1. Introduction
This study examines several early and medieval Jewish texts—the Jerusalem Talmud’s notices about Yeshu ben Pantera, Judah ha-Levi’s Kuzari I:8 on Shimeon ha-Ḥaver, and Baruch Fränkel-Teʾomim’s later glosses—to illuminate how Judaism itself preserved memories of movements that later developed into Christianity (“Edom”) and Islam (“Ishmael”). The purpose is not apologetic but historiographical: to recover how Jewish authors located these world religions within Israel’s own story.
This study examines several early and medieval Jewish texts—the Jerusalem Talmud’s notices about Yeshu ben Pantera, Judah ha-Levi’s Kuzari I:8 on Shimeon ha-Ḥaver, and Baruch Fränkel-Teʾomim’s later glosses—to illuminate how Judaism itself preserved memories of movements that later developed into Christianity (“Edom”) and Islam (“Ishmael”). The purpose is not apologetic but historiographical: to recover how Jewish authors located these world religions within Israel’s own story.
The symbols Edom and Ishmael carried theological weight long before the rise of the medieval nations. In rabbinic and later Hebrew writing they functioned as mirrors through which the nations reflected Israel’s covenantal drama. Each preserved an aspect of the revelation given to Israel—Edom emphasizing incarnation and mediation, Ishmael emphasizing transcendence and the word. To explore this “mirroring,” we focus on three nodes of tradition: the Yerushalmi anecdotes about Pantera, the Kuzari’s account of Shimeon ha-Ḥaver, and the prophetic template of Isaiah 63, where Edom becomes the theatre of divine unveiling.
A brief methodological note is required. Both Christianity and Islam are living faiths with their own self-understandings. References to “Edom” and “Ishmael” here are literary symbols employed by Jewish writers to interpret history; the essay respects each religion’s integrity and treats their doctrines historically rather than polemically.
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2. The Pantera Tradition and the Memory of the Jesus Family
The Jerusalem Talmud (Shabbat 14:4 [14d] ; Avodah Zarah 2:2 [40d] ) preserves several enigmatic stories in which R. Joshua ben Levi’s grandson is healed “in the name of Yeshu ben Pantera.” ¹ Modern editors read the name as פנדירא or פנדריא (Pantera / Pandera). Scholars since R. T. Herford and Peter Schäfer have noted that these brief anecdotes seem to echo early Jewish memories of Jesus of Nazareth and his family circle, transmitted within rabbinic discourse long before later polemical retellings such as the Toledot Yeshu.
The Jerusalem Talmud (Shabbat 14:4 [14d] ; Avodah Zarah 2:2 [40d] ) preserves several enigmatic stories in which R. Joshua ben Levi’s grandson is healed “in the name of Yeshu ben Pantera.” ¹ Modern editors read the name as פנדירא or פנדריא (Pantera / Pandera). Scholars since R. T. Herford and Peter Schäfer have noted that these brief anecdotes seem to echo early Jewish memories of Jesus of Nazareth and his family circle, transmitted within rabbinic discourse long before later polemical retellings such as the Toledot Yeshu.
In Neusner’s translation the narrative reads:
“There was a certain one who whispered over him in the name of Yeshu ben Pantera, and he was healed.”
When the rabbi learns of it, he condemns the act, saying it would have been better for the child to die than to be cured by forbidden means—“a word that escaped from the ruler’s mouth.”²
Rather than a denial of the Christian movement, the passage marks an inner Jewish concern with lawful invocation (religio licita): which names, powers, or healings remained permitted within Torah. That the name Yeshu could still function in a Jewish setting shows that remembrance of the Jesus Family—those related to or following the Galilean teacher—had not yet been erased from the Jewish textual horizon. The Pantera notices thus preserve a faint memory of intra-Jewish dispute before boundaries hardened between synagogue and church.
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3. Shimeon ha-Ḥaver and Simon Peter in the Kuzari
Judah ha-Levi’s Kuzari I:8 (twelfth century) offers a parallel internalization of the Christian story. Through the voice of the Ḥaver, ha-Levi describes the origins of the religion of Edom:
Judah ha-Levi’s Kuzari I:8 (twelfth century) offers a parallel internalization of the Christian story. Through the voice of the Ḥaver, ha-Levi describes the origins of the religion of Edom:
“Our laws and customs are derived from the ordinances of Shimeon ha-Ḥaver, and from statutes taken from the Torah which we study and whose truth is indisputable, for they are from God. It is also written in their Evangelion, ‘I came not to destroy one of the laws of Moses, but to confirm it.’ ”³
Most modern commentators—Hirschfeld, Pines, Krinis, and Lasker—agree that Shimeon ha-Ḥaver is Judah ha-Levi’s rabbinic recasting of Simon Peter, the leading apostle in Christian memory. By designating him a ḥaver (“associate,” “colleague”), ha-Levi places the apostolic figure back inside the world of halakhic fellowship. Christianity thus appears not as a foreign religion but as a Jewish sect emerging from the halakhic discipline of one of Israel’s own teachers.
Ha-Levi’s pairing of this ḥaver with the “Evangelion” underscores his awareness that the Christian canon claimed fidelity to Mosaic law. By reframing Peter as Shimeon ha-Ḥaver, ha-Levi both acknowledges and re-appropriates that claim: the ordinances of the ḥaver remain Torah-derived, even if misapplied by Edom. In the same dialogue the philosopher contrasts this with Ishmael’s prophet, who abrogates all previous law. Edom internalizes Torah through discipleship; Ishmael universalizes it through revelation. Together they mark the two poles of Israel’s dispersion.
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4. Edom and Ishmael as Mirrors of Israel
Later Jewish writers developed ha-Levi’s typology into a theology of reflection. Edom and Ishmael became the two principal mirrors through which the nations refracted Israel’s truth.
Later Jewish writers developed ha-Levi’s typology into a theology of reflection. Edom and Ishmael became the two principal mirrors through which the nations refracted Israel’s truth.
Edom, representing Christianity, embodied the divine immanence that Judaism itself struggled to express—the conviction that the Word dwells within the world. In Christian dogma this became incarnation; in Jewish critique it became excessive embodiment.
Ishmael, representing Islam, preserved the opposite pole: transcendence, unity, and the uncreated Word. Where Edom risked anthropomorphism, Ishmael risked abstraction.
In both, Jewish thinkers saw not random error but the dispersion of Israel’s own paradox: God both present and hidden, both speaking and silent. The nations, in this reading, carry fragments of the covenant outward; their very contrasts reflect Israel’s internal dialectic between Shekhinah and Ein Sof, Presence and Infinity.
Medieval commentaries on Genesis 25 and Deuteronomy 32:21 already hint at this pattern. “They provoked Me with a no-god; I will provoke them with a no-people.”
Rashi glosses the verse as Edom and Ishmael alternately chastising Israel. The nations’ emergence is therefore corrective as well as mimetic: they expose what Israel forgets and mirror what Israel reveals.
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5. Isaiah 63 and the Unveiling of the Covenant
The drama finds its prophetic form in Isaiah 63:1–6:
The drama finds its prophetic form in Isaiah 63:1–6:
“Who is this coming from Edom, with crimsoned garments from Bozrah? … ‘I have trodden the winepress alone; from the peoples no one was with me.’ ”
Rabbinic exegesis identifies the radiant yet blood-stained figure as the Malʾakh ha-Panim—the Angel of the Presence (v. 9)—the same manifestation who guided Israel in the wilderness. Pesikta de-Rav Kahana (5) reads the passage as the future redemption when God’s wrath upon Edom becomes Israel’s vindication: “The Holy One, blessed be He, shall come from Bozrah, red from judgment, and the nations will know that His covenant stands.”⁴
Rashi comments that the divine warrior’s red garments symbolize justice executed upon Edom, not literal bloodshed. The “winepress” signifies the historical process by which divine truth is pressed through the nations. Modern scholars note that the passage fuses vengeance and redemption; God’s confrontation with Edom becomes the moment of covenantal unveiling.⁵
In later interpretation the text served three traditions:
For Jews, it expressed hope that divine justice would expose false powers and restore Zion.
For Christians, it prefigured the Passion and the returning Christ “whose robe is dipped in blood” (Rev. 19:13).
For Muslims, commentators on Sūrat al-Rūm and Sūrat al-ʿImrāndrew on similar imagery of God’s victorious mercy.
Across these readings, Edom functions as the mirror of divine hiddenness: the place where God’s concealed Face re-emerges through judgment. The same chapter recalls Israel’s rebellion and God’s compassion (vv. 7–14): the Spirit grieved yet returned to guide His people.The cycle of hiding and unveiling repeats—the covenant revealed through the nations’ reflection.
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6. Continuities and Historical Transitions
When the Yerushalmi’s memory of Pantera, the Kuzari’s portrait of Shimeon ha-Ḥaver, and Isaiah 63 are read together, they trace a continuous Jewish reflection on how God’s word moves through history The Pantera anecdotes show that the name of Yeshu remained within rabbinic discourse as a question of law and purity; the Kuzari integrates that question into a philosophy of world religions; Isaiah 63 provides the prophetic horizon where dispersion becomes revelation.
When the Yerushalmi’s memory of Pantera, the Kuzari’s portrait of Shimeon ha-Ḥaver, and Isaiah 63 are read together, they trace a continuous Jewish reflection on how God’s word moves through history The Pantera anecdotes show that the name of Yeshu remained within rabbinic discourse as a question of law and purity; the Kuzari integrates that question into a philosophy of world religions; Isaiah 63 provides the prophetic horizon where dispersion becomes revelation.
Each stage represents a different register of hiddenness.The Yerushalmi hides the figure behind prohibition; the Kuzari hides him within typology; Isaiah 63 hides God Himself in Edom’s crimson mirror.In all cases the covenant is not broken but veiled.
The medieval commentators extended this reading to Ishmael.The Qurʾān’s affirmation of a single, merciful Creator paralleled Israel’s confession of Shema Yisrael.
The medieval commentators extended this reading to Ishmael.The Qurʾān’s affirmation of a single, merciful Creator paralleled Israel’s confession of Shema Yisrael.
Jewish philosophers such as Saadya Gaon and later Maimonides acknowledged Islam’s pure monotheism as closer to Judaism than the incarnational theology of Edom. Ha-Levi, however, perceived both as necessary: one preserving the nearness of God, the other His transcendence.The fullness of covenantal knowledge required their eventual reconciliation.
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7. Conclusion
The figure who “comes from Edom” in Isaiah 63 stands as the emblem of history itself: the divine Presence returning from the world’s distortions, garments stained by the labor of revelation. The Pantera stories, the Kuzari, and the later rabbinic commentaries all preserve fragments of how Israel understood that process.
The figure who “comes from Edom” in Isaiah 63 stands as the emblem of history itself: the divine Presence returning from the world’s distortions, garments stained by the labor of revelation. The Pantera stories, the Kuzari, and the later rabbinic commentaries all preserve fragments of how Israel understood that process.
Through Edom and Ishmael the nations mirror back to Israel her own calling—to bear the unity of transcendence and immanence, justice and mercy.
Hiddenness, therefore, is not absence but deferred faithfulness. The nations’ mirrors, however distorted, remain the instruments through which the covenant is unveiled. As the prophet has it: “I will mention the steadfast love of YHWH … for He said, Surely they are My people, children who will not deal falsely; and He became their Savior” (Isa 63:7–8).The revelation that departs through Edom and Ishmael returns through that confession. In the end, the garments red with judgment are also the vestments of mercy—the wound through which glory comes again to Zion.
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End Notes
1. Talmud Yerushalmi Shabbat 14:4 (14d) in Jacob Neusner, The Talmud of the Land of Israel, vol. 14 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 77. For parallel readings, see Haim Guggenheimer, The Jerusalem Talmud: A Translation and Commentary, vol. 12 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010), 361–62. On the Pantera tradition as reflecting early Jewish memories of Jesus and his family, see Peter Schäfer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 38–59; R. T. Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash (London: Williams & Norgate, 1903), 35–49; and Johannes Maier, Jesus von Nazareth in der talmudischen Überlieferung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1978).
2. Judah ha-Levi, The Kuzari: An Argument for the Faith of Israel, trans. Hartwig Hirschfeld (London: Routledge, 1905), I:8; Hebrew ed. David H. Baneth and Haggai Ben-Shammai (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1977), 24–25. On the identification of Shimeon ha-Ḥaver with Simon Peter, see Shlomo Pines, Studies in the History of Jewish Thought (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1979), 110–18; Ehud Krinis, “Judah Halevi and the Christian Scholastics,” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 15 (2012): 25–46; and Daniel J. Lasker, Jewish Philosophical Polemic against Christianity in the Middle Ages (New York: Ktav, 1977), 21–23.
3. Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 5, ed. B. Mandelbaum (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1962), 72–74.
4. Rashi on Isaiah 63:1; see also Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 56–66(Anchor Bible 19B; New York: Doubleday, 2003), 259–64; and Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 395–400, for rabbinic readings of divine justice in Isaiah 63.
