(, The Book of the Generations/History/Life of Jesus), often abbreviated as Toledot Yeshu, is an early Jewish text taken to be an alternative biography of Jesus of Nazareth. It exists in a number of different versions, none of which is considered either canonical or normative within Rabbinic literature, but which appear to have been widely circulated in Europe and the Middle East in the medieval period. A 15th-century Yemenite version of the text was titled , or the "Episode of Jesus", in which Jesus is described either as being the son of Joseph or the son of Pandera. The account portrays Jesus as an impostor. The Toledot portrays Jesus (known as by the author, the actual Hebrew name) as an illegitimate child who practiced sorcery, taught a heretical Judaism, seduced women, and died a shameful death. Interestingly, the author also shows a paradoxical respect for Jesus. As Joseph Dan notes in the Encyclopedia Judaica, "The narrative in all versions treats Jesus as an exceptional person who, from his youth, demonstrated unusual wit and wisdom, but disrespect toward his elders and the sages of his age." Robert Van Voorst calls the a record of popular polemic "run wild." The 's profane portrayal of the person Christians consider divine has provided fodder for Christian antisemitism and anti-Judaism. Until the early 21st century (with few exceptions), mainstream Jewish and Christian scholars paid little attention to the . The opinion of noted advocate of Christian-Jewish reconciliation, Father Edward H. Flannery, is representative: This disregard has recently shifted towards a growing level of discussion on the text's possible scholarly use as a window into the early history of Jewish-Christian relations. Composition and dating Recent scholarship has drawn attention to the date of origin of the . The earliest layers are considered to have been manufactured orally, and written source material of the is much older than the work itself. As Flannery states: The first textual evidence consists of fragments of Aramaic manuscripts discovered in Cairo. A recent study reports that more than 100 manuscripts of the exist, almost all of them late medieval (the oldest manuscript being from the 11th century). The earliest stratum of composition was probably in Aramaic. There are recensions extant in Hebrew, and later versions in Judeo-Persian and Arabic, as well as in Yiddish and Ladino (Judeo-Spanish). The date of composition cannot be ascertained with certainty and there are conflicting views