The Talmud: A Jewish-Supremacist Doctrine

In rejecting Jesus Christ and the love and tolerance he preached, Judaism proceeded on its path of chauvinism.

 It culminated in the pages of the Talmud, an encyclopedic exposition of Jewish law and custom, compiled by hundreds of rabbis over the centuries. The American Heritage Dictionary describes it as “constituting the basis of religious authority for traditional Judaism.” The Talmud was first transcribed in Babylonian times, and the oral tradition is many centuries older. By the Sixth Century AD it was written down, becoming the most important religious work of the Jewish people and the chief canon of their religion. In it they finally codified their most chauvinistic tendencies.

Herman Wouk, the very popular Jewish writer,⁹⁸ describes the influence of the Talmud as follows:

The Talmud is to this day the circulating heart’s blood of the Jewish religion. Whatever laws, customs, or ceremonies we observe — whether we are Orthodox, Conservative, Reform or merely spasmodic sentimentalists — we follow the Talmud. It is our common law.⁹⁹

As a 16-year-old, during one of my visits to the Citizens Council offices, I had found a book called The Jewish Religion: Its Influence Today by Elizabeth Dilling.¹⁰⁰ It interested me because the large format of the book contained complete photocopied pages from parts of the Talmud officially compiled by Jewish scholars. I remember skipping Dilling’s commentary and going right to the translations. One of the first passages I read really surprised me. It said,

A heathen [Gentile] who pries into the Torah [and other Jewish Scriptures] is condemned to death, for it is written, it is our inheritance, not theirs. (Sanhedrin 59a)¹⁰¹

If a 16-year-old boy reads something forbidden like that, he is certain to read on. The passage was completely alien to everything I had always understood about religion. Why would they not want all men to read their holy words the same way Christians want to “spread the good news?” Just what is in these scriptures that would oblige the Jews to kill a Gentile that read them? Why would public knowledge of Jewish scriptures be dangerous to Jews? I went to the library and found some old translations of parts of the Talmud. It was not long before I came across other, even more amazing passages such as:

Balaam [Jesus] is raised from the dead and being punished in boiling hot semen. Those who mock the words of the Jewish sages and sin against Israel are boiled in hot excrement. (57a Gittin)¹⁰²

When I asked my Jewish friend’s rabbi about the passage, he told me that Balaam was not Jesus. He sounded very convincing, but that very evening, I looked up Balaam in the Jewish Encyclopedia and was shocked to read that Balaam was a pseudonym for Jesus. Because Christian scholars periodically obtained copies of the Talmud, Talmudic scribes hoped to deceive them by using the name Balaam to denote Jesus.

In The Jewish Encyclopedia, under the heading “Balaam,” it says,

“…the pseudonym ‘Balaam’ given to Jesus in Sanhedrin 106b and Gittin 57a.”¹⁰³

The Jewish Encyclopedia under the heading “Balaam,” it says,

“…the pseudonym ‘Balaam’ given to Jesus in Sanhedrin 106b and Gittin 57a.”

The Talmud repeatedly uses obscure words to denote Gentiles with an assortment of names such as Egyptian, heathen, Cuthean, and idolater. In the most popular English-language translation of the Talmud, called the Soncino edition, the practice is illustrated by the fifth footnote of the book of Sanhedrin. It reads,

“Cuthean (Samaritan) was here substituted for the original goy…”¹⁰⁴

Christians are sometimes referred to by the code word “Min” or “Minim.”¹⁰⁵ The footnotes of the Soncino edition of the Talmud as well as passages in the Jewish Encyclopedia blatantly mention this intentional artifice.

The Encyclopedia Judaica also notes that,

In rabbinical literature the distinction between gentile (goy, akkum) and Christian (Nazeri) has frequently been obscured by textual alterations necessitated by the vigilance of censors. Thus ‘Egyptian, ‘Amalekite,’ ‘Zadokite (Sadducee),’ and ‘Kuti’ (Samaritan) often stands in place of the original Nazeri, as well as goy, akkum, etc. Probably when Resh Lakish stated that a gentile (akkum, etc. in existing texts) who observed the Sabbath [Saturday rites] is punishable by death (Sanhedrin, 58b), he had in mind Christians … Numerous anti-Christian polemic passages only make real sense after Nazeri has been restored in place of the spurious Kuti or Zadokite.”¹⁰⁶

In other passages in the Talmud I discovered a possible reason why some of the Talmud’s writers had forbidden Gentiles to read it. The Talmud’s words are vitriolic:

• Only Jews are human. [Gentiles] are animals. (Baba Mezia 114a-114b.)¹⁰⁷

• For murder, whether of a Cuthean [Gentile] by a Cuthean, or of an Israelite by a Cuthean, punishment is incurred; but of a Cuthean by an Israelite, there is no death penalty. (Sanhedrin 57a)¹⁰⁸

• Even the best of the [Gentiles] should be killed. ( Babylonian Talmud)¹⁰⁹

• If a Jew is tempted to do evil he should go to a city where he is not known and do the evil there. (Moed Kattan 17a.)¹¹⁰

• Gentiles’ flesh is as the flesh of asses and whose issue is like the issue of horses.¹¹¹

• If a heathen [Gentile] hits a Jew, the Gentile must be killed. Hit-ting a Jew is hitting God. (Sanhedrin 58b.)¹¹²

• If an ox of an Israelite gores an ox of a Canaanite there is no li-ability; but if an ox of a Canaanite [Gentile] gores an ox of an Israelite…the payment is to be in full. (Baba Kamma 37b.)¹¹³

• If a Jew finds an object lost by a heathen [Gentile] it does not have to be returned. (Baba Mezia 24a; Affirmed also in Baba Kamma 113b.)¹¹⁴

• God will not spare a Jew who ‘marries his daughter to an old man or takes a wife for his infant son or returns a lost article to a Cuthean [Gentile]… (Sanhedrin 76a.)¹¹⁵

• What a Jew obtains by theft from a Cuthean [Gentile] he may keep. (Sanhedrin 57a.)¹¹⁶

• [Gentiles] are outside the protection of the law and God has ‘exposed their money to Israel.’ (Baba Kamma 37b.)¹¹⁷

• Jews may use lies (‘subterfuges’) to circumvent a [Gentile]. (Baba Kamma 113a.)¹¹⁸

• All [Gentile] children are animals. (Yebamoth 98a.)¹¹⁹

• [Gentiles] prefer sex with cows. (Abodah Zarah 22a-22b.)¹²⁰

• The vessels of [Gentiles], do they not impart a worsened flavor to the food cooked in them? (Abodah Zarah 67b.)¹²¹

It astonished me to read such unmitigated hatred from the chief writings of the Jewish religion. It was obvious that these quotations were all authentic, because the copies I read were published by Jewish organizations. I could not find any rational explanation for such writings being in the Jewish sacred books. In fact, it became clear to me that most Americans do not even know that such writings even exist.

These quotes were hard for me to believe, as they will be for many readers. However, if anyone doubts their authenticity, an easy way to verify the Talmud’s extreme hatred against Gentiles is by reading the Jewish Encyclopedia. In the article “Gentiles,” it makes very clear the Talmud’s hatred toward non-Jews. Under the subtitle “Discrimination against Gentiles,” on pages 617-621, it clearly shows the Talmud’s attitude toward non-Jews. Here are some excerpts:

. . .they held that only Israelites are men, . . . Gentiles they classed not as men but as barbarians. (B.M. 108b). . . Another reason for discrimination was the vile and vicious character of the Gentiles. . . . “whose flesh is like the flesh of asses and issue is like the issue of horses . . .” The Gentiles were so strongly suspected of unnatural crimes that it was necessary to prohibit the stabling of a cow in their stalls (Ab. Zarah ii.

1). . .”The Torah outlawed the issue of a Gentile as that of a beast.. . . ” The almighty offered the Torah to the Gentiles nations also, but since they refused to accept it, He withdrew his shining legal protection from them, and transferred their property rights to Israel. . . the presumption is that the Gentile obtained possession by seizure. . . The property is considered publicproperty, like the unclaimed land of the Desert. ¹²²

The 1907 edition of the Funk & Wagnall’s Jewish Encyclopedia mentions a quotation of Rabbi Simon Ben Yohai (a giant of Talmudic literature) that is “often quoted by anti-Semites.” The quotation reads:

“Tob shebe-goyim harog” — “The best of the Goyim is to be killed.”

It says that the rabbi’s utterance results from persecution, describing this anti-Gentile statement as a reaction of a rabbi “whose life experiences may furnish an explanation for his animosity.” Yet the passage continues revealingly, “In the connection in which it stands, the import of this observation is similar to that of the two others:

‘The most pious woman is addicted to sorcery’; ‘The best of snakes ought to have its head crushed.’ ”¹²³

The Talmudic quotations I reproduce here are by no means taken out of context. It is true that the Talmud is comprised of many writings and has many “commentaries” throughout. It also sometimes actually has disputes on certain issues. However, there is no mistaking the decidedly anti-Gentile tone that dominates it throughout. The exhortation that “the best of Gentiles should be killed,” for instance, is located in at least three different sections.

Imagine the reaction if a prominent Christian pronounced that “the best of the Jews should be killed.” Would not such a statement be forcefully condemned? Imagine the media opprobrium that would be heaped on the offending words and its author. Perversely, if one exposes the intolerance in the Talmud, he is the only one likely to face accusations of religious prejudice and intolerance.

When I first sought to read the Talmud, I noticed a strange thing. I had a hard time finding a copy. It is not sold in bookstores, and most libraries don’t have copies. Admittedly, the Talmud is a few times the size of the Bible, but certainly, in mass quantities, the Talmud could be printed for a nominal cost, much like the Bible is, on thin paper and in inexpensively bound volumes. As the most holy writ of one of the world’s major religions, there must be significant human interest in it. Why then must one usually go to a synagogue or pay hundreds of dollars for an original Soncino edition? One must ask why it is not readily available for the public to read. The answer is probably found in the fact that the Jewish organizations that oversee the distribution rights to such writings don’t want them widely read. When one reads the Talmudic books, one can understand their reasoning.

As an idealistic teenager, I was totally unprepared for this dark side of a faith that I had always respected. My impression had been that the Jewish faith had no animosity toward Jesus Christ. I was always told that they had much respect for Him as a prophet or at least as a great teacher but simply did not accept Him as the Messiah. It disturbed me to have come across violently obscene descriptions of the Savior and of Christians in the Talmud. Among other things, Christ is described as a charlatan, a seducer and an evil-doer. It accuses Christ of having sexual intercourse with his donkey¹²⁴ and it describes the Virgin Mary as a whore.¹²⁵