It is true that, in its original form, the Talmud did contain some passages that forcefully disagreed with Christianity and with the status of Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Later such passages were edited by Jewish scholars who feared Christian animosity over the passages. The original passages though must be understood as a non-Christian Jewish assessment of Christianity, not as “blasphemy” or “anti-Christianism.” Indeed, the rabbis who collected the Jewish oral tradition in the Talmud were concerned with protecting the dignity of God, as they understood him, not with committing blasphemy against him or with committing injustice against Christians.
Analogously, if a Christian scholar of the seventh or eighth centuries A.D. wrote a scathing assessment of Mohammed and Islam, the intent would not have been to “blaspheme” Mohammed or Islam (or Allah, for that matter). The intent would have been to uphold and protect the Christian understanding of the nature of God and of God’s revelation.
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