Talk:Toledot Yeshu

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This article has been mentioned by a media organization:

Benyamin Cohen (2009-12-23). "Holy Night: The little-known Jewish holiday of Christmas Eve. Seriously". Slate magazine.

Crazy anon rant

How on earth has this miso-judaic/anti-semitic Nazi interpretation of the Toledoth Yeshu breaking Wikipedia naming conventions and ignoring the earlier decision to redirect Toledoth Yeshu to a more comprehensive article on Yeshu been allowed to be published un-noticed on Wikipedia! Absolutely disgusting!82.6.114.172 23:45, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Aw, I'm feeling the love. -- Kendrick7^talk 00:33, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

LOL82.6.114.172 09:45, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Toledoth Yeshu is the (traditional) title of a document (or of several sharing that same name) of such historical significance that it merits an article. Sussmanbern (talk) 18:10, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

POV

Um, this article expresses very different views than what is said in the Yeshu article. The article is also very POV. Statements like "...rabbinic tradition [...] has nothing good to say about Jesus..." need to be qualified and toned down. Although the article is "well-sourced", in the sense of having many sources, the article presents those very POVish sources as uncontested fact. 70.20.171.242 (talk) 12:11, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This article gives an extremely narrow anti-semitic view of the Toledot Yeshu which ignore the fact that the character Yeshu is derivative of many characters, primarily ben-Stada in the Talmud as well as Yeshu ben-Pandera in the 2nd century, Yeshu of the Hashmonean era, Pandareus of Greek mythology, Simon, Magus, the Germanic god Baldur - besides Jesus. It looks like POV fork from the Yeshu article. I recommend that it be merged back into the Yeshu article. Kuratowski's Ghost (talk) 03:05, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I used the sources I could avail myself to -- the authors I cite all seemed like level-headed academics to me. I admit -- I remember coming across a number of works by others who certainly had an agenda (to put it nicely) and left those on the cutting room floor. Could you explain what it in the article that you believe is anti-Semitic or POV? The article does mention Simon Magnus -- see Toledot_Yeshu#Parallels. If you can point me to your sources regarding parallels in other literature and mythology I'd be happy to incorporate them, but all my sources say the main character here is based on Jesus first and foremost, and it's hard to dispute this from the text itself in the translations I've seen. -- Kendrick7^talk 00:08, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We should make this consistent with the [[1]] section, which appears to be far more balanced, in addressing whether Toledot Yeshu actually is about Jesus.--Thalia42 (talk) 01:54, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Zindler's book on the subject gives a far more neutral treatment. The story is not primarily based on Jesus, its set in a different era to Jesus and its central plot is based on the account of ben-Stada in the Talmud who learnt by cutting marks in his flesh. There are parallels with Jesus but not taken directly from the canonical Gospels rather these parts of the Toldoth Yeshu share common origin with the Gospel account. There are significant parts of the story that have nothing to do with the Gospels and resemble instead the myth of Pandareus and Simon Magus in the Acts of Peter although again not taken directly from the latter. There is no crucifixion rather a death resembling the myth of Baldur. Kuratowski's Ghost (talk) 11:30, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How can Zindler dismiss all the parallels to the gospel accounts that Frey recites (I even left a few out in the second paragraph here)? They seems plain from the text itself. An argument that the works simply share a common original seems dubious in light of the fact the Toledoth's earliest dating (to be kind) is to the 4th century by which point the canonical gospel's were sitting hidebound, I imagine, on the Emperor's nightstand. Well, I'm intrigued and will have to find a copy of this. -- Kendrick7^talk 21:12, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If Zindler has a new theory (or when Ghost discovers the Jesus[es] Toledoth Yeshu are talking about), you can add if you have sources. I am removing the pov and merge tags. vitiator (talk) 23:30, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what you meant by all that, as much as I like a third opinion on such a niche subject. As an update, though, they do have his book over at the Harvard Divinity School Library and I intend to get my hands on it soon. However, the only other ref on the project I saw being used was for Zindler's opinion that Nazareth didn't actually exist at any point BCE, which strikes me as being really out on a limb. As our own article mentions, he's not an archeologist, and he's best known as an editor of an magazine on the topic of atheism. I have to wonder if he doesn't have an agenda of sorts, to be frank, if he's just out there making bizarre sweeping statements like that. But, nevertheless, I think eventually we should merge down the reliable material from the section in Yeshu here rather than the other way around, at least as far as to prevent any appearance of WP:POVFORKing. -- Kendrick7^talk 05:36, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Summary

I have added a summary [2]. I think it useful. vitiator (talk) 19:06, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

¶ I have added several citations and additions, which I hope meet with general approval.Sussmanbern (talk) 21:35, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Learn to write

In the subsection headed "Summary of Wagenseil version," the three following sentences appear, in a row:

Bound before Queen Helen, the sages accused him of sorcery. Bringing a corpse to life, she released him. Accused again, the queen sent for his arrest.

Those sentences tell us that the sages were bound before Queen Helen, that Queen Helen brought a corpse to life, and that Queen Helen was accused again — of something or other.

cf.

The "(cf. Antisemitic publications)" in the lede is mine. It should probably link to something much more specific, given that the passage is claiming that the TY was written in response to certain such publications. -Stevertigo (t | log | c) 02:24, 29 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

citation needed (help!)

Someone just removed this from the Yeshu article:

The Tannaim and Amoraim who recorded the accounts in the Talmud and Tosefta use the term Yeshu as a designation in Sanhedrin 103a and Berakhot 17b in place of King Manasseh's real name. Sanhedrin 107b uses it for a Hasmonean era individual who in an earlier account (Jerusalem Talmud Chagigah 2:2) is anonymous. In Gittin 56b, 57a it is used for one of three foreign enemies of Israel, the other two being from past and present with Yeshu representing a third not identified with any past or present event. No explicit explanation is given for the term. The earliest explicit explanation comes instead from the mediaeval Toldoth Yeshu narratives which explain it as an acronym for the curse formula yimmach shemo vezikhro meaning "may his name and memory be obliterated" used for enemies of the Jewish people.^{[citation needed]}

Can anyone here provide appropriate citations? Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 23:34, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

¶ With respect, the Talmudic mss say here, in both places, that "Yeshu haNotzri" "burned his food in public" (an expression that seems to mean "disgraces himself"). The 16th century Schulhan Aruch substituted (perhaps for fear of Christian censors) the name Manasseh - but the oldest printed editions and best mss of the Talmud show that the original reading was Yeshu haNotzri; see Schonfield, pages 56 et seq. -Sussmanbern (talk) 21:45, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The footnote for Rubenstein, under the heading on "Composition", breaks off abruptly after the word "Jewish". Would someone PLEASE figure out what was intended and make correction??! Sussmanbern (talk) 18:53, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Van Voorst source

This article has been completely re-written form its earliest NPOV version to edit out all opinions contrary to the minority opinion of Van Voorst. Serious POV problems with this article. Interpretations aside, the Toledoth Yeshu presents itself as the story of a false messiah who lived during the reign of Salome Alexandra and the fate of his cult, plain and simple. It is so POV at the moment that one could easily suspect that the current version of the article has basically been re-written by Van Voorst himself or his family. Why not talk about how the Toledoth Yeshu presents itself first and then put interpretive opinions of Van Voorst and others into a section later on about interpretations? 81.103.121.144 (talk) 21:59, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

User:81.103.121.144 you appear to take the view in your edits around Wikipedia, Talk:Notzrim etc. that Toledoth Yeshu is a reliable primary source. See Wikipedia policy on sources. Van Voorst is not a minority opinion, this is mainstream scholarship, but if you have an alternative view, please provide a source. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:47, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"alternative" to what?

The lead calls the document an "alternative biography of Jesus", without saying what is the regular biography. Is the standard biography supposed to be the 4 Christian Gospels? Secular scholarship on the "historical Jesus"? Making such a claim in Wikivoice would take a position on religious or historiographic questions. It seems better to just call it a purported biography (a description true of all claimed accounts of the life of Jesus) and qualify that with summary of the later article content that it is written later and from a presumably hostile point of view. Sesquivalent (talk) 02:26, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

and now it says "alternative, anti-sectarian". Not an improvement. Hieronymus Illinensis (talk) 19:44, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

First English translation?

The article says that Baring-Gould's 1874 work was the first English translation, but under 'Further Reading' we have an English translation published by Richard Carlile dated 1823. Muzilon (talk) 02:33, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]