Jewish contact and polemic in the early centuries of Christianity, such as the Adversus Iudaeos genre. These terms "minimalist" and "maximalist" are not unique to discussion of the Talmud text they are also used in discussion of academic debate on other aspects of Jewish vs. This range of views among modern scholars on the subject has been described as a range from "minimalists" who see few passages with reference to Jesus, to "maximalists" who see many passages having reference to Jesus. In the modern era there has been a variance of views among scholars of the possible references to Jesus in the Talmud, depending partly on presuppositions as to the extent to which the ancient rabbis were preoccupied with Jesus and Christianity. The disputations led to many of the references being removed (censored) from subsequent editions of the Talmud. They asserted that Joshua was a common Jewish name, along with its derivations, and that the citations referred to individuals other than Jesus. Jews responded to the disputations by saying there were no references to Jesus in the Talmud.
Catholic authorities accused the Talmud of containing blasphemous references to Jesus and his mother, Mary. However, far better documented censorship began during the disputations of the Middle Ages. The first Christian censorship of the Talmud happened in the year 521. These events would place the lifetime of any Yeshu decades before or after the birth and death of Jesus. The identification of Jesus with any number of individuals named Yeshu has numerous problems, as most of the individuals are said to have lived in time periods far detached from that of Jesus Yeshu the sorcerer is noted for being executed by the Hasmonean government which lost legal authority in 63 BC, Yeshu the student is described being among the Pharisees who returned to Israel from Egypt in 74 BC, and Yeshu ben Pandera/ben Stada's stepfather is noted as speaking with Rabbi Akiva shortly before the rabbi's execution, an event which occurred in c. The name used in the Talmud is " Yeshu", the Aramaic vocalization (although not spelling) of the Hebrew name Yeshua. There are several passages in the Talmud which are believed by some scholars to be references to Jesus.