PASSAGES RELATING TO JESUS
43
to our knowledge of the Rabbinical belief concerning
the mother of Jesus ; it is only given because it refers
to her, my object being, as already explained, to pre-
sent as complete a series as I can of Rabbinical
passages bearing upon Jesus and Christianity.
There is, in j. Hag. 77x, a reference to a certain
Miriam the daughter of 'Eli, whom, on account of
the name
(c f:
Luke iii. 23), one might be tempted to
connect with the story of Jesus ; but there seems to
be no suspicion on the part of the Talmud of any
such connexion, and what is told about her does not
seem to me to point in that direction.
JESUS ALLEGED TO BE A ' MADZZER' 1
(3) M. Jeb. iv.
18
[b. Gemara, Jeb.
49b, same
words ; j. Gemara does not mention the
passage]. Rabbi Shim'on ben 'Azai said, 11
have found a roll of pedigrees in Jerusalem,
and therein is written A certain person
spurius cst
ex adult era [natus] ;
to confirm the words of
Rabbi Jehoshua.'
Cmvnentary.-This
passage is from the Mishnah,
and therefore (see Introduction) belongs to the older
stratum of the Talmud. R. Shim'on ben 'Azai was
the contemporary and friend of Aqiba, about the end
of the first and beginning of the second century.
They were both disciples of R. Jehoshua ben
Hananiah (b. Titan. 268), of whom frequent mention
will be made in these pages. R. Jehoshua, in his
early life, had been a singer in the Temple (b.
Erach.
11b), and his teacher, R. Jolianan ben Zaccai, was old
1
TOO, of spurious birth.
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