The Talmud (Myths and Misquotes)
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- This article is neither written nor explained very clearly. I did my best to bring some intelligible order to the article, but it still needs a lot of work. --Yahweh 21:36, 26 November 2005 (GMT)
[edit] History of the fabrications
In the 1950s, anti-Semitic author Mrs. Lyrl Van Hyning published a book Key To The Mystery and a racist periodical Woman's Voice, presenting a large and controversial wave of fabricated quotes from The Talmud [1].
Mrs Van Hyning and other notable anti-Semites such as Nesta Webster, Benjamin H. Freedman and Rev. Gerald L.K. Smith based most of their claims on those produced by Rev. IUstøin Bonaventura Pranaitøis (d. 1917?) and his Christianus in Talmude Iudaeorum : sive, Rabbinicae doctrinae de Christianis secreta (The Secret Jewish Rabbinical Teachings Concerning Christians)[2]. Another source is from the, Ku Klux Klan organizer, Wesley Swift's 1939 translation entitled The Talmud Unmasked.
[edit] Appearances of the fabricated quotes
The fabricated quotes have surfaced in certain parts of the white nationalist community [3] and among certain Christians [4] [5].
[edit] Examples of fabricated/mistranslated quotes of the Talmud
- "Jesus was a bastard born of adultery." (Yebamoth 49b).
- "Mary was a whore: Jesus (Balaam) was an evil man." (Sanhedrin 106a).
- "Jesus was a magician and a fool. Mary was an adulteress". (Shabbath 104b).
- "Christians are allied with Hell, and Christianity is worse than incest". (Abodah Zarah 17a).
- "WHEN MESSIAH COMES HE WILL DESTROY THE CHRISTIANS". (Sanhedrin 99a).
- "Those who read the Gospels are doomed to Hell". (Sanhedrin 90a, 100b).
- "A heretic Gentile you may kill outright with your own hands." - (Talmud, Abodah Zara, 4b.)
- "It is the law to kill anyone who denies the Torah. The Christians belong to the denying ones of the Torah." (- Coschen hamischpat 425 Hagah 425. 5)
- "Every Jew, who spills the blood of the godless (goi), is doing the same as making a sacrifice to God." (Talmud, Bammidber raba c 21 & Jalkut 772.)
- "It is permitted to take the body and the life of a Gentile." (Sepher ikkarim III c 25)
- "Jesus is in hell where His punishment is "boiling in hot semen." (Talmud: Gittin 57a)
- "To communicate anything to a goy about our religious relations would be equal to the killing of all Jews, for if the goyim knew what we teach about them they would kill us openly." (Libbre David: 37)
All of these misquotations and others are corrected and refuted further below.
[edit] Discussion
It should be clear that, once these popular misquotations have been corrected, that there is no consensus as to whether Jesus is mentioned in the Talmud. Most of the supposed "blasphemies" of Jesus and Mary in the Talmud do not refer to them at all. However, there can be no denying, and no rabbi would deny this, that the authors of the Talmud did not believe in Jesus' messiahship or his divinity. Further, there is no basis at all to state unequivocally that the Talmud calls Jesus a bastard or that Mary was a prostitute who had sex with many men. As has been shown, those passages put forward to support these statements definitely do not refer to Jesus.
Further as stated in books such as "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding The Talmud":
- Our philosophy asserts that every human being is created in the image of the Lord and the primacy of integrity and honesty in all dealings without exception. I strongly repudiate any assertions in the name of Judaism that do not represent and reflect this philosophy.
- - Rabbi Malkiel Kotler, dean of the world-renowned Lakewood Yeshiva, Dec. 16, 2003
It should also be observed that one can see quotes from the Old and New Testaments etc. and also quotes made by Muslims, Satanists, atheists and so on which, when taken out of context, seem to make the quote unflattering.
[edit] Correcting the misquotes; Part 1.
[edit] Correcting the misquotes; Part 2.
[edit] The Jesus, Balaam, Yeshus mixups
One thing that is crucial to keep in mind is the fact that there were several people in the Talmud with the same/similar names.
For example, Rabbi Aaron Hyman in his extensive and biographical work on the sages of the Talmud compilations, Toldot Tannaim VeAmoraim, there in it lists some sixtyone different Elazars, fourteen different Hillels and seventyone different Hunas. Now, Josephus lists about twenty different men named Jesus, of these there were at least ten who lived around the time as Jesus Christ. (see John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, p. 206 n. 6)
Balaam was a sorcerer described even way back before the times of Jesus, in in the Tanchuma [Balak, 5] and in Yalkut Shimoni [Numbers, 771].
As with the discussions and related commentary to the tractates of Shabbat 104 and Sanhedrin 64, therein "Ben Stada" is referred to, and here we see that there was a man named Ben Stada who was considered to be a practicer of black magic. With a mother who's named Miriam but also called Stada. The stepfather was named Pappos Ben Yehudah. And Miriam had an affair with a man named Pandira.
But naturally some might that this Ben Stada, also known as Ben Pandira, was in fact Jesus. Ben's mothers name was Miriam which is similar to Mary, also Miriam was called "megadla nashaia", women's hairdresser.
But Jesus "stepfather" was Joseph and Ben Stada's stepfather was Pappos Ben Yehudah. Miriam was not Jesus mother and Mary wasn't a hairdresser. Finally, Pappos Ben Yehudah is a relatively known re-appearing figure from other places in the Talmud.
In the Mechilta Beshalach he's discussing the written-torah with Rabbi Akiva and in Talmud Berachot 61b, it is described how Pappos Ben Yehudah was captured and killed by Romans along with Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva is a known rabbi who lived during the second half of the first century, he was killed around the year 134. So, if Pappos Ben Yehudah was a contemporary of Rabbi Akiva then Yeshu Ben Stada must have been born well after Jesus had died (or ascended), therefor this Yeshu Ben Stada could not have been Jesus Christ.
Furthemore, a standard rabbinic comprehension of these Yeshu passages is that they refer to at least two completely different persons (cf. Tosafot HaRosh, Sotah 47a sv Yeshu, Shabbat 104b sv Ben Stada; Tosafot Shabbat 104b sv Ben Stada; R. Abraham Zacuto, Sefer Hayuchasin 5:6, R. Natan David Rabinowitz, Binu Shenot Dor Vador, pp. 422-425) .
Here's the two Yeshu's mentioned: Yeshu (Ben Stada) was around sometime during 100 CE. At times he was referred to Ben Pandira (he shared this name with another Yeshu) however he's mainly Ben Stada. The "Stada" is taken from his mother probably to differentiate him literally from Ben Pandira. He's said to have brought practices of magic/witchcraft from Egypt. His mother was, Miriam (referred to as Stada sometimes), a hairdresser. His stephfather was Pappos Ben Yehudah and Ben Stada was executed for idolatry.
Yeshu (Ben Pandira) were out gallivanting around 80 BC, his mentor/rabbinical teacher was Rabbi Yehoshua (name sound familiar?) Ben Perachiah. Early he escapated Roman persecution and went to Egypt but when he came back he'd become an idolater. He, along with five of his followers were executed however his teachings remained for a couple of hundred years. His teachings is recorded to have disappeared with the death of Rabbi Yishmael who died 133.
In conclusion, considering the context and related commentaries of these Talmud folios, it is therefor doubtful that they were discussing Jesus Christ as opposed to the more factually relevant "Yeshus".
[edit] The Schindler's List's Talmud quote, falsified or not?
An article by revisionist Michael A Hoffman II claims that Steven Spielberg falsified a quote from the Talmud in the end of his move Schindler's List.[6]
The quote in question is;
"He who saves a single life, saves an entire world."
Hoffman however, claims that it's false and that the real quote only referr to jews.
There is no need go so far to agree with Hoffman and say that it is Spielbergs misrepresentation of it. This quote; "He who saves a single life, saves the entire world." is from the Yerushalmi Talmud (Sanhedrin 4:9). And the quote; "Whosoever preserves a single soul of Israel, Scripture ascribes to him as if he had preserved a complete world" comes from the Bava Batra 11a, Talmud Bavli.
While it is certainly accurate that the Talmud Bavli has been considered the more authoritive one, the following quote is a good explaination of how it is essentially viewed; "When a man mints a number of coins from a single die, they are all identical; but the King of the kings of kings, the Holy One blessed be He, minted every human being from the die of the primal Adam, and not one of them is like any other. -Rishonim"
Maimonides (aka RamBam), one of the most influental Rabbis ever, lived during the 11th century and wrote the codification of jewish law, Mishneh Torah, did write and cite the Jerusalem (Yerushalmi) Talmud as he understood the "he who saves" as inclusive of all people.
Evidently, if the original of these two "he who saves" quotes had referred to the preservation of jews alone then I would at least think the reference would have been to, at the earliest, Abraham, as opposed to the father of all men. But then we have this repeated reference to Adam. Adam and Eve of course were the progenitors of all mankind according to both Judaism and Christianity, which makes it more likely that it's essentially applied to the preservation of human life in general.
As I said before, Rambam/Maimonides gave for the Yerushalmi version, in Hilkhot Sanhedrin 12:3, but also cites the Bavli version briefly in Hilkhot Rotzea`h 1:6. Hameiri also based his own commentary on the Yerushalmi version which illustrates the quote "Whoever destroys the life of a single human being [nefesh a`hat mi-bnei adam] ... it is as if he had destroyed an entire world and whoever preserves the life of a single human being ... it is as if he had preserved an entire world", by pointing out that Cain's murder of Abel eliminated all of his victim's descendents in one big, fell swoop. And we know at least that Abel, like Adam were not Jewish.
So it's not hard to grasp what the main idea behind the quote was, as it makes sense that if you remove the father before he's begotten, you remove all of his possible offsprings in one go, hence if you therefor saved a father it is to be likened with saving of a world of people.
Now this humanistic version was not however always completely universally accepted by some of the later commentators, the A`haronim. In MaHaRSh'A, for example, in Hidushei Agadot on Sanhedrin.37a, stays with Version 2, which only includes jews and a few rabbis out of their reverence. Though the Mishnah and Maimonides personally based the dictum on Adam being the father of all mankind and thus the essentials of this quote means thus. Most followers of Judaism has understood the quote in this light. Like any people in general, believe that which appeals most to their own vanity, or lack thereof, it has very little to do with religious essentials. And, thus in conclusion, Hoffman wasn't correct on his accusation on Spielberg nor the Talmud here either.
