Does an Ancient Jewish Polemic Defame, or Legitimize, the Founder of Christianity?

Thought to have been composed originally in what is now Iraq no later than the 8th century CE, Toldot Yeshu (“The Story of Jesus”) tells an imaginative version of the life of Jesus of Nazareth with a clear anti-Christian intent. Thus, its rabbinic author (or authors) explains the virgin birth as a story concocted by Mary to cover up a premarital affair. Yet, argues Eli Yassif, this work—the earliest known Hebrew “literary biography of a single protagonist”—presents a surprisingly nuanced look at its subject. To explain the wonderworking described in the Gospels, for example, Toldot Yeshu relates a fantastic tale in which Jesus steals the powers of the Tetragrammaton. Yassif writes: