Customer Reviews

Christianity in Talmud and Midrash

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This book is 100 years old and is still repeatedly cited and referred to by studies involving possible Talmudic references to Christ and/or Christianity.

When the Temple at Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD, the successors of the Pharisees continued in their oral traditions. About the year 200 AD, these traditions - revolving around the interpretation and illustration of the Torah - were collected and written down in the Mishna. Over time, additional traditions, or Gemara, were also preserved. The two main groups of Jews, Palestinian and Babylonian, over the next couple hundred years, collected their Mishnaic and Gemaran traditions along with other authoritative rabbinical sayings into, respectively, the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds. The Babylonian Talmud runs about 30 volumes!

R. Travers Herford had a love of and respect for the Talmud. In his introduction he reminds the reader of this history of the Talmud, the often religiously charged atmosphere in which it was written, and the faith of the Jews who passed it from generation to generation. He reviews that massive work and capably, with commentary, lists possible references to Christ, his disciples, Christianity and Jewish dealings with Christians. In his commentary he notes from which "layer" of the Talmudic tradition the statement is made thereby giving some sort of dating to the statement.

Herford has been criticized for seeing too many references as being related to Christ. Frankly, I see that as a benefit because at least Herford allows you to examine the citation for yourself. I use Herford with other commentaries on the Talmud.

I'd like to be able to say that standards for citing sources was lower in the past than it is now, because that would give Mr Travers an excuse for 482 pages of unreliable information. I have no sources to cite for such an excuse however, and so I'll have to go with the fact that even today, people spend lots of money on fad diet books that get debunked months later.

I've personally debunked Herford's claims, and the copy of Babylonian Talmud I used has the same text as the 1324 Munich manuscript, which is available online as page images easily readable once you get used to the script.

1. In every case where he is mentioned, it is clear that Jeshu ha-Notsri lived in the time of King Alexander Jannai, which is 100 years too early. The only way Herford can refute this is to call into question the accuracy of the Talmud on the subject, and it's the only place he does.
2. Herford cites pages of both Talmuds which don't exist. Cases include Bavli Yoma 66d (all Talmud pages are numbered either a or b) and Yerushalmi Taanith 65b (the tractate ends on 27b and was never subject to censorship).
3. Herford is clueless about Jewish history and has R. Akiva seeing Jesus while sitting among the elders in the marketplace. Given that R. Akiva was born about 50 CE and had a grudge against the rabbinate which was only resolved about 90 CE, that is a physical impossibility.
4. He claims several times that the rabbis identified Balaam and Jesus without citing one classic Jewish writing which says so. That marks the claim as either a bare assertion fallacy or a tradition passed down among Christians for some period of time which is unknown because he doesn't cite any Christian sources either. Either he made it up or he plagiarized.

The only reason for reading this work is to know where all Herford's mistakes are so you can prove him wrong.
And for that you don't need to buy the book, you can read it on Google.