My ultimate goal in this series is to come up with my own numbers to plug into the framework Richard Carrier develops in On the Historicity of Jesus (OHJ). Some items will just be short statements and the numbers I’ve assigned and others I’ll devote time to writing something more extensive, or explore the underlying sources. There will no doubt be digressions as well. This entry will be short.
As I mentioned in the previous post, as Carrier has it in the book, Epiphanius says there was a group of Jewish-Christians who preached Jesus lived under Alexander Jannaeus and the Jews confirm this view in the Babylonian Talmud. I found the case for the former part of the claim lacking. Robbed of that aspect, I really don’t see that much can be made of the Jews reporting variant stories of Jesus. It’s one thing if a sect of Christians has an entirely variant timeline for Jesus but quite another for a hostile witness like ancient Judaism.
I invite anyone who is interested to review the Wikipedia page that covers Jesus in the Talmud, but for me I have to say I find this ‘Twin Traditions’ issue a wash and not favoring either theory.