Me True Ann-Sister sent me a link to an over-long review of Jesus in the Talmud by Peter Schafer. It's an intriguing -- and I'm sure, for many -- troubling book about the early development of the Jewish view of Jesus, as propounded in the Babylonian Talmud.
The book seems to show clearly why Jewish leaders in Babylonia felt they could, and had to, denounce Jesus as a fraud. While their relative security and prosperity in Babylonia made them confident in their safety, that remove also created some urgency to denounce claims that Jesus was the Messiah. The rabbis felt it was necessary to denounce Jesus as a fraud and a criminal who deserved his fate -- but they didn't foresee how this stance helped to stoke the fires of anti-Semitism for centuries to come. Jesus in the Talmud also shows that the rabbis of the time went to some lengths to read and understand what the Gospels -- and why they deemed them a profound threat to Judaism.
While the early Jewish view of Jesus is interesting, even more intriguing is what you might loosely call "scholarship" about Jesus' lost years, and how he might have spent them in India, becoming influenced by spiritual traditions there and, in turn, influencing them. (Both links feature an illustration that was the cover a book on the subject by Elizabeth Clare Prophet.)
Schafer's book seems to be an earnest attempt to get at the roots of what we can actually know about how the Jewish view of Jesus was formed.
Research like Schafer's already seems to be leading toward a clearer understanding of two paths diverging, which in this day and age can only be a good thing.
--T.A.
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