Why Are Historicists So Certain That Jesus Existed?

[Secret Alias]

As such Jastrow's reconstruction is complete nonsense. The idea seems to be that the priest was hit with blocks of wood from within the tabernacle.

[iskander]

This translation :
Sanhedrin 81b
MISHNAH. IF ONE STEALS THE KISWAH,23 OR CURSES BY ENCHANTMENT, OR
COHABITS WITH A HEATHEN [LIT. SYRIAN] WOMAN, HE IS PUNISHED BY ZEALOTS.24IF A PRIEST PERFORMED THE TEMPLE SERVICE WHILST UNCLEAN, HIS BROTHER PRIESTS DO NOT CHARGE HIM THEREWITH AT BETH DIN, BUT THE YOUNG PRIESTS TAKE HIM OUT OF THE TEMPLE COURT AND SPLIT HIS SKULL WITH CLUBS.
A LAYMAN WHO PERFORMED THE SERVICE IN THE TEMPLE, R. AKIBA SAID: HE IS STRANGLED; THE SAGES SAY: [HIS DEATH IS] AT THE HANDS OF HEAVEN.
https://halakhah.com/pdf/nezikin/Sanhedrin.pdf

OR this other one .Attachment)

sanhedrin 81b.PNG (88.29 KiB) Viewed 6532 times

https://www.sefaria.org/Sanhedrin.81b?lang=bi

[Secret Alias]

And the passage in Hegesippus is pretty specific:

And one of them, who was a fuller, took the club with which he beat out clothes and struck the just man on the head.

Let's look at the two passages. In the story of James fullers come and take the sticks that they used to beat skins and hit James. In the Mishnah the priests took blocks of wood morning and afternoon to the fire for the sacrifices and apparently were to beat or beat a bad priest with these. No connection.

[Secret Alias]

According to Sokoloff there is a word for 'fuller's club' in Aramaic - מדרתא

[Secret Alias]

I think the priests were whipped with pieces of wood rather than clubbed. https://www.sefaria.org/Yoma.23a?lang=bi The bad priest is whipped with פקיע http://cal.huc.edu/showjastrow.php?page=1209 which is strips of wood or faggots which are put on the fire of the temple.

[Nathan]

Yes Jastrow does have club but I still want to see other passages which have this meaning. I think it is a perplexing passage. Yoma has branches. I don't see another example of club. Jastrow's only example of 'clubs' is this passage as far as I can see. I think Numbers 25 is the precedent.

Jastrow lists several additional examples for "club(s)," including Tosefta Kelim Baba Qamma 1.6, Bavli Taanit 18b, and Kohelet Rabba 3.17.

FWIW Neusner's Tosefta translation has "clubs," the Artscroll Bavli Taanit translation has "clubs," and the Soncino Kohelet Rabba translation has "clubs," as well. (I'm seeing a pattern here.)

Sokoloff - a superior authority to Jastrow - doesn't have 'clubs.' https://books.google.com/books?id=rlYSW ... 22&f=false

גזר n.m. cut piece, decree (→ √גזר ) 1. cut piece: pl. גזרייא TN Gen 15:17 [H הגזרים ]; 2. in גזר דין decree: גזר דין נפק the decree was promulgated Git 46d(44); ib. 50c(32); San 18b(4); מחתם הוא גזר דינא the decree is sealed FTP Gen 6:3; Ber 5c(37); ib. 39

You cite Sokoloff's A Dictionary of Palestinian Jewish Aramaic, but recall that the text at the heart of this discussion (in Sanhedrin 81b) is written in Hebrew, not Aramaic. In other words, despite its seemingly Aramaic plural suffix, the word in question (gezirin) is actually Hebrew; hence its absence from Sokoloff's dictionary.

See e.g. Gesenius' Grammar (87.1a) for instances of this Aramaizing tendency found already in biblical Hebrew: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Gesenius ... the_Plural.

Nor is it in Tal - https://books.google.com/books?id=6K-9C ... ee&f=false

Samaritan Aramaic is not going to help here, either.

According to Sokoloff there is a word for 'fuller's club' in Aramaic - מדרתא

Aramaic again. We're (supposed to be) talking rabbinic Hebrew. All of the examples given by Jastrow are in Hebrew.

[Secret Alias]

Yes obviously the Mishnah is written in a different language. But what evidence is there as to the meaning of the Hebrew term? The scholars all make educated guesses. Tal is not irrelevant to the discussion. Many Hebrew loanwords were absorbed by Aramaic as a result of this coexistence among Jewish and Samaritan communities. Tal considers this absorption of Hebrew an integral part of Samaritan Aramaic. Moreover we should expect that Jews and Samaritans at one time spoke a common Hebrew language. So where did this word enter Mishnaic Hebrew? Jastrow lists the verb gzr as being rooted in Biblical Hebrew but the noun is a mystery and like all mysteries the solution is rooted in mere guesswork.

[Secret Alias]

Hmmm. The phrase from Taanit 18b ופצעו את מוחו בגיזרין

[Secret Alias]

It is unlikely that they would have whipped Trajan's skull with strips of wood. However historically Trajan fell ill and died of a stroke. It is odd that where the terminology appears it is always preserved in this form - as an expression.

[Ulan]

I must admit I don't know where you see the difference between a "cut piece of wood" and a club. In its base form, a club is a cut piece of wood swung as a weapon. You can make it more elaborate than that, but that isn't necessary.