This article by Prof. Geza Vermes on Herod the Great is worth a careful read, for the sources as much as Vermes’s interpretation.

The Christian world has inherited a wholly negative image of king Herod (74/72-4 BCE), during whose reign Jesus was born (Matthew 2:1, Luke, 1:5). Matthew’s legendary account, Nativity plays and Christian imagination have turned Herod into the Ivan the Terrible of antiquity. When the three wise kings, or rather oriental magicians (magoi in the Greek Gospel), arrived at the royal palace in Jerusalem and asked about the recently born king of the Jews, Herod pretended to be helpful and directed them to Bethlehem, the traditional birthplace of the Messiah, on condition that they promised to let him know the whereabouts of the babe. He, too, wished to greet him, he lied, when in fact he planned to murder the potential rival. So when the magi failed to return, he let loose his soldiers on the infants of Bethlehem. More

I thought this piece by Joseph Raymond, author of Herodian Messiah was well worth reading in the light of the posts I have put up recently on the “Panthera” traditions. There is more to come from my end of things but I want to recommend this as a supplement to what I have been presenting. Thanks to Joseph for his good and solid research. One point I think is important to make is that the early Church Fathers, in dealing with the Pantera “tag,” accept it as a family name within Jesus’s lineage! This should be factored in. In other words, our soldier boy Pantera, if he was the father, might have been already part of the family…Then there is the tomb in Jerusalem, the ossuary, with Pantera as a name–clearly a Jewish tomb of the period. Both these points show that the name in Greek is not so alien to Jewish culture at the time, and even closer, to the family names of Jesus’ lineage, both from the Miriam and Yosef sides of the family.

http://www.jjraymond.com/religion/panterafatherofjesus.html

This fascinating piece by Bruce Feiler is well worth reading and including in your family Thanksgiving table discussion today…Best wishes to all!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-feiler/how-moses-created-thanksg_b_787077.html?ref=fb&src=sp

Hollywood is rediscovering the Bible.

Two rival films about Moses, both by established producers, are vying to become the next chapter of the century-long love affair between the merchants of sin in Tinsletown and the prophet of hope in Israel. But no matter how far the filmmakers stretch their story, there are unlikely to reach the least known but perhaps most influential impact of Moses today: He is the Patron Saint of Thanksgiving.

The real story of Thanksgiving has surprising biblical roots. A few years ago, I set out on a 10,000-mile journey through the hidden symbols of American life that became the basis for my book, America’s Prophet: How the Story of Moses Shaped America. My journey began on a visit to Plymouth, Mass., where I boarded a replica of The Mayflower. A re-enactor was reading from the Bible. “Exodus 14,” he explained. “The Israelites are trapped in front of the Red Sea, and the Egyptians are about to catch them. ‘Hold your peace!’ Moses says. The Lord shall fight for you.’ Our leader read us that passage during our crossing.”

I hadn’t ever associated the biblical prophet with this most American holidays, but his fingerprints are all over our turkeys. How did this happen? How did a 3,000-year-old story become the inspiration for a contemporary American national holiday?

The answer begins with the Protestant Reformation. All through the Middle Ages, Catholics were not allowed to read the Bible directly, but the Reformation, coupled with the printing press, brought vernacular Bibles into the hands of everyday believers. Many of those believers were Protestants who felt oppressed by the Church. They related to the story of the Israelites, the descendants of Abraham who were enslaved in Egypt around 1200 B.C., were set free by Moses, then set out for the Promised Land.

The Pilgrims, a band of Protestant outcasts, saw themselves as fulfilling this biblical story. In coming to the New World, they, too, had to cross a tumultuous sea, arrive in an untested wilderness and create a new “Promised Land.” As a result, when they set sail on The Mayflower in 1620, they described themselves as the chosen people fleeing their pharaoh, King James. On the Atlantic, their leader, William Bradford, proclaimed their journey to be as vital as “Moses and the Israelites when they went out of Egypt.” And when they got to Cape Cod, they thanked God for letting them pass through their fiery Red Sea.

The pilgrims were so enamored of Moses, the Bibles they brought with them were emblazoned with pictures of Moses on the title page, and they named their children biblical virtues like Fear, Patience and Wrestling, as in “Wrestling with God,” the English translation of Israel.

As Peter Gomes, the preacher of Harvard told me, “They weren’t trying to recreate the biblical narrative. They were trying to fulfill it.” Because of them, the story of Moses became the story of America.

And because of the biblical roots of this most secular of American holidays, if your gathering threatens to descend into a familiar fracas among different faiths, factions and political persuasions, Moses, precisely because he has been used by believers and non-believers alike, Republicans and Democrats, Jews, Catholics and Protestants, may be the one figure who can unite the family and allow them all to enjoy their pumpkin pie.

This entry is part of a series, “This Month in Moses,” chronicling the 400-year relationship between the United States and “America’s Prophet.” For more information, and to read the entire series, visit Bruce Feiler’s website, or follow him on Twitter.

As I pointed out in the previous post on this Blog, the term “Jesus son of Pantera” comes up in 2nd century AD Greek and Jewish sources, including texts associated with stories set in the city of Sepporis, just four miles from Nazareth where Jesus grew up. In chapter 3 of The Jesus Dynasty, titled “An Unnamed Father of Jesus” I discuss the Pantera tradition, including the oft heard assertion, that the name “Pantera” is a pun of Jewish enemies of the Christians of the Greek word parthenos or virgin. It is strange how often this assertion gets repeated, though I think it has no basis either in history or linguistics. When early Christians countered the charge that Jesus was the “son of Pantera” they took the name seriously, not as a pun, and asserted that it was indeed a “family name” in the lineage of Jesus. I agree with Deissmann that the evidence shows that it is a “real” name, whether or not we can identify any historical figure to which it referred. In my book I examine the tombstone in Germany of a 1st century Roman soldier from Palestine of that name, not so much to claim it belonged to the “father” of Jesus, but rather to learn what we can of this particular individual.

When I sent in my book manuscript The Jesus Dynasty for publication most of what I knew about the Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera tombstone now located in Bad Kreuznach, Germany, was taken from two main sources: the article by Deissmann, “Der Name Panthera,” published in 1906 (see notes in my book for details), as well as the information he included in his subsequent book, Licht vom Osten/Light from East (1923); and another article by L. Patterson, “Origin of the Name Pantera,” JTS (1917), which built on Deissmann’s work.

As far as I can tell almost everything subsequently published, which is mostly people mentioning the Bingerbrück tombstone in passing, most often to dismiss it as insignificant, relies on these two initial publications. It is from those two articles that the ideas emerge that the names Tiberius Julius indicate manumission under the emperor Tiberius (thus after 14 AD), that our Panthera is a Jew or Semite based on the name Abdes (this is more Patterson than Deissmann), and that the 1st cohort of archers had come to the Rhine in the year 9 AD. Deissmann’s main point, echoed by Patterson, was not to say that this Panthera was the “father” of Jesus, or even had any remote connection to Jesus, but that the name Panthera was not an invention of Jewish enemies of Christianity, spurning the virgin birth, but a real name used by the ancients and thus likely picked up for some reason in the “Yeshua ben Pantera” traditions.

Since that time I have been able to examine much more closely the archives (mostly artifacts, paintings, and articles published in the Bonner Jahrbuch in 1859-1860, at the time of the discovery) that I brought back with me from the museum in Bad Kreusnach where the tomb stones are now housed, and thus to learn much more about the original discovery of this cemetery in 1859 as well as the others buried with Panthera. I was also able to photograph, measure, and study closely the Pantera tombstone itself. All Deissmann apparently had was the inscription itself as published in the catalogue CIL XIII 7514. He seems to know nothing of the discovery, its context, or anything related thereto.
There are lots of interesting avenues of inquiry but at least three issues that need to be resolved are the following:

1. The significance of the Semitic name Abdes. I am not convinced by Deissmann’s postcard correspondent, Count Wolf Baudissin (footnoted in Light from East, p. 74), that Abdes=Eded Isis or “servant of Isis.” I think it is more likely a name, and Deissmann himself refers to another soldier who is called “Cottio the son of Abdes,” which seems to be the same name. It was Patterson that took the name to mean our Panthera was a Jew. I would not go that far but did take it as an indication of at least a “Semitic” background. I have also wondered if the name might be related to Sbedsdas or “Zebedee,” which is found on another soldier’s tombstone in the area, who was from Tyre, which would make it more akin to Zebdas from the Hebrew root Zabad (=Doros/gift) in Hebrew.

2. Do the names Tiberius Julius indicate manumission or perhaps something else? I went with the freed slave suggestion, which seemed to have been so confidently asserted by Deissmann and Patterson, but now tend to doubt that such is the case. Our Abdes Pantera might have taken on these names much later in life, even at retirement, for reasons having nothing to do with having been a freed slave, but perhaps just as a way of honoring the emperor Tiberius, celebrating citizenship, or otherwise celebrating a higher status than that of a commoner. One very well known figure from antiquity with that name was the famous nephew of Philo, Tiberius Julius Alexander.

3. What is the evidence for Deissmann’s assertion that that particular cohort of archers had come to Dalmatia (Croatia) in the year A.D. 6 from Palestine and moved to the Rhine/Nahe river area in A.D. 9? He refers to a source by Domaszewski but gives no details in the citation, so I take it this source is well known in his time and would be known to Roman historians, which I am not. Of course we should not take 9 AD as the date Abdes Pantera necessarily arrived in the area. The cohort would have been regularly replenished by new recruits throughout the 1st century, once stationed in the area.

Given what we know so far of Abdes Pantera it is difficult to date him more precisely. We know he was from Sidon in Palestine, that he served in the army for forty years and that he died at age 62. Whether he might have been retired at the time he died or not we can not be sure, so accordingly, we can not be sure at what age his 40 year service began or when he took on the name Tiberius Julius, other than to place it sometime between the years of the reign of the emperor: 14-37AD.

I can add, just for interest, that three large tombstones, Pantera among them, were found on October 19, 1859 about 300 yards from the Nahe River in connection with the construction of the Bingerbrück railway station. The first two, individuals named Hyperanor and Julia Quintia, were in their vertical positions but the third one, Abdes, was slanted. The foundations of all three were at the same level, and all three were

headless, due to the building in earlier times of an embankment wall. Clay funerary urns were found with vessels as well as coins. These finds have been distributed in a number of museums and I am in the process of trying to locate them all. They will perhaps allow us to date at least the terminus ad quem of the cemetery. Other tombstones were subsequently recovered in the area, which was obviously a Roman cemetery. Four different army units are represented, including the 4th Legion, and the IV Delmatarum, 1 Pannoniorum, and the 1st Sagittariorum cohorts–all known to be in that area during the mid-1st century AD. Pictured here  is a painting made in 1859 of the original discovery–taking us back to a time when photography was just coming into use, but not yet for archaeology.

I believe there is still much to learn about both the cemetery and Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera, so stay tuned…It is entirely possible that his funerary urn is still preserved in the archives of one of the museums in Germany.

Predictably one of the more controversial topics in my book The Jesus Dynasty is my discussion in chapter 3 titled “An Unnamed Father of Jesus?” in which I treat the “Jesus son of Pantera/Pantira” traditions. The topic has generated more than one sensational headline as well as lots of disdainful treatment, particularly from evangelical Christian readers and reviewers. As my colleague Prof. Ben Witherington dismissively phrased it in his four-part 28 page single-spaced Blog review of my book, “Tabor trots out for us the shop-worn tale of Mary being impregnated by a Roman soldier named Pantera” (Witherington on Tabor’s Jesus Dynasty)

The topic is as controversial as it is complex. My own position is that Jesus’ biological father remains unknown but is unlikely Joseph, husband of Mary. This puts me in an odd position of partial agreement with Christians who take the virgin conception/birth story literally and would likewise hold that Joseph was not the father of Jesus. In the book I then pose the sensitive question–if not Joseph then whom? Is there anything at all to be said of this matter? Has any alternative tradition regarding Jesus’ father come down to us? And the answer is yes, the name Pantera is found in a number of ancient sources. Rather than dismiss these out of hand as a “shop-worn tale” produced by Jewish opponents of the Christians who wanted to cast aspersions on Jesus’ paternity, I felt compelled to honestly examine what one might responsibly conclude about the subject. Having examined the “Jesus son of Panthera” textual traditions in their various forms I then turned to my own investigation of the tombstone of the 1st century Roman soldier, one “Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera” from Sidon who was buried outside of present day Bingerbrück, Germany.

The earliest textual evidence comes from three sources:

1) We have two stories preserved in supplements to the Mishnah called the Tosefta (as well as in other parallel rabbinic texts but primarily see Tosefta Chullin 2:22-24) that refer to “Yeshu ben Pantera” (with alternate spelling variations). The first involves the famous Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus who lived in the late 1st and early 2nd century AD. Rabbi Eliezer relates a teaching in the “name of Yeshu ben Pantera” that he heard on the streets of Sepphoris from one Jacob of Kefar Sikhnin. Eliezer himself had been arrested for “heresy” and some have suspected he might have been sympathetic to the Nazarenes. The second story also involves Jacob of Kefar Sikhnin who attempts to heal a certain Rabbi Eleazar ben Dama of a snakebite in the name of “Yeshu ben Pantera.”

Although Maier and a few others have doubted these references are to Jesus of Nazareth, most experts are convinced that they are. Since both of these texts appear to use the designation “Yeshu ben Pantera” in a descriptive rather than a slanderous or polemical way they offer us evidence that Jesus was remembered as “son of Panthera” in the region of Galilee, and even on the streets of Sepphoris, in the early 2nd century. Indeed, Richard Bauckham argues quite persuasively that this Jacob of Kefar Sikhnin might well be James, son (or grandson?) of Jude the brother of Jesus, otherwise known to us as a prominent leader in the Galilean churches (Jude and the Relatives of Jesus, pp. 114-119).

2. The Greek philosopher Celsus relates in polemical work against the Christians preserved by the Christian theologian Origen that he had found it “written” that Jesus was the son of a Roman soldier named Pantera (Contra Celsum 1. 69). This text dates to the late 2nd century. Origen replies that the story was concocted by those who refused to believe that Jesus had no human father and was conceived by the Holy Spirit.

3. The 4th century Christian apologist Epiphanius seems to take the designation “Jesus son of Panthera” seriously in that he argues the name is actually a nickname for Jacob, the father of Joseph, husband of Mary. So rather than denying it is part of the family tradition he tries to explain it within that context.

If one begins to read through the literature on “Jesus son of Panthera” the most common explanation one finds is that “Panthera” is not the real name of any individual at all but a play on the Greek word “Parthenos,” or “virgin” that Jewish opponents of the Christians invented to make fun of their enemies. I am amazed at how many of my critics have referred to this idea as a way of dismissing the Panthera stories as references to a specific individual. This explanation is weak on two counts. First, linguistically, the Greek words panthera and parthenos are not even closely related in sound. But more important, none of the earliest sources quoted above, including Origen and Epiphanius, who both believed in the virgin birth, make use of this explanation. Epiphanius in particular recognizes that this is a “real” name and his only defense of it being associated with Jesus is to claim it was already “in the family” before Jesus’ birth. In that sense Jesus could loosely be called “Jesus son of Panthera.”

What Adolf Deissmann contributed to the discussion in his famous 1906 study on “Der Name Panthera” (see references in the notes to my chapter 3) was to remind us all that the Greek name “Pantera” was used by real individuals in the 1st century AD, and furthermore that it was particularly favored by Roman soldiers. He lists six examples which hardly makes the name common, but one of them is the Bingerbrück tombstone of Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera, the 1st century archer who actually was from Sidon in Palestine. His point in his study is not to even remotely imply that this individual was the father of Jesus, but just that the tradition “Jesus son of Pantera” likely referred to some real individual rather than being a concocted term of Jewish polemical slander. The discovery of an ossuary with the name “Pentheros” in a Jewish 1st century tomb in Jerusalem by Clermont-Ganneau in 1891 has given us additional evidence that the name “Pantera” was in use in Palestine by Jews in the 1st century.

When I traveled to Germany in October, 2005 to examine the tombstone of Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera of Sidon found in 1859 along with other Roman officers buried at Bingerbrück my intent was to find out all I could about these individuals. I do not hold the view that this particular individual was the father of Jesus. As far as I can tell that sort of definitive evidence simply does not exist. However I did come back with a thick file of evidence relating to the original excavation and its particulars that to my knowledge has never before been brought into the discussion. Pantera is only one of 10 other tombstones found at this grave site. I was able to photograph a painting that captures the original excavation of the site when it was accidentally discovered during construction of a railway station in 1859. Artifacts from the cemetery are also in various local museums in Germany, including coin and ceramic evidence. By studying the entire site we are in a much better position to say something about Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera and his history. It seems to me those who have dismissed out of hand even the possibility that Pantera of Sidon might relate to the “Yeshua ben Pantera” stories would do well to examine more closely what can be known, and then to draw conclusions.

In a subsequent post I will begin to cover some of what I have been able to ascertain so far in my research on this particular individual. It is not the case, as Prof. Witherington and others have asserted, that his death at age 62 after 40 years of service in the army precludes him being old enough to have been the father of Jesus around the year 6 BC. Following that I also want to discuss the matter of the social and cultural implications of Mary becoming pregnant before her marriage to Joseph and how we might imagine such a possible scenario, given what we know, including what it might have meant to Jesus if he grew up not knowing his father.

More to come…