Jesus problems in the Talmud

A herald?
In the last Talmud quote there was a herald declaring that Jesus was going to die 40 days before he did. This declaration was an opportunity for anyone to come forward to defend Jesus of the accusation of sorcery. The problem with this account is that no other sources agree with this account. Jesus did predict his death a few times, and Jesus did do things that could be seen as sorcery, but to say that Jesus was given a fair trial contradicts all other accounts.

The context of this Talmud passage is about the procedure for punishing someone of a crime. A herald is to go before the person to be tried declaring the crime and punishment in order for any witnesses to come forward. According to this passage it would have been unlawful for the Jewish council to arrest Jesus one night and kill him the next day, or to use false witnesses and to help your cause. It would be unlawful to kill a declared innocent man by the rulers. This tradition is later than the gospel accounts and maybe a response to the events that the Christians were saying. It is naive to think that there isn't some Jewish bias in their writings, as all writings are biased (including this).

How many disciples?
This passage also says that Jesus had five disciples, and not twelve. The following text from the last quote goes on in a formula of "When X was brought in he said ABC. Shall X be executed? Is it not written XYZ? Yes it is. X shall be executed since it is written. Something about X". In the context of the passage it backs up the procedure for executing people. The accused is brought before the council, their crime is presented and declared. The fact that every one of Yeshu's disciples mention has a follow up execution account certainly goes to show that who ever was following this Yeshu were all misguided and wrong.

Why only mention five disciples? I have no real idea. Maybe in the context, five execution stories is enough to back up the passages text. Maybe they were refuting the traditional stories of the disciples to paint the Jewish council in a better light. Maybe the names originally all referred to Jesus and were added in later to refer to his disciples. Maybe this is an independent source that had been handed down orally apart from the gospel stories.

Who where they? There is some speculation, and no one really knows. The following associations I got from random internet pages that have nothing to back up their claims: Matthai could be a reference to Matthew; Nakai could be Nakdimon or Nicodemus from John 3; Nezer could mean Nazarene and I couldn't find anyone else to say this, but Peter was accused of being a local with Jesus which means he was a Nazarene; Buni could be Boanerges in Mark 3 making it James or John and Todah could be Thaddaeus from Matthew 10:3 and Mark 3:18. One of the problems with these names is that Clement of Alexander says Matthew was not marted, Peter was killed by Romans, James was marted by Herod and John wasn't killed.

In another Jewish text, the Toledot Yeshu, there is a story of Jesus being arrested and when "asked his name, he replied to the question by several times giving the names Mattai, Nakki, Buni, Netzer, each time with a verse quoted by him and a counter-verse by the Sages." (text here). The order of names in this text is the same as the Talmud but it should be noted that Todah isn't mentioned. It has been suggested that these names in the Torah were added later to be the disciple names. See here for more arguments about these names form (its from a peer review journal so has way more weight than the paragraph above). (Edit: Sorry, that link only displays the first page if you (or your workplace) does not subscribe to that journal. I can email it to you if you want.)

There is even a possible problem about the text itself. But that will be in the next post...

Jesus in the Talmud

This reference to Jesus is from a Jewish text called the Talmud. The Talmud is broken into two parts, the earlier part – the Mishnah was written around 200 A.D. and is broken into 6 parts. The fourth part is called the Nezikin has 10 parts. We are interested in the 4^th part called the Sanhedrin. If that sounds all very systematic then you have a taste of the whole book. The Talmud is a collection of sayings by Rabbis dealing with issues ranging from women who have their period (the Niddah) to rules and procedures of the court and execution of the death penalty (the Sanhedrin – what we are interested in).

The following reference has caused me some grief as it really doesn't align very well with other Jesus accounts. But in the interest of looking at what external historical evidence we have of Jesus, it would be wrong to pass over this one.

When talking about procedures on how to execute someone we have the rule set forth by Mishnah and then Gemara replying (who is quoting other Rabbis) saying in Beraitha Sanhederin 43a:

This implies, only immediately before [the execution], but not previous thereto. [In contradict ion to this rule about stoning] it was taught: On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, 'He is going forth to be stoned because he has practised sorcery and enticed Israel to apostacy. Any one who can say anything in his favour, let him come forward and plead on his behalf.' But since nothing was brought forward in his favour he was hanged on the eve of the Passover!— Ulla retorted: 'Do you suppose that he was one for whom a defence could be made? Was he not a Mesith [enticer], concerning whom Scripture says, Neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him? With Yeshu however it was different, for he was connected with the government [or royalty, i.e., influential].'

Our Rabbis taught: Yeshu had five disciples, Matthai, Nakai, Nezer, Buni and Todah.

This account is a bit different to the Gospels. We will look as that in the next post.

Truths We Confess, Volume 2

This the second book in a series of three on the Westemister Confession of Faith. This deal with chapters 9 to 22 of the confession, which is about salvation and the Christian life (mostly about our works and our response to the Old Testament laws and oaths).

R.C. Sproul gives his commentary on each point of the confession clearly but sometimes repeats his points over and over again. The confession itself is pretty nuances with a overlap of issues and so that explains some of the repetition. Sproul points out the historical issues surrounding the drafting of the confession and so Calvinism is held strongly while Roman Catholicism and Arminianism are argued against. When it comes to the law and works, antinomianism and legalism are argued against and instead there is an encouragement to obey God because of his grace shown to you and because your hearts inclination to Him.

Overall this was a Calvinist writing about a Reformed confession so the salvation parts came as no surprise and were argued clearly. The latter part of the book on the law sections helped me. I have always struggled dealing with the issues of some of the Old Testament laws that seems silly today. Pretty much one of the points was that the law given to Israel (including the 10 commandments) were for a certain point in history and only for the nation of Israel. It was not and should not be in effect for us today. The context of the Pentateuch is different to our context today. However the law did come from God so we do learn something about God from the law, so we should not just throw it out altogether. Pretty much our actions shouldn't be bound by the law, but from the grace of God. It may well look the same as what the law asks, but the real issue is the heart and character of the person, not their actions per se.

I have the third book in the series, but I think I might leave it for next year. I did find this book a bit dry, and so I put it down for a few months.

You can read Chapter 1 (the 9th Chapter in the confession) on Free Will here.

My review of the first book is here.

I don't want nothing

Its my birthday on the 9th of December. I'm one of those luck few who work in a secure job, is married and does not have any children. I think the term is DINKs. Now because of that, and because when the first world is feeling poor it means they don't eat out as much but for the third world they just don't eat, I thought I should use my birthday to raise some money for people who are not DINKs. For people who don't have pipes into their homes, who would dream of living in a country that has water restrictions. You can visit this page for more details:

http://mycharitywater.org/ampers28thBirthday

Why water? Well we all need it, and their website is cool to allow this type of social networking fund-raising thing. They seem to know how to use technology (they once had a twitter fund-raiser), and I like that.

Also over the last two months my posts have been infrequent. This is mostly because I have been trying to write some essay for St Marks/CSU. Tomorrow is when my last essay is due for the semester so once that is finished I should post some more.

Over all my studies this semester was good. In total I had 5 essays to do, ranging from source criticism, metaphors of the church, Hebrews 1, authorship of the Pastoral Epistles and leadership and authority of the church.

But for now I have to finish my last essay.

Church vs Cancer

I read this a few days ago and it stuck with me...

When you ask what is the purpose of making converts, the answer is, so they can make more converts, and when you ask what is the purpose of those further converts, it is so they can make more converts. There is, in others words, an infinite regress. And, as we know from the medical analogy, the multiplication of cells unrelated to the purpose of the body is what we call cancer.... I do think that a very sharp criticism needs to be made against the idea that the Church exists simply to make more members, irrespective of the purpose for which the Father sent the Son into the world, which is that the presence of the reign of God might be a reality now. - Lesslie Newbigin (A Word in Season, p58)

Canberra Men’s Tough Times

Last Saturday about 260 guys turned up to the Canberra Men's Christian Convention at ANU. Al Stewart spoke on the topic of Tough Times and looked at the life of Joseph in Genesis 37-50. He gave three talks that were insightful and encouraging. Because of the amount of bible in the story Al would drill into some events more than some, but still gave a good balance to the entire story. Al had a down to earth way of speaking that made him easy to listen to and relate with. Throughout the talk he drew on ideas from Tim Keller but also was clear where he deviated from him.

The first talk was recognising the fact that pain is life. Sometimes when we are in the muck we cannot see a bigger picture or some grand scheme, but only in hindsight can we see lessons learnt or certain situation that impact the direction of your life. In Genesis 37 God is absent from the picture and a series of horrible things happen to a mixed up family. But only at the end of the story do we see any purpose for it.

The next talk was on Genesis 39-41 and dealing with temptation. Al saw four possible temptations that Joseph faced: to misuse power, to sleep with Potiphar's wife, to feel sorry for himself and to take revenge. It was pointed out that when we give into temptation the two main ideas we have is that God is mean and is withholding something from us, or that God is stupid and doesn't know what is best. Al challenged us to live with faith in God and to flee temptation.

The last talked wrapped up the story of Joseph (Genesis 42-50) and looked at how Joseph tested his brothers and did not see to end them. I thought it was a good re-telling of the story and it showed the sovereignty of God thought sinful actions and people. Al talked about how sometimes we might think that the world is out of control and being driven by a 4 year, but we sometimes fail to see that also at the wheel is the hand of God, who controls where the wheel goes.

There was also a question time that felt very short. I like watching how people think on the fly and it was great to see Al think out loud as he processed the questions. A few times Al asked the recording to stop and spoke "off air" which was something that I've never seen done before at a conference. But with him doing that, he came across as a very honest, humble and down to earth real guy. Because the Canberra Men's Christian Convention guys are cool, the audio (and maybe the video) will be up on their website for free soon.

Mark Twain - God is not just

Christopher Hitchens introduces Mark Twain in the Portable Atheist by saying that he had trouble being taken seriously when talking about grave topics. I think the use of wit to make a point sometimes drives it home more, but that might be my 21st century thinking. The two essay in the Portable Atheist were published after Mark's death due to the "climate of bigotry" (page 116). Unlike the first century Christians and some modern day Chinese Christians who proclaim their faith publicly, it seems Twain was a bit worried about what the culture thought of his ideas.

Mark starts off his Thoughts of God by explaining how annoying the fly is. Mark sees that flys has no other purpose except for annoying things so therefore there is no need for the fly. I wonder why he picked the fly as other creatures in nature annoy another as the lion annoys is prey, and so are humans do towards cows and chickens. One animal is the annoyance of another. It think its called the food chain.

Mark argues that if a person made the fly he must be "a man destitute of feeling; a man willing to wantonly torture and harass and persecute myriads of creatures who had never done him any harm and could not if they wanted to, and - the majority of them - poor dumb things not even aware of his existence." (page 117) that person would also think "that it is fair and right to send afflictions upon the just - upon the unoffending as well as upon the offending, without discrimination." (page 117)

The last two paragraphs of this essay has the main thrust of his argument against God.

"We hear much about His patience and forbearance and long-suffering; we hear nothing about our own, which much exceeds it." (page 117).

I'm not so sure about this statement. I mean we can put up with a fly for a few minutes before we try and kill the sucker, but what if your own creation turns against you and wants nothing to do with you. How many thousands of years would you put up with them? The person who swats the fly has run out of patients with it. Fortunately God hasn't yet with us.

Mark raises his main objection here:

The pulpit assures us that wherever we see suffering and sorrow which we can relieve and do not do it, we sin, heavily. There was never yet a case of suffering or sorrow which God could not relieve. Does He sin, then? (page 118)

If we see something that can help someone else and do not do it then we sin, but surely God can see all sorts of injustice he could stop and doesn't, therefor God is the greater sinner.

It seems that Mark wants a world that doesn't conform to standard expectations. When something bad is about to happen Mark would like God to intervene. If you slip over does God make the ground softer or the speed at which you fall slower or does he stop people from walking in the first place? What if you fall out of a plane? What if you wanted to go sky diving? Would airplanes be stopped by God in the first place? Is seems that for us to be free agents, we need a consistent predictable world that we can deal with.

You help someone by giving them something they need. When someone is hungry you give them food, when cold you give them clothes and blankets. God gives us people to help other people. The church is to be God's representatives on earth. Yes it sometimes has failed, but the idea is still alive. Since the we are free agents, that means there is a chance that the church can (and does in many cases) still live up to its role.

Another thing God has given humanity is Jesus who found out what its like to suffer on this earth. He knows what flys are and how annoying they can be. He has suffered to the point of death. God has given us a Redeemer and Saviour for we are all under death and we have all done wrong, but now, because of God's grace we can be helped and freed from sin and death.

You can read Twain's Thoughts of God here.

A Biblical Riddle

Throughout history Christians have liked to read. The protestant reformation had the crazy idea that people should be able to read the bible in their own language and not just take the priests Latin word for it. The reformation sparked a whole heap of new writings to the lay person and since the printing press had just been invented (about 200 years after the Chinese had worked it out), it escalated the production of religious texts.

Now days we can look back on all these texts and read them. Also literacy rates have increases and Christian bookstalls have continued to stock the latest and greatest. While my wife was flicking through a Christian bookshop catalog she spied a book that may well be the first (well its a sequel so it has to be the second) in a new Christian genera. Its called Fun Bible Sudoku 2.

Fun Bible Sudoku 2. Its fun, its bible, its a sudoku and its part two. Some bright spark has found a hole in the market so now Christan's don't have to do those pagan sudokus in the newspaper. Whats so bible about the numbers 1-9 in a random order? Well.. um... the bible has those numbers in them... well the English ones do anyway... I think its best not to ask too many questions, it might just make you sigh a little to hard...

I worry about what it says about my faith if I am unable to complete one of the puzzles.

ANU Debate - Do Athesits have faith?

Today there was a debate between the Amazing Atheists (they don't have a website) and FOCUS. The topic was "Do Atheist have faith?". The whole set up was hard to hear as it was held outside and they were not allowed microphones. To make things more annoying some other group across the square had some one talking down their own megaphone.

Faith was defined as a certainty in something. Atheism was defined by the Christian group as being a denial of God and agnosticism was defined as being unsure of god's existence. The atheist group defined both atheist and agnostic the same thing, because over time through the general everyday use of the language these two words mean the same thing. From that point on, both teams were almost talking past each other.

It was hard to hear but from what I gathered the Christian group held up reason but not as the ultimate source of truth. They argued that both the Christian and atheist look at the same evidence and interpret them different. Once that has been done they then make a decision and commit to that. At that point they both have faith.

The atheist group (perhaps better called the agnostic group) denied this and said that would like to believe there is a god but there is not enough evidence so who really knows? The said that atheists have beliefs but not faith. I liked how they drew a distinction between belief and faith but not between atheism and agnosticism.

I spoke to someone earlier about this topic and they agreed that atheists do not have faith. The bible defines faith in Hebrews as "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Taken as this definition of faith clearly an agnostic doesn't have it, and I am not sure if an atheist has hope in what they believe. Both teams have beliefs, the atheist group today said that, but with this definition of faith, then maybe they just don't.

There were some good questions from the crowd. The first speaker for the atheists was the most passionate in question time and I think the organiser of the debate. I spoke to him afterwards and thanked him for hosting the event. Tomorrow they are running a ball outside and handing out free ice cream and condoms. (I think they might have too high of an expectation for the night). They run meetings at 5pm on Wednesdays and as it tuns out every second Wednesday afternoon I have time to kill, so I might pop round and see them (I gave then no guarantees). I think a showing of collision might be in order when it comes out.