Re: Thoughts on The Divinci Code film and novel
Peace meena1902
Rabbinic/Talmud/mishna references are scarce because goyem are not supposed to read them. However, some people have given information on the web about them:
The below is not an Islamic view but shows how the confusion has developed, because the allegations made by some needed to be hidden. Note how the magdala person is seen as the mother of Jeshu in the Talmud.
**Yeishu ha Notzri, Jesus or Jesua, or Yeshua or Joshua ben Pantera or Pentera or Pandera or Pandira, there are even several first-century Christian references to this supposed miracle worker.
If he was the Teacher of Righteousness referred to by the Dead Sea Scrolls, as some have suggested, his impact on the movement towards Jewish reform was considerable. And if he was the Teacher of Righteousness, it would answer a lot of interesting questions, such as the scattered first century Christian and Talmudic references to a miracle worker named Yeishu ha Notzri, known to first-century Christians as Jesus or Jesua ben Pantera. Among them are a quote from Origen, saying that his arch-rival Celsus had heard from a Jew in Jerusalem that “Jesus Ben Pantera” was born of Mary as the result of a rape by a Roman soldier named Pantera, and had borne the baby in secret (most scholars now regard this claim to be a first-century legend resulting from misinterpretation of the facts).
That the first century Christians may have feared there was some truth to this rumor is evidenced by the fact of Mark’s obvious embarrassment regarding the origins of Jesus; Mark, the first writer of a canonic gospel, never mentions Joseph as the actual husband of Mary. Note also that it was both the Roman custom and the custom of the Jews to include a patrilineal surname as part of a person’s full name; yet nowhere in the New Testament does the surname of Jesus, (or Joseph, for that matter) appear. There is at least one Talmudic reference to Jeshu as being the illegitimate son of an adultress named Mary Magdala. There are several interesting references to a Yeishu ha Notzri (note the resemblance of the name to “Jesus of Nazareth”), who traveled around and practiced magic during the reign of Alexander Janneus, who ruled Palestine from 104 to 78 BCE. As these references are Talmudic (from the Baraitas and the Gemara), and therefore presumed by Christian scholars to be anti-Christian; Christian apologeticists have simply dismissed them as referring to someone else or being fabricated propaganda. But if they are genuine, and they really do refer to the Jesus of whom the Christians speak, they add evidence to the claim that the Jesus of Nazareth story is really based on the life of Yieshu ha Notzri, possibly the Essene “Teacher of Righteousness.” Evidence points to him being the founder of the Notzri as the sects were known in first century Palestine, and as the Jesus Movements to modern scholars.
It must be noted here is that the version of the Talmud still used by most modern Christian scholars, is normally the version known to have been heavily edited by Christians by the 16th century - presumably to remove the dangerous references to Yeishu ha Notzri and his followers, the Notzrim, the account of which is absent from this version. But the pristine version, still used by Jewish scholars, gives us some rich detail. Yeishu ha Notzri was considered by the temple authorities of the time to be a troublemaking heretic, and when they had finally had enough of him, they put him on trial. He was convicted of heresy, sentenced to wander the city for 40 days, with a crier going before him, shouting that if anyone had reason why he should not be executed, they should come forward. When no did, he was stoned to death, and his body hung from a tree on the eve of passover, in 88 B.C.E. Note the death on the eve of passover. Note also the hanging of the body from a tree - at the time, a sign of despicability, with its resemblance to the crucifixion myth.
Copies of the uncensored pre-1631 texts can be found in Oxford University and several other European libraries. Thus the statements about Jesus were never actually ‘lost.’ They were published separately in numerous editions and studied by Jewish scholars in private. No one denies these facts any more… While the Soncino edition of the Babylonian Talmud is a censored text, the editors usually give the uncensored original readings in a footnote. We have put the statements about Jesus back into the text where they originally belonged and have indicated this by ]." (Morey, pp. 1-2)
R. Papa said: When the Mishnah states a MESITH IS A HEDYOT, it is only in respect of hiding witnesses. For it has been taught: And for all others for whom the Torah decrees death, witnesses are not hidden, excepting for this one. How is it done?- A light is lit in an inner chamber, the witnesses are hidden in an outer one [which is in darkness], so that they can see and hear him, but he cannot see them. Then the person he wishes to seduce says to him, “Tell me privately what thou hast proposed to me”; and he does so. Then he remonstrates; “But how shall we forsake our God in Heaven, and serve idols?” If he retracts, it is well. But if he answers: “It is our duty and seemly for us,” the witnesses who were listening outside bring him to Beth din, and have him stoned. “And thus they did to Ben Stada in Lydda, and they hung him on the even of Passover.” Ben Stada was Ben Pandira. R. Hisda said: The husband was Stada, the paramour Pandira. But as not the husband Pappos b. Judah?-His mother’s name was Stada. But his mother was Miriam, a dresser of woman’s hair?-As they say in Pumpbaditha, This woman has turned away (satath da) from her husband, (i.e. committed adultery).] (Morey, p. 6)
Morey quotes from the Soncino edition of the Babylonian Talmud:
Footnote in Soncino: “Supposed by Tosah, to be the Mother of Jesus; cf. Shab. 104b in the earlier uncensored editions. Her description Megaddela (hairdresser) is connected by some with the name of Mary Magdalene whose name was confused with the name of Mary, the mother of Jesus.” (Ibid., p. 7)
Some scholars also see an allusion to the virgin birth of Christ in the term, “son of Pandira.” This is due to the fact that “Pandira” seems to be a play on the Greek word for virgin, parthenos, the very term used in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke when recording Jesus’ virgin birth. McDowell & Wilson report:
"… Scholars have debated at length how Jesus came to have this name (i.e., ben Pandira) attached to his. Strauss thought it was from the Greek word pentheros, meaning ‘son-in-law.’ Klausner and Bruce accept the position that panthera is a corruption of the Greek parthenos meaning ‘virgin.’ Klausner says, ‘The Jews constantly heard that the Christians (the majority of whom spoke Greek from the earliest times) called Jesus by the name “Son of the Virgin”… and so, in mockery, they called him Ben ha-Pantera, i.e., “son of the leopard.”’… The theory most sensational but least accepted by serious scholars was dramatized by the discovery of a first century tombstone at Bingerbruck, Germany. The inscription read, ‘Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera, an archer, native of Sidon, Phoenicia, who in 9 c.e. was transferred to service in Germany.’… This discovery fueled the fire of the theory that Jesus was the illegitimate son of Mary and the soldier, Panthera. Even Origen writes that his opponent, Celsus, in circa A.D. 178, said that he heard from a Jew that ‘Miriam’ had become pregnant by ‘Pantheras,’ a Roman soldier; was divorced by her husband, and bore Jesus in secret.
"If ‘Pantheras’ were a unique name, the theory of Mary’s pregnancy by the Roman soldier might be more attractive to scholars. But Adolf Deissman, the early twentieth-century German New Testament scholar, verified, by first century inscriptions, ‘with absolute certainty that Panthera was not an invention of Jewish scoffers, but a widespread name among the ancients.’… Rabbi and Professor Morris Goldstein comments that it was as common as the names Wolf or Fox today. He comments further:
It is noteworthy that Origin himself is credited with the tradition that Panther was the appellation of James (Jacob), the father of Jospeh, the father of Jesus… So, too, Andrew of Crete, John of Damascus, Epiphanius the Monk, and the author of Andronicus of Constantinople’s Dialogue Against the Jews, name Panther as an ancestor of Jesus…
“Jesus being called by his grandfather’s name would also have agreed with a statement in the Talmud permitting this practice. Whereas Christian tradition identified Jesus by his home town, Jewish tradition, having a greater concern for genealogical identification, seems to have preferred this method of identifying Jesus. Goldstein presents more evidence to argue the case convincingly.” (McDowell & Wilson, pp. 66-67) **
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread269243/pg1