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Toledot Yeshu ("The Life Story of Jesus") is a satirical Jewish counter-history, polemicizing against the life of Jesus as narrated in the New Testament. It ascribes to Jesus an illegitimate birth, a theft of the Ineffable Name of God, heretical activities, and, finally, a disgraceful death. Circulating orally and - in a great variety of versions - in manuscripts and some printed editions, it was the object and tool of an acrimonious controversy between Jews and Christians throughout the Middle Ages and the early modern period. In preparation of a scholarly edition with translation and commentary, based on all the available manuscripts, Peter Schäfer, Michael Meerson, and Yaacov Deutsch organized an international conference, attended by the leading scholars of the field. The conference contributions, published in this volume, mark a new stage in Toledot Yeshu research. Contributors: Philip Alexander, Yaacov Deutsch, John Gager, Sarit Kattan Gribetz, Galit Hasan-Rokem, William Horbury, Ora Limor, Michael Meerson, Pierluigi Piovanelli, Peter Schäfer, Michael Sokoloff, Michael Stanislawski, Paola Tartakoff, Eli Yassif, Adina M. Yoffie, Israel Jacob Yuva.

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Peter Schäfer, geboren 1943, emeritierter Lehrstuhlinhaber, war von 1974 - 83 Professor für Judaistik am Martin-Buber-Institut der Universität Köln, ab 1983 an der Freien Universität Berlin. Ab 1998 gleichzeitig Professor an der Universität Princeton. Gastprofessuren an der Hebräischen Universität Jerusalem, am Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies, an der Universität Yale und am Jewish Theological Seminary of America. 1994 Leibniz-Preis. 2006 Mellon Award. 2007/08 Fellow am Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin. 2014 Dr. Leopold Lucas-Preis der Universität Tübingen.

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