Hi, Chrissy - thanks for your thoughtful comment. I think there is some miscommunication going on here - if I said things that sound like Origen personally concocted the Panthera legend, I phrased things poorly. Origen almost certainly did not invent this legend or incorrectly attribute this idea to Celsus. Rather, Origen's testimony does not really provide any useful evidence that the legend circulated among Jews: Celsus writes a work of polemical fiction, inventing a fictional character to have a dialogue that never occurred. All evidence suggests that although Celsus had a fairly good understanding of Jewish mores, he was quite comfortable attributing his own ideas to this fictitious character.
My argument is that the Tosefta, Palestinian Talmud, and Qohelet Rabbah are too vague to speak with any confidence about what "Yeshu son of Panthera" refers to. Perhaps it is Jesus, but there really isn't much within those texts themselves to suggest it. Rather, it is the later Panthera tradition (Bavli, Toledot Yeshu, Church Fathers) projected back onto these texts that serve as the primary reasoning. I'm not sure we would abide by that reasoning elsewhere, though, when it comes to the study of ancient Judaism and Christianity (surely, say, the Hypostasis of the Archons should not be taken as evidence of what, say, the apostle Paul though about Jesus). Although the figure in the Babylonian Talmud is pretty clearly some version of Jesus, it is worth even then clarifying that he is never named "Yeshu son of Panthera" in the surviving manuscript tradition, only "the son of Panthera." I hesitate to assume that Christian and Jewish theological writers were in meaningful dialogue with each other - it isn't until the 9th century CE that there is clear evidence of a Christian writer actually reading the Talmud (i.e., Agobard), even if earlier Christian writers were familiar with Jewish intellectuals. There is little reason to assume the inverse, that Jewish theological writers were widely invested in or familiar with the contents of Christian writings or theology. Günter Stemberger has some good research on how surprisingly little these related corpora (i.e., rabbinic and patristic authors) interacted with each other!
As for the Toledot Yeshu: yes, but the earliest recensions characterizing him as the son of Panthera seem to be centuries after the Babylonian Talmud, even. Even then, it's not clear what this even means in the earliest recensions: "Yeshu son of Panthera" is little more than an incipit in early MSS with no (or little) narrative clarification. The recensions of the Toledot featuring the pseudo-Christmas story (which actually gives some sense of what "Yeshu son of Panthera" might mean) were first written nearly a millennium after the Babylonian Talmud - the 13th and 14th centuries, if I recall correctly. As Meerson and Schafer note, it is striking that the Christian witnesses to the Toledot Yeshu never once mention the Panthera legend.
Anyway, I hope this offers some clarification on what I was trying to say! Thanks again for your interaction!
Regards,
Chris
Hi, Chrissy - thanks for your thoughtful comment. I think there is some miscommunication going on here - if I said things that sound like Origen personally concocted the Panthera legend, I phrased things poorly. Origen almost certainly did not invent this legend or incorrectly attribute this idea to Celsus. Rather, Origen's testimony does not really provide any useful evidence that the legend circulated among Jews: Celsus writes a work of polemical fiction, inventing a fictional character to have a dialogue that never occurred. All evidence suggests that although Celsus had a fairly good understanding of Jewish mores, he was quite comfortable attributing his own ideas to this fictitious character.
My argument is that the Tosefta, Palestinian Talmud, and Qohelet Rabbah are too vague to speak with any confidence about what "Yeshu son of Panthera" refers to. Perhaps it is Jesus, but there really isn't much within those texts themselves to suggest it. Rather, it is the later Panthera tradition (Bavli, Toledot Yeshu, Church Fathers) projected back onto these texts that serve as the primary reasoning. I'm not sure we would abide by that reasoning elsewhere, though, when it comes to the study of ancient Judaism and Christianity (surely, say, the Hypostasis of the Archons should not be taken as evidence of what, say, the apostle Paul though about Jesus). Although the figure in the Babylonian Talmud is pretty clearly some version of Jesus, it is worth even then clarifying that he is never named "Yeshu son of Panthera" in the surviving manuscript tradition, only "the son of Panthera." I hesitate to assume that Christian and Jewish theological writers were in meaningful dialogue with each other - it isn't until the 9th century CE that there is clear evidence of a Christian writer actually reading the Talmud (i.e., Agobard), even if earlier Christian writers were familiar with Jewish intellectuals. There is little reason to assume the inverse, that Jewish theological writers were widely invested in or familiar with the contents of Christian writings or theology. Günter Stemberger has some good research on how surprisingly little these related corpora (i.e., rabbinic and patristic authors) interacted with each other!
As for the Toledot Yeshu: yes, but the earliest recensions characterizing him as the son of Panthera seem to be centuries after the Babylonian Talmud, even. Even then, it's not clear what this even means in the earliest recensions: "Yeshu son of Panthera" is little more than an incipit in early MSS with no (or little) narrative clarification. The recensions of the Toledot featuring the pseudo-Christmas story (which actually gives some sense of what "Yeshu son of Panthera" might mean) were first written nearly a millennium after the Babylonian Talmud - the 13th and 14th centuries, if I recall correctly. As Meerson and Schafer note, it is striking that the Christian witnesses to the Toledot Yeshu never once mention the Panthera legend.
Anyway, I hope this offers some clarification on what I was trying to say! Thanks again for your interaction!
Regards,
Chris