Daf Ditty Shabbes 104

Rembrandt's Depictions of the Trial of Jesus

Bomberg edition of Talmud San 43a with attempts to erase lines on the trial of Jesus

‫בְּשָׂ רוֹ עַ ל הַ מְ סָ ֵרט‬. ‫תַּ נ ְי ָא‬, ‫ֶר רבִּי לָהֶ ן אָמַ ר‬ ַ ‫לַחֲ כָמִ ים אֱ לִיעֶ ז‬: ‫ הוֹצִיא סָ טָ דָ א בֶּן ו ַהֲ =א‬
‫לוֹ אָמְ רוּ ?בְּשָׂ רוֹ שֶׁ עַ ל בִּסְ ִריטָ ה מִ מִּ צ ְַרי ִם כְּשָׁ פִים‬: ‫הָ י ָה שׁוֹטֶ ה‬, ְ ‫ן ראָי ָה מְ בִיאִ ין אֵ יןו‬ ְ ִ‫ מ‬
‫הַ שּׁוֹטִ ים‬. ‫ירא בֶּן ?סָ טָ דָ א״ ״בֶּן‬ ָ ִ‫פּנ ְדּ‬
ַ ‫א רב אָמַ ר !הוּא‬ ַ ָ‫חִ סְ דּ‬: ‫״סָ טָ דָ א״ בַּעַ ל‬, ‫ בּוֹעֵ ל‬
‫ירא״‬ָ ִ‫פּנ ְדּ‬
ַ ‫״‬. ‫״סָ טָ דָ א״ אִ מּוֹ אֶ לָּא ?הוּא י ְהוּדָ ה בֶּן פַּפּוּס בַּעַ ל‬. ‫ שְׂ עַ ר מְ גַדְּ לָא מִ ְרי ָם אִ מּוֹ‬
‫בְּפוּמְ בְּדִ יתָ א כִּדְ אָמְ ִרי לָּאאֶ ?הֲ ו ַאי נ ְשַׁ יּ ָא‬: ‫מִ בַּעְ לַהּ דָּ א סְ טָ ת‬.

We learned in the Mishnah: If one unwittingly scratches letters on his flesh on Shabbat, Rabbi
Eliezer deems him liable to bring a sin-offering and the Sages deem him exempt. It was taught in
a baraita that Rabbi Eliezer said to the Rabbis: Didn’t the infamous ben Stada take magic spells
out of Egypt in a scratch on his flesh? They said to him: He was a fool, and you cannot cite proof
from a fool. That is not the way that most people write. Incidentally, the Gemara asks: Why did
they call him ben Stada, when he was the son of Pandeira? Rav Ḥisda said: His mother’s husband,
who acted as his father, was named Stada, but the one who had relations with his mother and
fathered him was named Pandeira. The Gemara asks: Wasn’t his mother’s husband Pappos ben
Yehuda? Rather, his mother was named Stada and he was named ben Stada after her. The
Gemara asks: But wasn’t his mother Miriam, who braided women’s hair? The Gemara explains:
That is not a contradiction. Rather, Stada was merely a nickname, as they say in Pumbedita: This
one strayed [setat da] from her husband.

Ben Stada – ‫א‬ ָ ָ‫ט ד‬
ְ ‫ ב ן ֶּ ס‬:Many scholars have attempted to identify the ben Stada mentioned
here. For a number of reasons, including the censorship that removed this passage from the
Talmud, many people thought that this referred to Jesus of Nazareth. Yeshu Panaturi and Mary
Magdala are mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud. However, Tosafot has pointed out that
chronologically this is impossible, because Pappos ben Yehuda was a well-known personality and
interacted with Rabbi Akiva during his later years. The Gemara also relates his great jealousy of
Rabbi Akiva’s wife, which came to nothing. Therefore, according to these sources, ben Stada
cannot be Jesus. It is also worth noting that in various places in uncensored editions of the
Talmud, Jesus is mentioned by name, and there is no reason that he would not be named if he
was indeed being referred to in this context. For these reasons, it seems that the ben Stada was
one of the so-called prophets and leaders of one of the many breakaway sects of those times.1


1
Steinzaltz Shabbes 104b “personalities”

2
Ben Stada, the son of Pandeira – ‫א‬ ָ ֵ‫א ב ◌ּן ֶּ פ נ ַ דְ ירּ‬
ָ ָ‫ט ד‬
ְ ‫ ב ן ֶּ ס‬:Attempts have been made to
interpret the term stada, but no clear source for the word has been found. It seems that
Pandeira comes from the Greek name Pandaros.

Rebbi Eliezer brought a proof from Ben Satda - who transported witchcraft from Egypt, hidden
under an incision in his skin (to escape the magicians who strictly forbade such an act), that
people do sometimes write on their skin.

The Rabbanan counter Rebbi Eliezer's proof however - by branding ben Satda as an idiot
(meaning that in this instance, he behaved totally irrationally) and one cannot use the deeds of
an idiot as a yardstick.


TOSFOS DH BEN STADA
‫ תוספות ד"ה בן סטדא‬
( Tosfos says that this is the same Ben Stada mentioned elsewhere.)
‫אור''ת דהא בן סטדא דאמרינן הכא דהוה בימי פפוס בן יהודה דהוה בימי רבי עקיבא כדמוכח בפרק בתרא דברכות )דף‬
(:‫ סא‬
(a)
Explanation (R. Tam): Ben Stada that it says here was in the days of Papus ben Yehudah, who
was in the days of R. Akiva, like is proven in Brachos (61b. The original, uncensored text of
Tosfos proves that Ben Stada is not "Oso ha'Ish", who was a Talmid of R. Yehoshua ben
Perachya, who was long before R. Akiva.)

Sanhedrin 67a elaborates on his fate further…

3
 [‫ס"הש מחסרונות הוספה‬: ‫ הפסח בערב ותלאוהו בלוד סטדא לבן עשו וכן‬

And the court did the same to an inciter named ben Setada, from the city of Lod, and they
hanged him on Passover eve.

‫ יהודה בן פפוס בעל פנדירא — בועל סטדא — בעל חסדא רב אמר הוא פנדירא בן סטדא בן‬
‫ דא סטת בפומדיתא כדאמרי הואי נשיא מגדלא מרים אמו סטדא אמו אֵימא אלא הוא‬
‫מבעלה‬:]
The Gemara asks: Why did they call him ben Setada, when he was the son of Pandeira? Rav Ḥisda
says: Perhaps his mother’s husband, who acted as his father, was named Setada, but his mother’s
paramour, who fathered this mamzer, was named Pandeira. The Gemara challenges: But his
mother’s husband was Pappos ben Yehuda, not Setada. Rather, perhaps his mother was named
Setada, and he was named ben Setada after her. The Gemara challenges: But his mother was
Miriam, who braided women’s hair. The Gemara explains: That is not a contradiction; Setada was
merely a nickname, as they say in Pumbedita: This one strayed [setat da] from her husband.

‫א מ״ג סנהדרין‬:‫כ׳‬

‫וכרוז יוצא לפניו לפניו אין מעיקרא לא והתניא בערב הפסח תלאוהו לישו והכרוז יוצא לפניו מ' יום ישו יוצא‬
‫ליסקל על שכישף והסית והדיח את ישראל כל מי שיודע לו זכות יבא וילמד עליו ולא מצאו לו זכות ותלאוהו‬
‫בערב הפסח‬

Sanhedrin 43a:20

The mishna teaches that a crier goes out before the condemned man. This indicates that it is only
before him, i.e., while he is being led to his execution, that yes, the crier goes out, but from the
outset, before the accused is convicted, he does not go out. The Gemara raises a difficulty: But
isn’t it taught in a baraita: On Passover Eve they hung the corpse of Jesus the Nazarene after they
killed him by way of stoning. And a crier went out before him for forty days, publicly proclaiming:
Jesus the Nazarene is going out to be stoned because he practiced sorcery, incited people to idol
worship, and led the Jewish people astray. Anyone who knows of a reason to acquit him should
come forward and teach it on his behalf. And the court did not find a reason to acquit him, and so
they stoned him and hung his corpse on Passover eve.

‫א י״ז זרה עבודה‬:‫א׳‬
‫והנאך ועליו נתפסת אמר לו עקיבא הזכרתני פעם אחת הייתי מהלך בשוק העליון של ציפורי ומצאתי אחד‬
‫ יט( לא תביא אתנן זונה ומתלמידי ישו הנוצרי ויעקב איש כפר סכנ‬,‫יא שמו אמר לי כתוב בתורתכם )דברים כג‬
[‫וגו'[ מהו לעשות הימנו בהכ"ס לכ"ג ולא אמרתי לו כלום‬
Avodah Zarah 17a:1

and you derived pleasure from it, and because of this you were held responsible by Heaven. Rabbi
Eliezer said to him: Akiva, you are right, as you have reminded me that once I was walking in the
upper marketplace of Tzippori, and I found a man who was one of the students of Jesus the
Nazarene, and his name was Ya’akov of Kefar Sekhanya. He said to me: It is written in your Torah:

4
“You shall not bring the payment to a prostitute, or the price of a dog, into the house of the Lord
your God” (Deuteronomy 23:19). What is the halakha: Is it permitted to make from the payment
to a prostitute for services rendered a bathroom for a High Priest in the Temple? And I said
nothing to him in response.

The early Christians were also aware of the name "ben Pandeira" for Jesus. The pagan
philosopher Celsus, who was famous for his arguments against Christianity, claimed in
178 C.E. that he had heard from a Jew that Jesus's mother, Mary, had been divorced by
her husband, a carpenter, after it had been proved that she was an adultress.

She wandered about in shame and bore Jesus in secret. His real father was a soldier
named Pantheras. According to the Christian writer Epiphanius (c. 320 - 403 C.E.), the
Christian apologist Origen (c.185 – 254 C.E.) had claimed that "Panther" was the
nickname for Jacob the father of Joseph, the stepfather of Jesus.

It should be noted that Origen's claim is not based on any historical information. It is
purely a conjecture aimed at explaining away the Pantheras story of Celsus. That story
is also not historical. The claim that the name of Jesus's mother was Mary and the claim
that her husband was a carpenter is taken directly from Christian belief. The claim that
Jesus's real father was named Pantheras is based on an incorrect attempt at
reconstructing the original form of Pandeira. This incorrect reconstruction was probably
influenced by the fact that the name Pantheras was found among Roman soldiers.

besides the books of the New Testament, and besides the epistles relating to Clement,
Ignatius and Polycarp, there is only one more Christian religious work which
Christians claim as historical evidence of Jesus, namely the Teaching of the Twelve
Apostles also known as the Didache. All other early Christian religious works are
either wholly rejected by modern Christians or are at least recognized as not being
primary sources as regards Jesus. The Didache began as a sectarian Jewish document,
probably written during the period of turmoil in c. 70 C.E. Its earliest form consisted
of moral teachings and predictions of the destruction of the current world order. This
earliest version, which obviously did not mention Jesus, was taken over by Christians
who heavily edited and altered it, adding a story of Jesus and rules of worship for
early Christian communities. Scholars estimate that the earliest Christian version of

5
the _Didache_ could not have been written much later than 95 C.E. It probably only
reached its final form around c. 120 C.E. 2

A well known anti-christian treatise called Toldot Yeshu which can be dated to the 10th
century but contains materials that can be dated back to the 2nd century.

Excerpts
In the year 3671in the days of King [Yannai], a great misfortune befell Israel, when there arose a
certain disreputable man of the tribe of Judah, whose name was Joseph Pandera. He lived at
Bethlehem, in Judah.

Near his house dwelt a widow and her lovely and chaste daughter named Miriam. Miriam was
betrothed to Yohanan, of the royal house of David, a man learned in the Torah and God-fearing.
At the close of a certain Sabbath, Joseph Pandera, attractive and like a warrior in appearance,
having gazed lustfully upon Miriam, knocked upon the door of her room and betrayed her by
pretending that he was her betrothed husband, Yohanan. Even so, she was amazed at this
improper conduct and submitted only against her will. ...

Miriam gave birth to a son and named him Yehoshua, after her brother. This name later
deteriorated to Yeshu. ...

One day Yeshu walked in front of the Sages with his head uncovered, showing shameful
disrespect. At this, the discussion arose as to whether this behavior did not truly indicate that
Yeshu was an illegitimate child and the son of a niddah. Moreover, the story tells that while the
rabbis were discussing the Tractate Nezikin, he gave his own impudent interpretation of the law
and in an ensuing debate he held that Moses could not be the greatest of the prophets if he had
to receive counsel from Jethro. This led to further inquiry as to the antecedents of Yeshu, and it
was discovered through Rabban Shimeon ben Shetah that he was the illegitimate son of Joseph
Pandera. Miriam admitted it. After this became known, it was necessary for Yeshu to flee to
Upper Galilee. ...

Lions of brass were bound to two iron pillars at the gate of the place of burnt offerings. Should
anyone enter and learn the [special 'Ineffable'] Name, when he left the lions would roar at him
and immediately the valuable secret would be forgotten.

Yeshu came and learned the letters of the Name; he wrote them upon the parchment which he
placed in an open cut on his thigh and then drew the flesh over the parchment. As he left, the
lions roared and he forgot the secret. But when he came to his house he reopened the cut in his
flesh with a knife and lifted out the writing. ...

2
http://mama.indstate.edu/users/nizrael/jesusrefutation.html

6
Yeshu proclaimed, "I am the Messiah; and concerning me Isaiah prophesied and said, 'Behold, a
virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.'" ...

The insurgents with him replied that if Yeshu was the Messiah he should give them a convincing
sign. They therefore, brought to him a lame man, who had never walked. Yeshu spoke over the
man the letters of the Ineffable Name, and the leper was healed. Thereupon, they worshipped
him as the Messiah, Son of the Highest.

When word of these happenings came to Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin decided to bring about the
capture of Yeshu. They sent messengers, Annanui and Ahaziah, who, pretending to be his
disciples, said that they brought him an invitation from the leaders of Jerusalem to visit them.3
Yeshu consented on condition the members of the Sanhedrin receive him as a lord. He started
out toward Jerusalem and, arriving at Knob, acquired an ass on which he rode into Jerusalem, as
a fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah.

The Sages bound him and led him before Queen Helene, with the accusation: "This man is a
sorcerer and entices everyone."

Biur HaGra Shulchan Aruch Yoreh De'ah 147:3

‫'כו חגים שם‬. ‫ אבל אלקות לשם לה שניתן שם אלא אסור שאין מ"רא כתב ה"ספ מ"הג ל"ז‬
‫ לו ניתן לא וגם ואדנות אלהות בו אין השם שבזה כיון אלוק שעשאוהו פ"אע הדיוטות שם‬
‫ 'כו אלו )'א 'ח ז"ע( תנן וכן הכתוב הקפיד אלהות בשם 'כו אלקים ושם יבדכת מותר כך לשם‬
‫ האיש אותו הוזכר מקומות ובכמה הן הדיוטות שמות שאלו וקרטסים סטרנורא קלנדא‬
‫המרדכי כ"וכ 'כו ס"בש ותלמידיו‬:

In the Second Century many Jews believed that Jesus had learned magic in Egypt. This is already
believed by Celsus who debated with Origen in the late Second Century (Origen, Contra Celsum, i.
28)4

Censorship of the Trial of Jesus in Talmud

The Munich Talmud manuscript of b.San.43a preserves passages censored out of the printed
editions, including the controversial trial of ‘Yeshu Notzri’. Chronological analysis of the layers
in this tradition suggests that the oldest words are: ‘On the Eve of Passover they hung Jesus of
Nazareth for sorcery and leading Israel astray.’ David Instone-Brewer5 argues that other words

3
Jesus in Chazal, Moshe Isaacson
4
http://legacy.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Tyndale/staff/Instone-Brewer/prepub/07_Instone_Brewer.pdf
5
JESUS OF NAZARETH’S TRIAL IN THE UNCENSORED TALMUD David Instone-Brewer
academia.edu

7
were added to this tradition in order to overcome three difficulties: a trial date during a festival;
the unbiblical method of execution; and the charge of ‘sorcery’.

The Munich Talmud is the earliest full manuscript Talmud, penned in 1343.1 A few manuscripts
of the Talmud have survived from before the invention of printing as well as many fragments,
and these are particularly important because they contain material censored out of the printed
editions, most of which concerned Jesus. Daniel Bomberg, a Christian printer in Venice in the
early 1500s, spent most of his professional life and family fortune printing 230 major Jewish
works, including the Jerusalem Talmud and the massive editions of the Babylonian Talmud and
the Mikraot Gedolot (the Rabbinic Bible) with their surrounding commentaries. He worked
mainly with Felice da Prato, an Augustinian friar who had converted from Judaism. They
followed the page layout invented by the Soncino family for printing the tractate Berakhot in
1483, which has a central Talmud passage with commentaries arranged around the edge of the
page. They applied this system to all the tractates and completed the first full printed Talmud in
1520.2 This page layout was so useful that it became standard, and exactly the same layout is
still reproduced today for printing the Talmud.

Bomberg’s printing of the Talmud ensured its survival because a few years later, in 1553, Pope
Julius III ordered the burning of all Talmuds,3 but multiple printed copies had already spread
everywhere. One was sold in London in 1628 for £26, then went missing, and was rediscovered
in 1991 in Sion College’s basement.4 Without Bomberg’s printed edition, the Munich Talmud
might be the only full copy of the Talmud which survived. His printing is essentially identical to
the normal nineteenth-century edition usually known as ‘Vilna’ though some of these tractates
were printed in up to four separate and subtly different editions.6
The Munich Talmud is therefore the only uncensored copy of the whole Talmud, though even
this is censored in some respects. The name of Jesus and other words are frequently very faint, as
though someone has attempted to erase them. In the passage about Jesus’ trial, the two
occurrences of the name ‘Yeshu ha-Notzri’ have been partially erased in this way, as well as
parts of the following passage about the names of his disciples. However, the original Hebrew is
still visible, and it has been reconstructed by examination of the manuscript. These
reconstructions are usefully collected in an appendix by Herford.7

6
Avraham Rosenthal, The Talmud Editions of Daniel Bomberg: A Comprehensive Collection of All Tractates of the Four
Editions by Bomberg, Venice 1520-1549 (Microfiche collection, Jerusalem: IDC, 1997). He discusses the differences in ‘Daniel
Bomberg and His Talmud editions’ in Gli Ebrei e Venezia, XIV-XVIII (Proceedings of the international conference in Venice,
1987): 375-416.
7
R. Travers Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash (London: Williams & Norgate, 1903; New York, KTAV, 1975): 406.

8
The name of Jesus does not always occur in censored passages. Some refer to ‘Ben Stada’
(‫( בן סטדא‬or ‘Ben Pandira’ (‫ בן פנדירא‬,(but there is good evidence that these are
pseudonyms for Jesus in such passages. In b.San.67a both these names are used for the same
person who is described as ‘hung on the Eve of Passover’—the same phrase which is used of
Yeshu ha-Notzri in b.San.43a.

Also, Tosephta refers to ‘Yeshu ben Pandira’ ( ‫ פנדירא ישו בן‬,(and it has a story about a
follower of him, Jacob of Kephar Sekhania who met Eliezer b. Hyrcanus (late First or early
Second Century) in Sepphoris near Nazareth (t.Hull. 2:23).

Tosephta’s version of this story says that he taught Eliezer a saying of the minim—a term
which refers to heretics, including Christians. The saying itself is found at b.AZ.17a, where
the Munich Talmud attributes it to ‘Yeshu haNotzri’ (‫ ישו הנוצרי‬.

Jack Lunzer and the Valmadonna Trust Library

Known as the Valmadonna Trust Library, the collection consisted of over 13,000 printed
books and manuscripts, and is considered the twentieth century’s greatest and finest
collection of Judaica in private hands.

Among its principal treasures were a Chumash from 1189, the only surviving Hebrew
manuscript written in England before the expulsion of the Jews in 1290; a
complete Babylonian Talmud, produced by the renowned early sixteenth-century
Christian printer Daniel Bomberg; and more than one-third of all known Hebrew

9
incunabula (i.e., the earliest printed books, dating from the last quarter of the fifteenth
century).8

In 1956, he discovered that a complete set of the Babylonian Talmud, printed by Daniel
Bomberg in nine volumes between 1519 and 1523, and on which all subsequent
printings of Talmud tractates are modeled, was in the collection of Westminster Abbey,
having lain there untouched for several centuries.9

Once he had been granted permission to examine it and found it to be in magnificent

condition (if a bit dusty), Lunzer was determined to own it. Over the years, he made the
Abbey many offers to purchase it and was always rebuffed.

But in 1980, he seized the chance to buy a 900-year-old copy of the Abbey’s charter.
The story goes that when he approached the Abbey authorities with the charter in hand,
he was greeted with “We’ve been expecting you, Mr. Lunzer.” A deal was struck, and
the Westminster Talmud became the centerpiece of the Valmadonna Trust Library.

I had the privilege of knowing and admiring Jack Lunzer who died in 2016 at 92, a man
larger than life.

8
See Treasures of the Valmadonna Trust Library: a catalogue of 15th-century books and five centuries of deluxe Hebrew
printing, David Sclar, ed., (London, 2011), available as a PDF download
atacademia.edu/7949515/Treasures_of_the_Valmadonna_Trust_Library_a_catalogue_of_15th-
century_books_and_five_centuries_of_deluxe_Hebrew_printing. See also The Writing on the Wall: A Catalogue of Judaica
Broadsides from the Valmadonna Trust Library, Sharon Liberman Mintz, Shaul Seidler-Feller, David Wachtel, eds. (2015).
9
There are some scholars who believe that this is the copy of the Talmud ordered by King Henry VIII from Daniel Bomberg
when he was trying to find a way to divorce Catherine of Aragon in order to be able to marry Anne Boleyn. The king had been
told that Jewish law could provide him with a solution. However, by the time the Talmud arrived in England, he had already
found another way out and so the Talmud was probably never even opened.

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