1. 
   Background: anti-Christian polemicists asserted that Jesus’ true father was neither God nor Joseph, but a Roman soldier named Pantera. This was long dismissed as ahistorical, but for the past century, some interlocutors have argued that there may be credibility to the polemic, with some going so far as to identify Pantera with a certain Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera, a Roman archer. The present article addresses various misconceptions of Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera by those both asserting his parentage of Jesus and those arguing against it. The article concludes that the possibility that the soldier under question was Jesus’ father is far-off/unlikely.
2. Examples: Talmud, Celsus

1. 
   The slur that Jesus was conceived illegitimately is found in some of the earliest surviving anti-Christian polemic, an example is from Toledot Yeshu, (See the discussions in, e.g., Jane Schaberg, The Illegitimacy of Jesus: A Feminist Theological Interpretation of the Infancy Narratives (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987); Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (abrl; New York: Doubleday, updated edn, 1993), pp. 534–42).

1. The idea that Jesus’ true father was a Roman soldier named Pantera had remarkable currency in antiquity, especially in Jewish circles. The name ‘ben Pantera,’ is common in rabbinic literature and acts as an appellation for the Christian Jesus (e.g., t.Chullin 2:23; b.Shabb. 104b; b.Sanh. 76a). For more on the rabbinic discussion of Pantera, see (Peter Schäfer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), pp. 15–24; Peter Schäfer, ‘Jesus’ Origin, Birth, and Childhood According to the Toledot Yeshu and the Talmud,’ in Benjamin Isaac and Yuval Shahar (eds.), Judaea-Palaestina, Babylon and Rome: Jews in Antiquity (tsaj, 147; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), pp. 139–6). Origen reports that the anti-Christian polemicist Celsus was also aware of this rumour, having placed it in the mouth of a Jewish antagonist (Con. Cels. 1.69).
2. Church Fathers on the polemic:

Evidence Against It

1. The suggestion that a soldier begot Jesus was long regarded as polemic that had no grounding in reality: Pantera (Πανθήρα) was likely wordplay on the Greek word parthenos (παρθένος); those hostile to Christianity claimed Jesus was not born of a virgin, but of a Roman soldier. For a helpful history of scholarship on the word’s origins, see Thierry Murica, ‘Yeshua ben Panthera: L’origine du nom. Status quaestionis et nouvelles investigations,’ Judaïsme Ancien/ Ancient Judaism 2 (2014), pp. 157–207. Thierry’s constructive arguments – especially that ‘Pantera’ may have been a nickname of Joseph, the man who adopted Jesus according to Matthew and Luke – are deeply flawed, including his discussion of the inscription under question.
2. For James Tabor:

1. Maurice Casey, for instance, asserted ‘Tabor’s attempt to give credence to [the Pantera] story is to be regretted and rejected,’ absent any real argument to the contrary, aside from the observation that Romans did not garrison Galilee at the time (Maurice Casey, Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian’s Account of His Life and Teaching (London: T&T Clark, 2010), pp. 152–54). Andrew Lincoln proffers more extensive comments, claiming the date of the inscription may problematize Tabor’s suggestion: Deissmann makes an off-hand comment that the inscription was erected during the middle of the first century ce, which Lincoln takes with needless specificity as 50–60 ce (Andrew T. Lincoln, Born of a Virgin?: Reconceiving Jesus in the Bible, Tradition, and Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), pp. 149–59, especially pp. 156–58).(edited)
2. Zeichmann: there many reasons to doubt Tabor’s reconstruction of Pantera and his parentage of Jesus. These will fall under two overlapping categories of objections: what we know about Pantera based on 1) his military career and 2) onomastics.

1. It is vital to note that Pantera was not a legionary soldier, but an auxiliary. The distinction between auxiliaries and legionaries is crucial: Pantera was not a Roman citizen before his recruitment, as was required of legionaries, but was awarded citizenship for his service in the Roman military (a model adopted by the French Foreign Legion). Though they are not essential to his argument, Tabor is incorrect on a few important points. First, freedmen are not attested in the auxilia at this period, only in the Roman fleets; auxiliary service would also have been superfluous for freedmen, as Roman law accorded freedmen citizenship, meaning it would have been pointless to serve in the division of the army that granted citizenship (in exchange for lower pay, greater risk of life, etc.). It is thus impossible that Pantera was a freedman. The extremely rare instances where freedmen are attested in Roman infantry are during the Republic and times of significant crisis (e.g., Social War, Punic Wars, Civil Wars). See Valerie A. Maxfield, The Military Decorations of the Roman Army (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), pp. 128–29). Second, except for those recruited in Egypt, auxiliaries adopted the tria nomina upon their receipt of Roman citizenship, typically after 25 years service. The naming conventions of auxiliary soldiers will be discussed below. What about Tabor’s claim that Pantera’s unit, cohors I sagittariorum, garrisoned in Palestine until 6 ce? This is simply untrue, assuming Tabor means ‘Palestine’ as the Herodian client states in the southern Levant (i.e., Judaea, Galilee-Peraea, and Batanaea) or the modern-day boundaries of Israel-Palestine.
2. Tabor is hardly alone in this claim, as it is very widespread among commentators; however, I have yet to find any primary sources actually cited as evidence for this claim, as it instead seems to be a Russian Doll of biblical scholars citing other biblical scholars, instead of concrete evidence or even the opinions of Roman military experts.

1. 
   As is often the case in Roman military history, its identification with Pantera’s unit is uncertain given how generic the unit name is, but certainly possible. Regardless, this occurred long after Jesus’ death and there is no evidence of its presence in Syria, Judaea, or anywhere else in the eastern Mediterranean around the time of Jesus’ conception. Nor is there any indication that Pantera ever transferred units (which would be uncommon among non-commissioned auxiliary soldiers).

Tabor’s discussion of Pantera’s name is, frankly, confused and confusing, as he seems to either mix up or interpret in unusual ways the elements of his name. Tabor’s comments on the name Pantera are also in need of correction. The name (either a cognomen or an agnomen) is plainly a Greek moniker included as part of a Roman name. It was not uncommon for auxiliaries to keep various aspects of their birth name after adopting their tria nomina.

Tabor’s claim that the name Pantera was used among Jews of the first century, though, is difficult to sustain. The basis for his claim is a single ossuary found in Jerusalem. Its inscription reads [Ἰ]ωσήπου πενθεροῦ Δρόσου (cij 1211 = ciip 124). There is no evidence that Pentheros was a spelling variation of Pantera, nor is it clear why one would render this word anything other than its typical Greek sense of a male ‘in-law’. This is far from ’definitive evidence‘ that the name Pantera was used among Jews, despite Tabor’s claims. While there is nothing precluding the name’s use among Jews, there is no particularly strong evidence to suggest its use either. The name is known among Jews of the Graeco-Roman period in Greek (Ἀβδος: e.g., P.Mur. 94; cpj 32, 65, 73, 75, 80, 109, 408a; bgu 10.2009), Hebrew (י ֖ ִד ְב ַע: e.g., cij 1395; ijo 3 Cyp 6; cf. 1 Chron. 6.44; 2 Chron. 29.12; Ezra 10.26), and possibly Demotic (bgu 6.1454). This is far from conclusive, though. The name also is attested among non-Jews in various languages (e.g., P.Petr. 3.79c in Greek, ilalg 2.2084 in Latin, Tolida 124 in Samaritan Hebrew), including a wide variety of other Semitic languages over a wide range of time, including Hatran, Aramaic (Old, Middle, and Official), Nabataean, Safaitic, Dadanitic, Thamudic, Sabaic, Minaic, Hismaic, Northwest Semitic, Neo-Assyrian, and Palmyrene.

Conclusion (What, then, can we say about Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera and his possible connection to the historical Jesus?)

1. (1) It is impossible that Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera impregnated Mary while he was a soldier: we can state with confidence the specific military units that were in Galilee (Antipas’s royal army) and Judaea (Archelaus’s royal army, renamed cohortes i–v Sebastenorum, ala Sebastenorum in 6 ce) around the time of Jesus’ conception. Pantera’s unit, cohors I sagittariorum, was elsewhere. Where precisely Pantera’s unit was located during the years leading up to Jesus’ conception is uncertain, but it is beyond doubt that it was not Judaea or Galilee. Until actual evidence is cited, claims to the contrary should cease being given credibility, as this claim rests upon the mischaracterization of Deissmann’s claims which themselves misinterpreted remarks of Domaszewski.
2. (2) This fact alone, however, does not entirely negate the prospect of Pantera fathering Jesus, as it is possible that he did so before becoming a soldier: Pantera was probably of age and still located in the southern Levant (i.e., Sidon) around the time Jesus was conceived.
3. (3) Pantera could have been Jewish, the strongest evidence of which is his cognomen Abdes. The name is commonly attested among Jews and others in the Levant, including a variety of Arab peoples. This evidence is not particularly strong evidence of Pantera’s Jewishness, though lends it some credence. If Pantera were Jewish, it would have increased the likelihood of his circulating in the same social circles as Mary, though there is no obvious place where they would have met, given the distance between Bethlehem or Nazareth, on the one hand, and Sidon on the other. There was no obvious reason for a Sidonian Jew to visit either locale.
4. (4) By the time of his death, Pantera was sufficiently disinvested in Jewish cultic norms that he had an iconic epitaph depicting himself, if he was ever Jewish in the first place. To be clear, the fact that the inscription is not ‘obviously’ Jewish – via depiction of Menorah or seven-leaf palm tree, use of Hebrew script, Jewish funeral practices, etc. – is unremarkable: no surviving epitaphs of Jewish soldiers of this period have markers that clearly indicate Jewishness (cf. dmiperp 71). Moreover, there are no references to pagan deities or ritual practices in the inscription or its monument (though the same could be said of the other soldiers of his unit buried next to him, some of whom were also Syrian). This is all the more expected, given that he was buried alongside soldiers from his unit around the same time.