Toledoth Yeshu

The Toledoth Yeshu compiled in the twelfth century but preserving traditions that go back to the 6th century. There is mention of the late 2nd century BCE Yeshu Ha Notzri who had some disciples, and was executed, and a certain early second century CE Ben Stada who practiced some form of "sorcery" (Sanhedrin 43a). There are traditions about Ben Stada's illegitimate birth and attempts to link him with a certain early first century Ben Pandera (Shabbat 104b, Sanhedrin 64a) whose disciples were healers and respected by Rabbis Eliezer ben Hyrcanus and/aka Eliezer ben Dama. The currency of this last story around 180 is corroborated by the anti-Christian polemic philosopher, Celsus, who reported hearing the story from an anonymous Jew.

The Toledoth Yeshu combines the traditions of these three men whose lives spanned four centuries (from the second century BC to the second century CE) and other characters like the 5th century Rabbi Tanhuma Bar Abba into one satirical and cautionary would-be messiah tale. It starts with the story of his allegedly illegitimate birth reports that in the time of King Jannaeus, a certain Miriam of noble blood, while engaged to Jochannan of David's line had an affair with a certain mid first cnetury BC Joseph Pandera and that the late second century BC Yeshu Ha Notzri was the result of this affair. Ben Pantera so means "Son of Pantera". It should be noted that the name of this alleged father means Panther in Aramaic. The chronological mess is because this is not taken to be a historic account but a satirical folk-tradition.

The word "panther" was also used as a metaphor for unbridled sexual desire (according to who?), so this could have begun as an allegation that Yeshu was born out of wedlock because of his mother's sexual waywardness. Another theory is that the story of "pantheras" comes later than the chistian accounts as a deliberate distortion of and play on the Greek word for virgin, "parthenos".