From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!mmc
Newsgroups: net.religion
Title: Re: The Historical Jesus - (nf)
Article-I.D.: harpo.1693
Posted: Fri Apr 29 11:17:05 1983
Received: Sat Apr 30 03:33:04 1983

#R:watmath:-485600:harpo:24800002:000:2206
harpo!mmc    Apr 29 10:40:00 1983

With reference to:

    A very good indicator of the popularity of Christianity is the CLEARLY
    DOCUMENTED adoption by the Pharisaic Jews (in synagogues, precursor to
    modern Rabbinic Judaism) around the year 70 AD of a ritual curse on the
    followers of Jesus of Nazareth, which was introduced in order to get
    them OUT of the synagogues so they would stop converting people there.

    mutter grumble poor shoddy scholarship gripe growl

    ***** harpo:net.religion / dadla-b!hutch /  3:11 pm  Apr 18, 1983

I feel obliged to correct the impression left by the extract from the
note cited above.  First-century Pharisaic Jewish religious writings
contain almost NO explicit references to Jesus or his followers.

The "ritual curse" in question does not mention Jesus or his followers
(called in Hebrew "notzrim", derived from Nazareth).  In its original
version, it refers to sectarians (Heb.: minim) and slanderers (Heb.:
malshinim), who were seen as particular dangers to Jewish survival
(both literally and religiously).

"Minim" (a term which appears in contemporary Jewish legal literature
of the period) included in particular those who rejected the notion of
personal immortality, the divine source of the Torah, or the unity of
the deity, adopting rather a Gnostic position of dualism (yes, there
were Jewish non-Christian Gnostics at this period in which religious
syncretism was generally in vogue).  Sectarianism was seen as a danger
to the survival of the Jewish religion.

The term "Malshinim" refers to Jews who betrayed fellow Jews to the
Roman authorities for maintaining and teaching Jewish ritual practice
and beliefs, aspects of which the Romans had outlawed (such as
circumcision, Sabbath observance, and studying Jewish law).  Jewish
writings of the period report numerous instances of martyrdom by those
betrayed to the Roman authorities.  Slanderers were seen as a danger to
the very lives of practicing Jews.

The so-called "curse" is actually a prayer for the disappearance of
wickedness and evil (identified primarily with the Roman Empire) from
the world, and is, in a slightly modified version, incorporated in the
daily Jewish liturgy.

	Mark Chodrow (zeppo!mmc)