The Three Dif­fer­ent Jesuses

(I) JESUS IN JUDAISM

* LIFE :

- Estab­lish­ing the time of the ​“Jew­ish Jesus”:

The ref­er­ence to Jesus in the Tal­mud is by the title : ​“Yeshu Ha-Notzri,” but accord­ing to Jew­ish chronol­o­gy, he lived at the time when Joshua Ben Per­akhyah led the San­hedrincir­ca 150 BCE ; see, for instance, San­hedrin 107b and, there­fore, pre­dat­ed Jesus accord­ing to Chris­t­ian chronol­o­gy by almost 200 years.

- Rejec­tion of the ​“Vir­gin Birth.” Judaism con­sid­ers Jesus a bas­tard. The Tal­mud records a story :

The elders were once sit­ting in the gate when two young lads passed by ; one cov­ered his head and the oth­er uncov­ered his head. Of him who uncov­ered his head Rab­bi Eliez­er remarked that he is a bastard.

Rab­bi Joshua remarked that he is the son of a ​“nid­dah” (a child con­ceived dur­ing a wom­an’s men­stru­al period).

Rab­bi Aki­ba said that he is both a bas­tard and a son of a nid­dah.

“They said, ​‘What induced you to con­tra­dict the opin­ion of your colleagues?’

He replied, ​“I will prove it con­cern­ing him.”

He went to the lad’s moth­er and found her sit­ting in the mar­ket sell­ing beans.

“He said to her, ​‘My daugh­ter, if you will answer the ques­tion I will put to you, I will bring you to the world to come.’ (eter­nal life). She said to him, ​‘Swear it to me.’

“Rab­bi Aki­ba, tak­ing the oath with his lips but annulling it in his heart, said to her, ​‘What is the sta­tus of your son?’

She replied, ​‘When I entered the bridal cham­ber I was nid­dah (men­stru­at­ing) and my hus­band kept away from me ; but my best man had inter­course with me and this son was born to me.’

Con­se­quent­ly the child was both a bas­tard and the son of a nid­dah.

“It was declared, ‘..Blessed be the God of Israel Who Revealed His Secret to Rab­bi Aki­ba…“Kallah 51a (empha­sis added)

Now there are numer­ous clear indi­ca­tions in oth­er places of the Tal­mudSee for instance Shab. 104b ; Sanh. 67a to con­clude that the pre­ced­ing Tal­mud dis­cus­sion is actu­al­ly about Jesus Christ (the ​“bas­tard boy” who ​“uncov­ered his head” and was con­ceived in the ​“filth of men­stru­a­tion”). The boy’s adul­ter­ous moth­er in this Tal­mud sto­ry is the moth­er of Christ, Mary (called Miri­am and some­times, Miri­am the hair­dress­er, in the Talmud).

* TEACHINGS :

He and his dis­ci­ples prac­ticed sor­cery and black mag­ic, led Jews astray into idol­a­try, and were spon­sored by for­eign, gen­tile pow­ers for the pur­pose of sub­vert­ing Jew­ish wor­ship.San­hedrin 43a

The Tal­mud also says that Jesus was in Egypt in ear­ly man­hood. Rab­bi Joshua b. Per­akhyah is said to have fled with his pupil Jesus to Alexan­dria in order to escape the per­se­cu­tions of the Jew­ish king Yan­nai (103−76 B.C.). On their return Jesus made a remark on the not fault­less beau­ty of their host­ess, where­upon Rab­bi Per­akhyah ex-com­mu­ni­cat­ed him. When Jesus approached him again, and was not received, he set up a brick for his god, and led all Israel into apos­ta­sy.San­hedrin 107b, etc.

Fur­ther­more, accord­ing to the Tal­mud, the source of his mir­a­cles was the black mag­ic and witch­craft, which he had learnt in his sojourn in Egypt.Shab­bat 104b

* DEATH :

Main­tains that Jesus was not cru­ci­fied but was hung and stoned to death :

“It is taught that on the eve of Passover, Jesus​“Yeshu” and in Son­ci­no foot­note no. 6, Yeshu ​“the Nazarene” was hung, and forty days before this the procla­ma­tion was made : Jesus is to be stoned to death because he has prac­ticed sor­cery and has lured the peo­ple to idol­a­try… He was an enticer and of such thou shalt not pity or con­done.“San­hedrin 43a

(II) JESUS IN CHRISTIANITY

Very well known to all ; the brief points are :

* LIFE :

- Jesus was the ​“third of the three;” the god made flesh. Chris­tians believe God came down to earth in human form, as Jesus said : ​“I and the Father are one“John 10:30

- Despite the fact the Jesus was God ​“made flesh”, the Chris­tians cut queer capers to show that he was at the same time a descen­dant of David.Not to men­tion that the obvi­ous con­tra­dic­tion with Jesus’ Davidic ances­try is the Chris­t­ian dog­ma of the Vir­gin Birth : If Joseph did not have sex with Mary, Jesus was not relat­ed to Joseph and there­fore not a descen­dant of David.

* TEACHINGS :

- Abro­gat­ed the whole Torah Law : through­out the New Tes­ta­ment, Jesus con­tra­dict­ed the Torah and stat­ed that its com­mand­ments were no longer applic­a­ble.See John 1:45 and 9:16, Acts 3:22 and 7:37, etc.

* DEATH :

- Was cru­ci­fied to death.

(III) JESUS IN ISLAM

* LIFE :

- Belief in the vir­gin birth.Qur’an 19:16 – 22 ; 3:59

- The Qur’an does noy say that Jesus was the ​“Mes­si­ah” in the preva­lent Judeo-Chris­t­ian sense. It refers to Jesus as the ​“Masih” sim­ply because he was more com­mon­ly known by this title among the addressees of the Qur’an.

It is pre­cise­ly the same as in some devel­op­ing coun­tries, Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger is bet­ter known, among the less edu­cat­ed, by the title TERMINATOR and thus your igno­rant addressees are sup­posed to under­stand you bet­ter if you had referred to him by the same title.

- The Qur’an does not use the term ​“word” (“kali­ma”) for Jesus in the sense of Logos of the Gospel of John.

The Qur’an says : ?Isa son of Maryam is only a mes­sen­ger of Allah and His word which He com­mu­ni­cat­ed to Maryam and a spir­it from Him.?Qur’an, 4:171

Here, the ​“word com­mu­ni­cat­ed to Mary” means that God sent His word (i.e., order) to the womb of Mary to con­ceive a child with­out the pres­ence of a sperm. This is the sense in which the Qur’an refers to Jesus as ​“His word which He com­mu­ni­cat­ed to Maryam.”

- The Qur’an does not use the term ​“spir­it” (“R?h”) for Jesus in the Chris­t­ian sense of the Holy Spir­it. The Qur’an­ic usage sim­ply means that Jesus was a soul sent from God (as all of us, accord­ing to the Qur’an, are.)

* TEACHINGS :

Revival of the Torah lawQur’an, 3:50 – 51, eman­ci­pat­ing his peo­ple from the cum­ber­some Rab­binic law and inter­pret­ing the Torah ​“Law” in light of the ​“Wis­dom” of his prophet­ic say­ings (which the Qur’an calls Inj?l).Qur’an, 5:110a

* DEATH :

- Did not die on the cross :

The Jews intend­ed to cru­ci­fy Jesus, and ?ils ont cru l’avoir fait ?Qur’an, 4:157, Mas­signon (“it appeared to them as such.”)

Though ​“it appeared to them [i.e., to the Jews] as such [i.e., as if they were suc­cess­ful in cru­ci­fy­ing Jesus],” yet this was not so in real­i­ty.Qur’an, 4:157

God ​“took him up to Him­self” (“rafa‘ahu,” 4:158, Pickthal)

The Qur’an does not say as to when did the ascen­sion of Jesus take place.