Notes on the Disputation of Barcelona - very preliminary

I have not had occasion to read a transscript (either Hebrew or Latin) translated into English.

I have gone to wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disputation_of_Barcelona

I find a very ... ironic, in context ... quote atttributed to Moses Nachmanides:

"[... it seems most strange that... ] the Creator of Heaven and Earth resorted to the womb of a certain Jewish lady, grew there for nine months and was born as an infant, and afterwards grew up and was betrayed into the hands of his enemies who sentenced him to death and executed him, and that afterwards... he came to life and returned to his original place. The mind of a Jew, or any other person, simply cannot tolerate these assertions. If you have listened all your life to the priests who have filled your brain and the marrow of your bones with this doctrine, and it has settled into you because of that accustomed habit. [I would argue that if you were hearing these ideas for the first time, now, as a grown adult], you would never have accepted them."

So, the Cross is folly to the Jews, I think St. Paul mentioned that ... oh, not quite* exact:

But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumblingblock, and unto the Gentiles foolishness:
[1 Corinthians 1:23]

But, how exactly is Moses Nachmanides dealing with it?

He's suggesting that Friar Paul Christiani had been indoctrinated since childhood. The fact is, Friar Paul Christiani was an adult convert, and that's why he tried to use the Talmud in Christian apologetics - he was familiar with it, and it may have contributed to his own conversion.

So, let's go back a bit ...

Based upon several aggadic passages, Christiani argued that Pharisaic sages believed that the Messiah had lived during the Talmudic period, and that they must therefore have believed that the Messiah was Jesus.

Nachmanides countered that Christiani's interpretations of Talmudic passages were per-se distortions; the rabbis would not hint that Jesus was the Messiah while, at the same time, explicitly opposing him as such:

"Does he mean to say that the sages of the Talmud believed in Jesus as the messiah and believed that he is both human and divine, as held by the Christians? However, it is well known that the incident of Jesus took place during the period of the Second Temple. He was born and killed prior to the destruction of the Temple, while the sages of the Talmud, like R. Akiba and his associates, followed this destruction. Those who compiled the Mishnah, Rabbi and R. Nathan, lived many years after the destruction. All the more so R. Ashi who compiled the Talmud, who lived about four hundred years after the destruction. If these sages believed that Jesus was the messiah and that his faith and religion were true and if they wrote these things from which Friar Paul intends to prove this, then how did they remain in the Jewish faith and in their former practice? For they were Jews, remained in the Jewish faith all their lives, and died Jews - they and their children and their students who heard their teachings. Why did they not convert and turn to the faith of Jesus, as Friar Paul did? ... If these sages believed in Jesus and in his faith, how is it that they did not do as Friar Paul, who understands their teachings better than they themselves do?"[7]

Let's be precise.

The Talmud has two parts, Mishna and Gemara. The earlier part, Mishna, does not only involve sages that rejected Jesus from Nazareth.

It could very well be that Gamaliel (whose disciples Paul and Barnabas converted, and who according to some converted before he died) had said sth about the Messiah having to appear while the Second Temple lasted. It could be that earlier sages, none of whom had rejected Jesus, had said so. It could even be that Akiba repeated some without understanding how it applied to Jesus. It could certainly be the case that Nathan, compiling the Mishnah, and Ashi, compiling the Talmud, read a text, didn't quite get how it applied to Jesus, and included it, despite their obvious intention to not confess Jesus.

Nachmanides' case here is pretty much that of Jews on the OT - it boils down to "do you believe you know our earlier authors better than we do - of course we know them better, since they are ours, it's we who know them!"

And the Christian answer here would be "do you?"

I'll contact ONE FOR ISRAEL about the possibility of early Mishna tractates stating the Messiah came before the Second Temple was destroyed.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Holy Martyrs of Campania**
2.III.2023

* But Gentiles schmentiles, Jews schmews, not too far off either.
** Catholics who were slaughtered for refusing to worship a goat head set up by the invading, not yet Christian Lombards ...