For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[EGross]

We know that in the year 30, Shammai dies in Jerusalem and Rabban Gamliel the Elder takes over, for the next 5 years there will be people fasting and praying for some redeemer.

I found something interesting relating to Christian beliefs about Gamilel The Elder.

Yeah, their use of Gamliel seems to be contradictory in nature. On the one hand, they have Paul saying that he was kind to the Christians and told the Jews to leave them alone, because if they were false, God would handle it. On the other, you have persecutions of Christians going on as well. You have Paul, a supposed Pharisee, who would have hated the Sadducees who ran the Temple, working with the priesthood, who hated the Pharisees. So just being a name dropper does nothing.

We know of a couple, one called Yehudah, who led a rebellion against the Romans, reclaimed some Jewish prisoners, and claimed he could part the seas and get passage back to Egypt. The Romans beheaded him and put his head on a spike, and massacred many of his followers.

I'm having problems finding him - his name might have been translated into something else in articles written in English. Could you give me some more details such as when he was beheaded, please? I find him interesting because he claimed he could perform a miracle.

I was mistaken, he was the one that came about 125 years earlier. The one I meant to post was Theudus who was killed in the year 46CE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theudas

The other was Judah, Teacher of Righteousness, who was killed around 100BCE. Sorry about that. The book "50 Jewish Messiahs" is a decent reference in that area. I used to read some of them to my step son to get him to go to bed and he often went "How could people be so stupid?!"

Now while there is a "Yeshu" in the Talmud, he is a Hellenized Jew, and given the name of his teacher, he would have lived around 120BCE. And in the centuries that followed, he became a sort of polemic character, and where it said "student" "Yeshu" was sometimes added to mock the Christians. (He is stoned to death for teaching idolotry and was excommunicated for having too much of an eye for the ladies). Obviously not the same guy.

Was that Yeshu Ha Notzri who was supposed to have been stoned to death and hung up somewhere on the eve of Passover? From what I can gather, legends say he was also known as Yeshu ben Pandera because his father was a Roman solider.

Originally, many of the statements just had "Yeshu", the "Notzri" part was obviously later editing additions. In the story (Sanhedrin 43a) about the execution, it says:

And it was taught in a baraita: During erev Pesach, they hanged Yeshu HaNotzri, and for forty days before he [was to be executed] a herald [cried out to the townspeople]: “Yeshu HaNotzri is being taken out to be stoned for sorcery and inciting to lead Israel astray. Anyone who knows him to be innocent, come and stand before him [as a defense witness, at such-and-such a time and at such-and-such a place].” And none were found [to testify] for his innocence, and so he was [stoned and then his body was] hung [on the morning of] Erev Pesach [and then his body was taken down and buried before nightfall].

But Ulla said, “Do you [really] think that Yeshu HaNotzri, as a wayward son, was deserving [of seeking additional refuting witnesses after he was already convicted]? He was one who incited [others to worship idols as he did]. And [even God as the] Compassionate One said, “And you shall note spare [him and you shall not listen to him; your eye shall not pity him, you shall not be compassionate] and you shall not conceal him.” [Devarim/Deut. 13:9]. [So why does it appear that we would be compassionate in the case of Yeshu?] It was different in Yeshu’s case, for he had a close association to those who were in authority [Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachia, his Rabbi, and others].

The Pandera is from the bok "Toldot Yeshu", which is a play on Matthew that begins "These are the generations of Jesus" (Toldot means "generations", but offspring, not ancestry). It is another polemic that seems to be of Spanish origin, but there have been Geniza fragments in Cairo that seem to have bits of the polemic exist in earlier periods, although still hundreds of years later.