What Do Jews Think about Jesus?

The Historical Jesus

A prerequisite question to consider is whether Jesus existed as a legitimate historical figure. Christians answer this question in a variety of ways, with more conservative or fundamentalist sects asserting definitively that, yes, Jesus was a real historical figure, and more liberal sects being more open to the possibility that he may not have been. Modern historical scholarship tends to side with the latter opinion.

The Gospel narratives are the strongest evidence for the existence of the historical Jesus, but there are a number of issues which prevent them from serving as definitive proof.

the New Testament contains contradictory historical accounts of various parts of early Christianity… The account of the birth of Jesus and the origins of his family provided by Matthew is totally different from that in Luke, and any harmonization cannot stand up to the standards of modern historiography. The different narratives of his resurrection appearances—who of his disciples claimed they had seen him, when, and where?—in Mark, Matthew, Luke, and Paul contradict one another. The New Testament is simply not a reliable source for the history of Jesus or early Christianity when taken at face value.

— Martin, 2012

A photo of the Alexamenos graffiti.

This is often the case with ancient historical sources. All sources are biased: the data a historian chooses to examine, the way they construct and present arguments, and the conclusions they draw are all interpretations the historian is making for the reader. Ancient writers and historians had no concept for historical accuracy in the modern sense; they were less concerned with preserving exact words, numbers, dates, and the like than they were with presenting an interpretation of events which would help the reader to make sense out of events.

We do much the same today. If a child asks how electricity works, we answer with an interpretation. “There is power in the walls, and that power can travel through these wires, and that makes machines work.” We might say something about the movement of electrons. What we don’t do is hand the child a physics textbook and a stack of electrical diagrams. The ancient writer, of course, had no electrical diagrams! The number of men in an army had to be counted and relayed to the historian’s ear, quotes and dialog were written from memory or else made up in such a way as to most accurately convey the intended message, and so on.

Archeological evidence, that is contemporary material objects which have survived and been discovered and studied, is a different beast altogether. Pieces of pottery, statues, figurines, and graffiti do not often explain themselves. No historian or writer has preemptively interpreted them for us. It is up to the archeologist to examine material culture and figure out what an object meant, how it was used, or what social function it served.

Possibly the oldest verifiable archeological evidence of the historical Jesus is the Alexamenos graffiti, dated to ca. 200 CE, depicting a horse-headed figure hanging from a cross with the caption “Alexamenos worships his god”.

A sketch of the Alexamenos graffiti.

This graffiti does less to prove that Jesus existed than it does to prove that the Jesus cult was active around 200 CE, over a century after Jesus’s death.

We will save the analysis of the Gospel accounts for the next section. Right now, it’s enough for us to say that there is not enough solid evidence to establish the existence of a historical Jesus of Nazareth.

Rabbinic Period

There is little to no Talmudic literature which deals with Jesus directly. There are a handful of references that seem to point to Jesus, but there is no consensus, and Yeshua was an unfortunately common name. All the same, we will examine a few examples.

On Passover Eve they hung the corpse of Jesus the Nazarene after they killed him by way of stoning. And a crier went out before him for forty days, publicly proclaiming: Jesus the Nazarene is going out to be stoned because he practiced sorcery, incited people to idol worship, and led the Jewish people astray. Anyone who knows of a reason to acquit him should come forward and teach it on his behalf. And the court did not find a reason to acquit him, and so they stoned him and hung his corpse on Passover eve.

Ulla said: And how can you understand this proof? Was Jesus the Nazarene worthy of conducting a search for a reason to acquit him? He was an inciter to idol worship, and the Merciful One states with regard to an inciter to idol worship: “Neither shall you spare, neither shall you conceal him” (Deuteronomy 13:9). Rather, Jesus was different, as he had close ties with the government, and the gentile authorities were interested in his acquittal. Consequently, the court gave him every opportunity to clear himself, so that it could not be claimed that he was falsely convicted.

— Sanhedrin 43a, Koren-Steinsaltz, 2012

This passage is actually dealing with the rights of the accused to have a crier go out before his execution to seek proof of his innocence, an ancient sort of due process. The Jesus in this story is accused of inciting people to worship idols, a crime which would normally result in his forfeiting this right. The Rabbis clarify that he was given this right anyway because the Gentile authorities did not want him executed, making it easier to send a crier than to deal with the Roman government.

The account of this Jesus the Nazarene’s execution does not match the Gospel narratives in any way. This Jesus is stoned rather than crucified, and while the Gospels’ Jesus is executed by the Roman state, this Jesus is apparently on such good terms with the Roman state that they have a vested interest in his acquittal. So is this the same Jesus?

Even the accusation of inciting idol worship is a flimsy match. Jesus does not generally claim to be divine himself; it is mostly from the later writings of the disciples and especially Paul that this idea emerges. Jesus is therefore more the object of idolatry rather than the inciter.

Yehoshua ben Peraḥya said: How beautiful is this inn. Jesus, his student, said to him: But my teacher, the eyes of the innkeeper’s wife are narrow [terutot]. Yehoshua ben Peraḥya said to him: Wicked one! Do you involve yourself with regard to that matter, the appearance of a married woman? He produced four hundred shofarot and ostracized him.

Jesus came before Yehoshua ben Peraḥya several times and said to him: Accept our, i.e., my, repentance. Yehoshua ben Peraḥya took no notice of him. One day Yehoshua ben Peraḥya was reciting Shema and Jesus came before him with the same request. Yehoshua ben Peraḥya intended to accept his request, and signaled him with his hand to wait until he completed his prayer. Jesus did not understand the signal and thought: He is driving me away. He went and stood a brick upright to serve as an idol and he bowed to it. Yehoshua ben Peraḥya then said to Jesus: Repent. Jesus said to him: This is the tradition that I received from you: Whoever sins and causes the masses to sin is not given the opportunity to repent. And the Master says: Jesus performed sorcery, incited Jews to engage in idolatry, and led Israel astray. Had Yehoshua ben Peraḥya not caused him to despair of atonement, he would not have taken the path of evil.

— Sanhedrin 107b, Koren-Steinsaltz, 2012

In this story, Jesus is driven to incite others to idolatry by the stubborn refusal of his Rabbi to accept his repentance. This is more a cautionary tale encouraging one to be forgiving than a case against an idolator. It is a reminder not to let the evil inclination overtake you, and not to erect needless barriers before others which will cause them to stumble.

To sum up, Rabbinical literature may condemn Jesus as a heretic of sorts, but this is significantly softened by the latter story which lays the blame with his teacher. The incongruities between these accounts and the Gospel accounts make it unclear whether the Rabbis are even talking about the right Jesus, so they may have had nothing to say about him whatsoever.

Today

Many articles written by Christian sources will assert that Jews reject Jesus as Messiah and deny his divinity. This phrasing is misleading; it makes it sound like rejecting and denying are things Jews are actively doing. In truth, most Jews don’t go out of their way to think about Jesus in one way or another.

We do, however, live in a largely Christian society, and therefore must, by necessity, spend at least some time and mental effort distinguishing Judaism from the dominant Christian culture. This process is largely a matter of culture and identity, rather than one of religious belief. The average Jew does not celebrate Christmas, and, if asked “Why not?” will reply, “Because Jews don’t believe in Jesus.” This answer must, however, be prompted by a society in which the celebration of Christian is the cultural norm. Jews are perfectly happy celebrating our own religious festivals. I don’t think about Christmas until somebody asks me why I don’t celebrate it. It is this failure to assimilate into dominant Christian cultural practices that comes closest to the modern Jew’s rejecting of Jesus.

In much the same way, the Christian reader would be unlikely to have an opinion on Hillel and Shammai. If we were to put the shoe on the other foot, and imagine that we lived in a predominantly Jewish culture, perhaps the reader would find it perplexing that everybody expects them to articulate their preference for one or the other. Imagine being asked in school by a classmate, “Do you side with the House of Hillel or the House of Shammai?” You would reply, “I don’t know, I’m Christian and don’t follow the Rabbis,” and your classmate would be dumbfounded by your denial of halakha and rejection of the Rabbis.

Do Jews today view Jesus as divine? No. Not because we dislike Jesus, but because it would be idolatrous according to our interpretation of Torah. Do we accept him as Messiah? Also no. But this is not so unusual: we don’t accept Sabbatai Zevi, Simon bar Kokhba, Moses of Crete, Abu Isa, Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia, or any number of other claimants either.

The short answer to the question, “What do Jews think about Jesus?” is, “We don’t.”

References

Revision History

  • 2025-06-17: Rough outline and Martin text
  • 2025-06-18: Talmud
  • 2025-07-01: Split into multiple articles