Accusation: Rabbi’s [sic] instruct their congregations not to look into this Jesus, and at every synagogue service, they read from their Talmud very hurtful words about Jesus, and how He is swimming in a pit of feces in hell.
Response: Do Christians think that spreading false and anti-Semitic statements will encourage Jews to embrace the gods of Christianity? This accusation comes from people who have fallen for a lot of hateful anti-Semitic rhetoric.
Jew do not read from the Talmud every week in synagogue. It may be used to explain some of the Torah reading for the week but it is not read as scripture. The Talmud also says nothing about Christianity’s man-god.
I’m willing to bet that most Christians don’t even know what the Talmud is or how it is used within the Jewish world. I’m convinced that Christians only know things about the Talmud from hate-filled preachers and anti-Semitic writings. What will shock many Christians is that parts of the Oral Law – which is part of the Talmud – is found in Christians scripture.
Here are just two examples:
For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. (I Corinthians 10:1-4)
Nowhere in the Tanach does it say that the rock followed the Israelites during the Exodus. However, that story is in the Talmud.
Because of its similarity to Rabbi Hanina’s statement, the Gemara cites that which Rabbi Hiyya said: One who wants to see Miriam’s well, which accompanied the Jewish people throughout their sojurn in the desert, should do the following: He should climb to the top of Mount Carmel and look out, and he will see a rock that looks like a sieve in the sea, and that is Miriam’s well. Rav said: A spring that is portable, I.e., that moves from place to place, is ritually pure and is regarded as an actual spring and not as drawn water. And what is a moveable spring? It is Miriam’s well. (Shabbat 35a)
Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7:12)
This comes from the Talmud, specifically from Rabbi Hillel.
The same gentile came before Hillel. He converted him and said to him: That which is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, and the rest is its interpretation. Go study. (Shabbat 31a)
Additionally, Jesus told his followers that they are to follow the rabbi’s rulings.
Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do.” (Matthew 23:1-3)
And where are these rulings preserved? They are preserved in the Talmud.
As far as the Talmud passage that the accusation is referring to, it is not about the Jesus of the Christian Bible.
Onkelos then went and raised Jesus the Nazarene from the grave through necromancy. Onkelos said to him: Who is most important in that world where you are now? Jesus said to him: The Jewish people. Onkelos asked him: Should I then attach myself to them in this world? Jesus said to him: Their welfare you shall seek, their misfortune you shall not seek, for anyone who touches them is regarded as if he were touching the apple of his eye (see Zechariah 2:12) (Gittin 57a)
This is the same “Jesus the Nazarene” which is spoken of in the specific passage from the accusation (Sotah 47a). This Jesus is a stude of Rabbi Yahushua. This Yeshu was a sorcerer and led the Israelites astray. He was ultimately stoned to death as punishment. Now, here is the problem for Christians – he lived in the latter-half of the second-century BCE. Therefore he cannot be the man-god of Christianity.