Page - 29 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 05/01

Daniel Barbu Some Remarks on Toledot Yeshu (The Jewish Life of Jesus) in Early Modern Europe ABSTRACT Toledot Yeshu (The Jewish Life of Jesus) is perhaps one of the most infamous retellings of the Gospel narrative of the pre-modern era. The present essay explores its reception and circulation among both Jews and Christians in the period before and after the first editions of the work, by J. C. Wagenseil in 1681 and J. J. Huldreich in 1705. The work was an object of fascination for early modern scholars of Judaism and was regularly invoked in discussions concerned with the Talmud and other Jewish books alleged to be blasphemous. For Jewish scholars, it was a source of embarrassment, although both the manuscript and the documentary evidence demonstrate that many Jews did view Toledot Yeshu as a culturally significant narrative, worthy of being transmitted. It is here suggested that Toledot Yeshu, with its direct and emotional cogency, combining history, humour and polemics, was indeed recognized by early modern Jews and crypto-Jews as a powerful story, through which they could articulate their identity. KEYWORDS Toledot Yeshu, Jesus, Polemics, Blasphemy, Reception BIOGRAPHY Daniel Barbu (PhD Geneva, 2012) is a Researcher with the Centre National de la Re- cherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris. He has taught in many Swiss universities and has been a visiting fellow at the University of Cambridge and at the University of Western Australia. He is the author of Naissance de l’idolâtrie: Image, identité, religion (Liège, 2016), and has edited or co-edited a number of volumes, including Le savoir des religions. Fragments d’historiographie religieuse (Gollion, 2014). He is one of the editors of the Geneva-based journal of anthropology and history of religions ASDIWAL. WHAT IS TOLEDOT YESHU? Toledot Yeshu (The Jewish Life of Jesus) is perhaps one of the most infamous re- tellings of the Gospel narrative of the pre-modern era.1 It aroused the ire of anti- 1 I warmly thank Prof. William Horbury for his most valuable comments on this essay, as well as for a DOI: 10.25364/05.4:2019.1.3 Some Remarks on Toledot Yeshu | 29www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/1