Yeshu (ישו in Hebrew) is a name that appears in a few anecdotes in the Tosefta and the Babylonian Talmud, and later as the name of the central character of the Toledot Yeshu narratives. The accounts in the Tosefta and Talmud take place in different historical periods (see below). A tradition outside mainstream Judaism first seen in the writings of Celsus regarded at least one of the accounts as a reference to Jesus and the Church would later claim that the accounts were derogatory remarks directed at Jesus. Many modern liberal scholars view at least some of them as references to Jesus, albeit spurious references. With one exception, traditional mainstream Jewish commentators throughout the centuries rejected the view that the term referred to Jesus. Whatever the case may be, in the medieva