Jesus in the Talmud: what Wikipedia removed

Jesus in the Talmud examines passages some scholars believe reference Jesus, passages that were subject to historical censorship. Through 2015 the opening explained the passages “were removed either by Christian censors starting in the 13th century, or by Jews themselves due to fear of antisemitic reprisals.” Today the opening no longer explains why the passages were censored, though the word survives twice in the body. A reader today does not learn that Jews themselves censored these passages out of fear of antisemitic violence.

The word “antisemitism” appeared 1 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2015. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 2. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01.

Where this comes from

We saved this article’s opening paragraph at 4 moments between 2015 and 2025. Everything below is Wikipedia’s own text, quoted from those saved copies. The interactive version, with every snapshot side by side and each removal marked in place, is at ilroot.com/case/jesus-in-the-talmud.

The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot

word	2015	2020	6 October 2023	2025
antisemitism	1	0	0	0

Counts are of the opening paragraph only, the part most readers, search engines and AI training sets ever quote.

What was taken out

• An image caption and introductory sentence describing the Talmud’s contents is gone, replaced by a more specific opening about the Yeshu references.
• The specific claim that Christian censorship of the Talmud began in the year 521 no longer appears in the opening.
• The statement that better-documented censorship began during the medieval disputations is gone from the opening.
• The claim that Christian church advocates alleged the Talmud held insulting references to Jesus is gone from the opening.
• The account of Jewish apologists denying the Talmud referenced Jesus during the disputations is gone from the opening.
• The statement that the disputations led to many references being censored from the Talmud is gone from the opening.

How it opened then, and now

2015 (revision 661074001):

For the related article discussing the Hebrew name Yeshu as found in Talmud and other Jewish literature, see Yeshu . For the similar sounding Hebrew or Aramaic name, see Yeshua (name) . A full set of the Babylonian Talmud. The Talmud contains passages that some scholars have concluded are references to Christian traditions about Jesus . The history of textual transmission of these passages is complex and scholars are not agreed concerning which passages are original, and which were added later or removed later in reaction to the actions of Christians. Scholars are also divided on the relationship of the passages, if any, to the historical Jesus, though some scholarship views the passages as …

2025 (revision 1296823190):

For the related article discussing the Hebrew name Yeshu, as found in Talmud and other Jewish literature, see Yeshu . For the Hebrew or Aramaic name, see Yeshua . There are several passages in the Talmud which are believed by some scholars to be references to Jesus . The name used in the Talmud is ” Yeshu ” ( ישו ), the Aramaic vocalization (although not spelling) of the Hebrew name Yeshua . Many such passages have been deemed blasphemous by historical Christian authorities, including the Catholic Church . Most Talmudic stories featuring an individual named “Yeshu” are framed in time periods which do not synchronize with one other, nor do they align with the scholarly consensus of Jesus’ lif…

Related

• The drift report: what changed across all 61,944 watched articles
• The case file for this article, with every snapshot and every marked removal
• Who made the cuts: removals grouped by the account that made them
• The live article on Wikipedia

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