Short answer
Yes, most scholars conclude that the Talmud calls Jesus a sorcerer who led Israel astray. Medieval manuscripts of the Babylonian Talmud say that Yeshu "practised magic and led astray and deceived Israel" (Sanhedrin 107b). Some name him "Yeshu the Nazarene". In the story, Yeshu's teacher rejects him. The teacher is a rabbi who lived a century before Jesus. The pupil then sets up a brick and bows down to it. Printed Talmuds removed the name under Christian censorship. The older Jerusalem Talmud tells the story of another teacher, with an unnamed pupil and no idol. The Qur'an records the same charge of "evident magic" in Jesus' own day. It answers that his signs came "by My leave" (5:110).
Full explanation
What the story says (Sanhedrin 107b)
The Talmud records the rabbis' discussions of Jewish law, and their stories. It is divided into volumes called tractates, and "107b" names a page of the tractate Sanhedrin. This passage is in the Babylonian Talmud, edited about 500-600 CE. It opens with a teaching of the Sages, the early rabbis: always let the left hand push away and the right hand draw near. It names two teachers who pushed someone away with both hands. They are the prophet Elisha, and Yehoshua ben Perachiah, an early sage. The story follows. King Yannai, who ruled about a century before Jesus, killed the Sages. The teacher fled to Alexandria with his pupil. On the way home the teacher praised an inn, and the pupil spoke of the innkeeper's looks. The teacher excommunicated him, cutting him off from the community. Later the teacher was reciting the Shema, the daily declaration "Hear, O Israel". He waved to the pupil to wait. The pupil thought he was rejected for good. The Aramaic says he "set up a brick and bowed down to it". Asked to repent, he quoted his teacher's own rule: one who sins and makes the many sin is given no chance to repent. Then comes a saying of "the Master", an unnamed teacher: he practised sorcery, enticed, and led Israel astray. R. Travers Herford, an English scholar who translated these passages in 1903, has "hung up a tile" for the brick. The same three charges appear in Sanhedrin 43a, which has its own page.
“Our Rabbis teach, Ever let the left hand repel and the right hand invite, not like Elisha who repulsed Gehazi with both hands, and not like R. Jehoshua ben Perahjah, who repulsed Jeshu (the Nazarene) with both hands.”
“What of R. Jehoshua ben Perahjah? When Jannai the king killed our Rabbis, R. Jehoshua ben Perahjah [and Jesus] fled to Alexandria of Egypt. When there was peace, Shim'on ben Shetah sent to him, "From me [Jerusalem] the city of holiness, to thee Alexandria of Egypt [my sister]. My husband stays in thy midst and I sit forsaken." He came, and found himself at a certain inn; they showed him great honour. He said, 'How beautiful is this Acsania!' (Jesus) said to him, 'Rabbi, she has narrow eyes.' He said, 'Wretch, dost thou employ thyself thus?' He sent out four hundred trumpets and excommunicated him. He [i.e. Jesus] came before him many times and said to him, 'Receive me.' But he would not notice him. One day he [i.e. R. Jeh.] was reciting the Shema', he [i.e. Jesus] came before him. He was minded to receive him, and made a sign to him. He [i.e. Jesus] thought that he repelled him. He went and hung up a tile and worshipped it. He [R. Jeh.] said to him, 'Return.' He replied, 'Thus I have received from thee, that every one who sins and causes the multitude to sin, they give him not the chance to repent.' And a teacher has said, 'Jesus the Nazarene practised magic and led astray and deceived Israel.'”
Aggadah. A baraita (tanu rabbanan) teaches: always let the left hand push away and the right hand draw near, not like Elisha, who pushed Gehazi away with both hands, and not like Yehoshua ben Perachiah, who pushed Yeshu ha-Notzri away with both hands. The story follows. When King Yannai was killing the Sages, Yehoshua ben Perachiah and Yeshu went to Alexandria. On the way back the teacher praised an inn; the pupil said the innkeeper's eyes were narrow (terutot); the teacher excommunicated him with four hundred shofars. Later, while reciting the Shema, the teacher waved to him to wait; the pupil thought he was rejected, "went, set up a brick and bowed down to it" (azal zakaf leventa ve-hishtachaveh lah), and refused to repent, citing his teacher's rule that one who sins and makes the many sin is given no chance to repent. It closes: "And the Master said: Yeshu practised sorcery, enticed and led Israel astray" (kishef ve-hesit ve-hiddiach et Yisra'el). Printed editions from Basel (1578-81) on removed the name. The Jerusalem Talmud's older form of the story is at Hagigah 2:2.
Who is Yeshu? The manuscripts and the censors
Before printing, the Talmud was copied by hand. In Sanhedrin 107b, manuscripts name the pupil Yeshu ha-Notzri, Yeshu the Nazarene. Among them are MS Florence II.I.8-9, copied in 1177, and MS Yad ha-Rav Herzog 1. In MS Munich 95, copied in 1342, the name was erased, and it is still faintly visible. Tractate Sotah (47a) tells the same story in almost the same words. Its manuscripts Oxford Heb. d. 20, Vatican 110 (1380) and Munich 95 name the pupil too. Its closing charge adds that he "caused Israel to sin". The name was removed from the Basel edition of 1578-81, printed under Christian censorship, and from later editions. The printed Vilna text, the standard edition today, says only "one of his disciples" in Sotah. These readings are given as Herford and Schäfer report them. Most modern scholars hold that the Talmud's Yeshu ha-Notzri is Jesus of Nazareth, as the rabbis imagined him. Herford and Peter Schäfer, a German scholar of ancient Judaism, are among them.
Aggadah. A baraita (tanu rabbanan) teaches: always let the left hand push away and the right hand draw near, not like Elisha, who pushed Gehazi away with both hands, and not like Yehoshua ben Perachiah, who pushed Yeshu ha-Notzri away with both hands. The story follows. When King Yannai was killing the Sages, Yehoshua ben Perachiah and Yeshu went to Alexandria. On the way back the teacher praised an inn; the pupil said the innkeeper's eyes were narrow (terutot); the teacher excommunicated him with four hundred shofars. Later, while reciting the Shema, the teacher waved to him to wait; the pupil thought he was rejected, "went, set up a brick and bowed down to it" (azal zakaf leventa ve-hishtachaveh lah), and refused to repent, citing his teacher's rule that one who sins and makes the many sin is given no chance to repent. It closes: "And the Master said: Yeshu practised sorcery, enticed and led Israel astray" (kishef ve-hesit ve-hiddiach et Yisra'el). Printed editions from Basel (1578-81) on removed the name. The Jerusalem Talmud's older form of the story is at Hagigah 2:2.
Aggadah. A baraita teaches that Elisha fell ill three times, and one illness was for pushing Gehazi away with both hands. Then the same teaching as Sanhedrin 107b: let the left hand push away and the right draw near, not like Yehoshua ben Perachiah, "who pushed away Yeshu ha-Notzri, one of his disciples (mi-talmidav), with both hands". The story follows in almost the same words; here Shimon ben Shetach is hidden by his sister and Yehoshua ben Perachiah flees to Alexandria; the pupil is not mentioned in the flight. The pupil "set up a brick and worshipped it" (zakaf leventa palcha). It closes: "as the Master said: Yeshu ha-Notzri practised sorcery, enticed, led astray and caused Israel to sin" (kishef ve-hesit ve-hiddiach ve-hechti et Yisra'el).
“The name of Jesus is found in this passage in the codices of Munich, Florence, and Carlsruhe, used by Rabbinowicz, also in all the older editions of the Talmud. In the edition of Basel, 1578-81, and in all later ones, the censor of the press has expunged it.”
Chapter 3, "The Frivolous Disciple", compares Sanhedrin 107b and Sotah 47a with the Jerusalem Talmud's story of Yehudah ben Tabbai. Schäfer finds that the naming of the disciple as Jesus is a later stage of the story: it is missing from the Jerusalem Talmud and found only in some manuscripts of the Babylonian version, so the story preserves no history about Jesus. He judges that the brick worship reflects what a Babylonian editor thought idolatry was, not any Christian practice, and that the editor's frame blames the teacher, Yehoshua ben Perachiah, for pushing the pupil away.
Reads the Babylonian Talmud's Jesus passages as deliberate counter-narratives that parody the New Testament stories, written by rabbis who knew the Gospels, especially Matthew and John. He argues that this bold reply came from Sasanian Babylonia, where the rabbis lived outside Christian power, unlike the Jews of Roman and Byzantine Palestine. In his table of manuscripts and printings, all three manuscripts of Gittin 57a name Jesus, while the Soncino printing (1484-1519) leaves the name out and the Vilna edition reads "sinners of Israel"; he ascribes such gaps in the printed Jesus passages to censorship, or to printers pre-empting it. On Gittin 57a he doubts that mocking the Sages was the story's original charge, holding that the editor borrowed it from Eruvin 21b. He then offers, as an admittedly speculative reading, that the excrement mocks the Eucharist: Jesus sits in what his followers produce after eating his flesh.
An older version with no name and no idol
The Jerusalem Talmud was edited about 400 CE. It tells an older form of the story in Hagigah 2:2. The teacher there is Yehudah ben Tabbai, another early sage, not Yehoshua ben Perachiah. He flees to Alexandria to avoid being made head of the Sages. On the way home he speaks well of their hostess. "One of his disciples" says her eye is damaged. The teacher tells him he has sinned twice: he suspected his teacher, and he looked at her. The story ends with anger and the disciple going away. There is no name, no excommunication, no brick and no sorcery. Herford called this "probably the basis" of the Babylonian story. He suggested that the mention of Jesus was an addition made in Babylonia "upon uncertain authority". Schäfer reaches the same result from the manuscripts.
Aggadah, told to show that Yehudah ben Tabbai was the Nasi. The people of Jerusalem wished to make him Nasi, and he fled to Alexandria. They wrote: "From Jerusalem the great to Alexandria the small: how long will my betrothed sit among you while I sit grieving for him?" On the way home by ship he spoke well of the lady of the house who had received them. "One of his disciples" (chad min talmidoi) said her eye was damaged. The teacher answered that he had sinned twice, by suspecting his teacher and by looking at her; he had praised her deeds, not her looks. The story ends with anger and the disciple going away (ve-ka'as alui ve-azal). There is no name, no excommunication, no idol and no sorcery.
“The passage j. Hag. ii. 2 gives a very brief account of the dissension between the Rabbi and "one of his disciples," but does not give the name of the latter. This is probably the basis of what was afterwards expanded in the Babylonian Gemara. The passage before us is the locus classicus for the second Talmudic theory as to the time when Jesus lived. 'Jannai the king' is Alexander Jannæus, who reigned from 104 to 78 B.C., thus a full century before Jesus lived.”
“I suggest that the mention of R. Jehoshua and Jesus was an addition founded on the Palestinian tradition and prompted by the mention of Elisha and Gehazi; and further that this addition was made in the schools of Babylonia, upon uncertain authority.”
Chapter 3, "The Frivolous Disciple", compares Sanhedrin 107b and Sotah 47a with the Jerusalem Talmud's story of Yehudah ben Tabbai. Schäfer finds that the naming of the disciple as Jesus is a later stage of the story: it is missing from the Jerusalem Talmud and found only in some manuscripts of the Babylonian version, so the story preserves no history about Jesus. He judges that the brick worship reflects what a Babylonian editor thought idolatry was, not any Christian practice, and that the editor's frame blames the teacher, Yehoshua ben Perachiah, for pushing the pupil away.
The Qur'an's answer
The Qur'an records this charge in Jesus' own time. In 5:110 God (﷾) reminds Jesus of his signs. They include the bird made from clay, the healing of the blind and the lepers, and the raising of the dead. Then "the unbelievers among them" said it was "nothing but evident magic". The answer is in the same verse: each sign came "by My leave". Jesus says the same in 3:49: "by Allah's leave". The Qur'an tells of the same charge against Moses. When the truth came to Pharaoh and his chiefs, they called it "evident sorcery" (10:76-77). And Jesus told Israel: "worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord" (5:72). Islam blames no one living today for an old story: "no bearer of burdens can bear the burden of another" (6:164).
“Then will Allah say: "O Jesus the son of Mary! Recount My favour to thee and to thy mother. Behold! I strengthened thee with the holy spirit, so that thou didst speak to the people in childhood and in maturity. Behold! I taught thee the Book and Wisdom, the Law and the Gospel and behold! thou makest out of clay, as it were, the figure of a bird, by My leave, and thou breathest into it and it becometh a bird by My leave, and thou healest those born blind, and the lepers, by My leave. And behold! thou bringest forth the dead by My leave. And behold! I did restrain the Children of Israel from (violence to) thee when thou didst show them the clear Signs, and the unbelievers among them said: 'This is nothing but evident magic.'”
“"And (appoint him) a messenger to the Children of Israel, (with this message): "'I have come to you, with a Sign from your Lord, in that I make for you out of clay, as it were, the figure of a bird, and breathe into it, and it becomes a bird by Allah's leave: And I heal those born blind, and the lepers, and I quicken the dead, by Allah's leave; and I declare to you what ye eat, and what ye store in your houses. Surely therein is a Sign for you if ye did believe;”
“When the Truth did come to them from Us, they said: "This is indeed evident sorcery!" Said Moses: "Say ye (this) about the truth when it hath (actually) reached you? Is sorcery (like) this? But sorcerers will not prosper."”
“They do blaspheme who say: "Allah is Christ the son of Mary." But said Christ: "O Children of Israel! worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord." Whoever joins other gods with Allah,- Allah will forbid him the garden, and the Fire will be his abode. There will for the wrong-doers be no one to help.”
“Say: "Shall I seek for (my) Cherisher other than Allah, when He is the Cherisher of all things (that exist)? Every soul draws the meed of its acts on none but itself: no bearer of burdens can bear the burden of another. Your goal in the end is towards Allah: He will tell you the truth of the things wherein ye disputed."”
The replies, answered
Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 107b — tractate Sanhedrin, folio 107b
Aggadah. A baraita (tanu rabbanan) teaches: always let the left hand push away and the right hand draw near, not like Elisha, who pushed Gehazi away with both hands, and not like Yehoshua ben Perachiah, who pushed Yeshu ha-Notzri away with both hands. The story follows. When King Yannai was killing the Sages, Yehoshua ben Perachiah and Yeshu went to Alexandria. On the way back the teacher praised an inn; the pupil said the innkeeper's eyes were narrow (terutot); the teacher excommunicated him with four hundred shofars. Later, while reciting the Shema, the teacher waved to him to wait; the pupil thought he was rejected, "went, set up a brick and bowed down to it" (azal zakaf leventa ve-hishtachaveh lah), and refused to repent, citing his teacher's rule that one who sins and makes the many sin is given no chance to repent. It closes: "And the Master said: Yeshu practised sorcery, enticed and led Israel astray" (kishef ve-hesit ve-hiddiach et Yisra'el). Printed editions from Basel (1578-81) on removed the name. The Jerusalem Talmud's older form of the story is at Hagigah 2:2.
Cited for
Whatever Jesus himself taught, his followers came to worship him. So the fear behind the charge that he led Israel astray came true.
The response
The Qur'an agrees that the worship of Jesus is wrong, and it lays that error on those who came after him. Asked whether he told people to worship him and his mother, Jesus answers that he said only "worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord". A teacher does not carry what others later did in his name: "no bearer of burdens can bear the burden of another".
Where it lands — The worship of Jesus is a later error that Jesus himself disowns. It is not evidence against Jesus.
Qur'an 5:110 — Surat al-Ma'ida (The Table), verse 110
“Then will Allah say: "O Jesus the son of Mary! Recount My favour to thee and to thy mother. Behold! I strengthened thee with the holy spirit, so that thou didst speak to the people in childhood and in maturity. Behold! I taught thee the Book and Wisdom, the Law and the Gospel and behold! thou makest out of clay, as it were, the figure of a bird, by My leave, and thou breathest into it and it becometh a bird by My leave, and thou healest those born blind, and the lepers, by My leave. And behold! thou bringest forth the dead by My leave. And behold! I did restrain the Children of Israel from (violence to) thee when thou didst show them the clear Signs, and the unbelievers among them said: 'This is nothing but evident magic.'”
Cited for
The page sets the Babylonian story against an older version of it. The Qur'an came later still, six centuries after Jesus and far from Galilee. Its clay birds are first found in a second-century writing outside the Bible, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.
The response
The page does not reject the story for being late. It rejects it because its own older form, in the Jerusalem Talmud, has no name, no idol and no sorcery. The Babylonian story also sets Jesus a century too early. Within one tradition, the page compares a story with its own older form. A parallel in another people's book shows that a story was known, not that a prophet copied it. The Qur'an claims to be revelation, not memory. On the first commandment, it agrees with the earliest of the New Testament Gospels: Jesus names the Shema (Mark 12:29).
Where it lands — Lateness decides nothing by itself. The Babylonian story fails against its own older version; the Qur'an's first commandment for Jesus is the one he names in the earliest Gospel.
Perspectives
Jewish (the rabbinic tradition)
The story is aggadah, a teaching story, told to show that a teacher must never drive a sinner beyond return. The Torah judges a prophet by his message, not by his wonders.
The Talmud's opening teaching (its frame) faults Yehoshua ben Perachiah for pushing his pupil away with both hands.
Rebuttal
The opening teaching faults the teacher, but the story still closes with the charge that the pupil practised sorcery and led Israel astray. The Qur'an answers that charge: his signs came "by My leave" (5:110).
A sign that comes to pass does not prove a prophet who calls to other gods.
Rebuttal
Agreed: a wonder from one who calls to other gods proves nothing. Jesus' signs came from God (﷾), "by My leave" (5:110), and he called to the LORD alone. In the Gospel of Mark he names the Shema as the first commandment (12:29).
Academic study of the passage
The Babylonian story grew from the Jerusalem Talmud's shorter tale of an unnamed disciple. The name, the brick and the charge of magic were added in Babylonia, and the story is not history.
The Jerusalem Talmud's version has an unnamed disciple, with no idol and no sorcery.
Rebuttal
That shows the Babylonian story is no record of Jesus. It tells us what some rabbis in Babylonia said of him, not what he did.
The naming of Jesus in the story is a later addition made in Babylonia.
Rebuttal
Then the story is no evidence about Jesus himself. But most scholars, Schäfer among them, hold that the Babylonian Talmud's Yeshu ha-Notzri passages mean Jesus of Nazareth. So the charge was aimed at him, and the Qur'an answers it: "by My leave" (5:110).
Christian apologetic reading
The uncensored Talmud calls Jesus a sorcerer. In this his opponents admit that he did wonders, and that supports the Gospels' account of him.
The Talmud charges Yeshu with sorcery, which some Christians read as an admission that he worked wonders.
Rebuttal
The story describes no wonder at all. "Sorcery" there is a charge, not a report. Even real wonders would not show divinity: Elijah and Elisha raised the dead too. The Qur'an credits each of Jesus' signs to God (﷾): "by My leave" (5:110).
The Gospels record that scribes from Jerusalem said he cast out devils by Beelzebub.
Rebuttal
His opponents had to explain his signs, and the Qur'an records the same (5:110). But a sign shows God's (﷾) leave, not the divinity of the one who bears it. Moses' signs were called sorcery too (10:76-77).
Where the academy stands
Status: Majority view
Most modern scholars of these passages (Herford, Schäfer and others) hold that the Babylonian Talmud's Yeshu ha-Notzri passages refer to Jesus of Nazareth. They show him as the rabbis imagined him. Schäfer reads the Babylonian stories as deliberate answers to the Gospels, told in Persia, outside Christian power. A minority, notably Johann Maier, argued that the identification is late. Ben Stada and Ben Pandira are other names in the Talmud that some link to Jesus. Whether every text about them meant Jesus is more disputed, and some medieval rabbis denied it. None of these scholars treats the stories as history. On this story, Herford and Schäfer agree that Jesus' name entered it in Babylonia.
The Islamic perspective
Jesus was a prophet to Israel whose signs came by God's (﷾) leave. Some who rejected him called them magic, as others had called Moses' signs sorcery. He called Israel to worship God (﷾) alone, so the Torah's charge against a prophet of other gods does not touch him.
The Qur'an records that the unbelievers among the Children of Israel called Jesus' signs evident magic.
Jesus did his signs by God's (﷾) leave, not by a power of his own.
Jesus called Israel to worship God (﷾) alone, so he did not do what Deuteronomy 13 forbids.
The Qur'an says Moses' signs were also called sorcery by those who refused him.