The Sentencing of Jesus (Gzar-dina de-Yeshu): The 'Authentic' Jewish Protocols of the Trial of Jesus (Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures). This item is unavailable.The Sentencing of Jesus (Gzar-dina de-Yeshu): The 'Authentic' Jewish Protocols of the Trial of Jesus (Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures)

This monograph offers a rich and insightful study of The Sentencing of Jesus, an ancient Jewish polemical narrative describing the trial and execution of Jesus, which is the earliest of all the Toledot Yeshu texts. The volume includes a substantial historical introduction, carefully edited synopses of the Aramaic, Judaeo-Arabic and Hebrew versions, detailed philological and exegetical notes on the text and its transmission history, and an English translation. In his comments, Bohak explores recurring themes in Late Antique literature-such as the apologetic and polemical uses of authentic or forged protocols of trials and executions, envisioning an enemy hanged on an unexpected tree, the humiliation of dragging a corpse through the streets for all to see, and the use of magical handbooks and of spells to heal or harm-shedding new light on the cultural and literary resonances of these motifs. Detailed linguistic analyses trace translations and mistranslations across Aramaic, Hebrew, and Judaeo-Arabic traditions.

By reconstructing an ancient polemical text that has previously been known only in a fragmentary manner, and by situating it both within its Late Antique context and in the context of previous scholarship, this book makes a significant contribution to the study of Judaism, and of Jewish-Christian relations, in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages.

Gideon Bohak holds the Jacob M. Alkow Chair for the History of the Jews in the Ancient World at Tel Aviv University, where he teaches at the Department ofJewish Philosophy and Talmud and the Program in Religious Studies. His research focuses on the history of Jewish magic and on the Cairo Genizah. His most recent books include Magie, anges et démons dans la tradition juive, Paris, 2015 (withAnne Hélène Hoog), and Thābit ibn Qurra On Talismans, Pseudo-Ptolemy On Images 1-9, Liber prestigiorum Thebidis of Adelard of Bath, Florence, 2021 (withCharles Burnett). From 2023 to 2028 he is leading an ERC-funded research project,on "The Jewish Library in Late Antiquity: Forgotten Texts and Non-Rabbinic Jews." His many articles are devoted to the publication and analysis of new texts in Aramaic, Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic and Greek, and to programmatic discussions of different aspects of Jewish magic and Jewish history.