Why does the Talmud Place Jesus in the First Century BCE?

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The Talmud’s chronology of the life of Jesus is one of the matters that is immediately questioned by those who doubt the Talmud’s preservation of any authentic material about the historical Jesus. Typically, the Talmud’s narrative is understood to place Jesus during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus with his death shortly after that king’s death in 66 BCE. However, this contradicts (most?) Christian sources.

This post explores why the Talmud might present Jesus as living in the first century BCE.

1. Alternative tradition

The first argument is a simple one: that the Talmud had access to an alternative tradition about when Jesus lived. This is maintained by Richard Carrier in On The Historicity of Jesus, although not by any other scholar. A different way of thinking about this argument is the different narrative structure between the Synoptics and John. Both James Tabor and James Charlesworth have made comments stating that John’s narrative, while completely contradictory to the Synoptics, has some historical merit that should be considered. I explore this possibility in my book, Jesus the Nazarene: The Talmud and the Founder of Christianity. Some snippets from the book can be found on the “Writing Page” under “Jesus in the Talmud.”

2. Misattributed Tradition

The chronology of Jesus in the Talmud could be a confusion of dates and names in oral transmission of baraitot. The crux of the argument for a skepticism of the authenticity of this tradition stems from a doublet in the story of the inn. This is preserved in the Babylonian Talmud as occurring between Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachiah and Yeshu along with Yehudah ben Tabbai and Shimon ben Shatach (Sotah 47a; Sanhedrin 107b). This was during the time that Yehoshua and Yeshu went to Alexandria. It is when Yehoshua ben Perahyah and Yeshu returned that they parted ways and all of history would be changed. Yehoshua received a letter from Shimon, saying that it was safe to return to Israel. He came back with his disciple Jesus and stayed at an inn along the way. Yehoshua comments on the inn and how beautiful it is. Yeshu understands this to refer to the innkeeper’s wife. Yehoshua rebukes Yeshu for the impropriety of his statement and ostracizes him. This is the point when he separated from the Rabbis. Yeshu tried to apologize. This story is remarkable in that it presents Yeshu in a semi-positive light, given that he tried to apologize several times to his teacher. The final break between him and Yehoshua occurred due to a misunderstanding. The latter part of the story is truly heartbreaking. After Yeshu left his teacher, thinking he had been rebuked, he turned to idolatry. The exact meaning of this statement is undecipherable. It could refer to some stone idols. Others have more creative readings of the phrase – none of which are convincing, in my opinion. Yehoshua comes to Yeshu and begs him to repent, but Yeshu cites Yehoshua’s own halakhic teaching about an inciter: “Whoever sins and causes the masses to sin is not given the opportunity to repent.” It is recorded afterward that this is when Yeshu turned to idolatry and sorcery, leaving the rabbinic circle. However, in the Jerusalem Talmud (Y Chagigah 2:2), the same story is recounted by Yehudah ben Tabbai, but referencing himself instead of Yehoshua as the one whose student misunderstood his teacher’s reference to the inn. So, who was it who misunderstood their teacher: Jesus or Yehudah? 

Misattribution of traditions with names is a common occurrence in the Babylonian Talmud, as Elman notes:

“The dictum that “one who says something in the name of the one who stated it brings redemption to the world” [M Avot 6:6; BT Meg 15a; Hul 104b; Nid 19b; Kallah 1:1; Kallah 8:1] motivated the collection of variant attributions and other traditions. The Bavli contains over 750 cases in which alternate attributions are given… [T]he variant attributions can often be understood as possibilities arising from the vagaries of association, where the Amoraic statement is attributed to contemporaries who are closely associated, as in the case of R. Yohanan and his close disciple, R. Abbahu (Pes 100a), or when the two names can easily be aurally confused, as in the case of R. Abin and R. Abina (Ber 7a) or R. Ahali and R. Yehiel (Erub 12a), or when one element of a name is common to both, as in the case of R. Yose b. Abin and R. Yose b. Zevida (Ber 13a) or R. Levi b. Hamma and R. Hamma b. Hanina (Suk 47a). These alternatives are such as might have occurred either in the process of oral transmission, or there is reason to believe that one authority had actually quoted the other. (Elman 1999, pp. 61-62)

The association of Jesus with Yehoshua ben Perachiah could be attributed to a misattribution based on the phonetic approximation between the three names: Yehoshua; Yehudah; Yeshua (יהושוע, יהודה, ישוע). It is likely that the link between Yehoshua and Yehudah (ben Tabbai) was the original teacher-disciple tradition, which is maintained in Pirke Avot’s list of the transmission of the oral tradition (1:8). This fits into the tradition of zugot (“pairs”) of that part of the chain. Yehoshua ben Perachiah and Nittai the Arbelite pass the tradition to Shimon ben Shetach and Yehudah ben Tabbai. The addition of a third prominent student, Yeshu ben Pantera, distorts the “pairs’ tradition and contradicts earlier sources.

3. Common Historical Mistakes

It might be that Judeans and Samaritans of the time had a different conceptualization of history or access to historical documents which lead to a more frequent misattribution of people to periods of history. I’m less certain about this possibility but it struck me as noteworthy that later Samaritan historians made the same kind of mistakes about Dositheus, a similar figure to Samaritanism as Jesus is to Judaism. The Samaritan historian Abu l-Fath places the life of Dositheus in both the time of John Hyrcanus in the second century BCE and during the time of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BCE (Pummer, The Samaritans: A Profile). Christian sources place the Samaritan prophet in the first century CE.

4. Sectarian Purpose in the Parting of Ways

It might be the case that the Rabbis were asserting their own authority in the growing schism with Christianity. The Rabbis consistently assert their authority over other sectarian groups in Judaism and the Samaritans. It seems likely that they would have the same goals with the Christians.

This reason is hard to justify with evidence directly. However, indirectly, the Rabbis made all sorts of legal injunctions against the minim (Judeo-Christians) that limited their ritual and civic participation with the mainstream of rabbinic Judaism. It is well known that the minim were rooted out of the synagogue through the birkat haminim, the “blessing” against heretics. The Rabbis also enacted other legislative actions that limited social interaction between the two groups. The Rabbis assert their power over the minim as the true guardians of the biblical heritage.

The crux of this argument then is that the Rabbis are saying through their presentation of Jesus’ life that they understand who he was better than the minim do. They preserve the authentic life of Jesus over the Christians who do not. The Christians say that the Jews killed Jesus? The Rabbis say, Yes we did because he was a magician and idolater and the Sanhedrin executed him. The Christians say that the Jews rejected Jesus? The Rabbis say he rejected us and left the ways of Torah.

5. Mistake Reference

Perhaps the references to Alexander in the rabbinic narrative about Jesus could be a reference to King Agrippa either by mistake or through code (see reason # below). Agrippa is mentioned in one key reference in the mishnah:

Sotah 7:8
How is the portion of the Torah that is read by the king recited at the assembly, when all the Jewish people would assemble? At the conclusion of the first day of the festival of Sukkot, on the eighth, after the conclusion of the Sabbatical Year, they make a wooden platform for the king in the Temple courtyard, and he sits on it, as it is stated: “At the end of every seven years, in the Festival of the Sabbatical Year” (Deuteronomy 31:10). The synagogue attendant takes a Torah scroll and gives it to the head of the synagogue that stands on the Temple Mount. And the head of the synagogue gives it to the deputy High Priest, and the deputy High Priest gives it to the High Priest, and the High priest gives it to the king. And the king stands, and receives the Torah scroll, and reads from it while sitting. King Agrippa arose, and received the Torah scroll, and read from it while standing, and the Sages praised him for this. And when Agrippa arrived at the verse in the portion read by the king that states: “You may not appoint a foreigner over you” (Deuteronomy 17:15), tears flowed from his eyes, because he was a descendant of the house of Herod and was not of Jewish origin. The entire nation said to him: Fear not, Agrippa. You are our brother, you are our brother. And the king reads from the beginning of Deuteronomy, from the verse that states: “And these are the words” (Deuteronomy 1:1), until the words: “Hear, O Israel” (Deuteronomy 6:4). And he then reads the sections beginning with: “Hear, O Israel” (Deuteronomy 6:4–9), “And it shall come to pass, if you shall hearken” (Deuteronomy 11:13–21), “You shall tithe” (Deuteronomy 14:22–29), “When you have made an end of the tithing” (Deuteronomy 26:12–15), and the passage concerning the appointment of a king (Deuteronomy 17:14–20), and the blessings and curses (Deuteronomy 28), until he finishes the entire portion. The same blessings that the High Priest recites on Yom Kippur, the king recites at this ceremony, but he delivers a blessing concerning the Festivals in place of the blessing concerning forgiveness for iniquity.

This argument follows a similar trajectory to that of #2 above but looks to other aspects of the story that could have been confused.

6. Reference to the Legal System from the Time of Alexander Jannaeus Onward

Alexander Jannaeus or Yannai as he is called in the Talmud was a crucial figure for the Pharisees and later Rabbis. Josephus and the Talmud record a number of clashes between Yannai and the Pharisees (Ant., 13:372–383; Kid. 66a; Sot. 47a; Sanh. 19a). However, on his deathbed, Alexander advised his wife to rely on the Pharisees to govern, granting them incredible political powers (Ant. 13: 400-404). After his death, they did wield incredible political power, even until the first century CE. Steve Mason shows how Josephus, not a Pharisee, yielded to the Pharisees’ legal interpretations in his public civic life. He translates Life 12 like this, “When I had lived with him three years and so satisfied my longing, I returned to the polis. Being now in my nineteenth year I began to involve myself in polis life, deferring to the philosophical school of the Pharisees, which is rather like the one called Stoic among the Greeks.” He notes afterwards, “Josephus… claimed that anyone who takes up public office or government, even a Sadducee, must defer to “what the Pharisee says.” Otherwise he would not be tolerated by the masses, who, as Josephus has said elsewhere (Ant. 13.297-98, 400-32; 17.41-45), vigorously support the Pharisees.” Perhaps the references to Alexander Jannaeus should be read as references to the political system that he set up that led to how the Rabbis understood their role in eliminating the heretic, Jesus.

7. Coded personalities mapped onto Talmudic characters

The Talmud is known, in some instances, to engage in coded language about certain individuals or events. For example, certain of the rabbinic group receive code names such as Elisha ben Abuya who becomes known as Aher (“the other one”) after his movement to heretical ideas. In this case, it is easy to see why certain things might have been coded, particularly in Greco-Roman Palestine during the editing of the Jerusalem Talmud in the 3rd and 4th centuries CE when Christianity began to become the prominent religion. In fact, the Jerusalem Talmud speaks of Jesus in a much more cryptic manner than the later Babylonian Talmud does, likely due to its Greco-Roman context.

In any case, is it possible that some of the seemingly strange contradictions in chronology could be coded? For example, could the association of Yeshu/Jesus with Yehoshua ben Perachiah be a coded word for “Yochanan ben Zechariah?” Look at the phonetics of the names: YeHoShUa Ben PeRaCHiaH (יהושוע בן פרכיה) vs. YoCHaNaN Ben ZeCHaRiaH (יוחנן בן זכריה). This might combine well with #5 above so that the references to Alexander Yannai are less mistakes but rather coded references.

The Talmud is admittedly not an overtly coded text like the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, on occasion it does engage in that type of technique. It makes much more sense that it would do so if the authorities were increasingly either sympathetic to Christianity or Christians themselves and you were a despised minority group who had rebelled against the Empire in earlier centuries and had not many nice things to say about the founder of Christianity.

In any case, it is hard to know exactly why the Talmud places Jesus in the first century BCE and it is one of the more intriguing aspects of the Jesus narrative in the Talmud. These are possible solutions to the problem. I am not sure that it can be solved but I hope to have provided some thoughts around the subject.