PASSAGES RELATING TO JESUS
45
to a judicial death,'
i.e.
one born of a union which
was prohibited under penalty of such a death. Now
Jesus undoubtedly had been condemned (though not
on account of his birth) to a judicial death, as the
Talmud recognises (see passages given subsequently,
pp. 80, 83) and Shim'on ben 'Azai brings the evidence
of the book which he had discovered, to show that in
the case of a notorious person the penalty of a
judicial death had followed upon unlawful
birth.
The alleged discovery of a book of pedigrees in
Jerusalem may be historical ; for the Jews were not
prohibited from entering Jerusalem until the revolt of
Bar Cocheba had been suppressed by Hadrian, A.D.
135, and ben 'Azai was dead before that time. What
the book was cannot now be determined. The title,
Book of Pedigrees, is quite general. It is worth
noticing, however, that the present gospel of Matthew
begins with the words,
The book of the genealogy of
Jesus Christ.
It is just possible that the book to
which ben 'Azai referred was this Gospel, or rather an
Aramaic forerunner of it, or again it may have been a
roll containing one or other of the two pedigrees
recorded in Matthew and Luke.
COVERT
REFERENCE TO JESUS
(4) b. Joma.
66d.-They asked R. Eliezer, 'What
of
a certain person
as regards the world to
come'? He said to them, 'Ye have only
asked me concerning
a certain person.'
'What
of the shepherd saving the sheep from the
lion'?' He said to them, 'Ye have only asked
1 7+I n+:1
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