PASSAGES RELATING TO JESUS
95
The Christians would, of course, be of Jewish
extraction.
Other persons who are described as disciples of
Jesus will be mentioned subsequently. I do not
mention them here, in the division dealing with
Talmudic references to Jesus, because the passages
where they are alluded to are more conveniently
grouped together as referring to Minuth (heresy) and
Minim
(heretics), and will therefore be treated
separately in another main division.
I shall close this division, of which the main subject is
Jesus, by a reference to the name Ben Netzer, which has
been held by some to denote Jesus.
BEN NETZER
Levy (N. H. W., i.
240a, s.v. ;.) says that the name
Ben Netzer
(i
':i) is probably an allusion to Jesus the
Nazarene. Keim,
(J. of N., ii.
15, Eng. Tr.) says
that the Talmudists call Jesus, Ben Netzar. This is
also the view of Edersheim (L. and T. J. M., i. 222).
The authority for this appears to be Abarbanel, whose
work riviw'i +rrn is quoted by Buxtorf (Lexicon
Talmudicum, ed. Fischer, s.v. -m) as follows : Speak-
ing of the 11 little horn " in Dan. vii. 8, he says (26),
°°
See, yea see, how they interpret that other I little
horn' to mean Ben Netzer, who is Jeshua ha-Notzri,
and according to the context they join in the reference
to him the wicked kingdom, which is Edom, for that
was his nation." What reason Abarbanel had for
making this identification I do not know ; but there
is nothing in the passages where Ben Netzer is
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