Why does the Talmud describe Jesus as a sorcerer?

Question

to Adam: grab a copy of it and see for yourself it really says so. He's not considered a prophet at all.

to L'Chaim: I'm not interested in proving anything just wondered why. it seems to be polemical though.

Answer 1

Oh, boy--lots of opinions out there on this one.

Several here have already raised the point that some scholars do not believe that it is in fact the Christian Jesus being talked about in the Talmud.

I will add a few other views..there are no doubt others as well.

1. This reference is a mistranslation. See http://www.skepticwiki.org/wiki/index.php/The_Talmud

2. Jesus is a practitioner of Jewish magic. See "Magic and MAgicians in the Roman Empire" http://www.mystae.com/restricted/reflections/messiah/xmagic.html. See also "Magic" in the Online Jewish Encyclopedia http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=45&letter=M--or, Jesus is a practitioner of Egyptian or Hellenistic magic. See http://www.askwhy.co.uk/christianity/0617Magic.html

3. The Talmud seeks to discredit Christianity. See http://www.comeuphither.com/article.php?sid=89 and http://www.watch.pair.com/HRChrist.html

4. Miracles or magic? 125 page thesis here: www.annarborvineyard.org/media/pdf/DHB_Thesis.pdf

Answer 2

Still trying to prove that the Jews killed Jesus, eh? Isn't that what he was sent here for? Would you have received atonement for your sins without his death?

There seems to be much "sorcery" in both the Old and New Testaments!

An important disclaimer included in the article:
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, whose Talmud edition has been translated into English, Russian and Spanish, said he believed the Talmudic Jesus is probably not the Christian Jesus.

“It could very well be somebody else” who lived 100 or 200 years earlier because the stories don’t match the Gospel account, he said.

Rabbi Steinsaltz noted that the Hebrew name Yeshu was popular back then and that “stories about the resurrection of dead leaders are a dime a dozen, before Jesus and after him. This is not a historical issue.”

In any case, Rabbi Steinsaltz said Christians would do best to avoid these texts because there is nothing politically or theologically significant to them in Jewish tradition.

Ellis Rivkin, professor emeritus of Jewish history at Hebrew Union College and author of the seminal book “What Crucified Jesus,” said dragging in the Talmud text is “dangerous, utterly meaningless and irrelevant.”

Answer 3

I'm not going to claim that I know tons on this subject, but it seems to me that even some of the references in the Talmud do specifically refer to Jesus, not all of them do. The Talmud is referring to law over a much longer time frame. Yeshu probably was used to describe a number of different people. The sorcerer would have likely been a different person.

Answer 4

The Talmud describs Jesus that way because the Jews deny His deity. The miracles and cures He performed were unbelieveable. Yet the Jews who establish the Talmud cannot ascribe the source of Jesus' power to God. Therefore, the source of His power must be demonic, like a sorcerer.

The latest is that they want to deny that He died on the cross. Jesus will always be a threat to traditional Jewish faith, so discrediting Him is their only approach.

If the gates of hell shall not prevail against His church, then the Talmud won't either.

Answer 5

Hello? The Jews feel just like the Muslims, that Christ was no more or less than a Prophet of God, they are still waiting on their Messiah.

Answer 6

Because they know what's up.