CLAIM:
Gittin 56b proves Judaism endorses necromancy or consulting the dead.
STATUS:
Misleading
KEY COUNTERPOINTS:
-
If someone is quoting the Jesus-afterlife line, that is not 56b in the narrow sense.
The Onkelos necromancy narrative begins on Gittin 56b, but the specific line about Jesus / Yeshu and boiling excrement is carried into 57a in restored/manuscript-based presentations. So hostile quote-lists often blur 56b-57a into one lump. -
Gittin 56b is telling an aggadic story, not issuing a halakhic permission slip.
The passage says Onkelos wanted to convert and raised Titus from the grave through necromancy, then Balaam, as part of a narrative scene. That is a story inside aggadah. It is not framed as “this is allowed” or “Jews should do this.” -
The Torah and the Talmud elsewhere explicitly prohibit necromancy.
Deuteronomy bans one who “consults ghosts” or “inquires of the dead,” and Sanhedrin 65b defines a necromancer as a prohibited occult practitioner. So using Gittin 56b as proof that Judaism endorses necromancy runs straight into the legal sources that ban it. -
The honest reading is narrower: the Bavli preserves a dramatic polemical narrative that uses necromancy as a literary device.
You can criticize the story as weird, legendary, or polemical. That is fair. But “Judaism permits necromancy” is broader than what the source actually shows, especially when the normative legal texts point the other way.
EVIDENCE:
• Gittin 56b says Onkelos bar Kalonikos wanted to convert and raised Titus from the grave through necromancy; the same narrative continues with Balaam and then, on the next page, Jesus in restored texts.
• Deuteronomy 18:11 forbids one who “consults ghosts” or “inquires of the dead.”
• Sanhedrin 65b defines necromancy as a prohibited occult practice, which shows the rabbinic legal tradition did not treat it as normal approved conduct.
• That means Gittin 56b works as narrative material, not as a legal endorsement of sorcery. That is an inference from the contrast between the story in Gittin and the legal bans in Torah and Sanhedrin.
PRIMARY SOURCES:
• Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 56b-57a
https://www.sefaria.org.il/Gittin.56a.1?lang=en
the Onkelos story begins on 56b with Titus and continues across the page break.
• Deuteronomy 18:11-12
https://www.sefaria.org.il/Deuteronomy.18.11-12?lang=en&aliyot=0
prohibition on consulting ghosts and inquiring of the dead.
• Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 65
https://www.sefaria.org.il/Sanhedrin.65b?lang=en
rabbinic definition of a necromancer and related prohibited practices.
STRONGEST COUNTER ARGUMENTS WORTH KNOWING:
• A critic can fairly say the story still uses necromancy in a vivid narrative without pausing to condemn it in that moment. That criticism is real.
• But the overreach is claiming this means Judaism endorses necromancy, when the legal sources explicitly forbid it.
NOTES:
The clean formulation is:
Gittin 56b does preserve a story in which Onkelos consults the dead through necromancy. But that does not prove Judaism permits necromancy, because the Torah and the Talmud’s legal discussions elsewhere prohibit exactly that practice. Also, if the quote someone is using is about Jesus being punished in boiling excrement, that line belongs to the continuation on 57a, not 56b by itself.
**See more:
Avodah Zarah 27b-28a, Three Tales of Gentile Healing.pdf
Different But Equal, The Paradox of Chosenness.pdf
Jews, Gentiles, and the Modern Egalitarian Ethos, Some Tentative Thoughts.pdf
Loving-Kindness towards Gentiles according to the Early Jewish Sages.pdf
TALMUDIC FORGERIES, A CASE STUDY IN ANTI-JEWISH PROPAGANDA.pdf
The Status of Non-Jews in Jewish Law and Lore Today.pdf
The Trial of the Talmud, Paris 1240.pdf
Babylonian Talmud, Soncino Translation (Complete).pdf
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