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(3) Josephus (ca. 37-100 CE) provides, in his two historical works (The Jewish War, written in the 70s, and Jewish Antiquities, 93 or 94 CE), his autobiography (Life), and an apologia for Judaism (Against Apion), are markedly rich political and religious tapestry against which to view the life of Jesus. Of particular interest are the "sign prophets" who appeared in the troubled Jewish society on the first century. In addition, there are independent views of John the Baptist (Ant.18:116-119) and James (Ant. 20.200), as well as a heavily interpolated passage on Jesus (Ant. 18. 63-64): About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was the doer of marvelous works and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love (him) did not cease. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life. For the prophets of God had prophesied these and many other marvelous things about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still up to now not disappeared."(4) The Mishna (ca. 200 CE), and the commentaries upon it that constitute the two Talmuds (ca. 400-600 CE) are highly detailed discussions of many aspects of Jewish laws and customs, many of them (e.g. on the Sabbath and on criminal trials) apparently pertinent to the life of Jesus. The question is: how many of these regulations or practices were current in Jesus' lifetime? Modern scholarship on Jesus is increasingly reluctant to use these once highly regarded heuristic tools for an under standing of 1st century Judaism; see Jacob Neusner, Rabbinic Judaism and NT Christianity. What We Cannot Know. What We Do Not Know, 1994). The rabbinic writings likewise once contained some (later censored) passages that obliquely referred to Jesus ("Jeshua ben Pandera," "Ben Stada"), his trial and his death. According to them, he was executed, after a Jewish trial and on Jewish authority , for "sorcery and enticing Israel to apostasy." (cf. Josephus, War 6: 288): Wilson 1984: 62: "Because of its earlier date it is the Mishna (ca. 200) that is most relevant to the life of Jesus; though it does not make itself make direct reference to him, its supplements, the Baraitha and Tosefta, both equally earl y, do so at least five times. In each instance...the man referred to may be confidently identified with the Jesus of Christianity:"
It has been taught: On the eve of Passover they hanged Yeshu...because he practiced sorcery and enticed and led Israel astray. (Baraitha BT Sanhedrin 43a)
Our rabbis taught: Yeshu had five disciples --Mattai, Nakkai, Netzer, Buni and Todah. (Ibid.)
It happened with Rabbi Elazar ben Damah, whom a serpent bit, that Jacob, a man of Kefar Soma, came to heal him in the name of Jeshua ben Pantera; but Rabbi Ishmael did not let him. He said, "You are not permitted, Ben Damah.' He answered, "I will bring you proof that he may heal me." But he had no opportunity to bring proof, for he died. (Tosefta Hullin 2.22,23)
Once, I was walking on the upper street of Sephoris and found one of the disciples of Yeshu the Nazarene, by the name of Jacob, a man of Kefar Sechanaya. He said to me, "It is written in your Torah: "Thou shalt not hire a harlot, etc." How about making with it a privy for the high priest?" But I did not answer him at all. He told me. Thus did Yeshu the Nazarene teach me: 'For the hire of a harlot has she gathered them, and unto the hire of a harlot shall they return," from the place of filth they come, and unto the place of filth they shall go." And the utterance pleased me.." (Tosefta Hullin 2.24)
Thus the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth did not pass completely unnoticed in the rabbinic writings. Wilson has cited the earliest, but there are references in the Talmud as well, though here too the references are generally somewhat oblique and were for the most part excised from later editions of the Talmuds and related texts. The following remarks on Ben Stada or Ben Pandera, elsewhere identified as "Jeshua ben Pandera," are not untypical of the kinds of passages that have also been identified, not without argument, as references to Jesus:
"He who cuts upon his flesh": It is a tradition that Rabbi Eliezer said to the Wise, "Did not Ben Stada bring spells from Egypt in a cut which was upon his flesh?' They said to him, "He was a fool and they do not bring a proof from a fool." Ben Stada is Ben Pandera. Rab Hisda said, "The husband was Stada, the paramour was Pandera." The husband was Pappos ben Yehudah, the mother was Stada. The mother was Miriam, the dresser of women's hair, as they say in Pumbeditha, "Such a one has been false to her husband." (BT. Sanhedrin 67a.)
These allusions, particularly as they refer to the death of Jesus, most often occur in the context of the Mishnaic treatise Sanhedrin which is concerned with that tribunal's jurisdiction and procedures in capital cases:In regard to all who are worthy of death according to the Torah, they do not use concealment against them, except in the case of the deceiver. How do they deal with him. They put two disciples of the wise in the inner chamber and he sits in the outer chamber, and they light the lamp so that they shall see him and hear his voice. And thus they did to Ben Stada in Lydda; two disciples of the wise were chosen for him, and they brought him to the Beth Din and stoned him. [or, as in BT. Sanhedrin 67b, "t hey hung him on the eve of Passover."] (Tosefta Sanhedrin 10.11)
And it was taught: On the eve of the Passover Jeshua [the Nazarene] was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place a herald went forth and cried, "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Anyone who can say anything in his favor, let him come and plead on his behalf." And since nothing was brought forward in his favor, he was hanged on the eve of Passover. Ulla retorted, "Do you suppose that he was one for whom a defense could be made? Was he not an enticer, concerning whom Scripture says, "Neither shall you spare, neither shall thou conceal him" (Deut. 13: 9). With Jeshua however it was different, for he was connected with the government [or royalty, that is, influential]." (BT. Sanhedrin 43a.)
C. Pagan
Our chief sources outside both Christianity and Judaism are Romans writing in the early second century, Pliny, Tacitus and Suetonius. All three were aware of --and hostile to-- Christians in their own day, buy none of them adds anything new to the NT accounts, though Tacitus (Annals 15.44) adds some confirmation of Jesus' death under Pontius Pilate in his backgrounder on Nero's earlier (64 CE) persecution of the Christians.