Recent studies by Bohak, Anthony, Stökl Ben-Ezra and myself have firmly placed much of the raucous Toledot Yeshu tradition into the Late Antique period. This opens the door to a new triangulation between 1) these Jewish polemical texts, 2) the more dialectical approach to Jesus taken in the Babylonian Talmud, and 3) the establishment of Jesus as an Israelite prophet who was not crucified in the Qur’an. In this paper, I will argue that both the Bavli and the Qur'an are best read as diverging responses to the Toledot Yeshu narrative, reestablishing Jesus either as an Israelite sinner that should have been saved in the case of the Talmud or as God's prophet, in the Qur’an. The new perspective will allow for a revaluation of the way in which both the Talmud and the Qur’an relate to the Christian tradition more broadly.
