Page - 30 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 05/01

Jewish polemicists, was a delight for anti-clerical propagandists and a subject of embarrassment for Jewish scholars. There is little doubt that the work – or rather different versions of the work – circulated throughout the early modern period, be it in writing or merely as hearsay. The text certainly has a longer his- tory, yet most of the extant manuscripts were produced between the 16th and 19th centuries. Scholars have long debated whether Toledot Yeshu is an ancient or medieval work, but it is as much an antique tradition as it is a medieval and early modern text.2 Whatever its origins, which remain somewhat obscure, the historical contexts in which the work was read, copied, transmitted, expanded and discussed (or disparaged) need to be considered, as well as the ways in which this ill-reputed yet widely popular narrative contributed to shaping both Jewish and Christian imaginations of Christian origins. Individual versions of the work and also the rich body of sources reflective of its circulation and reception do more than witness to a history of textual transmission; they also shed light on the cultural interactions that defined Jewish–Christian relations in the early modern world.3 Toledot Yeshu provides a “counter-history” of the life of Jesus and the or- igins of Christianity.4 The narrative has come down to us in a great variety of forms, and even the title under which it is most commonly known is not invar- iable.5 Building equally on Jewish and Christian traditions (both canonical and apocryphal), it offers a version of the story from an anti-Christian, polemical perspective. It thus presents Jesus as a mock prophet and a charlatan who per- number of references he generously shared with me. All shortcomings are however mine. Further aspects of the early modern reception of Toledot Yeshu will be discussed in my book, forthcoming with Le Seuil. On Toledot Yeshu see now Meerson/Schäfer 2014, with the reservations offered by Stökl Ben Ezra 2016. Other seminal studies include Krauss 1902; Horbury 1970; Schlichting 1982; Di Segni 1985. See also the essays gathered in Schäfer/Meerson/Deutsch 2011; Barbu/Deutsch, forthcoming. 2 See Horbury, forthcoming (b); Barbu 2018a. 3 I here use the notion of early modern Europe, as given in the title, in a somewhat flexible way, to cover a long period (c. 1400–1900) and allowing for some observations on the United States. 4 Funkenstein 1993; Biale 1999 and see below, section V. 5 Other titles include Ma’ase Yeshu ha-Notsri (Story of Jesus the Nazarene), Gezarot Yeshu (Decrees of Jesus), Ma’ase Talui (Story of the Hanged One). See the discussion in Horbury, forthcoming (b). Most of the extant texts can be divided into two main families, which for the sake of convenience I call the “Ar- amaic” and “Hebrew” Toledot-traditions – corresponding to Riccardo Di Segni’s “Pilate” and “Helena” groups respectively (Di Segni 1984, 1985, 29–42). While reflecting the presumed original languages of both traditions, my distinction is not simply linguistic, as texts from both traditions circulated in a number of other languages (e.g. Judeo-Arabic and Yiddish). The traditions doubtless co-existed for quite some time (with likely intersection and contamination) and were still recognized by one medieval commentator (Alfonso de Valladolid, previously Abner of Burgos) as two distinct “books”; see Barbu 2018b; Stökl Ben Ezra 2018. Yet the “Aramaic” tradition, widely diffused in the early Middle Ages, seems to have progressively disappeared in the following centuries. Most versions known to late me- dieval and early modern copyists and readers thus belong to the “Hebrew” tradition, which I therefore privilege in my summary of the work. For a different classification, see Meerson/Schäfer 2014, vol. 1, 28–39. 30 | Daniel Barbu www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/1