Christianity - A Journey from Facts to Fiction — Page 99
Revival or Resurrection? 99 The language used by Salman Rushdie, for instance, against the holy ladies of the Holy Prophet sa of Islam is not dissimilar to the language used against the holy mother of Christ as : "It is also narrated in Sanhedrin , 67a: ‘This is what they did to the son of Stada in Lud, and they hanged him on the eve of the Passover. For this son of Stada was the son of Pandira. For Rabbi Chasda tells us that Pandira was the husband of Stada, his mother, and he lived during the time of Paphus the son of Jehuda. ’" 3 The author of The Talmud Unmasked , Rev I. B. Pranaitis makes the following comment on the verses quoted above: The meaning of this is that this Mary was called Stada, that is, a prostitute, because, according to what was taught at Pumbadita she left her husband and committed adultery. This is also recorded in the Jerusalem Talmud and Maimonides. Whether those who believe such devilish lies deserve greater hatred or pity, I cannot say. This indeed is a cry of anguish from the heart of a helpless vic- tim who is grieved by the fanatical mockery of his beloved master. The early Christians must have suffered even greater agony and experienced hell by the mockery of the Jews of that period. They had to suffer invectives, directed not against someone whose memory was long buried in the past, but against someone whose 3 Ibid.