni's rule over the land.
56 All Bible quotes are from the NIV unless otherwise stated.
in the name of other gods, must be put to death)' (Deut. 18:20)57 and '(Then do to him as
he intended to do to his brother.) You must purge the evil from among you' (Deut. 19: 19).
There are signs58 to (identify) the Messiah whom we expect and it is written about him:
'(But with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for
the poor of the earth.) He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; (with the breath
of his lips he will slay the wicked), (Isaiah 11:4). And this (mamzer-bastard )5'1tas none
of those signs." Said Jesus to her: "My mistress, I am he,60and I shall revive the dead."
She sent reliable men,bl and he revived the dead. Thereupon the queen was frightened and
said: "This is a great sign." She scolded the sages and they left her presence ashamed and
in great sorrow. More rogues62 joined him and there was great discord in Israel.
And Jesus said to the horsemen: "Go to your mistress and tell her what you have
seen."63And the wind (spirit?) carried him from the surface of the water and brought
him to dry land. And the horsemen went and told the queen all these things and she was
mightily amazed and summoned the elders of Israel and told them: You say that he is
a sorcerer (knshfan) and he produces every day new great signs." They told her: "Our
mistress, let not his matters enter your heart. Send envoys and bring him, here shall we
reveal his shame. She then sent envoys and in addition to him his evil company appeared
with him before the queen and the elders ofIsrael went and brought a man named Yehuda
Iskariota64and introduced him into the House of the Holiest of Holies (the temple) and
he learnt the letters of the Name (shem ha-meforash) that were graven on the stone of
foundation ('even shtiyya) and he wrote them on a small piece of parchment and tore up
his thigh and said the Name so that it wouldn't hurt, like Jesus had done earlier. As Jesus
was sitting with his company by the queen she summoned the sages. Jesus replied (sic)
and said: "It was prophesied about me 'Dogs have surrounded me; (a band of evil men
has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet).'" (Psalm 22: 16; 22:17 in the
Hebrew Bible),65 and about me was said '''Do not be afraid of them, (for I am with you
57 I am completing the partially quoted verses since very often in Rabbinic literature the
"invisible" parts of the verses are as important for the wider meaning of the text as those ex-
plicitly quoted.
58 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 41, n. 20 quotes variant reading: B - Ms. Rawl Or 37 Oxford:
"other signs."
59 Krauss, ibid., 41 marks an omission and points out in footnote 22 the B variant, "man."
60 Krauss, ibid., 42, n. I quotes the B variant, "th; Messiah."
61 Krauss, ibid., 42, n. 2 quotes the B variant, "men, (he sent with them and he recited the
letters)."
62 Krauss, ibid., 42, n. 4 quotes the B variant, "the rogues and evildoers of Israel."
63 Krauss, ibid., 42 the miracles Jesus made while he was in the Galilee.
64 Krauss, ibid., 42, n. 26. The various variants in the spelling of this name show the linguis-
tic variations in the environment - but not necessarily the mobility of the text since there were
a number oflocations in the 7th _12th centuries that could have housed them all! The interesting
exception that points at proximity to rabbinic literature, is Eliezer Ish Barthotha (the man of
Barthotha) replacing Judas in the Russian Sonkilew manuscript, cf. m. Avot 3.7 Rabbi EI'azar
Ish Barthotha; m. Tvul Yom 3.4 Rabbi El'azar Ben Yehuda Ish Barthotha (which is the most fre-
quent form subsequently) who often transmits teachings of Rabbi Joshua; nine occurrences of
the name in Tannaitic literature, one in Amoraic midrash, two in the Babylonian Talmud and an-
other almost a hundred occurrences in rabbinic halakhic texts from various periods and places.
65 This is the psalm that opens with" 'eli 'eli lama 'azavtant' quoted in Aramaic (sabaktani)
by Jesus on the cross in Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34.
and will rescue you,' declares the Lord)" (Jeremiah I :8).66 When the sages entered and
Yehuda Iskariota with them they raised their arguments against him and he against them
until he (Jesus) told the queen: "About me was said: 67 '(You said in your heart,) I will
ascend to heaven; (I will raise my throne above the stars of God). '" (Isaiah 14: 13a);68 and
it is said: '(But God will redeem my life from the grave;) he will surely take me to himself.
Selah.'" (Psalm 49: 15 ([Hebrew Bible 49: 16]).
Follows the flight competition between Jesus and Judas in which Judas prevails
by polluting Jesus with urine. "When the queen heard this she scolded the rogues
and told the sages ofIsrael: 'He is in your hands. ">69 Jesus and the disciples then
wander to Tiberias and Antioch, already burdened by the failure at the magic
competition. The Talmud passage discussing Jesus disciples is interwoven in
the narrative. 70 They then return for Passover to Jerusalem where the episodes
of crucifixion and burial take place without the queen's intervention. It is only
after the realization of the disciples that the tomb is empty that she reenters the
narrative:
And the rogues went to queen Heleni and told her: "He who was killed was the Messiah,
and how many miracles did he (not) show in his life and now after his death he has been
buried and is not in the tomb since he has ascended to heaven and it is written 'he will
surely take me to himself. Selah'" (Psalm 49:15 [Hebrew Bible 49:16]), thus he proph-
esized about himself. She summoned the sages,?! and said: "What have you done to him?"
And they said: "We killed him since such was his verdict." She said: "If you killed him,
what did you doT' They said: "We buried him." Immediately his tomb was searched and
he was not found and she said to them: "Did you bury him in this tomb; and where is he?"
And the sages were frightened and did not know how to answer her, since one man72 re-
moved him from the tomb and transferred him to his garden and stopped (?) the water that
ran through his garden and dug a tomb in the sand and buried him and then returned the
water to its route on his tomb. Said the queen: "If you will not show me Jesus, I shall leave
neither survivors nor fugitives73 of you." They told her:"Set us a time and a condition."
All Israel were weeping in fast and prayer and the rogues were able to say: "You killed
God's Messiah" and all of Israel were in great woe, and the sages ofIsrael were escaping
from one place to another out of fear. 74 One of them, an old man named Rabbi Tanhuma,
66 The Strassburg Ms. has" 'al tehat" (Jeremiah I: 17); the B Ms. has the less idiomatic" 'al
tifhad"; Krauss' annotation refers to Jeremiah 1:8 which reads" 'al tira."
67 Ms. 8 adds "said King David" to mark the Psalm text.
68 It is difficult to assess how much the text expresses the irony of the fact that this is said
about the haughty king of 8abet.
69 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 43.
70 Krauss, ibid., 45, b. Sanhedrin 43a-b. Cf. Moshe Halbertal and Shlomo Naeh, "The Wells
of Salvation: An Exegetical Satire and Reply to the Minim," in Higayon L 'Yona: New Aspects
in the Study of Midrash, Aggadah and Piyut (eds. Joshua Levinson, Jacob Elbaum and Galit
Hasan-Rokem; Jerusalem: 2006 [in HebrewD, 179-97; Schiifer, Jesus in the Talmud, 75-81.
71 Krauss, ibid., 46, n. 3, Ms. 8's variant reading adds "and the Sanhedrin."
72 Krauss, ibid., 46, n. 5, Ms. 8 has "gardener" and later "Judas the gardener."
73 Joshua 8:22; the wording of Jeremiah 42: 17 is identical in Hebrew however NIV has "not
one of them will survive or escape." Cf. also: I Maccabees 7:34-35; II Maccabbes 14:30-33.
74 The reality described is similar to Herod's purge of the sages in b. Bava Bathra 3b-4a.
260 Galit Hosan-Rokem
was walking and weeping in the field. The owner of the garden saw him and asked him:
"Why are you weeping?" He answered: "This and that because of that evildoer who has
disappeared and now the time set by the queen has arrived and we are all weeping and
fasting." Once he had heard that all ofIsrael were as in mourning and the evildoers said
that he had ascended to heaven and the owner of the garden said ... today Israel will be
relieved and rejoice, because I stole him so that the rogues could not take him and have a
say for generations and generations. 75 Immediately they went to Jerusalem and told them
(the sages?) the good news76and all Israel went out after the owner of the garden and tied
him (Jesus) by his legs and they dragged him through the streets of Jerusalem until they
brought him to the queen and told her: "Here is the one who ascended to heaven" and they
happily left her presence and she mocked the rogues and praised the sages.
This scene which quite systematically subverts the hagiography ofthe via crucis
and turns upside down the well known picture of Jesus' female devotees is fol-
lowed by an account of Jesus' disciples' activities, an account of the transforma-
tion of Jewish holidays to parallel Christian ones, the stories of Paul, Nestorius,
Simon Kephas, the description of the Stylite, and the liturgical poetry ofSimon
Kephas finally qualifies him to be accepted by the Sanhedrin as well as by the
ExilarchF7
Ms. Vienna. 78 Helena first appears in chapter 5 of this version, basically at the
same stage in the plot as in Ms. Strasbourg, when Jesus has grown up and has
started to gather disciples and masses follow him: "In those days all the land was
under the rule of queen Helena the wife of Constantine. "79 She then reappears
only in the beginning of chapter 7:
When the Israelites (sic) saw that some ofthe peoples believed him they planned together
to catch him and they caught him and brought him to queen Helenitll° the wife of Costantin
(sic) in whose hands the rule remained after Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babel and that
was seventy years before the destruction of the temple, and thus they said before queen
Helenit: "Our mistress the queen, here is the man named Jesus who is a mamzer and he
holds in his hands great sorcery and he misleads the world with them ... by saying that
he is the Messiah and his verdict is death and that is why we caught him and brought
him before you to judge him since he is doomed tIil death. Then Jesus opened his mouth
and said: "My mistress the queen, these are the evildoers and about them it was said,sl
'How long will the wicked bejubilant?'(Psalm 94:3b) and further he said: 'Who will rise
up for me against the wicked? Who will take a stand for me against evildoers?"(Psalm
94: 16) and you should know that their words are lies and falsehood and ifthey had power
they would destroy the world and if they had power against me such as I have against
them now they would have cut my limbs asunder and you should know, mistress, that I
75 Apparently regarding Jesus' resurrection.

76 Possibly a parodic use of "good news" - evangel, gospel.
77 Krauss, Dos Leben Jesu, SO.
78 Krauss, ibid., 64-88 (Hebrew), 88-117 (Gennan).
80 Krauss, ibid., 70, n. 12 variant reading helene 'ah.
81 Krauss has deleted "(said) my ancestor David."
am the son of God 82 and no sorcerer and you will find it written thus prophesied about
me Isaiah the prophet, 'A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a
branch will bear fruit,' (Isaiah 1I: 1) and you will find that I am from his seed and roots
and you should beware of their advice since my ancestor David, peace be on him, wrote:
'Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked' (Psalm 1: 1). Then the
sages replied to her and said: "The mistress queen, neverB3 believe his words since he is
doomed to be in spirit and not in flesh,84and about him scripture has said: 'Blessed is the
man' since 'the man' adds up t0 85 'Yeshu' and the word Yeshu is the acronym for 'let his
name and memory be obliterated' ... and he deserves four deaths decreed by the court."
The queen heard their words and said: "Is it written in your teaching 'Act according to
the law they teach you and the decisions they give you. Do not turn aside from what they
tell you, to the right or to the left'? (Deuteronomy 17: 11) and in another place it says: 'He
will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the
wicked' (Isaiah 11 :4b)? and it is also said: 'In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will
live in safety: (Jeremiah 23:6). Jesus answered: "I am he, 'I put to death and I bring to
life, '(Deuteronomy 32:29) for this is a great sign that no Messiah will be able to do that
sign." The queen was frightened and sent trustworthy envoys how he brings the dead to
life and they went to the tombs of the gentiles and to the tombs ofIsrael and they took
out dead bodies from the tomb(s)86 and the mamzer (bastard) uttered the name on them
and brought them to life and brought them before the queen, and when she saw that, she
believed all his words, that he is God, so she summoned the sages of Israel and spat in
their faces and she despised their belief and she planned to destroy and to kill all the Jews,
has ve-halila,87 and they were all mortified and ashamed by her and there was a time of
distress 88 for Israel and more and more was accumulating on them every day, and there
was great division in Israel among them were those who said this and those whose said
that and most of them were inclined toward vanity. After that Jesus told the queen: "You
will be in peace and receive the blessings of my father in heaven and my blessing too, and
I want to go to Upper Galilee because I was commanded to do so by my heavenly father."
And the queen said: "May your blessing be upon me, go and return."
The next chapter 8 brings the Jews back to the queen and they accuse Jesus of
sorcery, and she sends her horsemen and envoys to the Galilee to capture him,
whereupon he perfonns the miracles that were also mentioned in the Galilee epi-
sode of Ms. Strasbourg and are famous for their appearance in the various apoc-
ryphal traditions about Jesus' infancy.89 Chapter 9 takes offfrom those miracles:
82 Orthography: j:d'K.
83 Translation based on NIV I Samuel 20:9.
84 Does this possibly refer to some kind of damnatio memoriae explicitly spelled out in the
next clause? Or is it rather recognition of Jesus' spiritual resurrection?
8S Gematria.
86 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 71, n. 16, the plural is a variant reading Ms. Gaster (early 19 th
century, see ibid., 32).
87 Roughly: God forbid.
88 Translation based on NIV Daniel 12: I.
89 The Infancy Story (or: Gospel) of Thomas (translation in Schneeme1cher I :444-49). The
multiple manuscript and publishing history of the text is not less puzzling than that ofTY, ibid.,
I :439--443. Notably IT supplants these somewhat naive miracles from the original and suitable
childhood milieu to Jesus mature activity creating a somewhat grotesque and ridiculous effect.
And Jesus sailed on a millstone in the sea like a nutshell90 and the queen was frightened
and mightily amazed and summoned the sages ofIsrael and the elders.
The sages and the elders convince Helena to capture Jesus and to investigate the
truth about him. Judas is enlisted to trap him by encapsulating a parchment with
the Name in his body, a debate quoting bible verses ensues and the flying compe-
tition takes place. 91 This version makes the sexual affront of Judas on Jesus more
explicit than in Ms. Strasbourg, and adds a description of the cursing of Judas
among the Christians. 92 In the fourteenth chapter the followers of Jesus complain
before the queen that their God has been murdered. 93 She instantly summons the
(Jewish) sages and when they cannot find Jesus' body in the tomb where they
buried him she threatens to annihilate all Jews, since ifthey cannot produce the
proof for Jesus being a human the disciples who recounted his ascent to heaven
must be right in claiming his divinity. In chapter 15, the sages meet Judah the
Gardener, who recovers the body and sells it to the sages for thirty silver coins,
and the Queen now swings over to the Jewish side. In chapter 16, the Jewish
sages obtain from the Queen the permission to take revenge in terms recalling
of the end ofthe biblical Book of Esther, another royal woman possibly looming
behind the composite Queen of TY. The Queen now seems to disappear from the
text for the final four chapters (18-21) whereas some other, surprising figures
appear such as the "Papa," a Stylite named Simon, and Peter - Simon Kephas the
first pope who also manages to steadfastly keep Jewish laws and compose litur-
gical poetry, which earns the praise of both the Sanhedrin and the Resh Galuta
(the Exilarch)! But Helena does reemerge in chapter 22 of the same manuscript,
which Krauss has chosen to present separately from the main body of the TY,
under the title "The Legend of the Finding of the Cross.,,94 This chapter defini-
tively tips the delicate balance ofthe various components ofthe Helena figure of
this version towards Helena Augusta, the mother of Constantine the Great, with
whom this legend is associated already about fifty years after her death.95 The TY
version of the legend emphasizes the Jewish jnput in the finding, including some
of the motifs characterizing the version of the legend that Drijvers has charac-
terized with both the one with the greatest area of distribution and the clearest
90 Cf. Acts. Pet. 6 (Schneemelcher, 2:293) for this motif with reference to Peter.
91 Acts. Pet. 31-32 (Schneemelcher, 2:3 I 2-\3). In Acts. Pet. the contest is between Simon
Magus and Peter, and it takes place in Rome, Simon is vanquished by Peter's prayer that he
simply breaks a leg in three (!) places, which happens and Simon is then stoned by the Romans
who are disappointed by his weak performance.
92 For a detailed and systematic study of the figure of Judas in TY and its implications for
Jewish and Christian communication in the Middle Ages, see the article by Limor and Yuval
in the present volume.
94 "Aus Cod. Wien No. 54 'Kreuzauf'findungslegende,'" ibid., 141-43.
9S Jan Willem Drijvers, Helena Augusta: The Mother o/Constantine the Great and the Leg-
end a/her Finding a/the True Cross (Leiden: Brill. 1992), 1.
anti-Jewish character,96 known as the "Judas Cyriacus Legend."97 The legend is

also joined, as are some versions of the legend of the finding of the cross, with an
account of Cons tan tine's healing from leprosy paralleling the tale of his donation
to pope Sylvester which belongs to the same tale cluster. 98 In one of the versions
of that legend, Helena is supposedly of Jewish origin!99
In the other, more fragmentary versions of TY published by Krauss, the pres-
ence of Helena is consequently sketchier. Thus, in the Yemenite manuscript
named by Krauss Ms. Adler, the wording is very similar to the one found in Ms.
Strasbourg, confirming perhaps the classification of both versions as belonging
to the "Wagenseil type":IOO "and the Land of Israel was held in the hands of a
queen called Heleni, "10\ completed by the sages dragging Jesus to the queen
accusing him of sorcery,102 and the queen's belief in his identity until he is
vanquished in the flying competition with Judas.103 The search of the absent
dead body ends here too in the final siding of the queen with the sages and the
dispersion of Jesus' disciples. 104 Other versions have short references to Helena
or omit her totally. 105
In most versions of TY, Queen Helena, thus, plays a central role. She is often,
indeed, the most powerful person in the narrative and definitely its most pow-
erful woman. Her position and power to act make her a blatant foil to Miriam
(Mary) who is the ultimate feminine victim subjected to sexual harassment and,
in some versions, even rape.
The particularly extreme variations regarding the women named Helena in the
corpus, emphatically point towards the argument for a disparate rather than a
related and coordinated existence of the TY texts. In the fashion of the conven-
96 Drijvers, ibid., 165.

97 Drijvers, ibid., 165-71.
98 Drijvers, ibid., 23. See also Israel J. Yuval, "Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages:
Shared Myths, Common Language. Donatio Constantini and Donatio Vespasiani," in Demon-
izing the 'Other ': Anti-Semitism, Racism and Xenophobia (ed. Robert S. Wistrich; London:
Taylor & Francis, 1999),88-107.
99 Drijvers, Helena, 36-37, who categorically denies the historicity of that.
100 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 118-21 (Hebrew), 122-28 (German).
10) Krauss, ibid., 120.
105 In the short version from the Leiden manuscript presented by Krauss, the queen is
anonymous and plays a very slight role (ibid., 128-30). In one of the Slavic manuscript frag-
ments the opening is almost identical with the 18-19th century version of TY titled tam u-mu 'ad
republished by Krupp from a 1914 print: Sefer tam u-mu 'ad (with an introduction by Michael
Krupp; Jerusalem/Ein-Karem: Li Ahim, 2002). In the introduction Krupp significantly observes
that this is probably the first TY version ever published by Jews. Krupp characterizes TYas folk
narrative and folk legend. In a Genizah fragment, (Krauss, ibid., 143-46) the emperor is healed
but Helena is not mentioned.
264 (ju/i/ IIa.wlI-Rok<'1II
tion of an imaginary litt::rary world sht:: appears as one woman. but a review of
her characteristics. the time of her activity and the acts she perfi.mns soon reveal
ht::r inter-textual roots in a variety of women named Helena. Her identity encom-
passes in the various versions (at least) three women bearing the name Helena
or its cognates. namely Queen Helene or Helena of Adiabcne. Ilelem Augusta
the mother of Constantine and possibly also Helen the lover/spouse of Simon
Magus. lOt> Since these three women represent three distinctly separate religious
identities. Judaism. Christianity and Gnosticism or non-Orthodox Christianity.
their interweaving into one narrative dramafis persona I117 creates what I have
here called a palimpsest of religious narratives and religious identity.I()~
The palimpsest both obliterates and reveals the various layers embodied in
it.lO~ Similarly the figures called Helena in TY conceal their religious diversity
under the literary convention of the unity of the literary character. but the diver-
sity is now and again exposed in motifs particularly associated with one of them.
The indefiniteness and the refraction of the meaning of the palimpsest paralkls,
perhaps even reflects our inability to resolve the identity of the authors of the
texts as well as the period and locale of their creation.
The earliest of these figures is Helena, Queen of Adiabene. who, chronologi-
cally. matches the historical framework of the first century CE events in TY. The
conversion to Judaism of the queen of this north-Mesopotamian kingdom and
her special connections with the city of Jerusalem are reported by .Iosephus
F1avius. Five mentions in the Jewish War arc significantly not of herself but her
"monuments" and palace in Jerusalem. 111I a theme that will prove significant
tt)r the discllssion of her affinity to the other major Helena figure relevant to
TY. namely Helena Augusta the mother of Constantine. Also of interest tt)r our
10(, Some. including Krauss himself: have induded Salome Altxandra as possible "con-
tcnder" as wtll. in light oftht mention of king Yannai as a contcmporary ofthc cvents in some
versions. for a relevant refcrence sce esp. Josephus A..I. 13.405 where she places "in thcir
(the Pharisees') hands all that conctrntd his (AlexaQder's) corpse," similar to the interaction
between Helena and the sages in Tr. Thc name that Josephus gives her, "Salina" (13.320). may
echo Helena. Cf. David Biale. "Counter-History and Jtwish Polemics Against Christianity:
The S<'/el" Till"o/ }eshu and the Sell'l" Zemhm·eI." .Inri.l'h Social S/IIJi<,s 6 (1999): 135. with
reference tll Krauss. Tht gallery ofhistoricalligures of the various TYversions is colorful. thus
in the lIuldreich version Uohannes Jacohus Huldricus. His/ol"iu ./esc/llIue NlIzurelli. Lciden.
1705) thl! reigning king is Htrod.
10' 1 am consciously using here Propp's abstraction of the rolt of a figure in a plot. Vladimir
Propp, The ;\4orphology (!l/he Folk/ul<, (trans. Laurence Scoll with a Prefacc hy Louis A. Wag-
ner; new introduction by Alan Dundcs; 2nJ rev. cd.; Austin: Univtrsity of Texas Press. 20m).
lUX This picturt may bt complicattd tven further by the strong prc·(,hristian substratum
included in the figure of Helcna the mother of COllstantint and her son.
IUO) The term palimpsest is dteply relattd to one ofthc dominant modes of distribution of the
fY. manusenpts. but this has no implications for the metaphorical use that I have suggested.
110 Josephus, J. W 5.55-56 (LCL. 3:216-17) (monumcnts);.I. W 5.119 (LCL. 3:234-35)
(monumcnts); .J. W 5.147 (LCL. 3:242-45); 1. W 5.252-53 (LCL. 3:27R 79) (palace); 1. W
6.354-55 (LCL. 3:47R-79).
PO!I'mOllJl!ic //£'I£'lIa 265
discussion is the fact that all five mentions in Josephus' J. W inscribing Helena
of Adiabene into the topography of Jerusalem characterize the sites bearing
her name as limits or margins of some kind: a spot from which Judean soldiers
ambushed the Roman soldiers attacking Jerusalem and thus temporarily cut the
advance ofTitus' forces, bcing the last point of retreat of the Jews under the at-
tack of Titus at a certain phase of the war; an orientation point of the third wall
of the city; the end of the area controlled by Simon son of Arinus; the extent of
the spreading of the flames of the fire of Titus' sacking of the city. The last of
those images. which defines the site ofHelena's palace as the center of the Acra
t()ftress, naturally produces a more ambiguous image of marginality. indeed
of the very moment of transfi.)rming a center into a margin by destroying it in
fire. Also in the last passage mentioned, the fact that Helena's firstborn, Izates,
his sons and his brother were rescued by Titus and taken by him as hostages to
Rome. adds to the troubled image conveyed about the family. I11 A figure sym-
bolically moving over limits and rc-designing limits of identity. Helena' marking
of concrete lines in a contested Jerusalem creates a strong association between
her image and personality, religious and national identity, especially with regard
to this particular city. 112
Whereas most of the Jewish War was, according to research, published close
to the war in Jerusalem (in the 70s CE), Jev.·ish Antiquities was written from
a slightly later perspective (ca. 93-94 CE).1I:l Unlike the concise mentions in
J. W, the A.J. recounts the story of the conversion of Queen Helena and her son
Izates at great length in a novella style, II~ beginning from her imposed incestu-
ous marriage to her brother Monobazus (Monbaz in rabbinic sources).115 Izates
III.J. It: 6.356 57 (LCL, 3:47S ·79).

II~ Tim Whitmarsh. Greek Litel'lltllre alld the RO/llan Empire: The Politics oj1mitatioll (Ox'
ford: Ox fi.)rd University Pr.:ss. 200 I), 24: "Because cultural identity in the ancient world was
(unlike 'nationality' in the modern world) not determined by geopolitical boundaries."
I L; Tessa Rajak . ./os£'phlls: The Historian and his Society (London: Duck worth. 19S3). 62:
Seth Schwanz. Joseplllls and Jlldaelln Politics (Leiden: Brill. 1(90). 19.47: Jane Bellemore.
"Jnsephus. Pompey and the Jews." His/oria: Zei/schri/i jiir Alle Gel'chit-hte 4S (1999): 94
(94-1 HO. On p. 96 she suggests that J If: is pro-F1avian. A.J. pro-Pharisaic.
11·1 Louis H. Feldman who edited the Loeb editi(llI quott.:s a note in his Ii.lrerunner Henry SI.
John Thackeray's copy of A.J observing the exceptional stylistic flow of this passage and its
atlinity with the Joseph story in Genesis (LCL 9:399. note d). The account ofMonohazus being
seized by lust and marrying his sister also echoes the Amnon and Tamar account in 2 Sam 13.
Lawrence M. Wills, The Jell'ish .Vrwel in tile Ancielll World (lthaca: ('ornell University Press,
19(5). 206-11 treats "The Royal Family of Adiabene" passages of A.J. as a Jewish historical
novel. He omits the passage of Queen Helena'sjourney to Jerusalt:m as unfitting to the genre
(207). and on the other hand compares the "novel" to the Acts oOhe Apostles (20S) which he
calls a Christian historical novel. especially with regard to missionary motifs. I certainly agree
that conversion is a central motif of both texIS and lies at the center of our discussion here. er
Martin Goodman Rome mul Jerusalem: 711e Clash u./Anciel1t Cid/izatio/1.\· (New York: Vintage.
2007). 161: "The story (of the conversion) has elements of romance."
115 Multiple references. e. g.: m. Yoma 3.10:}, Yoma 3.7 (401'1): h. Yoma 37a.
(also mentioned in rabbinic sources)1I6 is like Joseph - the hero of the most de-
veloped biblical novella - envied by his brothers and is somewhat unlike Joseph
sent by his protective father to a neighboring kingdom where he married the
daughter of the king. The elder Monbaz asks to see lzates before his death and
bequeaths him the bountiful region of Carron with its mythical connection with
Noah's Ark.117 After his death Helena summons the noblemen of the kingdom
of Adiabene urging them to choose Izates as the successor, based on Monbaz
the elder's explicit wish. llg The assembly advises her to kill the other claimants
to the throne but she rejects the advice and appoints the younger Monbaz, the
brother of lzates, as king until Izates returns from Carron, and indeed Monbaz
makes way for lzates when he arrives in Adiabene. In the meantime Izates and
Helena, son and mother, have independently and separately began conversion to
Judaism. Helena however warns her son against completing the process by cir-
cumcision because of possible suspicion against strange rites by his subjects, and
Izates' teacher Ananias (Hananyah) supports her view. However, another Jew,
Eleazar from the Galilee, convinces Izates that conversion is not accomplished
without circumcision. Izates is circumcised and God keeps him from danger. I 19
Helena now fulfills her great yearning to go to Jerusalem and to the temple,
with the material and spiritual support of her son. Upon her arrival- apparently
in the year 45-46 120 - she provides the population of the city with food during
116 Bereshil Rabbah 46.11 (Theodor-Albeck, 467).

117 This may be a possible reference to the Sons ofNoah under which title the Rabbis for-
mulated the seven Noahide laws extending unlike the Torah to all humans, b. Sanhedrin 56a.
Cf. Menahem Marc Hirshman, Torah for the Entire World (Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad,
1999 [in Hebrew]), chapter 6.
118 The life history of Helena of Adiabene as told here follows Josephus, A. J 20.17-96.
\19 Jacob Neusner, "The Conversion of Adiabene to Judaism: A New Perspective." JBL 83
(1964): 60-66, grounds the conversion in regional Realpolitik, and on p. 63 Neusner compares
the conversion of Adiabene and the conversion ofCQnstantine; Lawrence H. Schiffinan, "The
Conversion of the Royal House of Adiabene in Josephus and Rabbinic Sources," in Josephus.
Judaism and Christianity (eds. Louis H. Feldman and Gohei Hata; Detroit: Wayne State Uni-
versity Press, 1987), 293-312 concludes that Josephus' account is the life history oflzates and
it serves to legitimize the Jewish kings of Adiabene in the eyes of the Jews of Ni sib is, and of
the Adiabenian princes who remained in Jerusalem among the local popUlation. According to
Schiffman the overall function of the tale is to counter ancient anti-Semitism by contradicting
the popular claim that Jews hate others; Gary Gilbert, "The Making of a Jew: 'God-Fearer' or
Convert in the Story ofIzates," USQR 44 (1991): 299-313, focuses on the circumcision. See
also: David A. 8arish, Adiabene: Royal Converts to Judaism in the First Century C. E.: A Study
of the Sources (Ph. D. diss.; Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College. 2009). I thank the library of
the Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem, for generously lending me their copy "lifnim meshurat
ha-din." On the importance of circumcision for conversion for Josephus, see Shaye J. D. Co-
hen, "Respect for Judaism by Gentiles According to Josephus," HTR 80 (1987): 423 (409-30).
120 Cf. Kenneth Sperber Gapp, "The Universal Famine under Claudius," HTR 28 (1935):
258-65, esp. 260-61; and more generally on famines in antiquity: Peter Garnsey, Food and
Society in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 34-42.
the famine and even imports grain from Alexandria l21 and figs from Cyprus.
Later lzates' brother Monbaz also converts, and Josephus reports the military
and diplomatic successes of Izates, stressing God's help to him. Conversion
has led to triumph. The very long unit of the conversion of the royal house of
Adiabene ends with the death of Izates, the succession by his brother Monbaz,
and the death of Helena. The whole story is crowned by the final account of the
building of the three pyramids as burial sites for the three: Helena, Izates and
Monbaz. 122 While the long A. J. story has emphasized Helena's support of her
son's conversion and her own piety and devotion to the Jews and Jerusalem, 123
it also harmonizes with the short J. W. accounts which underline her indelible
concrete presence in the monuments bearing her name in Jerusalem.
As was already mentioned above, Queen Helena of Adiabene is also well
known in Rabbinic literature and remarkably many of the relevant texts are in
Tannaitic sources. Her religious devotion is expressed in her rich donations to
the temple. While her son Monbaz donates a golden candelabrum to the sanctu-
ary, her own donation consists of a golden tablet on which the Torah passage of
the laws regarding the woman accused of adultery (sotah; Numbers 5: 11-31)
are engraved (m. Yoma 3.10) and in which the rising sun is gloriously reflected
(t. Yoma 2.3);124 she undertakes the Nazirite vows in order to ensure her son's
success in combat and piously repeats the vow upon her arrival in the Holy Land
(m. Nazir 3.6); she builds a Sukkah performing a Jewish religious command-
ment, the text emphasizing her gender and her sons all being disciples of the
121 This is another parallel to the tale ofJoseph in Genesis. Helena's purchase of the grain for
the Jerusalemites is mentioned again in A. J. 20.10 I, followed by the account of the crucifixion
of James and Simon, sons of Judas the Galilean who had raised the people to rebellion during
the census of Quirinius.
122 The most comprehensive academic study of the Tombs of the Kings in Jerusalem is as
far as I know the Hebrew dissertation of Maximilian Kahan, qivrey ha-melakhim (the tombs
of the kings), presented to the senate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Sivan 5705 (May
1945) - in one of the archival notes the erroneous date 5707 (1947) appears. See also: Ruth
Jacoby, "The Decoration and Plan of Queen Helena's Tomb in Jerusalem," in The Real and
Ideal Jel1Jsalem in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Art: Studies in Honor of Bezalel Narkiss on
the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday (ed. Bianca Kiihnel; Jerusalem: The Hebrew Univer-
sity, 1998),460-462; Amos Kloner and Boaz Zissu, The Necropolis ofJel1Jsalem in the Second
Temple Period (Leuven: Peeters 2007), 231-34.
123 The short treatment of Helena of Adiabene's conversion in Shelly Matthew, First Con-
verts: Rich Pagan Women and the Rhetoric of Mission in Early Judaism and Christianity
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001) should be mentioned here because of the special
connection between Josephus and Acts on which the argument of the book rests.
124 Matthijs den Dulk has drawn my attention to the possible connection with the golden
sampsera, a golden shield with the form of the sun - one of the symbols of the royal house of
Adiabene according to Josephus, A. J. 20.32 - and Haim Weiss has reminded me of Constan-
tine's images as sol invictus; cf. Elizabeth Marlowe, "Framing the sun. The Arch ofConstantine
and the Roman Cityscape," Art Bulletin 88 (2006): 223-42, esp. note 5 on p. 238.
268 CaUt Hasan-Rokem
sages (t. Sukkah 1.1); 125 she supports the circumcision of both her sons, Izates
and Monbaz (Bereshit Rabbah 46.11 ).126
The profile of Helena of Adiabene emerging from the Rabbinic sources is
thus consistent with Josephus' description of her, highlighting her contributions
to Jerusalem and the temple and her keen involvement in supporting her royal
sons in their endeavors for power and their conversion to Judaism. The Rabbinic
sources typically lack the chronological precision of Josephus but they all ad-
equately situate Helena of Adiabene and her sons in the period when the second
temple in Jerusalem is still undestroyed and active. Her image in Josephus as
well as in rabbinic literature is thus of a queen ruling roughly in the period in
which the historical Jesus was active. Her connection with Jerusalem is central
to the narratives, as are the strong associations to conversion, both being themes
that reemerge in the figure of Helena in the TY literature.
From a more or less chronological point of view the next relevant woman for the
interpretation of the Helena figures in TY is Helen, the spouse of Simon Magus.
Her reflection in the composite Helena of TY is however much paler and uncer-
tain than the presence ofthe two royal Helena's, queen of Adiabene and Roman
empress. Helen is not mentioned in Simon's short and unfavorably described
appearance in Acts 8: 18-24. The sin he is blamed for is having suggested paying
Peter and John for sharing their gift of healing by the laying on of hands, inspired
by the Holy Ghost, a suggestion forcefully rejected by Peter. Understandably
his name will in later generations signify the sin of buying religious offices -
simony. Although it is less clear from the text in Acts how his figure grew into
the arch-heretic of the early Church and later in Christian culture in general,127 it
125 The story is amplified and becomes part of a complex deliberation on the height of the
booths in general in b. Sukkah 2b-3a; the maximum height of the Sukkah according to the
Rabbis, twenty amah, parallels the measures of the dvir in the temple, cf. I Kings, 6: 19-20; the
arrival of believers and worshippers who are not I&raelite is mentioned in Salomon's prayer,
I Kings, 8:41-42. On Helena's Sukkah, emphasizing gender perspective: Marjorie Lehman,
"The Gendered Rhetoric ofSukkah Observance," JQR 96 (2006): 309-35; Cynthia Baker, "The
Queen, the Apostate, and the Women Between: (Dis)placement of Women in Tosefta Sukkah,"
in A Feminist Commentary on the Babylonian Talmud: Introduction and Studies (eds. Tal Ilan et
al.; Tilbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 169-81. Richard Kalmin, "The Adiabenian Royal Family
of Late Antiquity," in Tiferet Leyisrael: Jubilee Volume in Honor of Israel Francus (eds. Joel
Roth, Menahem Schmelzer and Yaacov Francus; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of
America, 2010), 61-77, analyzes the Rabbinic material to prove his thesis about the different
modes of rabbinization in the Palestinian and the Babylonian sources: "Palestinians portrayed
members of Adiabene's royal family as rabbis, whereas Babylonians portrayed them simply as
Jews who were obligated to perfonn mitsvot" (p. 77). Kalmin seems not have seen Lehman's
and Baker's articles, although he lists a great number of articles of very varying quality in
footnote I on p. 61.
126 Theodor-Albeck, 467.
121 Alberto Ferreiro, Simon Magus in Patristic, Medieval and Early Modern Traditions
(Leiden: Brill, 2005).
would be logical to think that one who did not gain access to the legitimate ways
of magic healing would attempt to achieve that capacity by less legitimate ways.
In the literature of the early church Simon Magus serves the forceful attempt
to make a clear distinction between the legitimate miracles of Jesus and his fol-
lowers and rejected forms of sorcery performed by others. Wonderworks not
only constituted a central element in the early stages of the rise of Jesus as a
religious leader in the Galilee,128 but also served as a major vehicle in recruit-
ing new adherents. Thus Jesus' fame as their performer, even and possibly
especially, outside the closest circle of his followers was considerable,129 and
in fact Palestinian Rabbinic literature's reports on Jesus often address those is-
sues. The troubled borderland between miracle and magic has produced much
discussion in the sources and possibly even more in scholarly deliberations, 130
and it is often the most palpable expression of unstable identities and processes
of transformation in specific religious systems as well as in the relationships
between neighboring systems. I have in earlier work attempted to systematize
the terminology of these related and culturally highly charged concepts by sug-
gesting the triad: miracle (positive) - magic (neutral) - sorcery (negative),131
which is the usage I follow here.
Simon Magus' prominent role in the Acts of Peter as the major antagonist to
the apostle who is the foundation stone ofthe Church after his master's departure
from the human world, peaks (double entendre) in the dramatic scene where he
is vanquished in the flying competition with Peter, which is one of the most well
noticed parallels (and possibly sources) to Jesus' failed flight in TY, where he is
toppled by Judas Iscariot. \J2 Krauss, in the outstandingly learned commentary of
128 E. g., Matthew 12: 13; Mark 5:40--42, however NB verse 43 "He gave strict orders not to
let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat."
129 E. g. Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978); Schlifer,
Jesus in the Talmud, devotes a chapter to "Healing in the Name of Jesus" (53-62) as a Jewish
practice.
130 A still very useful and most erudite overview, seriously attempting to eradicate any preju-
dice against magic, is David E. Aune, "Magic in Early Christianity," in ANRW 23.2 (1980):
1507-57. Aune suggests in the wake ofEvans-Pritchard's work that magic is a universal feature
of religion (1516), and subsequently he delineates the characteristics of a particular Christian
magic (1520). While quoting several studies about Jesus as a magician, his own conclusion
is that sociologically Jesus cannot be seen as a magician (1539). However he suggests that
David' son (a name attached to Jesus in several gospel texts) could literally refer to Solomon
who is known as powerful magician! (1526) Aune points out a relevant fact for our discussion
namely that unlike the absence of punitive magic in Jesus' activity in the gospels, Acts and
later texts abound in such motifs. For a comprehensive study of early Jewish magic: Gideon
Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008);
Yuval Harari, Early Jewish Magic: Research. Method. Sources (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute,
2010 [in Hebrew]).
131 Hasan-Rokem, "Did the Rabbis ... " 19--55.
132 Acts Pet. 31-32 (Schneemelcher, 2:312-13). Ferreiro. Simon Magus, 25 points out that
the magic flight episode is the most stable element of the Simon Magus narrative. See also: Jan
N. Bremmer, "Aspects of the Acts of Peter: Women, Magic, Place and Date," in The Apocryphal
his TYedition, declares the flying competition one of the "major passages in the
narrative of our booklet."133 He includes the flying competition among a number
of other motifs in the chapter on folkloristic motifs.l34 The other, earlier chap-
ters of his extensive comparative notes on various elements of the TY include
discussions of the parallels in the gospels, the Talmudic-midrashic literature, the
Koran, Karaite texts, and medieval polemical texts.
One of the reasons to include Simon's Helen in our reading of the composite
Helena figure of TY is, of course, Simon's own appearance there both by name
and by parallels in other names, especially as Jesus in the flight scene. The earli-
Acts of Peter: Magic, Miracles and Gnosticism (ed. lan N. Bremmer; Leuven: Peeters, 1998),
10-13 (1-20).
134 Krauss' decision to include the motifofthe magic flight in the folkloristic section isjusti-
fied and reinforced by the existence of the international tale type number 325 "The Magician
and his Pupil" whose second episode involves various modes of magic flights, and in whose
fourth episode the student always overcomes the teacher, see: Aame, Types of the Folktale,
113-114. Balaam is the other famous magic flyer, with the kings of Midian, in medieval
Jewish literature, e.g. Tanhuma (ed. Salamon Buber; Vilnius: Rohm, 1913 (repr. Jerusalem,
1964]), Balak, § 23 (22:144-45); Tanhuma, (printed edition; Warsaw: Netanel David Zysberg,
1873), 88; Bamidbar Rabbah, Balak, ch. 20, 12; cf. Yonathan Ben-Uziel's Aramaic translation
(targum) of Numbers 31:8 and Rashi's commentary on Numbers 31:6. Balaam is grounded
by the Israelites led by Moses who use a device on which God's name is engraved, similar
to the device that Jesus tried to use in TY but failed due to Judas defiling him. On Balaam as
a "pseudo-biblical figure(s) with prototypical characteristics alluding to Jesus", see: Israel J.
Yuval, "All Israel Have a Portion in the World to Come," in Redefining First-century Jewish
and Christian Identities: Essays in Honor of Ed Parish Sanders (ed. Fabian E. Udoh; Notre
Dame, Ind.: Notre Dame University Press, 2008),114-138, esp. 132, n. 12. Similarly the figure
ofSimon Magus displays a number of similarities with Elisha's apprentice Gehazi, especially
in 2 Kings 5:20-27 where he aspires to use Elisha's special gift to cure and expresses greed at
the same time. Gehazi's biblical misconduct is according to Gila Vachman interpreted typologi-
cally as religious duplicity in their own time already by the authors of Brit Dameseq recovered
by S. Schechter from the Geniza: see the detailed discussion of Gehazi in Gila Vachman, The
Vicissitudes of Gehazi (MA thesis; The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2001 (in Hebrew]).
She also reads Matthew 10:8-10 (cf. Mark 6:7-9; Luke 9:1-3) as an explicit warning not to
repeat Gehazi's conduct (her compelling tertium co';'parationis is the two gowns mentioned in
each case, although in 2 Kings LXX has O"toM; and all the gospel versions have XttwvUi;), in
the wake of Adversus Marcionem 4, 24, attributed to Tertullian.
NB the somewhat less discussed preamble of the much discussed story of Joshua ben Pera-
hya and Jesus that parallels Gehazi with Jesus and at the same time criticizes rejecting him with
both hands! The Tannaitic text (baraitha) quoted in b. Sotah 47a and b. Sanhedrin 107b (Ms.
Munich): "tanu rabbanan (our rabbis taught): Always let left (hand) reject and right (hand)
receive. Not like Elisha who rejected Gehazi with both hands. And not like Joshua ben Perahya
who rejected Jesus the Notsri with both hands." This reflects the blurring of narrative motifs
related to Jesus and to Simon Magus on which TY is largely predicated. Cf. Elchanan Reiner,
"From Joshua to Jesus: the Transformation of a Biblical Story to a Local Myth. A Chapter in the
Religious Life of the Galilean Jew," in Sharing the Sacred: Religious Contacts and Conflicts in
the Holy Land (eds. Arieh Kofsky and Guy G. Stroumsa; Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 1998),
258-62; this particular passage is briefly mentioned in footnote 87 on page 259; NB Reiner's
reference to the Acts of Pilate in his discussion on some other matters. Cf. Gero, "The Stem
Master," 303-5.
est surviving source of the Simon story after the report in the canonical Acts is
Justin Martyr (c. 1OO-c.l65), and he also mentions Simon's female companion
Helen. 135 Justin like Simon was born in the Samaria region; Justin in Flavia
Neapolis (Schechem, Nablus), Simon in the smaller village of Gitton. 136 Ac-
cording to Justin's description of Helen she had been a prostitute before she
joined Simon and his followers describe her in a Gnostic idiom as "the first idea
(nQortTJ EVVOLa) generated by him.,,137 There are a number of elements about
Simon's Helen that suggest her being a component of the composite Helena of
TY, although her portion in the amalgam is lesser than that of the other two more
royal components. Except for the name and the direct relationship to the figure of
Simon who is directly connected with TY, her association with a cultic center - in
her case in Samaria - renders her a parallel, and possibly a counterpoint of the
other two figures. 138 Helena of Adiabene and Helena mother of Constantine both
bear a primary relationship with Jerusalem and its major cultic center for each
religion, the Temple to which she endows precious gifts, for Helena of Adiabene,
and the church of the Martyrium that she herself establishes, for HelenaAugusta.
Since I consider TYas trans-religious or inter-religious discourse, rather than
merely a document of one religion's opposition of another, Helen of Samaria's
role is important in completing the religious map of ancient Palestine repre-
135 Justin Martyr, I Apol. 26; see also: Stephen Haar, Simon Magus: The First Gnostic?
(BZNW 119; Berlin: Waiter de Gruyter, 2003),) 84-85. See also: Marc Hirshman, A Rivalry of
Genius: Jewish and Christian Biblical Interpretation in Late Antiquity (trans. Batya Stein; Al-
bany, NY: SUNY Press, 1996), chapter 3 on Justin Martyr and the dialogue with Trypho the Jew.
136 Justin's religious and cultural affiliation before his conversion to Christianity was, how-
ever, most probably pagan, cf. e. g. Morton S. Enslin, "Justin Martyr: An Appreciation," JQR
34 (1943): 179-205, esp. 190. Cr. Gerard Luttikhuizen, "Simon Magus as a Narrative Figure
in the Acts of Peter," in Bremmer, Apocryphal Acts of Peter, (39-51) 45, n. 21: "In the Actus
Vercelles Simon is not a Samaritan but a Jew." On the Jewish perspective regarding Justin,
extensively: Ben Zion Bokser, "Justin Martyr and the Jews," JQR 64 (1973): 97-122, 204-11,
no references to Simon Magus; cr. Hirshman, A Rivalry of Genius and Daniel Boyarin, Bor-
derlines: The Partition ofJudaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
2004), especially 40-44.
137 Justin Martyr, I Apol. 26.3.
138 Louis-Hughes Vincent, "Le culte de Helene a Samarie," RB 45 (1930): 221-32, calls her
an autochthonous goddess (225) and sees in an excavated Kore figure a concrete sign of a cult
of her and Simon in Samaria (p. 232); David Flusser, "The Great Goddess of Samaria," IEJ
25 (1975): 13-20 points out (19) that Helen the spouse of Simon Magus was also identified
with Selene the moon goddess (like Isis) and there in note 40: "The identification of Helene
with Selene was evidently also caused by the similarity of the two names. The identification of
Simon's Helene with Helen ofTroy was invented not only because both women had the same
name, but also because of the problematic (sic) character of both." Jodi Magness, "The Cults
ofIsis and Kore at Samaria-Sebaste in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods," HTR 94 (2001):
157-77, esp. 162, n. 35 and 36. Cf. Robert Turcan, The Cults of the Roman Empire (trans.
Antonia Nevi1l; Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 252-53 emphasizes the relationship between the
Samarian goddess and the Dioscuri and suggests a special affinity to military cults, which seems
rather inconsequential for our discussion.
sented in it with two aspects: her roots in pagan cults (Selene, Venus)139 and
her adherence to an "outsider" Christian or rather Gnostic cult. The opposition
Jerusalem/Samaria is a major symbolical contestation of sacred geography be-
tween the Jews and their closest "others," the Samaritans. 140 Its preservation in
the IT texts through Simon and Helen, may point at the persisting negotiation of
the inner and outer limits of Jewish and other that unsettles this chaotic text. 141
It is possibly in [renaeus' somewhat longer reference to Simon's Helen that we
can find an early generative kernel of the amalgamation of various Helena fig-
ures that characterizes Helena of Ty.142 Irenaeus, like Justin, refers to the image
of Helen as the first thought (primam mentis eius Conceptionem), but records in
addition a mythical narrative according to which this first thought has in a typi-
cally Gnostic motif been imprisoned in bodies of carnal women from generation
to generation, possibly suffering sexual violation and ending up in the body of
a prostitute in the city of Tyre. 143 In her series of "transmigrations" she was, for
example, "in that Helen on whose account the Trojan War was undertaken."l44
Whereas the reference to Helen ofTroy may have appealed to persons of poly-
theistic background, another instance may have appealed to Christians, namely
the fact mentioned by Irenaeus, that the adherents ofSimon interpreted the par-
able of the lost sheep (Matthew 18:12-14; Luke 15:4-6; Gos. Thom. 107) as a
reference to the Samaritan Helen's erroneous lifestyle. 145
Irenaeus' Adversus Haereses clearly exemplifies the rather well known fact
that some religious phenomena and groups are introduced to posterity by their
most bitter adversaries rather than by their own proponents. Since these adver-
saries have a claim to give a truthful account of what they abhor, they often
139 Selene is maybe echoed in the "Salina" name given by Josephus to Salome Alexandra,
see above; Venus is the goddess on whose temple erected by Hadrian Helena Augusta founds
the church of the Martyrion.
140 The emergence of the real schism between Jews and Samaritans is by some scholars dated
to the Roman period: Lawrence Harvey Schitfman, "The Samaritans in Tannaitic Halakhah,"
JQR 75 (1985): 323-50 studies various halakhic fields and delineates the process of the gradual
separation between Rabbinic Jews and Samaritans, due to a Roman divide et impera policy and
a growing need of the Jews to fortify a separate identity after 70 CE, esp. 350; Frank Moore
Cross, "Personal Names in the Samaria Papyri," BASOR 344 (2006): 75-90 esp. 87, points at
common cultural practices in the Persian era.
141 Cf. reference to Simon's activity in "restoring" Mt Gerizim to its proper place and turn-
ing away from Jerusalem, in The Clement Romance 22:5 (Schneemelcher, 2:512). Daniel R.
Schwartz has pointed out to me the structural thematic fact that in the NT Acts of the Apostles
the first six chapters relate to Jerusalem, then there is a strongly anti-Jerusalem oration in chap-
ter 7, after which the affiliation between locality and sacredness is untangled, followed by a
disconnection of sacredness and the Chosen People.
142 Irenaeus, Haer. 1.23.2-4; see also: Haar, Simon Magus, 89-94.
143 Cf. Isaiah 23:15-17.
144 Haer. 1.23.2-4. Cf. Haar, Simon Magus, 92-93.
145 Christoph Markschies, Gnosis: An Introduction (trans. John Bowden; London: T & T
Clark, 2003), 76. Perhaps an echo ofMary Magdalene and even of the Samaritan woman in John
4:1-42 may not be totally irrelevant for the understanding of the figure of the Samaritan Helen.
transmit a rich and detailed picture that may not seem as abhorrent to readers
of later generations as it did to the conscientious apologist and polemicist. This
may also happen when the TY texts are read in our time.
However, Helen of Simon Magus seems to be the least significant of the
components of Helena of TY, due to her life occurring close to but still after
the crucifixion of Jesus, and her lack of visible earthly power outside the circle
of Simon's followers. In addition to her name it is mainly through the figure of
Simon Magus that she becomes relevant to the present discussion.
Among the three Helenas that compose the Helena figure of TY, Helena Augusta
is chronologically the farthest removed from the historical reality proposed in
the text. She seems however to be the most present or is at least strongly compet-
ing with Helena of Adiabene as a possible historical reference. 146 The compari-
son between them - and partly of all three - reveals astonishing similarities that
may inspire us to think about the perpendicularities of history and narrative. Do
later figures consciously (or unconsciously) imitate activities set as models by
earlier ones; or do the authors producing the documents by which we are allowed
to be introduced to historical figures consciously (or unconsciously) repeat the
earlier textual models: or are cognitive structures indeed the generators of events
as well as narratives?
But before trying to answer these surely unfathomable questions, let us briefly
dwell on the figure of Helena Augusta, the mother of Constantine, on how she
is related to the other Helenas in general, and which of her features are indeed
incorporated in the TY. Drijvers, her biographer on whose work I here largely
depend, makes a strong claim by dividing his book into "History" and "Legend,"
and it is the separation of these categories that is one of the main motivations
for his book. Whereas he investigates the sources about her other activities as
historical documents, the tradition about her finding ofthe True Cross is under-
stood through the prism of the genre of legend. 147
One is particularly struck by the initial disqualifying of the legend of the find-
ing of the cross because it "originated only fifty years after her death and must
146 Drijvers, Helena, combines a remarkable historical biography with a meticulous study of
the sources; Stephan Borgehammar, How the Holy Cross Was Found: From Event to Medieval
Legend (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1991) provides a thorough textual and
tradition-historical analysis, particularly relevant with regard to the "Finding of the Cross" leg-
end included in the TY corpus from the Vienna Ms. 54, Krauss, Dos Leben Jesu, 141-43. The
two authors radically diverge concerning the historicity of the legend, which Drijvers absolutely
rejects and Borgehammar tries to rescue.
147 A connection between Helena Augusta and the Acts of Peter is created by the following
detail relating to two of the major figures appearing in the text: "Among the treasures donated
to this church (SS Pietro e Marcelliono) there was a large golden basin, a gift from the em-
press mother" (CIL 6.1136), see Franca Ela Consolino, "Helena Augusta: From Innkeeper to
Empress," in Roman Women (ed. with a new introduction by Augusto Fraschetti; trans. Linda
Lappin; Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2001),147 (141-59).
therefore be regarded as historical fiction,"148 followed soon after by the con-

fession regarding the writing of her biography (the assumedly 'historical' one)
that "there are no contemporary written sources. This means we have to turn to
sources written after, sometimes even a long time after Helena had died."149 Let
it be understood that I have no intention here to rehabilitate the historicity of the
legend of the finding of the cross - I lack the capacity, the motivation or even
the belief to do so. This does not relieve me from the task to insist on a less di-
chotomous division of the materials on Helena, even according to Drijvers' own
statement quoted above. It is thus the image of Helena Augusta as accumulated
from various sources, all moving between the historical and the legendary - for
even the legend of the finding of the cross includes the historical truth of her
pilgrimage to the Holy City - which is relevant for her presence in the composite
figure of Helena in TY, since it is the impression that she made on those who
were the consumers of that image that interests us here, especially those consum-
ers who functioned as links in the chain of transmission that finally imported her
into the textual realm of TY.
Drijvers paraphrases the fourth and fifth century historical sources that he
apparently considers reliable 1so and concludes that the contemporary ones are
rather reticent about her social background, and indeed her humble origins are
first mentioned by a pagan rather than a Christian chronicler, but later all sources
are in agreement about her having served as some kind of innkeeper. Her rela-
tionship with Constantine's father also seems to have been rather informal. This
dubiousness with regard to sexual morals is the first clear point of convergence
with Helena of Adiabene, whose relationship with her husband Monbaz, ac-
cording to Josephus as quoted above, included more than a slight hint of incest.
Simon Magus' Helen was of course titled tout court a prostitute.
The sexual motifs, in particular the element of temptation associated with
them, surrounding all three Helenas relevant to the Helena figure of TY, seem to
imply an even more ancient ancestry - namely Helen of Troy, if I may anach-
ronistically invoke Marlowe's much later l'the face, that launch' d a thousand
148 Drijvers, Helena, I.

149 Drijvers, ibid., 3.
150 Drijvers, ibid., 15-19; his sources for this particular matter include among others the
pagan Eutropius and Zosimus and the Christian Ambrose, Eusebius, Gelasius, and Philostorgius
(the two last ones, reconstructed from later sources); for the information about her travel to the
Holy Land and the construction of churches in Jerusalem and Betlehem, in addition to Eusebius
also Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret. The important role that Eusebius played in his-
toricizing the Christianization of Jerusalem and the Holy Land makes his strong condemnation
of the Acts of Peter, the connections of which with IT have been stressed above, as a heretical
book - very interesting, cf. Baldwin, Whose Acts, 92-93. Dr. Oded Irshai has kindly drawn my
attention to the finding of the True Cross mentioned in the letter of Bishop Cyril of Jerusalem to
Constantius II in the year 351, preceding all other sources. While the letter mentions the event
having happened under the rule of Constantine the Great, no mention of Helena is included.
Edward Yamold, S.l., Cyril ofJerusalem (London: Routledge 2000), 69.
ships."151 The indomitable linking of the female gender, power and sexuality
serve in the TY to create a woman who is the absolute opposite of the power-
less Mary, mother of Jesus, who emerges as a sad and pathetic victim of male
vile and violence, and actually of female malice too. Incidentally in a number
of versions she is introduced as Queen Helena's relative and neighbor, which
emphasizes the contrast between them even more. 152 As a powerless victim of
rape, Mary's beautiful face strips her of control rather than endowing her with
the power that belongs to Queen Helena. As to Helen of Troy, her power is of
course not hers at all but the power and ultimately powerlessness that drives the
men enchanted by her into war and destruction, but earns them that most Greek
of all gifts - fame. 153 With regard to Mary the fact that the divine child is born of
a poor and powerless woman whose total lack of control makes her conception
all the more dependent on the almighty is one of the most powerful elements of
the Christian mysterium fascinans. l54
The second theme strongly correlating Helena Augusta with Helena of Adia-
bene, and possibly to a certain degree with Simon Magus' Helena, is conver-
sion. Constantine, Helena Augusta's son, is of course the emblematic figure of
the conversion of the Roman Empire. Helena herself is the major agent of the
concrete, material conversion from a Jewish holy land to the Christian holy land.
Helena of Adiabene's conversion to Judaism constitutes a major topic of Jose-
phus' account in A. J. and the Rabbinic sources take it more or less for granted,
the exception being a Bereshit Rabbah text in which she facilitates her husband
acceptance of her sons' - Zoitus' and Monbaz' - circumcision. 155
151 The discussion of the highly intriguing connection of all three Helenas encapsulated in
Helena of TY to Helena of Troy, and in particular the major transformation from the ancient
Mediterranean civilization to medieval Europe as embodied in Helena Augusta's inheriting of
classical Helena's space and role, has to be postponed to another occasion.
152 A parallel image of Queen Helena as the older female protector of a young female saint
is the story ofSt. Nino who brought Christianity to Georgia on her way back from a (Jewish?)
pilgrimage to Jerusalem where she met the mother ofConstantine: The Chronicle the Conver-
sion of Kartli (Translated into Hebrew from the Georgian, with Introduction and Commentary
by Constantine Lemer. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2003), 104-5. See also: The Wellspring of
Georgian Historiography: The Early Medieval Historical Chronicle. The Conversion ofK 'art '/j
and the Life ofSt. Nino (trans. Constantine B. Lemer. London: Bennett and Bloom, 2003). Tali
Artrnan-Partok has in an oral communication reinforced the similar aspects between Mary,
Helena of Adiabene and Helena Augusta (and to a certain degree also Helena of Samaria),
sexuality being for all of them a lever for various forms of power, and mothering the elected
child common to the three first women.
153 Jesper Svenbro, Phrasikleia: An Anthropology ofReading in Ancient Greece (trans. Janet
Lloyd; Ithaca NY: Comell University Press, \993), v. kteos in the index.
154 1 have elsewhere interpreted Vayiqra Rabbah chapter 14 as a Rabbinical attempt to
address the fascination of this theme. Galit Hasan-Rokem, "Androgynos and Diprosopon: A
Prolegomenon for a Discussion on Pregnancy and Birth in Rabbinic Literature Addressing
Leviticus Rabbah 14," forthcoming (Hebrew).
lIS Bereshit Rabbah 46, 11 (Theodor-Albeck,467).
Another detail in the Bereshit Rabbah text that reveals a link between this
short narrative and Helena Augusta's part in Constantine's conversion, further
elaborated below, may be the obscure final sentence: 'amar r(aby) pinhas be-
sha 'ah sheyatsah le-milhamah 'asu 10 si 'ah piston ve-yarad mal'akh vehitsilo.
"Rabbi Pinhas said: When he went to war a si 'ah piston I 56 was made for him and
an angel descended and saved him." The appearance of the Greek term is not
surprising in and by itself as the Greek language environment in Bereshit Rab-
bah is richly documented. 157 From the various suggestions found in dictionaries
I find "treaty made by exchange of assurances" I 58 a strong possibility since it
underlines the mutual character of the covenant of Abraham into which Monbaz
has entered by circumcising. The fact that conversion or an acceptance thereof
leads to instant salvation in a situation of war recalls two instances in the life of
Constantine, Helena Augusta's son, one in which she is not involved, another
one in which she is instrumental. The first instance is documented in the sources
that Drijvers would characterize as historical, namely Lactantius' On the Deaths
ofthe Persecutors (44.5) and Eusebius' Life of Constantine (1.27-31 )159 and has
gone down in history as Constantine's victory at the Milvian Bridge (312 CE),160
where a vision of the cross precipitates his conversion, or at least his use of a
156 The editors are particularly vague in interpreting this idiom and refer to Arukh Ha-
Shalem, and suggest a derivation from "septum," however without further interpretation in the
context; Marcus Jastrow, 1167 derives from the Greek "a deed of trust" based mainly on later
sources; Michael Sokoloff, A Dictionary ofJewish Palestinian Aramaic (Ramat Gan: Bar Han
University Press, 1990) does not list the expression. Jacob Levy, W6rterbuch ilber die Talmu-
dim und Midraschim (Berlin/Vienna: Benjamin Harz Verlag, 1924) 4:70, T'~O~ interprets the
collocation in this passage itself with the military terms "infantry; footfolk" possibly retaining
Nathan Ben Yehiel's understanding of the word, Arukh Ha-Shalem (2 nd ed.; Berlin/Vienna:
Menorah, 1926) 6:378, "pst."
157 Menahem (Marc) Hirshrnan, "Greek Words in the Genesis Rabbah," in Tiferet Yisrael:
Jubilee Volume in Honor of Israel Francus (eds. Joel Roth, Menahem Schmelzer and Yaacov
Francus; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2010), 21-33 (in Hebrew) un-
derlines the frequency of Greek words in this particular midrash compilation.
158 Daniel Sperber, A Dictionary of Greek and Laiin Terms in Rabbinic Literature (Ramat
Gan: Bar Han University Press, 1984 (in Hebrew]), 145, piston, in harmony with Kohut's ad-
dition in Arukh Ha-Shalem loc. cit based on Shlomo Yehuda Rappaport's Erekh Millin. The
meaning of si 'a remains undecided, as a group of people which is the dominant meaning in
the dictionaries, aids the "infantry" translation, but could still be retained with the "treaty" as
well. Jastrow's translation "ditch" forfassaton may suggest a trap from which he was rescued
however the letter yod in the text makes this an inferior translation in the passage.
159 Friedhelm Winkelmann, Ober das Leben des Kaisers Konstantins (rev. ed.; Eusebius
Werke I; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1992); Averil Cameron and S.G. Hall, eds., Life of Con-
stantine: Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999),
I :28-31, especially 28 where the apparition is described and 29 where "Christ of God" (paral-
leled by Bereshit Rabba's angel?) appears in Constantine's dream.
160 Some claim another date, e. g. Patrick Bruun, "The Battle of the Milvian Bridge: The
Date Reconsidered," Hermes 88 (1960): 361-70. For a different perspective of the battle: Noel
Lenski, "Evoking the Pagan Past: Instinctu divinitatis and Constantine's Capture of Rome,"
Journal ofLate Antiquity 1 (2008): 204-57.
Christian emblem as his labarurn, followed by the decisive victory against his
brother-in-law and competitor Maxentius. 161 The other, perhaps weaker paral-
lel, appears already in what Drijvers considers the earliest written account of
the legend of the finding of the cross,162 and Borgehammar meticulously recon-
structs, in the Church History of Gel as ius of Caesarea, 163 and is later repeated in
most other versions, recounting that along with the true cross, Helena also finds
the nails of the crucifixion which she set in Constantine's helmet and the bridle
of his horse. 164 Notably, Helena of Adiabene is mentioned as having taken the
Nazirite vow (twice!) to ensure her son's victory in war, which indeed proves
effective (rn. Nazir 3.6).
Helena of Adiabene and Helena Augusta also obviously share the great gen-
erosity that they show for religious institutions to which they endow expensive
gifts. This activity emphasizes in both cases the zealousness to their newly
acquired religion and the importance of pilgrimage, and in both cases especially
the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The mention of both women's concrete marks in the
landscape in many pilgrims' accounts underlines the context of pilgrimage as in-
strumental for the performance and transmission of these traditions. 165 Josephus
emphasizes the buildings related to Helena of Adiabene in Jerusalem, her palace,
and her sons' tombs, thus privileging her stable and immobile presence. In the
Helena accounts of Rabbinic literature aspects of pilgrimage are highlighted by
mentioning her votive gifts to the temple, her Nazirite vows and especially her
Sukkah, bringing in one of the three annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem accord-
ing to the Torah, and the Sukkah which in and by itself constitutes a powerful
metaphor of the tension between mobility and sedentary life. 166
161 The Greek text toutoi nika (Latin: in hoc signo vinces) is the exhortation to insert a Chris-
tological sign on Constantine's and his soldiers' shields.
162 The earliest "oral" source is Ambrose's funeral oration in honor of Theodos ius the Great,
Drijvers, Helena. 5.
163 Drijvers, ibid., 98-99; Borgehammar, Holy Cross, 47-49.
164 The connection of the nails to Zechariah l4:20a "On that day 'holy to the Lord' will be
inscribed on the bells of the horses" which appears in a number of versions, cr. Drijvers, ibid.,
105, does not seem consequential for the present discussion. Drijvers, 141 also mentions the
apotropaic term phylakterion for the nails in parallel to the relics of the cross.
165 A case has been made for the particular empowerment of women through these pilgrim-
ages in the context of a creation of a utopian world: Noel Lenski, "Empresses in the Holy Land:
The Creation of a Christian Utopia in Late Antique Palestine," in Travel. Communication and
Geography in Late Antiquity: Sacred and Profane (eds. Linda Ellis and Frank L. Kidner; Alder-
shot: Ashgate, 2004), 123 (113-124); see also: Leslie Brubaker, "Memories of Helena: Patterns
in Imperial Female Matronage in the Fourth and Fifth Century," in Women. Men and Eunuchs:
Gender in Byzantium (ed. Liz James; London: Routiedge, 1997), 57 (52-75). Brubaker however
has a more critical view and she claims that "Helena has remained confined within the meta-
narratives of Constanti ne and the true cross" (52).
166 Hasan-Rokem, "Material Mobility vs. Concentric Cosmology." I have in this article ad-
dressed a connection between Helena of Adiabene and Helena Augusta that for lack of space
will not be discussed here, namely the connection between the festivals of Sukkot and Encaneia.
See also: Egeria s Travels to the Holy Land (Newly translated with supporting documents and
Whereas Drijvers has underlined the church political aspects of the emer-
gence of the legend on the finding of the cross and Bishop Cyril's agency in
it,167 Stefan Heid has made a case for its role in the liturgical and ritual context
of pilgrimage. 168
Whereas Helena of Adiabene's tomb is marked in the topography of
Jerusalem,169 about Helena Augusta's site of last repose there are several con-
flicting traditions, 170 her mark in the cityscape being the first church of what was
to become the complex of churches around the traditional site of the crucifixion,
marking another grave, later known as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
It is in the map of Jerusalem that I shall finally identify the birth ground of the
composite Helena figure of TY. The collocation of Jerusalem and female per-
sonification in literature is almost too famous to mention here; 171 the Hebrew
Bible is replete with examples and rabbinic literature expands on them in all the
allegorical and symbolical modes possible.
Since most of the versions of IT are impossible to date, my discussion has not
and wi\l not pinpoint references to specific events as much as to general cultural
trends that disclose the traits of /ongue duree in Braudel's terms. This also fits the
notes by John Wilkinson; Jerusalem: Ariel Publishing House, 1981),71,79, 146, 167; Egeria:
Diary ofa Pilgrimage (trans. George E. Gingrass; Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the
Fathers in Translation 38; New York: The Newman Press, 1970), chapters 48-49, pp. 126-27;
Charles W. F. Smith, "No Time for Figs," JBL 79 (1960): 325 (315-27) claims that the first
Encaenia was celebrated on Sukkoth; cf. Joshua Schwartz, "The Encaenia of the Church ofthe
Holy Sepulchre, The Temple of Solomon and the Jews," Theologische Zeitschriji 43 (1987):
265-281.
The possibility that the Talmudic versions and the one midrashic version of Helena of
Adiabene are ecotypically developed from the Tannaitic instances in conjunction with the
emergence of the figure of Helena Augusta in Christian texts is a separate question and cannot
be addressed here.
167 Drijvers, Helena, 81-98, 131-40. •
168 Stefan Heid, "Der Ursprung der Helenalegende im Pilgerbetrieb Jerusalems," lahrbuch
for Antike und Christentum 32 (1989): 41-71. In footnote 85 on p. 55 Heid mentions and
instantly dismisses A. von Harnack's theory that He1ena of Adiabene might have served as
an inspiration for the legend of the finding of the cross by Helena the mother of Constantine,
although he concedes that both Helenas have more in common than Helena Augusta's supposed
similarity to Protonike, by common agreement a source for one of the strands of the legend of
the finding of the cross. Cf. Drijvers, ibid., 147-63, especially 154-56 where he discusses the
Helena Augusta-Protonike-Helena of Adiabene connection.
169 Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem, 60: "Her funerary monument, which consisted of three
pyramids, was so famous that the Greek writer Pausanias in the mid-second century CE men-
tions it in the same breath as the famous tomb of Mausolus: I know many wonderful graves
and will mention two of them, the one at Halicarnassus and one in the land of the Hebrews
(Pausanias 8.16. 4-5)" (see also 561, n. 35).
170 Drijvers, Helena, 74-76.
171 Galit Hasan-Rokem, "Not the Mother of All Cities: A Feminist Perspective of Jerusalem,"
Palestine Israel Journal 2 (1995): 53-55.
characterization of the TYliterature as a continuous non-linear processl72 rather

than a historically traceable series ofliterary or textual "events."
As we have seen, al\ the Helenas considered as components of the literary
figure of Queen HeJena reigning in the TY have been endowed with specific
connections with cultic sites. In the case of the two mainly relevant Helenas,
Adiabene and Augusta, the site in question is undoubtedly Jerusalem and more
specifically what modems have called "the Holy Basin" extending between the
sites of the Temple and Golgotha. Like the literary palimpsest of various Helenas
accumulated in one dramatis persona of TY, the city of Jerusalem is turning into
a powerful territorial palimpsest with its amplified Christianization for which
Helena Augusta is a major, foundational symbol. The palimpsest cannot be eas-
ily decoded as a binary structure such as polemics. The legend of the finding
of the cross itself which is crafted around the process of urban Christianization
involving Jews in ways which may be interpreted as respect for the knowledge
ofthe Jews,173 subsumes considerable anxiety due to the danger of disinheriting
the Christians from their newly acquired exclusive rights if Jewish knowledge
may become interpreted as Jewish affiliation with the place they know the best.
The curious mixture of the need to support the identity of the holy sites - those
founded on the New as well as the Old Testament - by Jewish knowledge, as
Ora Limor has pointed out, and to categorically repudiate the faintest right of the
living Jews to ownership of them, produces the imaginary, cognitive knot, that
cannot be characterized tout court as polemics, and is rather identifiable as the
palimpsest that has been shown in this article to be the dominant mode of char-
acterization of the Helena figure of TY. Indeed, Jerusalem presents "a singular
ideological and topographical palimpsest" for imperial Christianity in Andrew
J acobs' astute phrase, as the site of the birth of Christianity and of the ruin of
the Jews, 174 territorially embodied as "Constantine's Christian city ... the city of
Kings David and Solomon."175 The palimpsest does not only serve the ideologi-
cal needs of imperial Christianity, but also of the Jewish imaginary succumbing
time and anew to the desperate messianic longing for that which seems to have
saved the closest other, the Christians. 176
172 Newman, "The Death of Jesus," 59.

173 Ora Limor, "Christian Sacred Space and the Jew," in From Witness to Witchcraft: Jews
and Judaism in Medieval Christian Thought (ed. Jeremy Cohen; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz
Verlag, 1996),55-77. on the finding of the cross, esp. 58--62.
174 Jacobs, Remains of the Jews, 142.
175 Jacobs, ibid., 145.
176 John G. Gager, "Did Jewish Christians See the Rise ofIslam?" in The W~s That Never
Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (eds. Adam H.
Beeker and Annette Yoshiko Reed; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 361-72 gives an in-
sightful analysis of this cultural milieu. See also: Shlomo Pines, "Notes on Islam and on Arabic
Christianity and Judaeo-Christianity," JSAI4 (1984): 135-52; idem, "Studies in Christianity
and Judaeo-Christianity Based on Arabic Sources," JSAI 6 (1985): 107--61. Fred M. Doner,
Muhammad and the Believers: at the Origins ofIslam (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press
It is in those borderlands of identity where the longing is sometimes actual-

ized in a partial or total act of embracing Christian salvation that the curious
mixture of the TYfantasies may have emerged and lived its restless life of ago-
nized and inconsequent narrative plot, theological color and characterization of
dramatis personae. [t is there, among seekers, hesitators and transgressors of
boundaries that the detailed knowledge of the others' myths and images such as
is displayed in the TY if conceptualized as Jewish, flourished. 177 Naturally, for
the suggested literary process to have taken place, porosity cannot be attributed
only to the Jewish side of the boundary and thus the fluidity characterizing the
apocryphal Christian texts that were suggested as an important interface with
the TY literature, provide a reference to possible textual and social milieus of
literary interaction. 178
The conflation of the figures of Helena of Adiabene and Helena Augusta also
conflates two periods, for Christians, the revelation of Christ and the Christian-
ization of the empire, for Jews, the destruction of the Temple and likewise the
Christianization of the empire. This conflation has the potential to exert enor-
mous pressure on the sense and concept of election among Jews and to produce
exactly such contradiction-ridden texts as the TY literature, while Jerusalem
naturally is one of the highest stakes in the comparative testing of election. The
central role of Helena as a palimpsest in TY may, therefore, be understood as an
ofHarvard University Press, 2010). provides a wider frame of reference for similar thinking
relating to Judaism. Christianity and Islam. For the highly relevant formulation "diachronic
neighbors," created for modern Israelis and Palestinians. but perhaps also applicable to earlier
periods, see: Yfaat Weiss, A Corifiscated Memory: Wadi Salib and Haifa s Lost Heritage, New
York: Columbia University Press 2011, chapter I.
177 Cf. Lasker and Stroumsa, Polemic of Nestor the Priest; Sarah Stroumsa, "On Jewish
Intellectuals Who Converted to Islam in the Early Middle Ages," in The Jews of Medieval Is-
lam: Community. Society. Identity (ed. D. Frank; Leiden: Brill, 1995), 179-97; on the intricate
and for our discussion highly relevant case of Diiwiid ibn Marwiin al-Muqamma, esp. 183-85,
describing his conversion from Judaism to Christianity and then his interest in Muslim polemics
against Christianity as recorded by the Karaite (another group closely "other" to Jews, that is
interestingly represented in the distribution of various TYversions) al-Qirqisani. See especially
Stroumsa's poignant formulation regarding al-Muqamma, who, "taking the giant strides to
Christianity and then back to Judaism, transported the acquired literary baggage with him and
introduced it into the Jewish world," idem., "Soul-searching at the Dawn of Jewish Philosophy:
A Hitherto Lost Fragment ofal-Muqammas's Twenty Chapters," Ginzei Qedem 3 (2007): 141
(137-61). Daniel Stokl Ben Ezra has indicated the inter-cultural character ofTYin "An Ancient
List of Festivals in Toledot Yeshu: Polemics as Indication for Interaction," HTR 102 (2009):
481-96, emphasizing the polemical aspect more than the narrative dialogue aspect that is the
emphasis in the present article.
178 Istvan Czachesz, "Who is Deviant? Entering the Story-World of the Acts of Peter," in
The Apocryphal Acts ofPeter: Magic. Miracles and Gnosticism (ed. Jan N. Bremmer; Leuven:
Peeters, 1998), 95: "Christianity interprets itself in these writings as a vivid subculture" (my
emphasis). See also Christine M. Thomas, The Acts ofPeter; Gospel Literature and the Ancient
Novel (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 16, suggesting folkloristic models of com-
munication as an adequate method for studying the Acts ofPeter and its likes.
encoding of the palimpsest Jerusalem. Unlike unambiguous narratives of sole

ownership of the city, the Helena palimpsest communicates an awareness of the
multiple affiliations of the city palimpsest, Jerusalem. It thus serves, both in the
Christian narrative of Helena Augusta as referred to above, with its intricate use
of Jewish knowledge, and likewise in TY with its polymorphic Helena, to subvert
unanimous statements of ownership. As a mode of communication, it articulates
loss and longing, but also narrative as a mode of appropriation and as a powerful
mechanism of coping with tumultuous realities.
The tale episode of the finding of the true cross is the concrete sign, or rather
a narrative performance tying together the two periods, by materially reiterating
the mythical moment. But it, also, reminds the Christians that the promise of a
Second Coming (parousia) has somehow gone awry and constitutes a possible
parallel source of frustration among Christians - albeit perhaps with less con-
crete repercussions - that the loss of Jerusalem may have been for Jews. 179 It,
thus, may serve as a point of departure for satirical elaborations on all possible
sides, including Christians diverting from the dominant beliefs, however tamed
by the earthly might of the Christian kingdom "of heaven" on earth. This, finally,
raises a possible interpretation ofthe flight in the air that all scholars considered
a major theme of TY as well as the Acts of Peter, and especially as a motif cor-
relating both these texts, as a grotesque bending of the image of kingdom of
heaven. If heaven does not come down, let us fly up to it. ISO
Thus the dichotomy between Christians and Jews that has largely dominated
many earlier readings of TY must also be deconstructed to a more diversified
picture encompassing Christians and their heretics of whom some Jews were to
begin with part and was only later pushed out to a less communicable category.
And these various heresies, among them Gnosticism, housed the various ver-
sions of the narratives about the life of Jesus and his disciples, some of them
popular and "popular," including grotesque and perhaps even satirical motifs.
Like in the study of the TYliterature the answers to the questions when? where?
and why? have not yet been satisfactorily answered with regard to the apoc-
ryphal Acts that have been comparatively discussed above. Indicative of the
parallel status of these two literary corpora is the general silence and lack of an
acknowledged and printed version of the IT until modernity and the sometimes
precarious status of some of the popular Acts that were even burnt. 181 Were I a
historian, I would probably be tempted to ask whether the reality of loss from a
179 The constant reminiscence of the promised event and its removal to eschatological terms
is discussed in detail in Oded Irshai, "Cyril of Jerusalem: The Apparition of the Cross," in
Contra Iudaeos: Ancient and Medieval Polemics between Christians and Jews (eds. Ora Limor
and Guy G. Stroumsa; Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), 85-104, esp. 97 fr.
ISO The flying contest perhaps also echoes the foundational scene of Jesus' Ascension at the
beginning of chapter I in the NT Acts of the Apostles.
181 Schneemelcher 2: 156; Oded Irshai, "Cyril of Jerusalem," \0 I, footnote 51, quotes Cyril's
preaching against the use of apocryphal works such as the Acts ofPeter.
282 Gali! Hasan-Rokem
Jewish perspective is grounded in the fourth-fifth century rapid Christianization

of Jerusalem; the sixth century documented common expectation for the end of
times; 182 the seventh-eighth century Islamization of the city; 183 or rather the new
wave of Christianization during the twelfth and the thirteenth century and the
rise of the Jewish narratives of pilgrimage in the eleventh-fourteenth centuries
and onwards. As a folklorist and a literary scholar analyzing the semiotics of
culture, I want to highlight the striking parallel between the non-linear process of
the emergence ofthe Tf literature and the oscillation of the status of Jerusalem as
attainable and lost for Jews through as many generations as those texts have been
distributed. Christians too - and Muslims - have gained Jerusalem and lost Jeru-
salem and therein lies the deep meaning of the palimpsest as an inter-culturally
coded symbol. Helena in Tf with her troubled oscillation between accepting the
version of the Jewish sages accusing Jesus of sorcery and misleading on one
hand and the Christological version of his divinity, sacrifice and resurrection
on the other hand, as well as the overriding theme of conversion in all the three
Helenas' lives, is a powerful, if somewhat satirical personification of Jerusalem
oscillating between belief systems and political identities, one in the long tradi-
tion of female figures symbolizing Jerusalem. I hope that, by pointing at Helena
of Tf and Jerusalem as parallel and interlinked palimpsests, I have introduced a
new understanding of the towering female figure of the text that lies at the center
of our common discourse in the present volume.
182 Oded Irshai, "Confronting a Christian Empire: Jewish Culture in the World of Byzan-
tium," in Cultures of the Jews: A New History (ed. David Biale; New York: Schocken Books),
198 and especially 211, n. 17 (181-221).
183 Samuel Krauss, "Har ha-zeytim be-toledot Yeshu,"Melilah I (1944): 166-77 on the cen-
trality of the Mt of Olives for certain TYversions focuses especially on this period.
The Second Life of the Life of Jesus:
Christian Reception of Toledot Yeshu·
Yaacov Deutsch
In a letter to Johannes Buxtorfthe son, written around 1650, Johannes Miiller, a

Christian Hebraist from Hamburg, wrote that he was able to obtain a very secret
Jewish manuscript that attacks the Christian religion and especially the New
Testament. The text he was referring to was Toledot Yeshu. 1 Other examples
from the medieval and early modern sources indicate that Christians believed
that Toledo! Yeshu was a secret composition that the Jews tried to hide from
their Christian neighbors. 2 This covert status of the work is confirmed by Jewish
sources as well. Thus, less than a century after MUller's letter to Buxtorf the son,
the copyist of a manuscript from 1740 wrote:
This booklet contains an orally transmitted tradition, from one person to another; it may
be written, but not printed, due to our harsh exile. Beware of reading it before the youth,
children or lightheaded people and even more so before the uncircumcised who under-
stand German. Therefore, the wise will know how to remain silent and will receive his
reward because these are inopportune times ... it is an immense responsibility to publi-
cize this text and it can not be revealed to all, because we never know what the next day
will bring ... I have copied the text from three manuscripts from out of the country, and
they all had similar intention. I have written the text in a deceptive language since God
• My work on Toledot Yeshu started as an MA thesis written at the Hebrew University, in

Jerusalem under the supervision of Benjamin Kedar and submitted in 1997. I would like to
thank him for his direction over the years.
I Johannes Christoph Wolf, Bibliotheca Hebraea (4 vols.; Hamburg, 1715-1733) 2: 1448-
49. On this composition which includes an abundance of information on Christian familiarity
with the text see Shimeon Brisman, A History and Guide to Judaic Bibliography (Cincinnati:
Hebrew Union College Press, 1977), 13-15.
2 See for example Brenz's description where he writes that the Jews read the book under
cover of secrecy, Samuel Friedrich Brenz, Jiidischer abgestreiffier Schlangen-Balg, das ist,
Griindliche Entdeckung und Verwerfong aller Liisterungen und Liigen derer sich das giftige
Jiidische Schlangen-Geziefer und Otterngeziicht, wider den frommsten und unschuldigen Juden
Christum Jesum (Niimberg, 1614),2. Other Christians report the difficulties to obtain a copy
of the text, and thus also hint to its rarity. Buxtorf for example writes that he got his copy from
a friend who got it from an Hungarian gold dealer who bought it from a Jew, see Johannes
Buxtorf, Bibliotheca Rabbinica (Franequer, 1696), 148-49 and see also Wolf, Bibliotheca
Hebraea,3: 1222 who argues that the friend who gave it to Buxtorfwas Heinrich a Diest. In
itself this testimony sheds light on the one of the ways that enabled Christians to get hold of a
copy of Toledot Yeshu.
284 Yaacov Deutsch
chose us from all other nations and gave us a language ... and some mockery of idolatry
is permitted. 3
Nonetheless, notwithstanding its secrecy, with around 170 manuscripts Toledot

Yeshu is one of the most widespread Hebrew manuscripts, although almost all
the manuscripts and fragments are of late origin. Thus, besides the fragments
from the Geniza, there are fewer than 10 manuscripts, not all of them are com-
plete, that are dated to the fifteenth or sixteenth century.4 All other manuscripts
are of later date. In addition, Toledot Yeshu is mentioned only rarely in Jewish
sources from the Middle Ages and in most cases these references reveal very
little about the text and its textual tradition. 5 Therefore, based on Jewish sources,
any study of the textual tradition of Toledot Yeshu, especially in its early stages,
is difficult and will lead to very partial results.
On the other hand, there is an abundance of information about Toledot Yeshu
in Christian works, most of them polemical, especially from the high Middle
Ages and the Early Modern period. 6 Usually, the focus of Christian anti-Jewish
writings was not Toledot Yeshu. Rather, these polemical texts were aimed at re-
futing Jewish understandings of the Bible and, since the high Middle Ages, the
refutation of post Biblical literature such as the Talmud, the Midrash and Bibli-
cal exegesis. Nevertheless, in some cases, Christian scholars discussed Jewish
polemical literature among them Nitsahon Vetus (Se/er Nitsahon Yashan) and
Nitsahon ofYom Tov Lipman Miilhausen (Se/er Nitsahon).7 These works and
several others drew some attention from Christian polemicists, but my research
has shown that no other polemical work received as much attention as the To-
ledot Yeshu literature.
Seeing that Toledot Yeshu is a Jewish text that tells a Christian tale, it is of
interest and also somewhat ironical that, to learn about this Jewish text, one must
] The text is taken from a manuscript of Toledot Yeshu dated around 1740 which was auc-
tioned by the Society of Judaica Collectors, on January 5th , 2005 and appeared in the manu-
script's description, see Exhibition and Auction in Jerusalem, Judaica, 5 January, 2005, 88
(#122). A similar quotation is being brought by Krauss from one of the Slavic manuscripts he
is describing, see Samuel Krauss, Das LebenJesu nachjudischen Quellen (Berlin: S. Calvary.
1902; repr. Hildesheim: Dims, 1977), 10-11. Similar warning appears also in Ms. London Mon-
tefiore 450, f. 6r-v (#8775 in The Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts, Jerusalem).
4 The most complete list of manuscript up to date was published in Riccardo Di Segni, II
vangelo del ghetto (Rome: Newton Compton, \985), but there are many manuscripts that can
be added to his list.
5 For these references see below, 284.
6 For a comprehensive although not exhaustive treatment of Christian references to Toledot
Yeshu, see Yaacov Deutsch, Toledot Yeshu' in Christian Eyes: Reception and Response to
Toledot Yeshu' in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period (MA thesis; The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, 1997 [in Hebrew]).
7 For Christian reaction to Miilhausen's Nitsahon see Judah Kaufman, R. Yom Tov Lipmann
Miilhausen, Author of Nitsahon, the Scholar and the Kabbalist. (New York: Litwin, 1927 [in
Hebrew]).
The Second Life of the Life ofJesus 285
listen to what Christians have to say about it. From this perspective, Toledo!
Yeshu is a unique example of a Jewish text, insofar as the information about it
in Christian sources is richer than the information in Jewish sources, certainly
before modem times. 8 These Christian references can be used both for under-
standing Christian reactions to Toledot Yeshu, a topic I have studied in the past,
and for studying the textual tradition of the text a subject that will be the focus
of this article. 9 I will concentrate on the references to Toledo! Yeshu up to the
fifteenth century and demonstrate how they shed light upon the history of the
text. Moreover, I will suggest that, based on the information about the text in
Christian and to some extent Jewish sources, we should reconsider some of our
assumptions about the date of the composition and that perhaps Toledo! Yeshu
as a text that includes a description of Jesus' life from birth to death is of a rela-
tively late origin.
Already in the writings of the Church Fathers we can find testimonies about
Jewish traditions against Jesus that resemble some of the ideas that will later
appear in Toledot Yeshu.1O In his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin Martyr (110-165)
writes that the Jews disseminate vicious opinions about Jesus although he does
not refer specifically to their content. 11 According to Celsus (last quarter of the
second century), whose claim is being brought by Origen, Mary was married to
a carpenter named Joseph, had adulterous relationships with a Roman soldier
named Pantera and was impregnated by him and gave birth to Jesus. 12 These
traditions do not include elements that are unique to Toledo! Yeshu, but show
that, already at a very early stage, Jews propagated rancorous opinions about
Jesus and the holy family.
At the turn of the second century, the church father Tertullian (ca. 160-ca.
225) referred to claims that describe Jesus as the son of a carpenter or a whore.
He also mentioned a claim according to which Jesus' disciples stole his body
since they wanted to claim that he was resurrected. In addition, he noted a paral-
lel version according to which his body was stolen by a gardener who did not
8 Like Toledot Yeshu there are some other Jewish polemical texts that were printed for the
first time by Christians, among them Nitsahon Vetus; ]saac Troki's Faith Strengthened (hyzuq
'emuna), both printed by Johannes Wagenseil in his Tela /gnea Satanae (Altdorf, 1681) and
MUlhausen's Nitsahon printed by Theodor Hackspan in Altdorf in 1644, but the information
about these works in Christian sources is relatively limited and cannot be compared to the
information about Toledo, Yeshu.
9 On Christian reactions to Toledo, Yeshu, see Deutsch, 'Toledot Yeshu' in Christian Eyes,
esp. 81 if.
10 For a discussion of some ofthese elements, see Ludwig Couard, "Jiidische Sagen iiber das
Leben Jesu," Neue kirchliche Zeitschrift 12 (1901): 164-76; Hillell. Newman, "The Death of
Jesus in the Toledot Yeshu Literature," JTS 50 (1999): 59-79.
11 Justin Martyr, Dialogus cum TryphoneJudaeo, PG 6:511-14.
120rigen, Contra Celsum, 1:28,32, PG 11 :713-14,719-22 and see Richard von der AIm,
Die Urtheile heidnischer undjiidischer Schriftsteller der vier ersten christlichen Jahrhunderte
iiber Jesus und die ersten Christen (Leipzig: Otto Wigand, 1864), esp. 50-54.
286 Yaacov Deutsch
want his lettuce field to be destroyed by the many visitors. It is likely that these
traditions are related to later versions of Toledo! Yeshu that mention similar
details: that his body was moved by a gardener who was afraid that it would
be stolen by his disciples who would argue that he resurrected, or maybe to the
claim that Jesus was hung on a cabbage tree, although after reading Michael
Meerson's article in this volume, this link needs to be reconsidered.
TertuIJian's description reflects traditions that later will become part of the
Toledo! Yeshu corpus, but in my opinion it is unlikely that when he was writing
Toledo! Yeshu was already a complete composition. The only true similarity be-
tween Tertullian's description and Toledot Yeshu is the reference to the gardener
who stole the body of Jesus. Therefore, I believe that, like the texts of Justin
Martyr and Celsus, Tertullian's text reflects some early traditions about Jesus
that later were transformed and incorporated into the Toledo! Yeshu cOrpUS. 13
Other references in early Christian literature reveal additional elements that are
also part of the Toledo! Yeshu corpus, but, as with the case of Tertullian, it is
more likely that these references are earlier traditions about Jesus that only later
on were incorporated into the Toledot Yeshu literature. 14
There are several other examples that show that the Toledo! Yeshu literature
is built upon earlier stories and motifs and that ideas and concepts that today are
part of the Toledot Yeshu corpus were mentioned as separate entities in earlier
Christian sources. IS Therefore, based on the Christian sources, I would argue
that it is hard to prove that prior to the ninth century Toledo! Yeshu was a text
that included most of the motifs that appear in the texts known to us from the
middle ages and onward, i. e. his birth; the way in which he achieved the abil-
ity to perform miracles; the miracles he performed; the attempts of the rabbis
to catch him; his struggle with Judas; his death; his burial and resurrection; the
discovery of his body.
Early Jewish texts include some parallel motifs to the Toledot Yeshu literature
and reveal some of the possible sources for the Toledo! Yeshu texts. For example,
the Talmudic passage which argues that Berf Stada wrote on his skin and thus
learned magic, is probably among the sources for the story about Jesus entering
the holy of holies, writing the holy name of God on a parchment, cutting his
skin and then placing the parchment in his thigh, an element that is not known
13 For a discussion of these details, see William Horbury, "Tertullian on the Jews in the Light
of de spec. xxx. 13," JTS23 (1972): 455-59, reprinted in idem, Jews and Christians in Contact
and Controversy (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1998), 176-79 and especially Newman who sug-
gests that this and also the story about hanging Jesus on a cabbage stalk are part of a Jewish
attempt to link between Christianity and the cult of Adonis, see Newman, "The Death of Jesus."
14 For example the claim that Jesus was a sorcerer and magician is also part of the Toledot
Yeshu Corpus and is mentioned by several Church Fathers.
IS Newman, "The Death of Jesus"; William Horbury, "The Trial of Jesus in Jewish Tradi-
tion," in The Trial ofJesus: Cambridge Studies in Honour ofe. F. D. Moule (ed. Ernst Barnmel;
Naperville: Allenson, 1970), 103-21.
to us from the Geniza fragments of Toledo! Yeshu, but only from the later version
known to us from the thirteenth century.16
Although one can argue that this and other stories in the Talmud and Midrash
are based on the Toledo! Yeshu literature, I think that since all these sources refer
only to one or two details and never give a detailed account of Jesus' life, it is
more plausible that these stories were the sources for the Toledo! Yeshu litera-
ture, rather than being evidence of an existing composition known to us today
as Toledo! Yeshu, at that time.
As Peter Schafer shows in his article in this volume, in the writings of Agobard
and Amulo one can find several references that show that they were familiar with
several traditions that are part of the Toledo! Yeshu literature. Therefore it is
likely that by the ninth century Toledo! Yeshu was already a distinct and defined
corpus, even if the story did not have all its components. It is important to men-
tion that all the details that Agobard and Amulo mention, relate to the end of
Jesus' life, and not to his birth and youth.
The testimonies of Agobard and Amulo, the earlier testimonies that I men-
tioned before and all other earlier sources that resemble to the Toledo! Yeshu
literature, which can not be discussed here, have parallels in the Pilate group of
manuscripts, represented mainly in the Geniza texts, and in some cases only in
this family of manuscripts, and thus buttress the claim that this group represents
the earliest version of the text. Moreover, as I will show later, from the evidence
about Toledo! Yeshu in Christian and Jewish sources it seems that the two other
families of manuscripts were not known prior to the twelfth, or, perhaps, even
the thirteenth century.
After the reference to Toledot Yeshu by Agobard and Amulo in the ninth
century, there is a long period of silence in the Christian sources, and only in
the thirteenth century do we hear about Toledot Yeshu again. Two sources from
the middle of the thirteenth century, a collection of Hebrew passages especially
from the Talmud and the text published by the "Anonymous ofPassau" disclose
details that seem to be based on a version of Toledot Yeshu. In a section titled:
"De blasphemiis contra xristum et beatam virginem" in the collection of Hebrew
passages from Paris, the editor refers to a text that opens with the words "inicium
creacionis Ihesu Nazareni."17 It is likely that he refers to a Toledo! Yeshu text,
especially since one of the manuscripts of the story opens with the same words
16 The story appears in b. Shabbal, 104b. On this passage see Peter Schlifer, Jesus in the
Talmud (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 15-18. For Jesus stealing the Holy name
of God, see Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 40-41, 68--{)9, 118.
17 In 1239 Nicholas Donin a converted Jew wrote to Pope Gregory IX and attacked the
Talmud because it contains passages against Christianity and Christians. The passages that he
mentioned with passages from other Jewish sources are preserved in manuscript #16588 in the
National Library in Paris. The information about the manuscript is based on Chen Merchavia,
The Church versus Talmudic and Midrashic Literature [500-/ 248J (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute,
1970),227-315, esp. 305, n. 28. Lea was the firstto claim that in addition to the Talmud, Toledot
288 Yaacov Deutsch
although in Hebrew: tehylat briyyato shel yeshu. 18 In this case, we have only
one line from the story, and it is probably the first quotation from the text by a
Christian author.
In the writings of the Anonymous of Passau, a text that was written around
1260 in southeast Germany, the author has a chapter about Jewish blasphemies
against Jesus (Vera signa Christi blasphemant Iudei) that opens with the follow-
ing words: "Fingunt ludei, quod Salomon summum nomen dei, quod dicitur
'zamma fores,' sculpserit in lapidem."19
In this chapter, the author confronts the Jewish claim that Jesus performed his
miracles using the divine name of God. This claim appears in most of the ver-
sions of Toledot Yeshu and is unique to the Toledot Yeshu corpus and therefore it
is more than likely that it is based on one of the versions of the text.
It is only around 1280 that a Christian scholar brings a lengthy quotation of the
text. In his work Pugio Fidei adversus Mauros et Judaeos ("the dagger of faith
against Moors and Jews).20 Raimundus Martinus not only refers to Toledot Ye-
shu, but, also, brings its text; this text is, then, set next to the fragments from the
Geniza, as the earliest textual evidence on the text and, at this point, the longest.
Martinus's book includes hundreds of passages from various Jewish sources
and is aimed at revealing Jewish hostility toward Christianity. In a section
devoted to Jesus' miracles, Martinus writes that the Jews composed a ficti-
tious book that deals with Jesus' miracles. 21 The quotation that Martinus brings
includes about eighty lines. It does not start with the description of Jesus' birth
rather with his arrival in Jerusalem, the way he learned the holy name of God
(shem ha-meforash) and used it to perform miracles. The passage ends with the
description of the hanging of Jesus and lacks the additional parts that describe
the fate of his body after he was hanged.
One possible explanation for the fact that Martinus brings only partial version
of the text is that he had access only to a partial version ofthe text. Alternatively,
Yeshu was also attacked in Paris, see Henry C. Lea, The Inquisition ofthe Middle Ages (3 vols.;
New York: Harper, 1887), 1:516, n. 1.
18 Strasbourg, Bibliotheque Nationale et Universitaire Ms. 3974 (Heb. 48), f. 170a (#2868 in
The institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts, Jerusalem). For this text and its importance
in studying the textual tradition of Toledot Yeshu see William Horbury's article in this volume.
19 Alexander Patschovsky, ed., Der Passauer Anonymus, Ein Sammelwerk iiber Ketzer.
Juden, Antichrist aus der Mitte des 13. Jahrhunderts (MGH Schriften 22; Stuttgart: Hierse-
mann, 1968), 186.
20 Leipzig, 1687. Martinus's work was first printed in 1651 in Paris, but the 1687 edition is
the one used by most scholars and is also more accessible, therefore when referring to Marti-
nus's work I use this edition. For a discussion of this work and of Martinus and his attitude to
the Jews see Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution ofMedieval Anti-Judaism
(lthaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), 129--69; idem, Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the
Jew in Medieval Christianity (Berke1ey: University of California Press, 1992), 342-56; Robert
Chazan, Daggers of Faith (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989), 115-36.
21 Martinus, Pugio Fidei, 362--64
he may have chosen to bring only part of the text because his description is
focused on Jesus' miracles. Another explanation could be based on Di Segni's
suggestion that the story about Jesus birth was added to Toledot Yeshu only in the
fourteenth century.22 However, this suggestion seems wrong, since already the
reference to the text in the collection from Paris that I mentioned before, refers
to the beginning of the story.23 The text that Martinus brings belongs to the group
of manuscripts known as the Helen group. Most of the manuscripts known to us
today belong to this group, however Martinus's text is the first certain evidence
for the existence of this family of manuscripts.
The number of Christian references to Toledot Yeshu grows rapidly in the
fourteenth and fifteenth century and, in some cases, this is due to familiarity with
Martinus's text. Porchetus Salvaticus, a Carthusian Monk from Genoa who died
around 1315 copied parts of Martinus's text including the section with the To-
ledot Yeshu text in his polemical work Victoria adversus impios Hebraeos writ-
ten in 1303. 24 Although he copied Martinus's text verbatim, his text is important
because it was printed already in 1520, about 130 years before Martinus's book
was first printed and thus in some cases, most significantly in the case of Mar-
tin Luther, he was the source from which people learned about Toledot Yeshu.
Nonetheless, this is not the first time Toledot Yeshu was printed. In his polemical
work Fortalitiumfidei (Fortress of Faith) which was first printed around 1470,
the Franciscan monk, Alfonso de Espina copied the text of Raimundus Martinus
verbatim, and this is, therefore, the first time that the text of Toledot Yeshu was
printed. 25 De Espina's book was printed six times during the fifteenth century in
France, Germany and Spain and thus played an important role in spreading the
knowledge about Toledo! Yeshu among Christians. 26
In addition to Salvaticus and de Espina, there are other scholars in the four-
teenth and fifteenth century, like Nicohlas of Lyra, who used Martinus's text as
22 Di Segni, II vangelo del ghetto, 32

23 See above, 287-88.
24 Porchetus Salvaticus, Victoria Porcheti adversus impios Hebreos, in qua tum ex Sacris
Literis, tum dictis Talmud. ac caballistarum et aliorum omnium authorum. quos Hebrei recipi-
unto monstra/ur Veritas Catholicae Fidei (Paris, 1520).
25 Alfonso de Espina, Fortalitiumjidei contra ludaeos Saracenos aliosqoe Christianaejidei
inimicos, (Niimberg, 1494),81. On de Espina and his work see Alisa Meyuhas Ginio, "'The
Fortress of Faith' - at the end of the West: Alonso de Espina and his Fortalitium fidei,'" in
Contra ludaeos: Ancient and Medieval Polemics between Christians and Jews (eds. Ora Limor
and Guy G. Stroumsa; Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996),215-37; Heinz Schreckenberg, Die
christlichen Adversus-Judaeos-Texte und ihr literarisches und historiches Umfeld (/3.-20. Jh.)
(Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang, 1994), 536-39 and the literature cited there.
26 This work was first printed in Strasbourg in 1471 or a year earlier and later on in Basel
(1475); Burgos (1479), Niimberg (1485); Lyon (1487) and again in Niimberg (1494). Usually
the number of copies of incunabula ranged between 200 and 1000 and therefore it is likely that
altogether a few thousands copies of the book were printed already before 1500, see Elisabeth
L. Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1979), 11.
290 Yaacov Deutsch
a source for infonnation about Toledot Yeshu. 27 Furthennore, other testimonies

from this period show that Christians had access to additional versions of the
text. This is evident for example from an inquisitorial scrutiny from 1341 that
include some details that do not appear in earlier versions of the text. 28 Accord-
ing to this report Jesus was playing with a hoop near the temple and the hoop
rolled into the temple and when Jesus went in to bring it back he saw the holy
name of God, wrote it down on parchment and hid it under his skin and when he
left the temple he used it to perfonn miracles. Other versions of Toledot Yeshu
refer to a similar detail, but they mention that Jesus was playing with a ball and
thus this testimony reveals the richness ofthe textual tradition of Toledot Yeshu. 29
Following Martinus's translation, the Viennese cleric and historian Thomas
Ebendorfer (1388-1464) prepared another Latin translation of Toledot Yeshu. 30
According to Ebendorfer, he was assisted by a loyal Jew and he did it because
he wanted the Christians to be able to see the depth of Jewish hatred to Chris-
tianityY The text that Ebendorfer brings is very similar to the Strasbourg text
published by Krauss but there are some minor differences that are valuable for
the textual study of Toledot Yeshu. 32 For example, according to Ebendorfer's
text, Judas prevails over Jesus in the aerial struggle by sodomizing him, while,
27 Nicholas of Lyra referred to Toledot Yeshu in his Quaestio de Adventu Christi written in
1309. As Jeremy Cohen showed, Nicholas used Martinus's work extensively and a comparison
of his writing on Toledot Yeshu to Martinus's text shows that also here Martinus was the source
ofNicholas, see Cohen, The Friars and the Jews, 188-91, esp. n. 47 and also, ibid., 265-66.
This text ofNicholas of Lyra was very popular during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and
survived in more than hundred manuscripts and thus probably served as an important source for
learning about Toledot Yeshu, see Deeana Copeland Klepper, insight of Unbelievers: Nicholas
ofLyra and Christian Reading ofJewish text in the Later Middle Ages (Philadelphia University
of Pennsylvania Press, 2(07), Ill.
28 This record was published in: Josep Peramau i Espelt, "El proces inquisitorial barceloni
contra els jueus Janto Almuli, la seva muller Jamila i Jucef de Quatorze (1341-1342)," RCT 4
(1979): 309-53. Di Segni was the first to suggest the affinity between this inquisitorial record
and Toledot Yeshu, see, Riccardo Di Segni, "Due nuovi fonti sulle Toledoth Jeshu," La assegna
mensile di Israel 55 (1990): 127-32. For a detailed discussion of this testimony see Paola Tar-
takoff's article in this volume.
29 The difference in the details, such as in the above example could shed light on the specific
historical, geographical and social circumstances of a specific text and thus can enrich our
understanding both on the textual tradition of Toledot Yeshu, the history of the Jews and of
Christian Jewish relations.
30 Ebendorfer's translation was printed recently, see Brigitta Callsen, Fritz Peter Knapp,
Manuela Niesner and Martin Przybilski (eds.) Das jiidische Leben Jesu. "Toldot Jeschu ": Die
alteste lateinische Ubersetzung in den "Falsitates Judeorum " von Thomas Ebendorfer (Vienna:
Oldenburg, 2003) and ibid., 18-19 for details about Ebendorfer.
31 "coadjuvante quodam Hebreo fidelissimo fere de verbo ad verbum in latinam lingwam
rustico stilo converti un cunctis Christianicolis pateat evidenter Iudaice pravitatis odium," see,
ibid., 38.
32 As William Horbury shows in his article in this volume, there are also affinities between
the Strasbourg text and early references to Toledot Yeshu such as those made by Raimundus
Martinus and Alfonso Valladolid.
in Krauss' text, he does so by urinating on him.33 Another example is related to

the hanging of Jesus. According to the Strasbourg text, Jesus is being hanged on
'iqqar shel keruv while in the Ebendorfer's text, was hanged ongodel shel keruv.
Thus, Ebendorfer's text can shed light on some textual developments of the
Toledot Yeshu, but, more than that, it shows that a full text almost identical with
the Strasbourg text was known already in the first half of the fifteenth century.
Knowledge of another version of the Toledot Yeshu is apparent in the writ-
ings ofPetrus Nigri, known also as Petrus Schwartz. In his book Stern Messiah,
published in 1475, he mentions Toledot Yeshu and reports that, when the Jews
tried to stop Jesus, they sent Judas. Judas flew in the air after Jesus and struggled
with him.34 According to Nigri, when Judas saw that he could not prevail, he
sodomized Jesus. 35 Some versions of Toledot Yeshu contain a similar story but,
in most of them, the method used by Judas is more subtle (relatively) - in some
versions, he prevails in the physical struggle and, thus, manages to throw him
to the ground, while in other versions he urinates on Judas, or, in some cases,
ejaculates on him and thus defeats him.36 It is likely that this particular detail was
changed by people who read and transmitted the text of Toledot Yeshu, probably
with accordance to how secure they felt. Nigri's text together with the text of
Ebendorfer are both a testimony for this version about Jesus being sodomized
by Judas and they both show that, already in the fifteenth century, some Jews felt
secure enough to insert it into the text of Toledot Yeshu.
It is important to mention that the examples I have just brought reflect only a
fraction of the testimonies found in Christian sources about Toledot Yeshu, but,
as I demonstrate, these testimonies are crucial for understanding the textual his-
tory of Toledot Yeshu.
The Jewish sources, on other hand, especially up to the seventeenth or even
the eighteenth century, only rarely refer to Toledot Yeshu. This is not coinci-
dental and is likely the result of Jewish fear of Christian authorities. Thus, as I
mentioned above some of the manuscripts that have reached our hands warn the
reader to conceal the text of Toledot Yeshu. 37 Nonetheless, there are some me-
33 And see also the following discussion regarding Nigri's text.

34 Petrus Nigri, Tractatus contra peifidos Judaeos de conditionibus veri Messiae (Esslingen,
1475). On Nigri see Bemhard Walde, Christliche Hebriiisten Deutschlands am Ausgang des
Mittelalters (Miinster: Aschendorff, 1916), 70-152; Thomas Willi, "Christliche Hebrliisten der
Renaissance und Reformation," Judaica 30 (1974): 78-85, 100-3; Pinchas E. Lapide, Hebrew
in the Church, The Foundations of Jewish-Christian Dialogue (Grand RapidS, Mich.: Eerd-
mans, 1984), 16-18; Schreckenberg, Die christlichen Adversus-Judaeos-Texte, 544-46.
35 For a version that mentions that Judas sodomized Jesus see Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 74.
36 For a version that mentions the use of his physical power see Martinus, Pugio Fidei, 364;
for a version that mentions urination, see Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 43; for a version that men-
tions ejaCUlation see Samuel Krauss, "Une nouvelle recension hebalque du TOLOOT YE sO,"
REJ 103 (1938): 81.
37 See above, 283-284.
292 Yaacov Deutsch
dieval Jewish sources that are important for the textual history of Toledot Yeshu
and, in what follows, I will briefly discuss them.
Several scholars argued that, already in the Tosefta and Talmud, it is pos-
sible to find traditions that come from Toledot Yeshu, but, in my opinion, these
instances do not reflect the existence of Toledo! Yeshu as an independent text,
but reflect traditions that later became part of the Toledot Yeshu corpus. Thus, for
example, the reference in the Tosefta (Shabbat 11: 15), and its parallel version in
the Talmud (b. Shabbat I04b) to Ben Stada who brought witchcraft from Egypt
by cutting his flesh, is, in my opinion, the source for the elaborated description
of the way Jesus learned the holy name of God that appears in some version
of the Toledot Yeshu, and not an abridged version of the story that appears in
Toledot Yeshu. 38
Nonetheless, the paucity of references to Toledot Yeshu in Jewish sources is
not necessarily a sign that it was not known to Jews in the middle ages and the
early modem period, but a result of its folkloric nature, and, also, a of the fact
that its transmission was mainly through oral venues.
Toward the end of the eleventh century, in the literature that came from
Rashi's school, we find a reference to the story about Peter who composed Pi-
yutim, among them the piyut Nishmat kol hay.39 This story appears at the end of
some of the Toledot Yeshu versions,4o however it is likely clear that it also stood
as a separate story and, therefore, this reference is not sufficient to determine
that already Rashi or his disciples were familiar with Toledot Yeshu. 4J To the
best of my know ledge, the first reference in Jewish sources that is clearly based
on the text of Toledot Yeshu appears in Ephraim of Bono commentary on the
piyut Elohym alleha domy, which was written in the second half of the twelfth
century. Ephraim writes that Jesus was a bastard and brings a text named Tolada
de-yeshu as the source for this claim.42 Another reference from the beginning of
38 According to these versions Jesus entered the ho!>' of holies copied the holy name of God
on a parchment, cut his thigh and placed the parchment there. After he left the holy of holies he
took the parchment out and thus was able to use the holy name to perform miracles.
39 Shimon Halevi Hurwitz, Mahzor Vitry (Berlin: Itzkowski, 1889),282, and see David Op-
penheim, "Ueber den Verfasser des Nischmath und das Alter der Piutim," MGWJ 10 (1861):
212-24; Leopold Zunz, Literaturgeschichte der Synagogalen Poesie (Berlin: L. Gerschel,
1865),5-6.
40 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 49-50, 86--88.
41 Bel ha-Midrasch. Sammlung kleiner Midraschim und gemischter Abhandlungen aus der
altern jiidischen Literatur (ed. Adolph Jellinek; 6 vols., third ed.; Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1967),
5:60-62; 6: 9-14, 155-6 and see Julius H. Greenstone, "Jewish Legends about Simon-Peter,"
Historia Judaica 12 (1950): 89-104; Simon Legasse, "La legende juive des apotres et les
rapports judeo-chretiens dans le haut Moyen Age," Bulletin de Litterature Ecc/esiastique 75
(1974), esp. 107-17; Wout van Bekkum, "The Rock on which the Church is Founded: Simon
Peter in Jewish Folklore," in Saints and Role Models in Judaism and Christianity (eds. Marce1
Poorthuis and Joshua Schwartz; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 289-310.
42 Ms. Parma 665 (#13920 in The Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts, Jerusalem),
The Second Life ofthe Life ofJesus 293
the thirteenth century is found in Ephraim ben Shimshon's commentary on the

Bible (a different Ephraim).4J He mentions that Jesus was not found in his grave,
and writes that this is written in Toledot Yeshu and this is probably the first refer-
ence to the name Toledot Yeshu in a Jewish or Christian source.
Several polemical works from the twelfth and thirteenth century mention
that Jesus was hanged on a cabbage stalk. 44 This particular detail is unique to
the Toledot Yeshu corpus and, therefore, it likely that these references reflect
familiarity with a version of Toledo! Yeshu. Similarly, Nitsahon Vetus mentions
the aerial battle between Jesus and Rabbi Yehuda the Jewish emissary, again a
detail unique to the Toledot Yeshu cOrpuS. 45 Only toward the end of the four-
teenth century, in Shem Tov ibn Shaprut's polemical work 'Even Bohan there is
a significant reference to the text of Toledot Yeshu and even then it is by quoting
a Christian source that of Alfonso Valladolid. 46 According to Alfonso (as he
quoted by Ibn Shaprut), the dissemination of knowledge about Jesus' miracles
among the Jews is a proof of his Messianism. In order to prove that the Jews
were aware of Jesus' miracles he mentions two versions of Toledo! Yeshu in
Hebrew and in Aramaic. The details about the Hebrew version that he brings
show that the text he is referring to are similar to the one brought by Martinus.
He brings only a few lines from the Aramaic version and they have parallels in
some of the Geniza fragments
However, the claim that the reference to Jesus as son of menstruated woman
in the Jewish chronics of the First Crusade is based on Toledot Yeshu is prob-
f. 155. This reference was first mentioned by Urbach, see Ephraim Elimelech Urbach, Sefer
Arngat ha-Bosem (4 vols.; Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1963),4:47-48.
43 Manfred Lehamnn, "Allusions to Jesus and Muhammad in the Commentaries of Hasidei
Ashkenaz," Sinai 87 (1980): 39 (in Hebrew).
44 See Judah Rosenthal, "Teshuvoth ha-Minim" in idem, Studies and Texts in Jewish History.
Literature and Religion (2 vols.; Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1967 [in Hebrew)), I: 371. It seems
that this text was composed already in the twelfth century and see also David Berger, ed., The
Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages: A Critical Edition ofNizzahon Vetus (Phila-
delphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979),202 (#202) (English section).
45 Berger, ibid., 203-4 (# 205).
46 Valladolid's reference survived only in Ibn Shaprut's text. This reference to Toledot Yeshu
was brought by Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 146-47 from a manuscript in the Jewish Theologi-
cal Seminary in Breslau that now is lost. This paragraph appears in several other manuscripts
without major differences, see JTS 2234, fol. 195 (#28487 in The Institute of Microfilmed
Hebrew Manuscripts, Jerusalem) Vatican 523 (#8658 in The Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew
Manuscripts, Jerusalem), this manuscript has no page numbers and the pages are mixed up, on
this manuscript see WilIiam Horbury, "The Revision of Shem Tov Ibn Shaprut's Eben Bohan,
Sefarad43 (1983), 221-37. On Ibn Shaprut and his work see Norman E. Primer, Dov Schwartz,
The Life and Thought of Shem Tov lbn Shaprnt (Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 1992 [in He-
brew)), I-50; Schreckenberg, Die christlichen Adversus-Judaeos-Texte, 407-9; on Alfonso
Valladolid see, Yitzhak Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain )2 vols.; Philadelphia:
Jewish Publication Society of America), 1:327-54; Arthur Lukyn Williams, Adversus Judaeos:
A Birds-Eye View of Christian Apologiae until the Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni·
versity Press, 1935),259--60; SChreckenberg, ibid., 377-78.
294 }(/(/('()\' f)ell/sell
lell1atic, since;: the e;:arly versions of Toledo! Yes/7lI known to us do not include
this c1aim.47 Therefore, it is plausible that the reference in later versions of To-
ledo! Yeshu to this mockcry name is based on curses such as those that appear
in the chronicles of the crusade and not vice versa. 4X What is common to all the
allusions to Toledo! 'ieshll in the Jewish sources is that they always mention it
peripherally and never in order to bring the entire story. Thus, for some Jewish
authors. it becomes a reference source which is used to base their arguments
such as in the case of Ephraim of Bonn. On the other hand, some authors that
refelTed to details. likely taken from Toledo! reshl/, did not mention at all that
Toledo! Yesflu was their source.
All the references to Toledot Yeshll from the thirteenth century, and thereafter,
disclose details that are f()Und in thc Hclen group of manuscripts and do not ap-
pear in the Pilate group to which the Geniza fragments belong. The only excep-
tion is the abovementioned reference;: in the Ibn Shaprut's Even Bohan, in which
he brings a few lines from the Aramaic version, and they have parallels in some
of the Geniza fragments. 4tJ
The textual evidence f()r Toledot Yeshu from Jewish sources, at least up to thc
beginning of the seventeenth century, is thus limited, even when including the
extant Jewish manuscripts up to that point in time. Moreover, Jewish sources
give only a partial picture of the dissemination of Toledot Yes/ill and its influ-
ence on medieval and early modern society. Nonetheless, the fact that there arc
so many relerences in Christian sourccs to the text and that there arc at least
two cases in which Christians translated the text into Latin before 1500, are,
in my opinion, a proof that the text was widespread already in the high Middle
Ages. After Toledo! Yeshll was first printed in 1470 by de Espina and then by
Porchetus Salvaticus in 1520. the number of Christians who mentioned the text
continue;:d to grow, and it is almost impossible to trace all the references to the
text. 50 Christian texts serve as the main source;: I()r refere;:nces about Toledo!
Yeshll before the 17 th century, and after de Espina and Salvaticus. who were the
first to print part of the Toledo! Yes/llI text. Ghristian scholars were also the first
to print a full version of the text with a Latin translation and some comments.
Here. I reler to Johannes Wagenseil who included TiJledo/ Yeshu in his collection
of anti-Christian texts entitled Tela Ignea Sa!anae from 1681, and to Johannes
Huldrcich. who published another version of Toledol Yes/ill in 1705. 51
47 Anna Sapir Abulafia, "Invectives against Christianity in the Hebrew Chronicles of the
First Crusadc" in Crusade and Set/lement (cd. Peter W. Edbury; Cardiff: University College
Cardi IT Press. I <}I;S). 61;-70.
4~ The use of the ternl Ben Ilanida as a mockery name appears already in Tractate Kallah 16
and Kallall Rahhati 2.2 and could be the souret: for this curse it Tiiledul Yesllll.
4'1 Sce. above, 293.
~o For more examples see Deutsch, '1i.J/eclut Ye,~/III' ill ChrisliclIl Ews.
;t lohannes Christophorus Wagenscil, Ti'/a ignea Sa/anae, hoC' est: Arcani e/ horrilii/es
JlldlleOl'U1II adversus Chris/um Delllll et Chri.l'tianam religionelll lihri (l/wkdotoi: SIIIII vero: R.
295
As such, the evidence from Christian and .Jewish sources reveals that, up to
the twelfth century, the only version of Toledo/ Yes/1/I that was known was the
one found in the Geniza. On the other hand, from the thirteenth century and
onward, almost all the rderences to Toledot YesITu belong to the second group
of manuscripts known as the Helen group. Based on this finding. I would argue
that it is quite possible that up to the twelfth, and perhaps even the beginning of
the thirteenth century, the only extant version of Toledo/ Yes/ill was the one found
in the Geni/a. This version was known in Europe, as Amulo's and Agobard's
references to it reveal. The Helen group was created sometime during the twelfth
or the thirteenth century. and, from then on. became the dominant version of
Toledot Yes/w. The third group of manuscripts, known as the Herod group,
which is represented in the text published by Johannes lIuldricus in 1705. has
some parallels in sources from the tHleenth and onward. and probably originated
around that time.
Moreover, I would like to argue that the evidence about Toledo/ Yeshu in Jew-
ish and Christian sources show that there is no proof that. prior to the twelfth
ccntury, Toledo/ Yes/lII was already a comprchensive story that described Jesus
life from birth to death. Altogether. wc need to remember that all the evidence
from the church fathers, from the Talmud and Midrash, and even from Agobard
and Amulo refer only to particular details that, today, are part of the To/edo/
Yes/1/{ literature. but. prior to the twelfth century. therc is no reference to Toledo/
Yeshll as an all inclusive tcxt that discusses Jesus' life from birth to death and
also the events afier his death. This suggestion does not mean that parts of the
story are not older, but that the crystallization of the various units into a complete
story. and especially that ofthc Helcn version. appeared relatively late, perhaps
not prior to the twelfth century.
I will end where I began, by pointing to the importance of Christian sources
for determining and following the Jewish text of Toledo/ Yeshll, a fate that is per-
haps fitting for a Jewish text that attempts to follow and retell the Christian story.
Uplllonni Carmen ,"femoria/e. Uht'/' Ni;;zacluJ/l Vell/s AI/lori.\' Incognili. Acl" Di.\jJu/lIlione:s R.
Jechielis Cl/Ill (/llUdlllll Nico/ao. Ac/a Displllalionis R. Mosis NlIchmllnidis ('urn Fralre Pal/If)
Chrisliani. et Fralre Raymundo Martini. R. lW/ad I.ihel' Chi.l'.\I//c 1:·1111111(/. Lihellll.l' 7i,/dos Jeschu
.Jo/wnn Chl'is/ophol'l/s Wagell.l'ei/illS ex EllmplIl! A/i"iclIetjlle /(/Iehl'i.\ I!I'U/VS. in /ucem pm/rI/-
si/ ... (Altdort: 1681); lohannt:s lacobus Hu1dricus, fiislol'ia .Jeschl/ae Na;;arcni (Lciden, 1705).
The Toledot Yeshu and Jewish-Christian Conflict
in the Medieval Crown of Aragon
Paola Tartako.fJ
On the night of Thursday, January 4, 1341, in the Aragonese village of La Almu-

nia de Doiia Godina, in the kitchen of a Jewish home, three Jewish men and three
Jewish women allegedly gathered around an old acquaintance named Alatzar.
Alatzar had converted from Judaism to Christianity some three weeks earlier,
during a trip to Catalonia, taking the name Pere. By the light of a crackling fire,
these Jews berated Alatzar/Pere for his apostasy, warned him that ''the Christian
Law" was false, and urged him to return to Judaism. I
One ofthe three Jewish men in attendance was Jucef de Quatorze, a prominent
member of the neighboring community of Calatayud. Over the course of the
evening, he is said to have declared that "Jesus ... was not God but an accursed
bastard whose mother conceived him through adultery.'>2 Following these words,
Jucefreportedly produced the ensuing account of Jesus' conception and career.
"On a great festivity of the Jews," Jucefbegan, "Mary's husband, Joseph, left
the house while it was still night to hear morning prayers at the Temple. He shut
the door behind him and left the key in a hole next to the gate, leaving Mary
indoors. As soon as Joseph was out of sight, a Jew who had been spying on him
and had seen where he had put the key snatched the key, entered the house, lay
with Mary, and impregnated her with a son." Jucef continued:
A few years later, when the boy was four or five, he was playing with other boys one day
with a hoop before the doors of the Temple. At the entrance of the Temple, there were
two lions who were put there so that, if someone wanted to enter the Temple, they would
be too afraid of the lions to read the Shem ha-Meforash. which is so powerful that the
first (person) to read it would perform great miracles. As the boys were playing, the hoop
of Mary's son fell before the steps of the Temple, and when the boy went after his hoop,
he raised his eyes and saw the Shem ha-Meforash written on the lintel of the Temple in
golden letters. He memorized the name and, with dust and spit, wrote it on his hand, lest
he forget it on account of fear of the lions. Afterward, he wrote the name on a thin piece
of parchment, folded it, and sewed it under the skin of his right shin.
I Pere's story is preserved in the Archive of the Cathedral of Barcelona (hereafter, ACB),
Codex (hereafter, C) 126. Pere was originally from the town ofCalatayud. His father's name
was lsaach Camariel (ACB, C126, fol. 2r). Descriptions of Pere's alleged encounter with the
six Jews are found on folios 4Or-43r, 44r-45r, and 47v-51r.
2 ACB, Cl26, fol. 50r.
298 Paola TartakofJ
Thereafter, by the power of this name, the boy performed wonders and many miracles.
For example, he rode on a ray of the sun and hung from it, he made live sparrows out of
clay, and he cured all the infirm. He grew up refined, clever, and pleasant, and, by means of
the miracles that he performed, he turned people's hearts to him and made himself adored
as the son of God. In this way, he deceived the world until, finally, the doctors ofthe law
and the high priests condemned him to death as a fraud. 3
This narrative, which is preserved in an inquisitorial dossier in the Archive of

the Cathedral of Barcelona (Codex 126), is a version of the Toledot Yeshu (The
Life ofJesus), a Jewish parody of the Gospels that circulated among Jews since
at least as early as the third century.4
In light of Jucef de Quatorze's alleged narration of the Toledo! Yeshu, this paper
suggests several functions that the Toledot Yeshu may have served in the context
of Jewish-Christian tensions in the medieval Crown of Aragon - a confederation
of realms in northeastern Iberia that included Catalonia, Aragon, and Valencia,
territories north of the Pyrenees, and Mediterranean islands such as Majorca. 5 In-
deed, when considered in its textual and historical framework, this attestation of
the Toledot Yeshu underscores the power and versatility of the narrative as a fonn
of Jewish polemic, illuminating the setting in which Jews typically may have
given voice to the parody, the role the folktale may have played in Jewish efforts
to re-Judaize apostates, its potential presence in open confrontations between
Jews and Christians, and the ways apostates may have used their knowledge of
the Toledot Yeshu to malign Jews. In the pages that follow, then, we shall examine
the Toledot Yeshu in action, serving as ammunition in an age-old fray.
Pere's Case
As it is of direct relevance to our subject, let me begin by explaining how

Jucef de Quatorze's alleged narration of the Toledot Yeshu found its way into
inquisitorial records. On the night of January.4, in the course of pressuring Pere
to renounce Christianity, Pere's Jewish advisors allegedly made a forbidding
announcement. They declared that, although Pere would need to re-embrace
Judaism ifhe wanted to save his soul, he would never be able to resume life as a
3 ACB, C126, fols. 50r-5Ir.

4 Riccardo Di Segni briefly discusses this attestation of the Toledot Yeshu in "Due nuovi fonti
sulle Toledoth Jeshu," La rassegna mensile di Israel 55 (1990): 127-32. Samuel Krauss, Das
Leben Jesu nach jiidischen Quellen (Berlin: S. Calvary, 1902; repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1977)
remains the most comprehensive work on the Toledot Yeshu. For a summary of the early history
of the Toledot Yeshu, see Miriam Goldstein, "Judeo-Arabic Versions of Toledot Yeshu," Ginzei
Qedem6(2010): 10-11.
5 For a succinct introduction to the political and economic history of the Crown of Aragon,
see Thomas N. Bisson, The Medieval Crown of Aragon: A Short History (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1986).
The Toledot Yeshu and Jewish-Christian Conflict in the Medieval Crown ofAragon 299
Jew. Instead, he would have to burn to death at the stake as a Jewish martyr. To
this end, the Jews reportedly continued, he was to go before the justice of Cala-
tayud and enrage him with a shocking display of disdain for Christianity. First,
Pere was to blaspheme against the Christian faith, declaring that Jesus was "an
accursed bastard" and Mary "the greatest ofwhores."6 Next, he was to express
repugnance for Christian rituals, demanding that the fingers with which he had
made the sign of the cross be amputated, the skin of his forehead that had come
into contact with chrism be ripped off, and the skin of his knees on which he had
knelt before the crucifix be flayed. 7 And finally, he was explicitly to repudiate
Christianity and thereby incur the death penalty.s
Pere actually may have followed this advice for, on Friday, January 5, he was
indeed tied to the stake in Calatayud. In fact, his body was already beginning
to burn when the inquisitor fra Sancho de Torralba, who had been alerted to the
proceedings, rushed to the scene, had Pere unbound, and brought him to the
fittingly-named Dominican convent of Sant Pere Martir. 9 There, before a hast-
ily assembled inquisitorial tribunal, Pere had another change of heart. Although
he had renounced Christianity and sought to die as a Jewish martyr only hours
earlier, Pere now declared that he was "a true and good Christian."1O Moreover,
he denounced Jucef de Quatorze and two other Jews - the wealthy Janto Almuli
and his wife, Jamila - for allegedly having "re-Judaized" him.11 In addition,
two Jewish eyewitnesses - a cobbler named Salomon Navarro and his wife,
Miriam - corroborated Pere's claims in detail. 12
The inquisitorial trials that ensued were a momentous affair. I) They passed
through the hands of inquisitors in Calatayud, Valencia, and Barcelona, came
6 ACB, C126, fols. 42v, 4Sr, and 48v.
7 ACB, CI26,fols. 8v, IIr, 12r, 14r, 4Sr, 48v, SOr, and 71v.
8 ACB, C 126, fols. 42r, 4Sr, 48v, and Sir.
9 ACB, C 126, fols. 39r and 43r.
10 ACB, C126, fol. 39v.
11 Pere and the Jewish witnesses in Pere's case used the verb judaYlYare (to Judaize) in rela-
tion to Pere's story (see, for example, ACB, CI26, fols. 46v-47r and 48v). On the history and
usage of the term, see Shaye Cohen, "Between Judaism and Christianity: The Semicircumcision
of Christians according to Bemard Gui, his Sources and R. Eliezer of Metz," HTR 94 (200 I):
29S-3OO.
12 ACB, CI26, fols. 44r-49r.
13 It is important to note that these proceedings took place over a century prior to the estab-
lishment of the Spanish Inquisition in 1478. Indeed, the records of the trials of Janto and Jamila
Almuli and Jucef de Quatorze include some of the earliest known transcripts of inquisitorial
proceedings involving either Jews or converts. Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi pioneered the study
ofre1ations between Jews and medieval (as opposed to Spanish) inquisitors in his article, "The
Inquisition and the Jews of France in the Time of Bemard Gui," HTR 63 (1970): 317-76. Josep
Peramau i Espelt has published an introductory analysis of these trials that includes transcrip-
tions of selected passages in "El praces inquisitorial barceloni contra els jueus Janto Almuli,
la seva muller Jamila i lucefde Quatorze (1341-1342)," RCT4 (1979): 309-S3. Kristine T.
Utterback provides an overview of the trials in "Conversi Revert: Voluntary and Forced Return
to Judaism in the Early Fourteenth Century," CH 64 (1995): 16-28. The author's forthcoming
300 Paola Tartakoff
to the attention of King Peter the Ceremonious, and concluded under the su-
pervision of fra Bernat de Puigcercos, whose jurisdiction extended over all the
dominions of the Crown of Aragon. 14 At their conclusion, Pere was sentenced to
prison for Iife,15 and on Sunday, August 11, 1342, at the cemetery of Santa Maria
del Mar, in the presence of notables and a great throng of townspeople, Janto
and Jamila Almuli were sentenced to prison, and Jucef de Quatorze was turned
over to the secular arm to burn at the stake. 16 In due time, the trial transcripts
were carefully re-copied and filed away for consultation by future inquisitors,17
and Jucef de Quatorze's alleged narration of the Toledot Yeshu thus survived,
embedded in one of Pe re's confessions.
The Toledot Yeshu as a Form of Internal Jewish anti-Christian Polemic
Pere's case unfolded fifty years prior to the massacres and forced conversions
of 1391, during a period when relations between Jews and Christians were
relatively stable. 18 During the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, there
may have been up to 20,000 Jews in Aragon, 25,000 in Catalonia, and 10,000
in Valencia. In cities with particularly prosperous Jewish communities, such as
Barcelona and Girona, the population may even have been more than 10 per-
cent Jewish. 19 Highly acculturated, the Jews of the Crown included courtiers,
merchants, moneylenders, doctors, and artisans,2o and they cultivated extensive
personal and professional ties with Christians. 21
book, Between Christian and Jew: Conversion and Inquisition in the Medieval Crown ofAra-
gon (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), offers a detailed analysis ofPere's case.
14 ACB, C126, fol. 88r.
IS ACB, C126, fol. 90r.
16 ACB, C126, fols. 88r-93v. Jucef de Quatorze received the death penalty because he was
considered a repeat offender. He had allegedly previously foreswom bringing Christians over
to Judaism. •
17 On medieval inquisitors' use of earlier trial records, see James B. Given, Inquisition and
Medieval Society: Power. Discipline, and Resistance in Languedoc (Ithaca: Comell University
Press, 1997), esp. 26.
18 On the massacres and forced conversions of 1391, see Jaume Riera i Sans, "Los tumultos
contra las juderias de la Corona de Aragon en 1391," Cuadernos de historia: Anejos de la re-
vista Hispania 8 (1977): 213-25 and Philippe Wolff, ''The 1391 Pogrom in Spain: Social Crisis
or Not?" Past and Present 50 (1971): 4-18.
19 David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996),26-27.
20 On the history of Jews in the Crown of Aragon from 1213 to 1327, see Yom Tov Assis, The
Golden Age ofAragonese Jewry: Community and Society in the Crown ofAragon, J2 J3-1327
(Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1997).
21 See Josep Baucells i Reig, Vivir en la Edad Media: Barcelona y su entorno en los siglos
Xlll y XlV. 1200-1344 (Barcelona: Consejo superior de investigaciones cientificas, Institucion
Mila y Fontanals, 2005), 2: 1717 and Nirenberg, Communities of Violence, 38-40.
The Toledot Yeshu and Jewish-Christian Conflict in the Medieval Crown ofAragon 30 I
The peace, however, was tense, and the rivalry that had characterized Jewish-
Christian relations since the birth of Christianity endured. In spite of their posi-
tion of dominance, for example, Christians remained fearful that the "sons of the
crucifiers" might still be conspiring for evil purposes. 22 Thus, every year during
Holy Week, Christian boys stoned the walls of Jewish quarters,23 and rumors
about Jews engaging in ritual murder and host desecration in alleged reenact-
ment of the crucifixion circulated, as did accusations about Jews poisoning wells
in an effort to destroy Christendom. 24 Into the early decades of the fourteenth
century, Mendicant friars preached compulsory conversionary sermons during
which Christian hangers-on harassed and humiliated Jewish audiences. 25 And,
in spite of their mandate to focus on Christian heretics, medieval inquisitors
repeatedly prosecuted individual Jews and entire Jewish communities on the
grounds that these Jews sought to harm Christians and undermine Christianity.26
Jews were not passive in the face of these injuries, and one of the ways they
responded was by denigrating Christians and Christianity in private. Thus, they
recited passages disparaging of Christians and Christianity in prayers such as the
Birkot ha-Shahar, the Amida. and the Alenu. 27 They composed learned polem-
ics that stressed the irrationality of Christian doctrine and portrayed Christian
society as intellectually and morally inferior. 28 And they ridiculed Christianity
22 See Solomon Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the Thirteenth Century. Vol. I.,
119S-1254, (2 nd ed. New York: Hermon Press, 1966), 104-9 (#14).
23 See Nirenberg, Communities of Violence, 200-230.
24 On accusations of ritual murder in the Crown of Aragon, see Yitzhak Baer, A History of
the Jews in Christian Spain (trans. Louis Schoffinan; Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication
Society of America, 1992),2:6-7 and Elena Lourie, "A Plot which Failed? The Case of the
Corpse Found in the Jewish Call of Barcelona (1301)," Mediterranean Historical Review I
(1986): 187-220. On charges of host desecration, see Miri Rubin, Gentile Tales: The Narrative
Assault on Late Medieval Jews (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 109-15
and Joaquim Miret i Sans, "El proces de les hosties contra'lsjueus d'Osca en 1377," Anuari
de I'instilut d'estudis catalans 4 (1911): 79-80. On charges of well poisoning, see Nirenberg,
Communities of Violence, 108-10.
25 See Jaume Riera i Sans, "Les IIicencies reials per predicar als jueus i als sarrains (Segles
XIII-XIV)," Calls 2 (1987): 113-43 and Robin Vose, Dominicans, Muslims and Jews in the Me-
dieval Crown ofAragon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 133-39 and 155-61.
26 On inquisitorial activity in the medieval Crown of Aragon in general, see Eufemia Fort i
Cogul, Catalunya i la inquisicio (Barcelona: Editorial Aedos, 1973) and Johannes Vincke, Zur
Vorgeschichte der Spanischen Inquisition: Die Inquisition in Aragon, Katalonien, Mal/orca und
Valencia wiihrend des J3. und 14. Jahrhunderts (Bonn: Peter Hanstein Verlagsbuchhandlung,
1941).
27 On the situation in southern France, see Yerushalmi, "The Inquisition and the Jews,"
354-63. On the cursing of Christians in Ashkenaz, see Israel J. Yuval, Two Nations in Your
Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2006), 115-34.
28 Examples from Iberia include the twelfth-century Milhamot ha-Shem (The Wars of the
Lord) of Jacob ben Reuben, the Kelimat ha-Goyim (Shame of the Gentiles) of the Catalan
scholar, Protiat Duran (c. 1350-c. 1415), the Bittullkkarei ha-Nozrim (The Refutation of the
Christian Principles) of the Catalan philosopher and halakhist Hasdai Crescas (c.1340-141 0),
302 Paola Tartakojf
in coarse folktales, such as the Toledot Yeshu. Indeed, other attestations of the
Toledot Yeshu have come to light from the medieval Crown of Aragon, beyond
the one preserved in the records of Pere's case. The elaborate 'Even Bochan
(Touchstone) that Shem Tov ben Isaac ibn Shaprut composed in 1380 or 1385
in Tarragona echoes elements of the Toledot Yeshu,29 and the shorter Qeshet
u-Maghen (Bow and Shield) that Shimon ben Tzemach Duran of Majorca com-
posed in 1423 in Algiers contains a description of Mary's adultery.30 In addition,
the Catalan Dominican, Ramon Marti, included a Latin translation of a version
of the Toledot Yeshu in his compendium of anti-Jewish polemic, the Pugio
fidei (Dagger offaith, 1278).31 And, toward the end of the fourteenth century,
the Catalan Franciscan, Francesc Eiximenis, who was familiar with the Pugio
fidei, strongly condemned the Toledot Yeshu in his Vita Christi (Life of Christ,
1397-1399), which circulated widely among the Christian laity.J2 As a form of
internal anti-Christian polemic, the Toledo! Yeshu buttressed Jews psychologi-
cally against the allures of Christian culture at the same time as it armed Jews
against the arguments of Christian preachers.
Although we cannot know to what extent the charges against the Almulis and
Jucef de Quatorze were true and whether Jucef de Quatorze actually used the
Toledot Yeshu to re-Judaize Pere,33 these accusations inevitably contained ele-
ments that were drawn from lived experience and, as such, they promise further
to illuminate the world of internal Jewish polemics in the medieval Crown of
Aragon. For example, regardless of whether or not Jucef de Quatorze actually
recited the Toledot Yeshu on the night of January 4, 1341, Pere's words may
accurately describe the intimate context in which Jews typically told the tale.
the Even Bochan (Touchstone, 1380 or 1385) of Shem tov ben Isaac ibn Shaprut, and the Qeshet
u-Maghen (Bow and Shield) of Shim on ben Tzemach Duran (1361-1444).
29 See George Howard, "A Primitive Hebrew Gospel of Matthew and the Tol'doth Yeshu,"
NTS 34 (1988): 6(}-70 and Di Segni, "Due Nuovi Fonti," 129. For bibliography on the Even
Bochhan, see Samuel Krauss, The Jewish-Christian Controversy from the Earliest TImes to
1789 (ed. William Horbury; Ttibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995), 1:241--42.
30 See Di Segni, ibid., 129. For bibliography on the Qeshet u-Maghen, see Krauss, Jewish-
Christian Controversy, 1:212-13.
31 Pugiofidei adversus mauros etjudaeos (Leipzig, 1687),362-64.
32 David J. Viera, "The Evolution of Francesc Eiximenis' Attitudes toward Judaism," in
Friars and Jews in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (eds. Steven J. McMichael et al.; Leiden:
Brill, 2004), 152.
33 Pere's story has come down to us through multiple filters, including the words of in qui si-
tors who had vested ideological, financial, and professional interests in discovering guilt, the
translations and interpretations of inquisitorial scribes, the utterances of frightened Jewish
defendants who endured prison and torture and simply may have said what they thought in-
quisitors wanted to hear, the assertions of two impoverished Jewish witnesses who may have
born a grudge against the wealthy Almulis and Jucef de Quatorze, and the confessions of Pere
who, as we shall see, as a Jewish apostate, may have wished to malign the Almulis and Jucef de
Quatorze. For an overview of the controversy concerning the reliabi lity of inquisitorial sources,
see Renee Levine Melammed, A Question ofIdentity: Iberian Conversos in Historical Perspec-
tive (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 28-29.
Indeed, it is noteworthy that, according to Pere, Jucef not only narrated the
Toledot Yeshu at night, in the kitchen, by the fire, and among friends, but also
in the presence of three women - Jamila Almuli, Miriam Navarro, and Vellida,
the Almulis' daughter-in-law. These women reportedly participated "as much as
the men" in urging Pere to renounce Christianity.34 ]n fact, according to Miriam,
Vellida specifically commanded Pere: "do as you are told!"35 And, after Pere
agreed to return to Judaism, Jamila is said to have poured everyone - presumably
including Pere - a glass of wine to celebrate. 36
An inquisitorial dossier from the second half of the fifteenth century similarly
portrays the Toledot Yeshu as the stuff of fireside lore. One century after Pere's
case, in a neighboring Aragonese village, a conversa named Salvadora Salvat
allegedly sat by the fire and told her children that "while Joseph was out of the
house, an iron-monger entered and lay with Mary, and that's where Jesus came
from." Moreover, Salvadora explained that she had heard this story from her
father, and she believed it. 37 As Salvadora's and Pere's confessions suggest, the
Toledot Yeshu likely circulated orally among ordinary Jews, and it had a place in
the Jewish home, a domain shared by men, women, and children.
The Toledo! Yeshu as a Jewish Tool for Recruiting Repentance
In more ways than one, however, Pere's confession before the tribunal of fra
Sancho de Torralba indicates that the Toledot Yeshu's intended audience was
not always strictly internal. To begin, if we are to believe Pere's story, then, on
at least one occasion in the medieval Crown of Aragon, Jews used the Toledot
Yeshu in an effort to convince an apostate to return to Judaism.
It is noteworthy that, in his Vita Christi, Francesc Eiximenis affirmed this
use of the narrative, remarking: "I have heard that this book of the devil (i. e.,
the Toledot Yeshu) is (found) in the large aljamas (i.e., Jewish communities) of
Spain and that it is read there among (Jews) in order to bring back (to Judaism)
those (Jews) who dare to make themselves Christians."38 Eiximenis may have
been familiar with Pere's trial,39 in which case his comment may indicate merely
34 ACB, C126, fol. 48v.

35 ACB, C 126, fol. 48r.
36 ACB, C126, fols. 49r and SIr.
37 See Eleazar Gutwirth, "Gender, History, and the Judeo-Christian Polemic," in Contra
ludaeos: Ancient and Medieval Polemics between Christians and Jews (eds. Ora Limor and
Guy G. Stroumsa; Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996),272.
38 Vic, Spain, Museu Episcopal de Vic, MS 172, fol. 34r.
39 Some Christians were familiar with Pere's case one century later. In 1503, at the height of
the Spanish Inquisition's campaign against crypto-Judaism, the Dominican inquisitor general,
Diego de Deza (successor to Tomb de Torquemada), requested a copy of the final sentence in
the case (ACB, CI26, fols. 93v-94r). In conformity with inquisitorial protocol, this sentence
304 Paola Tartakoff
that Pere's story led Christians to believe that Jews employed the Toledot Yeshu
in re-Judaization efforts. If Eiximenis heard about the practice from elsewhere,
however, then there must have been additional accusations to the effect that Jews
used the Toledot Yeshu to bring apostates back to Judaism. Unfortunately, it is
not possible to track Eiximenis' source.
Records of a mid-sixteenth century trial conducted by the Venetian Inquisi-
tion, however, document an episode that resembles the one described by Pere,
thereby suggesting that Jews beyond the Crown of Aragon also may have used
the Toledot Yeshu in re-Judaization efforts. According to the confession of a
convert named Francesco Colonna, following his baptism, Jews sought to make
him renounce Christianity by saying "many horrible things against Christ and
the Virgin Mary," including ... "that (Christ) was a bastard and a fraud, that he
had entered the Holy of Holies and taken the Name of God and sewn it in his
side, and that it was on account of this that (Christ) performed miracles .. .'>40
It is well known that some Jews in the medieval Crown of Aragon did attempt
to re-Judaize apostates,41 nearly two hundred of whom emerge from the pages of
royal and episcopal registers between 1243 and 1391.42 Some of these Jews were
motivated by love of estranged friends and relatives. 43 And they all acted in ac-
cordance with the teaching of the great Ashkenazi halakhist Rashi (1040--1105),
according to whom apostates were still legally Jews and it was incumbent upon
them to return to Judaism,44 as well as in keeping with the exhortations of the
Jewish political and spiritual leader of Barcelona, Rabbi Isaac ben Abraham
Ishbili (1250--1330, known as "Ritva"), who declared in a responsum that it was
a great mitzvah "to save a Jewish soul from the desecration of idol-worship and
opened with a summary of the entire proceedings, and it is likely that Deza hoped to mine the
document for information useful to his own work.
40 See Processi del S. U./fizio di Venezia contro Ebrei e Giudaizzanti (1548-1560) (ed. Pier
Cesare Ioly-Zorattini; Florence: Leo S. Olschki editore, 1980), 1:95-100.
41 See Edward Fram, "Perception and Reception of Repentant Apostates in Medieval Ashke-
naz and Premodern Poland," AJS Review 21 (1996): 299-339; Joseph Shatzmiller, "Converts
and Judaizers in the Early Fourteenth Century," HTR 74 (1981): 63-77; and Maurice Kriegel,
"Pn!marranisme et inquisition dans la Provence des xiii e et xiV< siecles," Provence Historique
29 (1978): 313-23.
42 See Paola Tartakoff, "Jewish Women and Apostasy in the Medieval Crown of Aragon,
c.1300 - 1391," Jewish History 24 (2010): 8-9
43 See, for example, Joseph Shatzmiller, Recherches sur la communaute juive de Manosque
au Moyen Age. 1241-1329 (with a preface by Georges Duby; Paris: Mouton, 1973),58-60; Die
Juden im Christlichen Spanien: Erster Teil Urkunden und Regesten (ed. Yitzhak Baer; Berlin:
Akademie Verlag, 1929/1936), 1:201-3 (#164); Jean Regne, "Rapports entre I'Inquisition et
les Juifs d'apres le memorial de I'inquisiteur d'Aragon (fin du xiv< siecle)," REJ 53 (1906):
229; and Bernard Gui, Practica inquisitionis heretice pravitatis (ed. Celestin Douais; Paris:
Picard, 1886). 288.
44 See Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance (Oxford: Behrman House Inc., 1961),69-73
and "Although he has Sinned, he Remains a Jew," Tarbiz 27 (1958): 203-17 (in Hebrew).
to bring it back in repentance."45 These Jews reached out to apostates in spite of

the dangers posed by vigilant inquisitors, resentful fellow Jews, and inscrutable
apostates themselves. 46 Once apostates agreed to renounce Christianity, they
were officially readmitted into the Jewish community following public acts of
penance or a popular rite of re-Judaization that centered on ritual immersion. 47
Insofar as re-Judaization efforts involved retrieving souls from the bosom of
the Church and reclaiming them for Israel, they constituted bold expressions of
Jewish defiance toward Christians and Christianity. And although the techniques
Jews used to evince repentance are difficult to verify, it is clear that the Toledot
Yeshu bore the potential to serve as a powerful tool in this enterprise. Like any
kind of anti-Christian blasphemy, the Toledot Yeshu would have embarrassed
apostates by mocking the tenets to which they had subscribed. It is noteworthy,
however, that the version of the Toledot Yeshu that Jucef de Quatorze allegedly
used during his encounter with Pere was relatively gentle in its critique of Chris-
tianity. Indeed, although the narrative plainly stated that Christianity was based
on lies and deception, it portrayed the faith as more pathetic than evil. Unlike
some later attestations of the Toledot Yeshu. it did not describe Mary as menstru-
ating (and therefore ritually impure) at the time of Jesus' conception, it depicted
Jesus in generally complimentary terms, and it portrayed Jesus' discovery of
the ineffable name of God as accidental. 48 Moreover, this version of the Toledot
Yeshu, unlike others, barely mentioned Jesus' trial and death. It is possible that
Jucef de Quatorze or other Jews tailored the Toledot Yeshu to suit particular oc-
casions. In situations involving vacillating apostates, they may have deemed it
wise to ridicule Christianity in a relatively moderate way and to focus on under-
mining foundational Christian claims - for instance, about the virginity ofMary
and the divinity of Christ - rather than dwelling on historical or biographical
details about Jesus. The goal, after all, was not primarily to humiliate apostates
but to cajole them into returning home. In addition, to the extent that Jews were
commonly raised on the Toledot Yeshu. the narrative could have exerted pres-
sure on apostates by reminding them of the rejection of Christian principles as it
had figured in their earliest memories, triggering feelings of nostalgia and guilt.
45 Sheelot u-Teshuvot (ed. Yosef Kafah; Jerusalem, 1959), \87-90 (# 159). On Francesc
Eiximenis' response to the Jewish accusation that Christianity was idolatrous, see Viera, "The
Evolution of Francesc Eiximenis'sAttitudes," 151-52.
46 On the inquisitorial prosecution of Jews charged with re-Judaizing apostates, see Jean
Regne, comp., History of the Jews in Aragon: Regesta and Documents (J 213-1327) (ed. Yom
Tov Assis; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1978),218-19 (#1206), 548 (#2966), 599 (#3259), and
624-25 (#3419). On Jews denouncing other Jews for re-Judaizing apostates, see Shatzmiller,
Recherches sur la communaute juive de Manosque, 55 and 59.
47 See Shatzmiller, "Converts and Judaizers" and Yerushalmi, "The Inquisition and the
Jews," 363-74.
48 See Di Segni, "Due nuovi fonti," 129-30.
306 Paola Tartakoff
The Toledot Yeshu in Open Confrontations with Christians
The records of the trials of Janto and Jamila Almuli and Jucef de Quatorze sug-
gest that, on occasion, the intended audience for the Toledo! Yeshu may have
been even broader than Jews and apostates. Indeed, the testimonies of Pe re and
the Navarros all intimate that Pere's Jewish advisors encouraged Pere to broad-
cast the Toledo! Yeshu to the justice of Calatayud in order to ensure that he would
condemn Pere to the stake and thereby enable him to bum to death as a Jewish
martyr. Thus, in the medieval Crown of Aragon, the Toledo! Yeshu may have had
a place in open confrontations with Christians.
Pere claimed that Janto Almuli told him to tell the justice of Calatayud that
"Christians believe(d) a false thing because they believe(d) that God came (to
earth) through a woman whom Christians call Holy Mary, and that they believed
a dead thing, and that he whom Christians called Jesus, and ... whom they be-
lieved to be God, was not God but, rather, a fraud."49 Similarly, according to
Solomon Navarro, Pere was to declare that "Christ whom Christians worship is
not God nor was he (ever) God or he would not have died. Rather, he was an ac-
cursed fraud and the son of the greatest whore."5o Finally, according to Miriam,
Pere was told to say that "Jesus whom (Christians) adore is not God. Rather, he
is and was an accursed fraud, and his mother Mary, whom Christians worship,
was a great whore and a cheap woman."51
These words not only encapsulate the essence of Jucef de Quatorze's version
of the Toledo! Yeshu, but they also closely follow the opening line of his narra-
tive: "Jesus ... was not God but an accursed bastard whose mother conceived
him through adultery."52 Indeed, it is possible that they were actually shorthand
for the Toledo! Yeshu, whether on the part of the Jews as they allegedly spoke to
Pere, of Pere and the Navarros as they stood before the tribunal of fra Sancho de
Torralba, or of inquisitorial scribes as tl;~y put pen to paper. Moreover, given the
inflammatory contents ofthe Toledu! Yeshu, it is possible that the narrative was
referred to using shorthand more often than-we shall ever know. Several docu-
ments from the medieval Crown of Aragon allude to Jews insulting Christ and
Mary in ways that involved elements of the Toledo! Yeshu. In 1305, for example,
a Jew from the region of Huesca was denounced for declaring that Jesus had
been conceived through adultery and for uttering other blasphemies "that cannot
be recounted or heard without tears. "53 Was this a reference to the Toledo! Yeshu?
Surely, from a Christian perspective, the less the Toledo! Yeshu was heard, the
49 ACB, C126, fol. 42v.

50 ACB, C126, fol. 45r.
51 ACB, C126, fol. 48v.
52 ACB, C126, fot. 50r.
53 Baer, Die Juden im Christlichen Spanien, 184-88 (#157).
better. Francesc Eiximenis, for one, wanted "the kings of Spain" to burn and pro-
hibit this "book of the devil" so that it would never again "be seen or named."54
The possibility that Jews may have commanded a repentant apostate to unveil
the Toledot Yeshu in broad daylight in order to draw Christians into participat-
ing in their plan suggests that Jews knew that the Toledot Yeshu could leave no
Christian unmoved. 55 Indeed, according to Miriam Navarro, the Jews told Pere:
"when you will have said these (words, i. e., about Christ being a fraud and
Mary a whore), the justice will immediately (agree to burn you at the stake). "56
And Salomon Navarro claimed that the Jews told Pere that, after saying these
things, "the justice would proceed against him without any delay."57 In point of
fact, Christian authorities in the medieval Crown displayed little tolerance for
"heretical words" that, as the bishop of Girona, Jaume de Trilla, put it in 1373,
might "infect the Lord's sheep."58 Moreover, clerics were particularly alarmed
by blasphemous words that were uttered within earshot of suggestible Chris-
tians. Thus, fra Bernat de Puigcerc6s opened his draft of the final sentence for
the Almulis and Jucef de Quatorze by noting that these "Jews not only led certain
Christians, who were previously Jews, to return to the Jewish perfidy in secret,
but that they also led them publicly to profess said perfidy, publicly to deny the
faith of Christ, and publicly and with abominable words to blaspheme (against)
Christ and his mother and the Law of Christ" (emphasis mine).59 It follows that,
if the charges against the Almulis and Jucef de Quatorze were true, these Jews
would have gauged well how to manipulate the justice of Calatayud, although
clearly at great personal cost.
The Toledot Yeshu as a Weapon in the Hands of Jewish Apostates
The possibility that Pere entirely fabricated his charges against the Almulis and
Jucef de Quatorze is problematic, not least of all because it fails to account for
Pere's near death at the stake. It cannot be discounted, however, and it, in turn,
suggests yet another potential role for the Toledot Yeshu in the context of Jewish-
Christian tensions in medieval Iberia. Precisely because the Toledot Yeshu was
such an abomination to Christians, apostates who sought to harm their former
co-religionists could, to great effect, accuse Jews of reciting the narrative.
54 Museu Episcopal de Vie, MS 172, fol. 34r.

ss On Christian reactions to the Toledot Yeshu. see Yaaeov Deutseh, 'Toledot Yeshu' in Chris-
tian Eyes: Reception and Response to 'Toledot Yeshu' in the Middle Ages and the Early Modem
Period (MA thesis, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1997 [in Hebrew]).
56 ACB, C126, fol. 48v.
57 ACB, C126, fol. 45r.
5~ Jaume Puig i Oliver, "Documents Relatius a la Inquisici6 del 'Registrum Litterarum' de
I' Arxiu Diocesa de Girona (s. XIV)," Arxiu de Tex:tos Catalans Antics 17 (1998): 447-48 (#59).
59 ACB, C126, fol. 83v.
308 Paola TartakoJf
Many of the Jewish apostates who lived in the medieval Crown of Aragon
prior to 1391 were angry at particular Jews, if not at the Jewish community as a
whole. Indeed, intra-Jewish strife (relating, for example, to excommunications,
ideological disagreements, instances of physical violence, and the personal
consequences of particular laws) often led to apostasy in the first place, and
apostates were frequently eager to take revenge against their Jewish antagonists.
Time and again, apostates therefore denounced Jews to bishops and inquisitors
for alleged crimes against Christians and Christianity (presumably hoping, in the
process, also to rise in Christians' esteem). For example, in 1324, an apostate
named Ram6n warned the Jewish scribe of Calatayud, Judah Hochon, that if
he did not pay him 10 Jaca l/iures, he would report him to the local inquisition,
presumably for some crime against the Catholic faith. When Judah refused to
pay Ram6n, Ram6n denounced him, and Judah was arrested and imprisoned
by the prior of the Dominican convent of Calatayud. 60 Similarly, a register of
denunciations that were made to the tribunal of the inquisitor general of the
Crown ofAragon during the 1370s tells of an apostate named Jaume Bisnes who
denounced a Jew by the name of Lupus Abnacay for host desecration. 61 And in
1389, an apostate denounced a Jew from Montblanc named Vidal Brunell to the
inquisitor fra Guillem de Tous for possessing an allegedly blasphemous book
by Maimonides (probably the Se/er Shoftim of the Mishneh Torah), unleashing
a grueling inquisitorial investigation. 62
If Pere fabricated his charges against the Almulis and Jucef de Quatorze,
then his case constitutes one more example of an apostate seeking to harm his
former co-religionists by denouncing Jews to Christian authorities for offenses
against Christians and the Catholic faith. Moreover, the Toledot Yeshu would
have played a central role in Pere's scheme, for, an entire year after Pere first
told the tribunal of fra Sancho de Torralba about his alleged encounter with the
Almulis and Jucef de Quatorze on the night of January 4, 1341, Jucef's reported
words still stung as much as his imputed actions. Indeed, in his final sentence, fra
Bemat de Puigcercos excoriated Jucef de Quatorze, not only for having led an
apostate to renounce Christianity and bum at the stake, but also for "having said
unspeakably cruel words against the Christian faith, the holy son of God, Jesus
Christ, and his holy mother, the Blessed Virgin, Our Lady, Mary."63 A source of
strength for Jews, shame for apostates, and outrage for Christians, the Toledot
Yeshu, then, could be dynamite in the hands of a vengeful apostate.
60 Acta Aragonensia: Quellen zur deutschen. italienischen. jranziisischen. Spanischen. zur

Kirchen- und Kulturgeschichte aus der diplomatischen Korrespondenz Jaymes J/ (1291-1327)
(ed. Heinrich Finke; Berlin: W. Rothschild, 1908-1922), 2:861--{i2 (#542).
61 See Miret, "El proces de les hosties," 59-80 and Rubin, Gentile Tales, 86-87 and 109-15.
62 See Jaume Riera i Sans, "Un proces inquisitorial contra els jueus de Montblanc per un
l\ibre de Maimonides," Aplec de Treballs 8 (1987): 59-73.
63 AeB, C126, fol. 90v.
The Toledol Yeshu and Jewish-Christian Conflict in the Medieval Crown ofAragon 309
The relatively mild nature of the version of the Toledot Yeshu that Pere put in
the mouth of JucefQuatorze suggests, however, that Pere's primary aim actually
was not to destroy Jucef. If it had been, Pere presumably would have given the
tribunal of fra Sancho de Torralba a far more vitriolic rendition of the tale. This
observation, in turn, strengthens the possibility that Jews actually did recount
the Toledo! Yeshu in an effort to re-Judaize Pere and that Pere's claims were, at
least to some extent, true.
Further research regarding the history of the textual transmission of the Toledot
Yeshu promises to shed additional light on the narrative that Jucef de Quatorze
is said to have told on the night of January 4, 1341. In itself, however, this at-
testation of the Toledot Yeshu significantly deepens our understanding of the
functions that the parody may have played in medieval Iberia. Insofar as it was
a centerpiece of an epic inquisitorial trial against Jews and converts in the mid-
fourteenth-century Crown of Aragon, it is clear that the Toledot Yeshu played
an important role in Jewish-Christian conflict beyond the learned polemics
of Ram6n Mart!, Shem Tov ben Isaac ibn Shaprut, and Shimon ben Tzemach
Duran. More specifically, however, this attestation also grants a glimpse of the
humble and clandestine circumstances under which ordinary Jews commonly
told the tale, it suggests that Jews drew upon the Toledot Yeshu in their efforts
to re-Judaize apostates, it raises the possibility that the narrative was brandished
in open confrontations with Christians, and it shows how a wily apostate could
have used his knowledge of the Toledot Yeshu to harm Jews.
If the text thus illuminates relatively obscure aspects of Jewish-Christian ten-
sions in medieval Iberia, however, this broader context may, conversely, deepen
our understanding of the text. As we discussed above, it seems probable that
Jews molded the contents of the Toledo! Yeshu to suit particular goals and audi-
ences. It follows that the remarkably protean nature of the Toledo! Yeshu may
have been a product, not only of the particular sources that were at the disposal of
Jews in specific times and places, but also of a creative process that was shaped
by the ever-evolving exigencies of Jewish existence.
Index·
'Abd al-Jabbar 145-47,157 Aramaic versions 13-26,33-35,46,48,

Ab urbe condita (Livy) 183 54,57-58,72,92-93,102,119-21,138,
Abner ofBurgos 54-55, 293 165~6, 181, 191,237,240-41
Abraham bar Hiyya 177, 222 Armillus 140
Acta Petri 268, 281 'Aseret ha-Dibrot 104, 113
Acta Pi/ati 59,91,94, 188 'Asham Talui 52
Acts 1:15-26 199 AvigdorofVienna 173-74
Acts 1:18 213
Acts 8:18-24 268 b. Bava Metzi 'a 74
Acts 13:29 193 b.Berakhot59b 235
Ad nationes (Tertullian) 183 b. Giltin 56b-57a 73, 192, 203
Adversus haereses (Irenaeus) 272-73 b. Hagiga 12b 32
Afendipulo, Caleb 51 b. Ketubbot 1I1 b 186
Agobard 29fT., 54, 58, 102,230,237, b. Pesahim 118b 235
287 b. Sanhedrin 38b 57
Agobard (De Judaicis superstitionibus) b. Sanhedrin 43a-b 34, 56, 72, 259
31-33,182,240 b. Sanhedrin 67a 38
Agobard (list of works) 30,39-40 b.ShabbatlO4b 38,72-73,155,287,292
Aharon, rabbi 128 b. Sukkah 2b-3a 268
Ai (city) 224 Babylonia 103,108-9
Akiva, rabbi 75 Baghdad 104
Alexander, Michael Solomon 149 Baghdad version 56, 138
Alfonso de Espina 289 Balaam ben Beor 122
Alfonso de Valladolid See Abner ofBurgos Ba1dur myth 187
Alliance Israelite Universelle 148 Barcelona (Jewish community of) 304
Almuli family 299-300, 303 Barcelona cathedral (archive of) 298-99
'Alpha 'Beta de-Ben Sira' 104, 113 Basil I 127
Altercatio Simonis ludaei et Theophili Bel/um Judaicum (Josephus) 264-65
Christiani 172 Ben-Sason, Isaac ben Mordecai 52-53
Amulo 29fT., 44fT., 54, 58,102,230,237, Ben Sira' See Toledot Ben Sira'
287 Ben Stada 286
Amulo (Liber contra Judaeos) 45, 58, 189 Bereshit Rabbah 8:9 57
Anonymous ofPassau 287-88 Bereshit Rabbah 46 275
Antiquitates Judaicae (Josephus) 265~7 Bereshit Rabbah 46: 11 266, 268
Apocalypticism See Eschatology Birth narrative See Conception narrative
Apocrypha (Christian) 89 If., 235, 252-53 Bishes, Jaume 308
Aqueduct See Water conduit/reservoir Bishopric of Jerusalem 149
Aqueduct of Jerusalem 193-94 Bodo 43
Arabic Gospel of the Infancy of the Savior Bokhara version 55, 138
106,111-12 Book of Esther 159 fT., 167~8, 170--71,
Aragon 298 fT. 177
Aramaic linguistics and dialects 13-26 Book of the Cock 90 fT.
• Compiled by Michae1 Meerson.

312 Index
Book of the Resurrection (Bartholomew) Deuteronomy 18:20 258

91-92, 188 Deuteronomy 19: 19 258
Botany 186-91 Deuteronomy 21 :23 173-74
Bova-Bukh 81 Deuteronomy 32:29 261
Brenz, Samuel Friedrich 64, 85 Digesta 48: 13.7 170, 184
Bruce, James 148 Digesta 48:19.28 183
Brunell, Vidal 308 Digesta 48: 19.38 170, 184
BurialofYeshu 191-95,203-4,241 Disputation, Jewish-Christian 141 ff.
Buxtorf, Johann 65, 283 Disputation, Paris 53-54
Cabbage stalk 35,162,186-91 Easter 178

Calatayud 298 If. Ecotype See Folklore research
Carmen apologeticum (Commodian) 193 Elchanan 161,234
Carolingian empire/society 29,39,43,48, E1eazar Kalir 228
58 Eliezer, rabbi 75
Celsus (ap. Origen) 38,59,242-43,285 Elijah/Eliahu See Paul
Charlemagne 29 'Ekhah Rabbah 113
Christianity in Muslim countries 139-40 'Emunot ye-De 'ot (Sa'adia) 140
Christmas 178 Ephraim ofBonn 292,294
Clementine homilies 235 Epiphanius (bishop of Cyprus) 126
Colonna, Francesco 304 Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum 145
Commodian 193 Eppendorf 191
Conception narrative 4,36,59,67,72, 'Ester Rabbah 163
81-82, 149-52, 166 'Eten Tehilla See Yam Kippur
Constantine I 262--{i3 Eucherius of Lyon 171
Conversion (Jewish and Christian) 43-44, Eusebius 276
63--{i5,143,233,267,275-76,2971f. Evagrius 171
Copyists 51 'Eve/ Rabbali 194
Corinthians 115:3-7 231 'Even Bohan 13,54,293,302
Corio/anus (Plutarch) 182 Evrard 39-40
Corpus Juris Civilis See Digesta Execution ofYeshu 182-86
Crimea 51 Exodus 4:22 57
Cross 170, 185, 208-11 Ezekiel3:6 226
Crucifixion 170-71
Crux See Cross Fasting 222
Curses mentioning Judas 205 Faust 109
Festivals (list of) 56, 239
Daniel 11:4 226 Fight in the air (Yehuda with Yeshu) 201
Daniel 11:14 67,73 Finding of the True Cross 208-11, 262, 274,
Dante 199 281
Date of composition and copying 24-25,28, Folklore research 255
48,51,53,59,66-70,99-100,226,230, Folk-narrative 101 If., 1091f., 255
236 If., 284, 287, 294 Fortalitiumfidei (A1fonso de Espina) 289,
Dawud ibn Marwan a1-Muqammis 145 294
De mortibus persecutorum (Lactantius) Francesc Eiximenis 302
276 Frank, Jacob 52
De Rossi version 69-70, 76-77, 192, 204, Frankist movement 52
228-29, 256,260--{i2 Frederick the Great of Prussia 175
De spectaculis (Tertullian) 188,242-43, Furca (fork) 35,45, 182-86
286
Decameron 69 Galatians 2: 11 223
Deuteronomy 13:7-12 201 Gelasius of Caesarea 277
Deuteronomy 17: 11 261 Genizah fragments See Aramaic versions
Index 313
Germiza See Worms Invenio Crucis See Finding of the True

Gnostic texts 271-72 Cross
Golden Legend See Legenda A urea Irenaeus 272-73
Gospel according to the Hebrews 98, 146 Isaac ben Abraham Ishbili (Ritva) 304-5
Gospel of John 64 Isaac ofTroki 52
Gospel of Judas 97 Isaiah 11: I 57
Gospel of Ni codemus See Acts of Pilate Isaiah 11:4 258, 261
Gospel of Thomas 231,272 Isaiah 14: 13 259
Gregorius I 2 \3-14 Isaiah 23: 15-17 272
Groves, Anthony 148 Isaiah 33: 19 226
Guillem de Tous 308 Islam See Muslim society
'Ishrun Maqala 145
Halacha See Law. Jewish Israel (as a term) 218
Halicz (southern Poland) 51 Italian version See De Rossi version
Haman 159 ff., 17(}--71 Izates 265--67
Hanging (execution) 17(}--71
Harvestehude (Cistercian nunnery) 191 Jacob ben Meir See Rabbenu Tarn
Hasidim 84 Jacob Kirkisani 39,52
Hazzan, David 52 Jacobus de Voragine 211
Hazzanim 51 Jaume de Trilla 307
Hebrew versions (translations and sum- Jeremiah 23:6 261
maries) 36-37,49-50,71, 114-15, 117, Jerome (Hieronymus) 198
119-20,181,237-38,256-63 Jerusalem 192-95,278-79
Hekhalot literature 38, 44 Jerusalem (rivalry with Samaria) 272
Helen (queen in TY) 59,73,210,247 Jew (as a term) 218
Helen (queen of Adiabene) 248,264fT., Jews in Spain 300
273-79 John I :42 223
Helen (wife ofSimon Magus) 268-73 John 2: \3-25 202
Helen group See Hebrew versions John 3:22 202
Helena Augusta 262--64, 273-77 John 5:16-18 202
Heresies ofYeshu 74-77 John 6:28 231
Herod 193 John 7:1 202
Herod group See Huldreich versions John \3 :36 231
Hieronymus See Jerome John 18: 17-27 231
Hildesheimer, Azriel 148 John 19:18 170
Historia ecciesiastica (Gelasius of Caesarea) John 19:38 193
277 John 19:41 188
His/oria ecciesiastica (Socrates) 171-72 John 19:41-42 203
Historia plantarum (Theophrastus) 189-90 John 20:2-10 231
Hochon,Judah 308 John of Damascus 139
Holy Sepulcher 203-4 Joseph ben Samuel 52
Holy sites (Jerusalem) 278-79 Joseph ha-Levi ha-Nagid 222
Honi Ha-Ma'agel 124 Joseph Karo 223
Huldreich version 37,61 fT., 192,204,206, Joseph of Arimathea 193
223-25 Josephus Flavius 264--67
Joshua 15:24 198
lbn al-' Arabi 152 Judah Hadassi 52
Ignatius of Antioch 183 Judas Cyriacus 209,263
In Matheum (Jerome) 198 Judas Iscariot 92-93,96-97, 132, 197 fT.
Incest 213-14,274 Judas Iscariot in Gospels 199
InefTable Name 65,119, 125fT. Judas' betrayal 202
Inquisition 298 fT. Judas' kiss 201
Inquisitorial version (TY) 198-99 Judeo-Arabic version 138
314 Index
Judeo-Persian version 138 Mark 14:71

Jurists, Roman 184 Mark 15:25 170
Jusef de Quatorze 298 ff. Mark 15:43 193
Justin Martyr 271-72,285 Mark 15:46 193
Martyrs (Christian) 206-7
Kabbalah 84 Mary (cult of) 68, 216
Kallah 15b-16a 73-76,238 Mary (portrayal of) 68, 72, 86-87, 275,
Karaites 39,51-53, 142 305~
Kings I 6: 19-20 268 Massacre of Christians 205-7
Kings I 8:41-42 268 Massacre of Jews 30 I
Kitab aI-usus 153 Matthew 4: 18 223
Kitto, John 148 Matthew 13:31-32 190
Matthew 13:54-58 123
Lactantius 276 Matthew 16:18 223
Lament of Mary 91-92 Matthew 21:9 34
Law, Jewish 83-84 Matthew21:1533
Law, Roman 183-85 Matthew 27:5 213
Legenda Aurea 211, 213, 217 Mecca 154-55
Letters of Obscure Men See Epistolae Ob- Megillah 175
scurorum Virorum Megillat Ahima 'az 127-128
Letters of Peter to James 235 Megillat Ta 'anit 222-23
Lithuania 51 Messiah (messianic movements) 131-133
Livy See Ab urbe condita Messiah ben David 47
London Society for Promoting Christianity Messiah ben Ephraim 47-48
148 Metatron 44
Luis the Pious 29,39 Miracles ofYeshu/ Jesus 123
Luke 4:16-30 123 Missions (Jewish and Christian) 148
Luke 19:38 34 Monbaz 265~7,274-76
Luther, Martin 289 Moses(copyist) 51-52
Mosul (northern Iraq) 242
m. Nazir 3:6 267,277 Muhammad 153-55
m. Yadayim 4:7 194 MUlier, lohann 283
m. Yoma 3:10 267 Muslim society 139ff.
Mahzor Vitry 227-28 Mustard 190-91
Mahzorim 175, 219
Maimonides 156,219,308 Nebuchadnezzar 107
Manuscript transmission 49 ff., 62~6, Nestorius 239-40
283-84 Nibtlungenlied 109
Marinus 33-34 Nicho1as of Lyra 289
Mark I:I~ 123 Nishmat kot hay 228, 235, 292
Mark 1: 16 231 Nitsahon Vetus 284
Mark 1:40-45 122 Numbers5:11-31267
Mark 3:16 231
Mark 8:33 231 Omitus 33
Mark 8:38 232 'Otiyyotde-Rabbi 'Aqiva 31-32,38-39
Mark 9:6 232
Mark 10:28 232 Pandera/Panthera 37-38,46-47,58,67,72,
Mark 11:9 34 81-82,285
Mark 11 :21 232 Pappos 37-38,67,72
Mark 14:41 232 Paralipomena Jeremiae 89-91
Mark 14:55 232 Pamell, John Vesey 148
Mark 14:68 232 Paul 55,70
Mark 14:69 233 Pau1inus of No la 171
Index 315
Penlagruel 145 Seder Rabbah di-Bereshit 32, 38

Pere's version (TY) See Inquisitorial version Sefer Hasidim 219
Persian conquest of Jerusalem 207 Sefer Yetsirah 31,38-39
Peshitta 146 Sefer Zerubbavel 140
Pesiqla Rabbali 34 47-48 Segre, Joshua 52
Pesiqla Rabbali 37 47-48 Seven Sages See Tales ofSendebar
Peter (Simeon Cepha/Kaipha) 35, 93, Shefatya, rabbi 127
134-35,177,22Iff.,268-69,292 Shem Tob ibn Shaprut 13, 54, 240, 302
Petrus Nigri 291 Shi 'ur Qomah 38
Pilate 33-34,37,86,193 Shimon ben Isaac ben Abun 234
Pilate group See Aramaic version Shimon ben Shetah 161
Plutarch See Coriolanus Shimon ben Tsemach Duran 302
Porchetus Salvaticus 289, 294 Shimon ha-Qalpus 70, 223-24
Prayers (anti-Christian) 301 Shulhan 'Arukh 223, 225
Provenance of composition 24-25,28,99, Siloam 192-93
239,242 Simeon Cepha See Peter
Psalms I: I 261 Simon Magus 268-73
Psalms 22:16-17 258 Slavic version 69,109,185-86, 192,229,
Psalms 24:7 57 256
Psalms 42:2 57 Socrates (Byzantine historian) 171-72
Psalms 49:15 (16) 181,259 Stauros See Cross
Psalms 67:5 31 Slern Messiah (Petrus Nigri) 291
Psalms 118:26 34 Strasbourg Ms. 49ff., 229, 240, 244, 257-60
Pugio Fidei (Raimundus Martinus) 53, Students ofYeshu 33,56,239
288-89,302 Sylvester (pope) 263
Purim 168 ff.
I. Miqva'oll:1 194
Qissal mujadalat al-usquf 143, 145 t. Shabbat 11 : 15 292
Qur'an 3:45-47 151 t. Sukkah I: I 268
Qur'an 3:48-49 151-52 t. Yoma 3:10 267
Qur'an 4: 156-59 153, 155 Tales ofSendebar 117
Qur'an 4:171 152 Tam u-Mu 'ad See Slavic version
Qur'an5:11O 152,155 Targum Sheni 161-162, 187
Qur'an 9:30 155 Tathbit dala 'iI al-nubuwwa 145
Qur'an 43:61 154 Tefillat Shimon ben Yohai 140
Qur'an61:6 155 Tehran 145
Tela ignea Satanae See Wagenseil
Rabanus Maurus I 71 Tertullian 27-28, 183,242-43,285-86
Rabbenu Tarn 227 Theobald of Saxony 53
Raimundus Martinus 53, 55, 58, 185, Theodosius 11 171
288-89,302 Theophrastus 189
Rashi (commentary on 'Avodah Zarah lOa) Thomas Ebendorfer 185,290-91
226 Tiberius 33, 37
Rashi (concerning apostates) 304 Title (Toledot Yeshu, etc.) 251
Responsa 173,304 Toledot Ben Sira' 105,107-8, 134
Troki (Wilna) 51
Sa'adia Gaon 140
Salmon ben Yeruham 39 Vashti 166
Samaria 271 Vayiqrah Rabbah 14 275
Samuel ibn Abbas 157 Veritas Hebraica 210
Sancho de Torralba 299,308 Vienna Ms. 260-61
Scholarship (Toledot Yeshu) 1-3, 13-14,28, Vita Christi 302
49,50-51,80 Vita Constantini (Eusebius) 276
316 Index
Volksbuch See Folk-narrative Yehoshua ben Levi 75

Von Aue, Hartmann 213 Yehoshua ben Perahyah 33-34,37,58, 165
Vulgate 171 Yehuda Ganina See Judas
Yemenite version 55,59, 138, 163,263
Wagenseil version 73, 185, 202, 240, 263 Yeshivas 108, 133-34
Wagenseil, Johann 63, 65 Yiddish version 62,69, 79tf.
Wandering Jew 109 Yom Kippur, liturgy of 228
Water conduit I reservoir 191-95
Wermiza See Worms Zechariah 14:20 277
Woltf, Joseph 148-49
Worms 66--67,69,204

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What are some of the versions of Toledot Yeshu discussed in the text?

What are some of the versions of Toledot Yeshu discussed in the text?

What are two perspectives discussed around the provenance and composition of Toledot Yeshu?

What are two perspectives discussed around the provenance and composition of Toledot Yeshu?

Table of Contents

Sarit Kattan Gribetz

Ora Limor and Israel Jacob YuvaJ

Index ...................................................... 311

Princeton, Berlin, Jerusalem, May 2011 Peter Schafer

Modem research on Toledot Yeshu - that enigmatic late antique-medieval tract

] Rassegna Mensile di Israel 50 (1984): 83-100.

version was composed in the fifteenth or sixteenth century at the earliest by an

14 Krauss, "Une nouvel\e recension," 65-73.

letter of Peter to James that serves as an introduction to the Homilies which

The Publication of the Aramaic Texts

Previous Discussions of the Aramaic Language of the Texts

Linguistic Analysis of the Vocabulary of TY

The arguments in Smelik's article are based mainly on several morphological

of TY in order to show that it is penneated by JBA and TA 17 to such an extent

1.1.7 I-verbal stems: In addition to the retention of I as in TA and JPA, there

29 See Eps, GBA, 50ff.

41 See Dalman, GJPA, 385.

3.1. JBA Vocabulary

73 See DJBA, 388 If.

90 See DJBA, 867, mng. 2.

IOS See mll\,=>bo ~; :»\,.0 SL, 1353.

5. All of the preceding evidence strongly points to the provenance of the

The following abbreviations are employed in this article:

PSm Robert Payne Smith, Thesaurus Syriacus (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon,

It has been one of the major methodological challenges of research on Toledot

I Tertullian, Spect. 30.

Tertullian's words must be regarded as "an excellent summary of everything

The passage that obviously relates to Toledo! Yeshu belongs to De Judaicis

This is a somewhat garbled version of the seven earths, netherworlds, and

18 PL 104:86c ff.; van Acker, Agobardi Lugdunensis opera omnia, 205 f.

37 On this, see Michael Meerson's article in this volume.

42 Ms. Cambridge T.-S. 35.87, fol. 2a, lines 27-28.

49 Origen, Contra Celsum 1:28; 1:32.

Yetsirah, despite certain attempts to date it much earlier,56 is firmly embedded

69 Van Acker, ibid., 193.

79 Van Acker, ibid., 232.

86 Battenberg, ibid., 55 f.; Heil, "Agobard," passim.

Amulo, Agobard's successor, ascended to the bishop's see of Lyons in 841. A

105 See above, p. 36--38.

110 Schafer, Geburt, 174 if.

12 Giovanni B. De Rossi, Mss. Codices Hebraici Bibliothecae I. B. de Rossi (3 vols., Panna,

however, was a probably nineteenth-century Hebrew fragment, a single leaf

mudic textual tradition, represented in Haggadot ha-Talmud, there are likewise

28 Schonfield, According to the Hebrews, 153-7.

The Manuscript Evidence and Implications for Authorship

3 Riccardo Di Segni, If vangefo del ghetto (Rome: Newton Compton, 1985),225-36.

of apostate infonnants. 11 Another feature of the Huldreich that could point to a

11 Samuel Friedrich Brenz, Jiidischer abgestreifter Schlangenbalg, 1680 ed., reprinted in

Preliminary Efforts at Dating the Huldreich

27 Krauss, ibid., 18.

The Uniqueness of the Huldreich: Rewriting Old Traditions

47 Schiifer, Jesus in the Talmud, 16--18.

SI Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 35-36 (Bischoff).

H. "The Words of the Sages Are Worthless": Jesus and Moses