208 • chapter 5
of christ” remains unfulfilled; perhaps Moyal intended to return to
the matter in a future volume, one of the many he had planned for his
grand translation project.
Moyal does not explain why he considers it important to highlight
the distinction between the two men named Jesus. the medieval (or
pseudo- medieval) source on whom Moyal often relies, David ha- Nagid,
was satisfied simply by describing Joshua ben perahiah as the teacher
of Yeshuaʿ. it would seem that Moyal, once again, had antitalmudic
polemics in mind and used this textual opportunity to rebut accusa-
tions. in particular, both Faris and Nasrallah cited a number of (the
same)^84 allegations about the talmud’s approach to Jesus and Chris-
tians more generally: that Jesus the Nazarene is “in the abyss of hell
between tar^85 and fire”; that he was conceived when his mother Miriam
prostituted herself to the soldier pandera; that christian churches are
places of filth and those who preach within them are like “barking
dogs”; that killing a christian is a commandment; that a contract with
a christian is not binding; and that it is a Jew’s duty to curse thrice the
leaders of the Christian faith.^86 None of these allegations was novel, to
be sure, but, perhaps because of their recent translation into arabic
and diffusion within the arabic- reading world, Moyal felt a sense of
urgency to confront them at the first opportunity afforded him within
his commentary.
In his presentation of the history of hellenized Judaism in an-
cient alexandria— a three- page section titled “the Israelite temple in
alexandria”^87 — Moyal lays out his most developed argument about the
historical connection between Judaism and Christianity. after discuss-
ing the founding of the city of alexandria, the creation of the Israelite
temple of Onias,^88 and the mass Israelite emigration from Judea to
Judaism on Trial, 153– 62. in response to the accusation that “the talmud contains blas-
phemies against Jesus,” Yehiel is reported to have said: “Wherever Jesus is mentioned in
the talmud, it is the Jesus who was the pupil of Joshua ben perahiah who is meant. It
is quite possible that the Christian deity was also called Jesus, and there were thus two
Jesuses, and possibly even two Jesuses from the same town, Nazareth.”
(^84) a segment of Nasrallah’s introduction appears to be lifted from Faris. cf. Fāris,
adh- Dhabāʾiḥ al- bashariyya at- talmūdiyya, 45– 46; rohling, al- Kanz al- marṣūd fī qawāʿid
at- talmūd, 10– 11.
(^85) this might mean “excrement.” See Schäfer, Jesus in the Talmud, 13, 85– 93.
(^86) In both Faris’s and Nasrallah’s texts, these allegations are explicitly associated with
the paris Disputation of 1240.
(^87) the term kanīsa might also be translated as “synagogue” and, in Christian contexts,
as “church.”
(^88) the presumed site of the temple of onias was first excavated in 1887 and, more
extensively, in 1905, just four years before the publication of Moyal’s book. Moyal pre-
sumably wrote most of at- Talmūd while still in egypt and mentions alexandrian Jewish