[Note: the original link address to the following American Jewish Congress article is here, but the AJC apparently got cold feet and thought better of keeping this article online for "anti-Semites" to find as an authoritative source. The link below is thereby directed to this article's "cached" version (and reproduced also at http://www.kensmen.com/catholic/ajcarticle.html )]

Jesus in the Talmud,
by Steven Bayme, National Director, Contemporary Jewish Life Department, American Jewish Committee, September 24, 2003
"[Mel] Gibson's movie [The Passion], intended to tell the story of the Gospels, has alienated many Jewish leaders, who correctly worry whether the movie's graphic description of the crucifixion and its alleged overtones of a Jewish conspiracy to kill Jesus may ignite long-dormant Christian hostilities to Jews. For this reason, the account of the Gospels, and its associations with anti-Semitism, needs to be honestly confronted, including the question of the relationship of church teachings to acts of violence against Jews. Yet it is also important that Jews confront their own tradition and ask how Jewish sources treated the Jesus narrative. Pointedly, Jews did not argue that crucifixion was a Roman punishment and therefore no Jewish court could have advocated it. Consider, by contrast, the following text from the Talmud: On the eve of Passover Jesus 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 practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Anyone who can say anything in his favor let him come forward and plead on his behalf." But since nothing was brought forward in his favor, he was hanged on the eve of Passover. Ulla retorted: Do you suppose he was one for whom a defense could be made? Was he not a mesith (enticer), concerning whom Scripture says, "Neither shall thou spare nor shall thou conceal him?" With Jesus, however, it was different, for he was connected with the government. (Sanhedrin 43a) This text, long censored in editions of the Talmud, is concerned primarily with due process in capital crimes. Standard process requires that punishment be delayed for forty days in order to allow extenuating evidence to be presented. However, in extreme cases, such as seducing Israel into apostasy, this requirement is waived. The case of Jesus, according to the Talmud, constituted an exception to this rule. Although one who enticed Israel into apostasy is considered an extreme case, the Jews at the time waited forty days because of the close ties of Jesus to the Roman authorities. However, once the forty days elapsed without the presentation of favorable or extenuating comment about him, they proceeded to kill him on the eve of Passover. Three themes emanate from this passage. First, the charges against Jesus relate to seduction of Israel into apostasy and the practice of sorcery. According to the Gospels, the charges against Jesus concerned his self-proclamation as a messiah. The Talmud seems to prefer the more specific charges of practicing sorcery and leading Israel into false beliefs. One twentieth-century historian, Morton Smith of Columbia University, argued on the basis of recently discovered "hidden Gospels" that the historical Jesus indeed was a first-century sorcerer (Jesus the Magician, HarperCollins, 1978). In the eyes of the Talmudic rabbis, the practice of sorcery and false prophecy constituted capital crimes specifically proscribed in Deuteronomy 18: 10-12 and 13: 2-6. Second, the Talmud is here offering a subtle commentary upon Jesus' political connections. The Gospels portray the Roman governor Pontius Pilate as going to great lengths to spare Jesus (Mark 15: 6-15). Although this passage may well have been written to appease the Roman authorities and blame the Jews, the Talmudic passage points in the same direction: The Jews waited forty days, in a departure from the usual practice, only because Jesus was close to the ruling authorities. Lastly, the passage suggests rabbinic willingness to take responsibility for the execution of Jesus. No effort is made to pin his death upon the Romans. In all likelihood, the passage in question emanates from fourth-century Babylon, then the center of Talmudic scholarship, and beyond the reach of both Rome and Christianity. Although several hundred years had elapsed since the lifetime of Jesus, and therefore this is not at all a contemporary source, the Talmudic passage indicates rabbinic willingness to acknowledge, at least in principle, that in a Jewish court and in a Jewish land, a real-life Jesus would indeed have been executed. To be sure, historians can not accept such a text uncritically. For one thing, the Talmudic text, as noted, was written some 300 years after the event it reports. Secondly, it makes no acknowledgement of intra-Jewish tensions in first century Palestine in which Jewish sects proliferated, and Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots competed for Jewish allegiances. Jesus's antipathy towards the Pharisees, of course, is well known from the Gospels, and the Talmudic rabbis, who presumably read these accounts, defined themselves as the intellectual heirs of the Pharisaic teachers. By contrast, the High Priest was, in all likelihood, a member of the Sadducee faction, which generally consisted of more aristocratic elements. What the Talmudic narrative does demonstrate is fourth century rabbinic willingness to take responsibility for the execution of Jesus. What, then, are the implications of this reading of Jesus through the eyes of rabbinic sources? First, we do require honesty on both sides in confronting history. Jewish apologetics that "we could not have done it" because of Roman sovereignty ring hollow when one examines the Talmudic account. However, the significance of Vatican II, conversely, should by no means be minimized. The Church went on record as abandoning the teaching of contempt in favor of historicizing the accounts of the Gospels and removing their applicability to Jews of later generations."

Jesus’ Death Now Debated By Jews. AJCommittee scholar cites Talmudic passage; others question views and timing in light of Gibson furor,
by Eric J. Greenberg, The Jewish Week, November 3, 2003
"The controversy over Mel Gibson’s upcoming film about the death of Jesus has spurred painful exchanges between Jews and Christians and progressive and traditional Catholics in recent days. To date, the debates have centered on the “proper” interpretation of the role of Jews in Jesus’ Crucifixion, as presented in the four New Testament Gospels. But this week, Gibson’s $25 million biblical epic, which the director insists is about love and forgiveness, has triggered a new squabble — among Jewish scholars. The texts in question are not New Testament but rather passages long censored (by Christian authorities) about Jesus from the Talmud, the encyclopedia of Jewish law and tradition considered sacred by traditional Jews. Raising the issue is an article by Steven Bayme, the American Jewish Committee’s national director of Contemporary Jewish Life, which declares that Jews must face up to the fact that the Talmudic narrative “does clearly demonstrate ... fourth century rabbinic willingness to take responsibility for the execution of Jesus.” “Jewish apologetics that ‘we could not have done it’ because of Roman sovereignty ring hollow when one examines the Talmudic account,” Bayme said. He contends that Jewish interfaith representatives are not being honest in dialogue if they ignore the explicit Talmudic references to Jesus. His article was posted on the AJCommittee’s Web site last week, then removed after a Jewish Week reporter’s inquiry. Ken Bandler, a spokesman for the AJCommittee, said the article was taken down to “avoid confusion” over whether it represented the organization’s official position. AJCommittee officials now refer to the article as “an internal document.” Some Jewish scholars and interfaith officials were upset with the article, either questioning Bayme’s scholarship or his timing — saying this was a particularly delicate time to call attention to Jews’ role in Jesus’ death — or both. But Bayme was unswayed. Citing the continuing controversy over Gibson’s “The Passion,” which has reignited concern over Christianity’s ancient charge against Jews as “Christ killers,” he wrote that it is also important “that Jews confront their own tradition and ask how Jewish sources treated the Jesus narrative.” Bayme cites a passage from the Talmud, Sanhedrin 43a, which relates the fate of a man called Jesus who is hanged on the eve of Passover for practicing sorcery and leading the people of Israel astray ... he says the passage is significant because the Talmudic text “indicates rabbinic willingness to acknowledge, at least in principle, that in a Jewish court and in a Jewish land, a real-life Jesus would indeed have been execute ... Bayme told The Jewish Week he wrote the piece for two reasons: to educate Jews and promote honest dialogue with Christians. He cited the Catholic Church’s 1965 statement that Jesus’ death “cannot be blamed upon all Jews then living, without distinction, nor upon the Jews of today" ... Bayme is concerned that Jews know nothing about the censored texts. “Whenever I talked about the origins of Christianity with fellow Jews, I discovered massive ignorance of Jewish narratives concerning the death of Jesus. It’s something I thought Jews ought to confront fairly,” he told The Jewish Week ... But some disagreed with Bayme’s analysis and policy suggestion. His own organization pulled the piece only a couple of days after it was posted. Rabbi David Rosen, the group’s director of interreligious affairs, said Bayme’s views were not the “official AJC position” concerning the trial of Jesus. He called the Talmudic text historically “dubious” and questioned Bayme’s connecting the text with the Gospel stories, noting the actual charge against Jesus and the nature of the court “is in conflict.” Some outside specialists also refuted Bayme’s article ... But Dr. David Kraemer, professor of Talmud and rabbinics at the Jewish Theological Seminary, supported Bayme’s call for honesty about Jewish texts and Jesus. “I think it’s very relevant to bring up evidence of the difficulty of our relationship with Christianity,” he said, contending that it is indeed Jesus of Nazareth in the [Talmudic] text."

'Passion' Follows the Scripture. Gibson's controversial film coincides closely with ancient Jewish writings,
By David Klinghoffer, Los Angeles Times, January 1, 2004
"Mel Gibson's forthcoming movie about the death of Jesus, "The Passion," has created an angry standoff between the filmmaker and Jewish critics who charge him with anti-Semitism. It's a controversy that will continue to affect relations between Christians and Jews unless some way to cool it can be found. One possible cooling agent is an honest look at how ancient Jewish sources portrayed the Crucifixion. According to those who have seen a rough cut, Gibson's film depicts the death of Christ as occurring at the hands of the Romans but at the instigation of Jewish leaders, the priests of the Jerusalem Temple. The Anti-Defamation League charges that this recklessly stirs anti-Jewish hatred and demands that the film be edited to eliminate any suggestion of Jewish deicide. But like the Christian Gospels that form the basis of Gibson's screenplay, Jewish tradition acknowledges that our leaders in 1st century Palestine played a role in Jesus' execution. If Gibson is an anti-Semite, so is the Talmud and so is the greatest Jewish sage of the past 1,000 years, Maimonides. We will never know for certain what happened in Roman Palestine around the year 30, but we do know what Jews who lived soon afterward said about Jesus' execution. The Talmud was compiled in about the year 500, drawing on rabbinic material that had been transmitted orally for centuries. From the 16th century on, the text was censored and passages about Jesus and his execution were erased to evade Christian wrath. But the full text was preserved in older manuscripts, and today the censored parts may be found in minuscule type, as an appendix at the back of some Talmud editions. A relevant example comes from the Talmudic division known as Sanhedrin, which deals with procedures of the Jewish high court: "On the eve of Passover they hung Jesus of Nazareth. And the herald went out before him for 40 days [saying, 'Jesus] goes forth to be stoned, because he has practiced magic, enticed and led astray Israel. Anyone who knows anything in his favor, let him come and declare concerning him.' And they found nothing in his favor." The passage indicates that Jesus' fate was entirely in the hands of the Jewish court. The last two of the three items on Jesus' rap sheet, that he "enticed and led astray" fellow Jews, are terms from Jewish biblical law for an individual who influenced others to serve false gods, a crime punishable by being stoned, then hung on a wooden gallows. In the Mishnah, the rabbinic work on which the Talmud is based, compiled about the year 200, Rabbi Eliezer explains that anyone who was stoned to death would then be hung by his hands from two pieces of wood shaped like a capital letter T -- in other words, a cross (Sanhedrin 6:4). These texts convey religious beliefs, not necessarily historical facts. The Talmud elsewhere agrees with the Gospel of John that Jews at the time of the Crucifixion did not have the power to carry out the death penalty. Also, other Talmudic passages place Jesus 100 years before or after his actual lifetime. Some Jewish apologists argue that these must therefore deal with a different Jesus of Nazareth. But this is not how the most authoritative rabbinic interpreters, medieval sages like Nachmanides, Rashi and the Tosaphists, saw the matter. Maimonides, writing in 12th century Egypt, made clear that the Talmud's Jesus is the one who founded Christianity. In his great summation of Jewish law and belief, the Mishneh Torah, he wrote of "Jesus of Nazareth, who imagined that he was the Messiah, but was put to death by the court." In his "Epistle to Yemen," Maimonides states that "Jesus of Nazareth interpreted the Torah and its precepts in such a fashion as to lead to their total annulment. The sages, of blessed memory, having become aware of his plans before his reputation spread among our people, meted out fitting punishment to him." It's unfair of Jewish critics to defame Gibson for saying what the Talmud and Maimonides say, and what many historians say. Oddly, one of the scholars who has most vigorously denounced Gibson -- Paula Fredriksen, a professor of religious studies at Boston University -- is the author of a meticulously researched book, "Jesus of Nazareth," that suggests it was the high priests who informed on Jesus to the Roman authorities. Would it have been better if Gibson never undertook to make this movie in exactly the way he did? Maybe, but trying to intimidate him into fundamentally reworking it was never a realistic or worthy goal. The best option now is to acknowledge that other sources besides the Gospels confirm the involvement of Jewish leaders in Jesus' death and clear the anger from the air. Considering that Gibson's portrayal coincides closely with traditional Jewish belief, it seems that leaving him alone is the decent as well as the Jewish thing to do."

FIRST PERSON: 'The Passion' & the Talmud,
By Terry Mattingly, Baptist Press News. February 17, 2004
"The ancient rabbinic text is clear about the punishment for those who twisted sacred law and misled the people of Israel. Offenders would be stoned and then hung by their hands from two pieces of wood connected to form a "T." The Talmud once included this example from the Sanhedrin: "On the eve of Passover they hung Jesus of Nazareth," said the passage, which was censored in the 16th century to evade the wrath of Christians. "The herald went out before him for 40 days saying, 'Jesus goes forth to be stoned, because he has practiced magic, enticed and led astray Israel. Anyone who knows anything in his favor, let him come and declare concerning him.' And they found nothing in his favor." If armies of Jewish and Christian scholars insist on arguing about Mel Gibson's explosive movie "The Passion of The Christ," it would help if they were candid and started dealing with the hard passages in Jewish texts as well as the Christian scriptures. At least, that's what David Klinghoffer thinks. The Orthodox Jewish writer -- whose forthcoming book is titled "Why the Jews Rejected Christ" -- believes these lines from the Talmud are as troubling as any included in the Christian Gospels. They are as disturbing as any image Gibson might include in his controversial epic. The Talmudic text seems clear. Jesus clashed with Jewish leaders, debating them on the meaning of their laws. They hated him. Many wanted him dead. It is possible, Klinghoffer said, to interpret these documents as saying that Jesus' fate rested entirely with the Jewish court. The use of language such as "enticed and led astray" indicated that Jesus may have been charged with leading His fellow Jews to worship false gods ... What role did the Romans play? In terms of historic fact, Klinghoffer emphasized, it's almost impossible to find definitive answers for such questions. But the purpose of the Jewish oral traditions that led to the Talmud was to convey religious belief, not necessarily historical facts. "If you really must ask, 'Who is responsible for the death of Jesus?' then you can only conclude that both the Gospels and the Talmud agree that the Jewish leaders did not have the power to execute Him," Klinghoffer said. "Did they influence the event? The religious texts suggest that they did, the historic texts suggest that they did not. It's hard to know. ... But if Gibson is an anti-Semite, then to be consistent you would have to say that so was Maimonides [the famous Jewish theologian]." Obviously, Klinghoffer is not spreading this information in order to fan the flames of hatred. His goal, he said, is to provoke Jewish leaders in cities such as New York and Los Angeles to strive harder to understand the views of traditional Protestants and Catholics. And it's time for liberal Christians to spend as much time talking with Orthodox Jews as with liberal Jews. It's time for everyone to be more honest, he said. "I don't see anything that is to be gained for Judaism by going out of our way to antagonize a Mel Gibson or to antagonize as many traditional Christians as we possibly can. I think we have been yelling 'Fire!' in a crowded theater," Klinghoffer said. "To put it another way, I don't think it's very wise for a few Jewish leaders to try to tell millions of Christians what they are supposed to believe. Would we want some Christians to try to edit our scriptures and to tell us what we should believe?"