Jesus in boiling excrement

Fact check

Verdict: Mostly true, but commonly misstated

The Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 57a, contains a story in which Onkelos summons the spirit of a figure called Yeshu and asks about his punishment in the next world. The answer is:

“He is punished with boiling excrement.”
The passage connects this punishment with mocking the teachings of the rabbinic sages. (Sefaria)

Important corrections

It does not say Jesus “will die in excrement.”
The figure is already dead. The passage describes his alleged punishment in the afterlife, often understood as Gehenna.
The word is “excrement,” not “excriminate.”
The Aramaic/Hebrew expression is tzo’ah rotachat, meaning boiling excrement.
Is “Yeshu” definitely Jesus Christ?
Many modern scholars—including Peter Schäfer—conclude that this and several related Talmudic passages are polemical references to Jesus of Nazareth. The narrative’s surrounding references to Yeshu, his opposition to the sages, and Christianity make that interpretation probable. (JSTOR)
However, some traditional Jewish commentators argue that the “Yeshu” in these stories was another person, partly because other Talmudic stories place a Yeshu in a historically inconsistent period. The identification is therefore strongly supported but not completely uncontested.
This is an aggadic polemic, not Jewish law.
The passage is a hostile religious story from the context of ancient Jewish-Christian conflict. It is not a commandment instructing Jews to harm Christians, nor should it automatically be treated as a statement of what contemporary Jews personally believe.

Most accurate formulation

Gittin 57a of the Babylonian Talmud contains a polemical story in which a figure called Yeshu—identified by many scholars as Jesus of Nazareth—is depicted as being punished in the afterlife with boiling excrement. It does not say that Jesus died in excrement.

Sources:

Defenses

I found several useful modern treatments. They divide into three broad positions:

Traditional rabbinic defense: the “Yeshu” of Gittin 57a is not Jesus of Nazareth.
Qualified rabbinic position: it may refer to Jesus, but the passage is nonlegal aggadah, reflects an ancient polemic, and is not a statement of normative Jewish belief.
Historical-critical scholarship: the passage probably does target Jesus or Christianity, but it is a late literary counternarrative—not reliable historical information about Jesus.

Best modern rabbinic treatments

1. Rabbi Daniel Rowe — “What the Talmud Really Says About Jesus”

What the Talmud Really Says About Jesus — Aish
Published January 11, 2026. This is primarily a 16-minute video embedded in an article page.
Rowe presents the strongest recent version of the traditional defense. He argues that:

People assume “Yeshu” means Jesus of Nazareth.
The chronological setting of several Yeshu stories does not correspond to Jesus’s lifetime.
Different stories may refer to different people named Yeshu.
Later Christian controversy and censorship encouraged readers to combine separate figures into one “Talmudic Jesus.”
Therefore, Gittin 57a should not be presented as a definite statement about Jesus Christ.
The article’s chapter headings explicitly include “Why that identification doesn’t hold up,” “Why Jesus is definitely not in the Talmud,” and “So who is the ‘Yeshu’ in the Talmud?” Rabbi Rowe is a senior Aish lecturer who studied for almost a decade in Talmudic institutions. (Aish.com)
Assessment: Useful as a contemporary Orthodox rabbinic explanation, but it states the nonidentification position more confidently than much academic scholarship would.

2. Rabbi Gil Student — “Jesus in the Talmud”

Jesus in the Talmud — Jews for Judaism
Student directly reproduces the Gittin 56b–57a narrative. He acknowledges that the text says Yeshu is punished in “boiling excrement,” but argues that this Yeshu was probably a Jewish sectarian from the first century BCE—not Jesus of Nazareth.
His specific argument is:

The Yeshu connected with Joshua ben Perahiah belongs to an earlier historical period.
The stories contain incompatible dates and identities.
“Yeshu” therefore cannot automatically be equated with the New Testament Jesus.
At most, the figure may have become a “proto-Jesus” in later traditions.
Student is an Orthodox rabbi and editor of Torah Musings. His article is one of the most detailed traditional Jewish defenses available online. (Jews for Judaism)
Assessment: Detailed and source-heavy, but explicitly apologetic rather than peer-reviewed historical scholarship.

3. Rabbi Gil Student — “The Jesus Narrative in the Talmud”

The Jesus Narrative in the Talmud — Jews for Judaism
This longer companion essay surveys the various Yeshu, Ben Stada and Ben Pandira passages.
Student distinguishes several scholarly models:

Older scholars treated nearly all the passages as confused memories of Jesus.
Minimalist scholars argue that none originally concerned Jesus.
A middle position holds that the earliest traditions concerned other people, while later editors added details aimed at Jesus and Christianity.
Traditional commentators generally distinguished at least two different figures named Yeshu.
This is probably the best online source for understanding the traditional Jewish argument from chronological inconsistency. Student also concedes that some later additions may have been intended to evoke Jesus, even if the underlying stories originally concerned other figures. (Jews for Judaism)

4. Rabbi Gilbert S. Rosenthal — “Jewish Views of Other Faiths”

Jewish Views of Other Faiths — America Magazine
Rosenthal takes a more qualified position than Rowe or Student:

The few Talmudic references potentially concerning Jesus are late and historically garbled.
It is not certain that every Yeshu reference means Jesus of Nazareth.
Some passages probably do reflect early Jewish-Christian polemics.
Even where Jesus is intended, the statement represents a particular polemical voice—not a binding consensus of Jewish theology.
Many such passages were later removed through Christian censorship or Jewish self-censorship.
His key point is that the Talmud is a vast multivocal compilation, not a catechism in which every recorded statement constitutes official Jewish belief. (America Magazine)
Assessment: The most balanced rabbinic article I found. It neither denies the offensive material nor treats it as representative of Judaism as a whole.

Jewish historical and literary treatments

5. Rachel Scheinerman — “Gittin 57: Revenge Fantasy”

Gittin 57: Revenge Fantasy — My Jewish Learning
Scheinerman does not concentrate on whether Yeshu is Jesus. Instead, she places the passage inside the extended story about the Roman destruction of Jerusalem.
She characterizes the sequence—including Titus’s grotesque punishment and Onkelos’s raising of the dead—as a rabbinic revenge fantasy. Her reading helps explain the literary genre:

The narrative expresses rage against enemies of Israel.
The punishments are deliberately grotesque and satirical.
The story should not be read as straightforward historical reporting.
It also exists alongside the Talmud’s criticism of Jewish leaders for the destruction of Jerusalem.
This contextualizes the Yeshu material as part of a broader cycle of legendary punishment narratives. (My Jewish Learning)
Assessment: Valuable for genre and context, but it does not resolve the identification question.

6. Shai Alleson-Gerberg — “Nittel Nacht: An Inverted Christmas with Toledot Yeshu”

Nittel Nacht: An Inverted Christmas with Toledot Yeshu — TheTorah.com
This academic Jewish-history article treats Gittin 57a as part of the development of Jewish anti-Christian folklore.
Alleson-Gerberg argues that the Talmudic punishment of Jesus in boiling excrement likely contributed to later stories concerning:

Jesus moving through latrines on Christmas Eve.
The popular Jewish parody Toledot Yeshu.
Early-modern customs and legends associated with Nittel Nacht, the Jewish name for Christmas Eve.
The article does not attempt to defend the passage. It frankly describes Toledot Yeshu as a vulgar satire intended to mock Christianity and perhaps raise the morale of a persecuted minority. (TheTorah.com)
Assessment: Strong source for understanding how the Gittin image was received in later Jewish folklore. It effectively accepts Jesus as the literary target.

Major academic counterposition

Although Peter Schäfer is not a rabbi or Jewish scholar—he is a Christian scholar of Judaism—his work is unavoidable because most modern discussions respond to him.

7. Benjamin Balint — “Talmudic Jesus”

Talmudic Jesus — First Things
This is an accessible review of Peter Schäfer’s Jesus in the Talmud.
Schäfer’s thesis is not that the Talmud accurately preserves the biography of Jesus. Rather:

The Babylonian rabbis knew Christian claims and Gospel traditions.
They produced counterstories that parodied or inverted those claims.
The chronological inaccuracies do not disprove the identification because these are literary polemics, not attempted biographies.
Jesus’s punishment denies Christian claims about his resurrection and heavenly exaltation.
The Talmudic stories defend rabbinic authority against Christianity.
Balint, a Jewish writer, finds Schäfer’s general case persuasive, although he notes that some individual interpretations are speculative. (First Things)
Assessment: The best accessible presentation of the historical-critical position that the passages intentionally concern Jesus.

8. Federico Dal Bo — “Jesus’ Punishment in Hell in the Latin Translation of the Babylonian Talmud”

Jesus’ Punishment in Hell in the Latin Translation of the Babylonian Talmud — Academia.edu
This is the most technically focused scholarly article I found on the exact punishment.
Dal Bo examines manuscript variants and notes:

Vatican manuscript 130 reads “Jesus the Nazarene.”
Vatican manuscript 140 reads “Jesus.”
The standard Vilna edition substitutes the censored phrase “the sinners of Israel.”
The passage belongs to a sequence involving Titus, Balaam and Jesus as enemies of Israel.
Their punishments operate according to the rabbinic principle of measure for measure.
Jesus is connected with “mocking the words of the Sages.”
Dal Bo accepts that Jesus is the target. He questions Schäfer’s more speculative theory that the excrement image responds to Jesus’s purity teachings or the Eucharist, proposing instead that it concerns opposition to rabbinic authority and disputes about purity. (Academia)
Assessment: Probably the best article for textual and interpretive detail, although the author is not a rabbi.

9. Thierry Murcia — “B. Gittin 56b–57a: The Talmudic Episode of Titus, Balaam and Yeshu in Hell”

B. Gittin 56b–57a — ResearchGate
Published in Revue des Études Juives in 2014.
Murcia investigates why the three figures receive their particular punishments. He accepts that the narrative is about Jesus but disputes Schäfer’s proposed allusion to the Eucharist. He argues that the imagery is more deeply rooted in internal rabbinic traditions and the principle that punishment corresponds symbolically to the offense. (ResearchGate)

My assessment

The most defensible conclusion is:

Gittin 57a unquestionably contains a manuscript tradition in which a figure called Yeshu—or explicitly “Jesus the Nazarene”—is punished in boiling excrement for mocking the sages. Traditional rabbis dispute that this figure is Jesus of Nazareth, largely because of chronological inconsistencies. Many historical-critical scholars nevertheless conclude that the final Babylonian Talmudic form intentionally targets Jesus and Christianity. Even on that reading, it is a late, polemical, nonlegal narrative—not a reliable historical account of Jesus or a binding creed that all Jews are expected to affirm.

The manuscript evidence makes the categorical claim that “Jesus is definitely not present” difficult to sustain. But it is equally misleading to say, “The Talmud teaches that all Jews believe Jesus is presently boiling in excrement.” The passage is ancient aggadah: a hostile literary tradition preserved within a vast, argumentative collection, not a universally recited Jewish doctrine. (America Magazine)

Counters

The strongest fair counter

Calling the entire Talmud—or Judaism itself—“wicked” because of one hostile aggadic story is an invalid generalization. A Christian applying that standard consistently would also have to condemn Christianity because the New Testament and major Christian writers contain passages about Jews that many readers reasonably regard as cruel, defamatory, or dangerous.
That does not make the Talmudic passage morally acceptable. The principled position is:

The boiling-excrement story is an ugly religious polemic. But one offensive nonlegal story does not define the entire Talmud, Judaism, or contemporary Jews—just as hostile New Testament verses and Christian writings do not define every Christian.

First, the New Testament is not exactly equivalent to the Talmud

The comparison requires care:

The New Testament is Christianity’s canonical scripture.
The Talmud is a vast, multigenerational record of rabbinic legal debates, minority opinions, folklore, biblical interpretation and stories.
Gittin 57a is aggadah—a nonlegal narrative—not a commandment or statement of Jewish doctrine binding every Jew.
A closer Christian equivalent would be the Church Fathers’ homilies, theological commentaries, canon-law discussions and medieval religious polemics.
In one respect, therefore, hostile statements in the New Testament present a more difficult problem: they are contained in Christianity’s canonical scripture rather than in a later, nonlegal story.

Troubling passages about Jews in the New Testament

1. Matthew 27:25 — “His blood be upon us and upon our children”

During Jesus’s trial, Matthew depicts “the whole people” responding:

“His blood be upon us and upon our children.”
The USCCB commentary on Matthew 27 notes that Matthew portrays the speakers as representing the people of Israel. This verse became the basis of the Christian deicide accusation: the belief that Jews collectively, including later generations, were guilty of killing Christ. (USCCB)
As a comparison with Gittin 57a, this is arguably more serious historically. The Talmudic passage insults Jesus in an afterlife story; Matthew 27:25 was repeatedly interpreted as placing inherited blood guilt upon the Jewish people.
Modern Christian churches generally reject that interpretation. The Catholic Church’s Nostra Aetate, section 4 states that Jesus’s death cannot be blamed upon all Jews living at the time, much less Jews today, and that Jews must not be portrayed as rejected or cursed by God. (Vatican)

2. John 8:44 — “You belong to your father the devil”

Jesus tells a group of Jewish opponents:

“You belong to your father the devil.”
The passage occurs during a dispute with people whom John initially calls Jews who had believed in Jesus. The immediate target is therefore a particular hostile group, not a formal description of every Jew. Nevertheless, later Christians repeatedly detached the language from that narrative context and applied it to Jews collectively. See John 8:31–47. (USCCB)
This is especially comparable to the Talmudic passage because both traditions demonize religious opponents:

Gittin portrays Jesus suffering a degrading punishment.
John portrays certain opponents of Jesus as spiritually descended from the devil.
A Christian may offer contextual explanations for John 8:44, but a Jew can likewise ask that the Talmudic story be read within the context of ancient Jewish-Christian conflict rather than converted into a statement about all Jews.

3. 1 Thessalonians 2:14–16

The passage speaks of “the Jews” as those:

who killed Jesus and the prophets;
who persecuted the Christian movement;
who displease God;
who oppose humanity;
and upon whom divine wrath has fallen.
Michael Rydelnik’s article, “Was Paul Anti-Semitic?”, acknowledges that the passage has long been a serious problem for Jewish-Christian relations and has been used to support the deicide charge. (Galaxie)
The scholarly debate includes several possibilities:
Paul was condemning specific Judean persecutors rather than the Jewish people universally.
The Greek term might be better rendered “Judeans” in this context.
Paul was using the fierce language of an internal Jewish dispute.
Verses 15–16 may have been edited or interpolated, although this remains disputed.
Nevertheless, the language as preserved is sweeping enough that scholars have described it as one of the New Testament’s most troubling anti-Jewish passages. (Cambridge University Press & Assessment)

4. Revelation 2:9 and 3:9 — “Assembly of Satan”

Revelation describes certain opponents of Christian congregations as people:

“who claim to be Jews and are not, but rather are members of the assembly of Satan.”
See Revelation 2 and Revelation 3. (USCCB)
Many scholars understand this as a local dispute over Jewish identity and synagogue authority, not a condemnation of every Jewish person. But the expression “synagogue of Satan” became easily transferable into general Christian demonization of synagogues and Jews.
Again, the interpretive principle should be symmetrical: Christians ask that Revelation be understood as localized apocalyptic polemic; Jews can reasonably ask that Gittin 57a be understood as late rabbinic polemic rather than a universal Jewish creed.

5. Matthew 23 — “Serpents,” “vipers” and Gehenna

Jesus condemns scribes and Pharisees as:

hypocrites;
blind guides;
whitewashed tombs;
serpents;
a brood of vipers;
and people facing the judgment of Gehenna.
See Matthew 23. The chapter’s central attack is explicitly directed against scribes and Pharisees. (USCCB)
Historically, this was an intra-Jewish argument: Jesus, his disciples, the Pharisees and the earliest Christian movement were Jewish. The problem arose when a predominantly Gentile Church continued to repeat the language against an external Jewish minority centuries later.

Christian literature comparable to the Talmud

John Chrysostom’s Homilies Against the Jews

One of the closest Christian parallels to the Gittin passage is John Chrysostom’s fourth-century series usually called Against the Jews or, more precisely, Against Judaizing Christians.
Chrysostom was primarily trying to prevent Christians in Antioch from attending synagogues, observing Jewish festivals or seeking Jewish religious services. Nevertheless, he attacked Judaism and Jews using exceptionally degrading rhetoric.
In the first homily, he describes Jews as miserable, spiritually blind, rejected branches and people who had fallen from the status of children to “kinship with dogs.” (Tertullian Project)
The Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations explains that the homilies arose when Jewish and Christian communal boundaries remained porous and Chrysostom feared the attraction Jewish practices held for Christians. That context explains the polemic but does not make its dehumanizing language morally harmless. (Jewish-Christian Relations Council)
A critic could reasonably call parts of Chrysostom’s rhetoric “wicked.” But it would still be unjust to conclude that everything Chrysostom wrote, the entire patristic tradition or every Christian is wicked.

Martin Luther’s On the Jews and Their Lies

Martin Luther’s 1543 treatise goes further than insulting afterlife imagery. It advocates coercive measures against Jewish communal life, including suppressing Jewish teaching, confiscating religious books and destroying Jewish religious institutions.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has formally repudiated Luther’s anti-Jewish writings. Its declaration acknowledges Christianity’s history of mistreating Jews and describes antisemitism as contrary to the gospel. (ELCA Blogs)
An ELCA theological discussion of Luther specifically notes that his later treatise promoted confiscating and burning books and suppressing Jewish teaching and worship. (learn.elca.org)
This is an important distinction:

Gittin 57a imagines a degrading punishment for Jesus in the afterlife. Luther proposed concrete actions against living Jewish communities.
That does not excuse Gittin 57a, but it makes the blanket accusation that uniquely Jewish literature is “wicked” historically indefensible.

Important balance within the New Testament

It would also be misleading to portray the New Testament as uniformly anti-Jewish.
Jesus, Mary, the apostles and Paul were Jews. The earliest Christian movement emerged entirely within Jewish society. Paul emphatically rejects the proposition that God has abandoned Israel:

“Has God rejected his people? Of course not!”
See Romans 11. Paul says Israel remains beloved because God’s gifts and calling are irrevocable. (USCCB)
The New Testament therefore contains both:

severe polemics produced by conflicts between early Jewish and Christian groups; and
affirmations of Israel’s continuing election and the Jewish foundations of Christianity.
The Talmud is similarly multivocal. It contains hostile Christian polemics, but it cannot be reduced to Gittin 57a any more than the New Testament can be reduced to Matthew 27:25 or John 8:44.

A concise counterargument

I agree that the Gittin 57a story is offensive and should not be sanitized. But it is a nonlegal polemical story within a vast, argumentative collection—not a commandment that Jews must believe or act upon. Christianity also preserves harsh polemics: Matthew depicts “the whole people” accepting Jesus’s blood upon themselves and their children; John has Jesus tell Jewish opponents that their father is the devil; Revelation uses the phrase “synagogue of Satan”; Chrysostom compared Jews to dogs; and Luther advocated destroying Jewish institutions and suppressing Jewish religious life. Christians correctly insist that these passages be interpreted historically and not used to define all Christianity. The same standard should be applied to Judaism. We can condemn ugly passages in both traditions without declaring either entire religion wicked.

The most defensible position

The answer should not be “Christians wrote worse things, so Gittin 57a is acceptable.” That is simple whataboutism.
The stronger argument is:

Acknowledge the passage honestly: Gittin 57a contains a degrading polemic probably aimed at Jesus.
Classify it correctly: it is aggadah, not Jewish law or a required creed.
Reject collective attribution: preserving a passage does not mean every contemporary Jew endorses it.
Apply the standard consistently: Christianity also preserves canonical and postcanonical attacks on Jews.
Judge interpretations and actions: condemn people who actively use either tradition to encourage hatred, dehumanization or persecution.
Recognize reform and repudiation: modern Christian bodies have explicitly rejected collective Jewish guilt and antisemitism; Jewish thinkers can likewise criticize or contextualize hostile Talmudic polemics.
The morally serious conclusion is not that both religions are wicked. It is that both inherited literature from eras of intense sectarian conflict, and both bear responsibility for preventing those texts from being weaponized against living people.