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In 1859 a gravestone surfaced in Germany for a Roman soldier called Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera, whose unit Cohors I Sagittariorum had served in Judea before Germany – romantic historians have hypothesized this to be Jesus’ father, especially as ‘Abdes’ (‘servant of God’) suggests a Jewish background.
Tib(erius) Iul(ius) Abdes Pantera Sidonia ann(orum) LXII stipen(diorum) XXXX miles exs(ignifer?) coh(orte) I sagittariorum h(ic) s(itus) e(st)
Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera from Sidon, aged 62 years served 40 years, former standard bearer (?) of the First Cohort of Archers lies here
It appears this First Cohort of Archers moved from Palestine to Dalmatia in 6 AD, and to the Rhine in 9 AD. Pantera came from Sidon, on the coast of Phoenicia just west of Galilee, presumably enlisted locally. He served in the army for 40 years until some time in the reign of Tiberius. On discharge he would have been granted citizenship by the Emperor (and been granted freedom if he had formerly been a slave), and added the Emperor’s name to his own. Tiberius ruled from 14 AD to 37 AD. Pantera’s 40 years of service would therefore have started between 27 BC and 4 BC.
As Pantera would probably have been about 18 when he enlisted, it means he was likely born between 45 BC and 22 BC. He could have been as old as 38 or as young as 15 at the time of Jesus’ conception in the summer of 7 BC.
The mace snarled at the mountains, the club began to devour all the enemy. He fitted the evil wind and the sirocco on a pole), he placed the quiver on its hook An enormous hurricane, irresistible, went before the hero, stirred up the dust, caused the dust to settle, levelled high and low, filled the holes. It caused a rain of coals and flaming fires; the fire consumed men. It overturned tall trees by their trunks, reducing the forests to heaps, Earth put her hands on her heart and cried harrowingly; the Tigris was muddied, disturbed, cloudy, stirred up.
The birds there tried to lift their heads to fly away, but their wings trailed on the ground. The storm flooded out the fish there in the subterranean waters, their mouths snapped at the air. It reduced the animals of the open country to firewood, roasting them like locusts. It was a deluge rising and disastrously ruining the mountains.
Ninurta and the Cosmic Super Weapon
The panther represents Christ, who drew all mankind to him. The dragon represents the devil, who feared Christ and hid from him. The many colors of the panther symbolizes the many qualities of Christ. After Christ was sated with the mockery and abuse of the Jews, he fell asleep in death and entered the tomb. Descending into hell he bound the dragon. After three days Christ left the tomb and roared out his triumph over death. The sweet breath of the panther that drew all animals to it is a symbol of the words of Christ that draw all to him, Jews and Gentiles alike.
In these first millennium BCE texts, the name of the panther is written with the cuneiform signs UD.KA.DUḪ.A, which literally translated means “The (storm)demon with the wide open mouth”
Early Jewish sources make Jesus the son of Panthera, a Roman soldier. "Rabbi Shiemon ben Azzai has said: I found in Jerusalem a book of genealogies; therein was written that Such-an-one [a common Jewish euphemism for Jesus] is the bastard son of an adultress." (Mishnah). If true, this must have been before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, so preserves a very early tradition.
The story was also reported the Greek philosopher Celsus (c. 178): "[Celsus] accuses [Jesus] of having 'invented his birth from a virgin,' and upbraids him with being 'born in a certain Jewish village, of a poor woman of the country, who gained her subsistence by spinning, and who was turned out of doors by her husband, a carpenter by trade, because she was convicted of adultery; that after being driven away by her husband, and wandering about for a time, she disgracefully gave birth to Jesus, an illegitimate child, who having hired himself out as a servant in Egypt on account of his poverty, and having there acquired some miraculous powers, on which the Egyptians greatly pride themselves, returned to his own county, highly elated on account of them, and by means of these proclaimed himself a god.'"
(Origen Adamantius (c. 185-254), Contra Celsus, 1.28). "But let us return to where the Jew is introduced, speaking of the mother of Jesus, and saying that 'when she was pregnant she was turned out of doors by the carpenter to whom she had been betrothed, as having been guilty of adultery, and that she bore a child to a certain soldier named Panthera' . . ." (Origen, 1.32; see also 1.69)