For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[EGross]

As a side point about Antoninus, the Talmud has him as a great person because he was best friend with Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi (Rebbi), and it is written that neither of them were in want of fresh fruits and vegetables (while others starved). And that Antoninus would secretly visit Rebbi, bringing a slave to accompamy him, and then slashing his throat before going in to visit (he didn't want his friendship to be known). Or that he would lay down and let Rebbi use him for a footstool. Lots of weird stories like that which don't make a lot of sense until you come to the one item that they credit him for.

It is written that Antoninus spoke with Rebbi and told him that if he wanted to keep Judaism going, he needed to produced a systematic organized collection of rules for all to live by. (Jews had attempted this a number of times). Under Antoninus' watch, Rebbi created the Mishna, the "Oral Law", that became the foundation for Jewish law, upon which the Talmud would stand.

Antoninus appears behind the scenes a number of times that makes one wonder if the Jews were not a sort of a pet project of his. He is honored for having encouraged Rebbi to put exiting ideas into a coherent order, but I wonder how much he actually did alone. Perhaps that was the purpose of these secret visits. Not to keep them secret from the Romans, but from the Jews as well, and his being a footstool was a metaphor for his participation of this project, without which, rabbinical Judaism would have died.