Person

The Ben Pandera / Panthera tradition

attested c. 178 (Celsus); rabbinic texts 3rd c. onward

polemical paternity tradition

Hostile source. HOSTILE polemic.

Disputed. Tradition attested from c. 178; its historical basis DISPUTED.

The Ben Pandera / Panthera tradition — HONEST STAND-IN. Ben Pandera / Panthera is a tradition, not a person who can be photographed. The earliest surviving attestation is Celsus, as quoted in Origen, Contra Celsum (late 2nd century claim, preserved in Origen). This is a second photograph of the same 1481 Rome printing of Contra Celsum used for the Celsus card (different opening / decorated page). Use it for the tradition card, with a caption that this book preserves Celsus's Panthera story; it is not a depiction of 'Ben Pandera.' The related Toledot Yeshu manuscript is a later Jewish narrative development of related themes, not the 2nd-century attestation.Francesco Bini (Sailko), photograph of Georg Herolt's 1481 Rome edition of Origen, Contra Celsum, Bibliothèque nationale de France. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. CC BY-SA 4.0 (photograph)Source page

Celsus and rabbinic texts call Jesus son of Pantera/Pandera, a Roman soldier. Some see a pun on parthenos ('virgin'); a 19th-century tombstone find of a soldier named Pantera has been linked to the story, which most scholars treat as speculation.

Bases

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Celsus's base (unknown) · Celsus's Jew (via Origen) · c. 178 · disputed
Bingerbrueck (Pantera tombstone find-site) · tombstone of the Sidonian archer Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera (speculative link) · 1st c. · disputed

Origin of the name

Polemical reply to the virgin birth (pun on parthenos)
- widely held; discussed by Schäfer
Memory of a real soldier, possibly Abdes Pantera
- a few (e.g. James Tabor, popular works); widely rejected

Places

Councils

No council in this list names them as a participant.

Sources

Catalog editions

No edition in the preview catalog is linked.

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