The things you find!
This is rather interesting:
The evidence of the Rabbis
The Jewish records of the Rabbis are of extreme importance in determining Gospel origins and the value of the church presentation of the virgin birth story of Jesus Christ. A common appellation for Jesus in the Talmud was Yeshu'a ben Panthera, an allusion to the widespread Jewish belief during the earliest centuries of the Christian era that Jesus was the result of an illegitimate union between his mother and a Roman soldier named Tiberius Julius Abdes Panthera.
The Talmud enshrines within its pages Jewish oral law. It is divided into two parts, the Mishna and the Gemara. The first discusses such subjects as festivals and sacred things. The Gemara, is basically a commentary on these subjects.When the Talmud was written is not known. Some authorities suggest a date of 150-160, around the same time the Christian Gospels began to emerge, while others say 450.
The Talmud writers mentioned Jesus' name twenty times and quite specifically documented that he was born an illegitimate son of a Roman soldier called Panthera, nicknamed the 'Panther'. Panthera's existence was confirmed by the discovery of a mysterious tombstone at Bingerbruck in Germany. The engraving etched in the headstone read:
Tiberius Julius Abdes Panthera, an archer, native of Sidon, Phoenicia, who in 9AD was transferred to service in Rhineland (Germany))
This inscription added fuel to the theory that Jesus was the illegitimate son of Mary and the soldier Panthera. Classical scholar Professor Morton Smith of the Columbia University, USA, described the tombstone as possibly 'our only genuine relic of the holy family.'2 In many Jewish references, Jesus was often referred to as 'ben Panthera',`ben' meaning, `son of'. However cautious one ought to be in accepting anything about Jesus from Jewish sources, in the matter of Jesus 'ben Panthera', the writers seem more consistent than the men we now call the church fathers.
Scholars, for centuries, have discussed at length why Jesus was so regularly called ben Panthera. Adamantius Origen, an early Christian historian and church father (185-251), recorded the following verses about Mary from the research records of a highly regarded Second Century historian and author named Celsus (c. 17
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Mary was turned out by her husband, a carpenter by profession, after she had been convicted of unfaithfulness. Cut off by her spouse, she gave birth to Jesus, a bastard; that Jesus, on account of his poverty was hired out to go to Egypt; that while there he acquired certain (magical) powers which Egyptians pride themselves on possessing.'
Later, in passage 1:32, Origen supported the Jewish records and confirmed that the paramour of the mother of Jesus was a Roman soldier called Panthera, a name he repeated in verse 1:69. Sometime during the 17th Century, those sentences were erased from the oldest Vatican manuscripts and other codices under church control.4
The traditional church writings of St Epiphanius, the Bishop of Salamis (315-403) again confirmed the ben Panthera story and his information was of a startling nature. This champion of Christian orthodoxy and saint of Roman Catholicism frankly stated:
Jesus was the son of a certain Julius whose surname was Panthera.5
This was an extraordinary declaration simply recorded in ancient records as accepted church history. The ben Panthera legend was so widespread that two early stalwarts of the Christian church inserted the name in the genealogies of Jesus and Mary as a matter of fact.Enlarging on that statement, this passage from the Talmud:
Rabbi Shiemon ben Azzai has said: I found in Jerusalem a book of genealogies; therein was written that Such-an-one (Jesus) is the bastard son of an adulteress.6
`Such-an-one' was one of the well-known substitutes for Jesus in the Talmud, as has been proved and admitted on either side. Shiemon ben Azzai flourished at the end of the First and beginning of the Second Century. He was one of four famous Rabbis, who according to Talmudic tradition 'entered Paradise'. He was a Chassid (the pious Jews of Palestine), most probably an Essene and remained a celibate and rigid ascetic until his death.
The story of Mary's pregnancy by a Roman soldier also appeared in the sacred book of the Moslems, the Koran. It stated that 'a full-grown man' forced his attentions on Mary, and in her fear of the disgrace that would follow she left the area and bore Jesus in secret. This story was supported in the Gospel of Luke, with the description of the departure of Joseph and Mary from their home prior to the birth. Rape was a common event in Palestine during the Roman occupation and soldiers were notorious for their treatment of young women. It would be unthinkable for Mary to admit such an event had occurred for, under the Law of Moses, a betrothed virgin who had \bsexo?\b with any man during the period of her betrothal, was to be stoned to death by the men of the city (Deut. 22:21). Simply put, Mary faced the death penalty unless she could prove her innocence.'
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