82
CHRISTIANITY IN TALMUD
really was no law on the subject except what could
be recollected in connection with the trial of Jesus.
As in the passages previously examined, we have
here only scanty remnants of a tradition about that
trial, combined perhaps with hearsay information
derived from Christians. There is no ground, as
Keim rightly says (Jesus of Nazara, vi.
47 n., E.T.),
for correcting the Gospel account ' by the help of the
Talmud. Rather it is the Gospel account which
throws light upon the Talmudic tradition, From the
Gospel story are derived the two witnesses (Matt.
xxvi. 60. In Mark xiv. 56, 57, several witnesses are
mentioned). The Gospel speaks of ` false' witnesses,
and this is perhaps the origin of the Talmudic asser-
tion that the witnesses were concealed in order to
entrap the accused. From the Talmudic point of
view the witnesses were not false, in the sense of un-
truthful, but were justified by their zeal for the true
religion in acting deceitfully against a heretic. The
mention of the outer and the inner chamber (of what
building is not said) recalls Matt. xxvi. 69, where it
is said that
Peter
was
sitting without in the court,
while the trial was going on within the house of
the High Priest. The lighted lamp may have been
suggested by the mention of the fire kindled in the
outer court, Luke xxii.
55.
And finally the state-
ment that the witnesses carried the accused to the
Beth Din may have its origin in the fact that there
was, according to the Gospels, a second sitting of the
council after the one at which the witnesses had been
present (Mark xv. 1). The Talmudic tradition differs
from the Gospel in saying that the trial took place at
Lud (Lydda), and that Jesus was stoned. These
 |  |  |