Seite - 40 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Band 05/01

powers, while the account of his death, burial and post-mortem treatment strongly contradicts the belief in Jesus’ resurrection and the very meaning of the crucifixion. Toledot Yeshu does not only make fun of Jesus; it also offers a calculated response to Christian dogma. Despite both Jewish and Christian com- mentators calling it nonsensical twaddle, it seems that the narrative did allow Jews to articulate their identity through a powerful and effective anti-Christian discourse. Inquisitorial records from either the Italian peninsula or the Spanish provinces give us a glimpse of how much that discourse remained in force also in crypto-Jewish circles, and how the Jewish story of Jesus, along with other remnants of Jewish identity, continued to be shared among converso families even decades after their conversion.49 The early modern contexts in which ancient or medieval traditions were copied and transmitted are not often given much consideration. Yet the early modern manuscripts in which they have come down to us are not merely wit- nesses to the textual history of a work; they are cultural artefacts that need to be replaced and understood within the context or contexts in which they were produced and consumed. The history of Toledot Yeshu can tell us much about these contexts, and, conversely, the historical contexts in which the narrative circulated can tell us much about its functions and uses and about its effects. Toledot Yeshu raises stimulating questions about the ways in which Jews, as a minority group in Western Christendom, perceived their cultural environment and actively challenged the foundational narrative of Christianity. Toledot Yeshu is quite different from the more sophisticated Jewish polemics circulating in late medieval and early modern Europe, such as Isaac Troki’s Hizzuk Emunah (Faith Strenghtened), which offered a detail and systematic critique of Christian sourc- es and arguments.50 Yet this narrative, with its direct and emotional cogency, and the role of this narrative in allowing Jews to preserve and uphold their iden- tity in the face of Christian hegemony should not be underestimated – as its early modern readers doubtless recognized. 49 See Barbu, forthcoming. In some cases the narrative seems to have been used to try and convince Jews who had converted to Christianity to return their earlier faith; see Barbu 2018b, 83 and the refer- ences cited there. On Toledot Yeshu among conversos, see also Gutwirth 1996; Ben-Shalom 1999. 50 Popkin 2007; Benfatto 2018. The classical treatment of Jewish anti-Christian polemics is offered by Lasker 1977. On their influence in the early Enlightenment, see also Popkin 1992; Tarantino 2007, 95 and following, as well as the bibliography cited there. 40 | Daniel Barbu www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/1