Baidarka

One interesting theory to consider is that Jesus started his career with the name Yeshu Ben Yosef claiming to be son of Yosef. Yosef the man he called father was a man of royal pedigree. At some point it was exposed that he was in reality the bastard son of a Roman soldier name Pantera and his detractors started calling him Yeshu Ben Pantera ( from the Talmudic books Tosefta & Baraitas).
In Vietnam the children of the American soldiers have led very hard lives. Imagine how it was in 1st century Israel for it to come out that a Jew with Messianic pretensions was actually the bastard son of one of the vile Roman enemy.
At some point Jesus' followers were forced to claim immaculate conception in order to get around the apparent ignominy of his origin.

Plebe

What I find interesting and which collaborates the name Yeshu is an unusual and controversial website that claims to feature copies of ancient documents along with a long tradition among those inhabitants in parts of India, Afghanistan and Iran of Yeshu's travels there. The Muslims according to this site have a tradition of this Yeshu being "The Great Traveler." The website is <a href="http://www.tombofjesus.com" target="_blank">http://www.tombofjesus.com</a> and the direct link to the documents in question is here
<a href="http://www.tombofjesus.com/ancient.htm" target="_blank">http://www.tombofjesus.com/ancient.htm</a>


One interesting theory to consider is that Jesus started his career with the name Yeshu Ben Yosef claiming to be son of Yosef. Yosef the man he called father was a man of royal pedigree. At some point it was exposed that he was in reality the bastard son of a Roman soldier name Pantera and his detractors started calling him Yeshu Ben Pantera ( from the Talmudic books Tosefta & Baraitas).
In Vietnam the children of the American soldiers have led very hard lives. Imagine how it was in 1st century Israel for it to come out that a Jew with Messianic pretensions was actually the bastard son of one of the vile Roman enemy.
At some point Jesus' followers were forced to claim immaculate conception in order to get around the apparent ignominy of his origin.

Vinnie

Another theory is that Jesus was an alien. Mary and Jo found him in a field one day and took him in. Remember the Magi that came? They followed his star in the east right? But that "star" was really the ufo that dropped Jesus off. Later on he is proclaimed Messiah and obviously he needed to have Davidic ancestry to be the Messiah according to what seems the most popular view of that period. Ergo, he was born to Mary and Jo. problem solved, right? Not yet, there is one more problem which was solved with a little creativity. The virgin birth was created because Jesus was really black in skin color and there was too little resemblance between Jesus and his "father" Joseph. They tried to explain it as a skin disease but the people weren't buying it. The rumors accumulated and spread so rapidly it would have destroyed his entire mission if something was not done. So Jesus performed a few psycosomatic healings and told the story of his virginal conception and the rest is history.

Vinnie

Marduk

In Germany there is a tomb of a Roman Soldier named Pantera, from the 1st Century, his obituary states he was a Bowman once stationed in Palestine. Whether this is the same guy or not can probably no longer be determined for certain, Pantera was not an uncommon name, but it sure fits the bill.

Baidarka

Pleb: Call me a skeptic if you will but I don't buy this wandering Yeshu stuff. If he had traveled to all those places why would anyone have noticed and written about him?

Vinnie: I think that your confusing Jesus with Superman! You've got Mary and Joseph confused with Ma & Pa Kent!

Marduck: I too have heard that the tomb of a Roman Soldier named Pantera was found in Germany, several years ago, and there are some who think that he may be Jesus' Father. Of course the main point here is that this was a common Roman name of the time which lends some credibility to the idea.
Celus wrote (178 CE) that he had heard from a Jew that Mary's husband, a carpenter had divorced her after it was proven that she was an adulteress(think about the adulteress stoning scene in the NT)
Mary then wondered about in shame and bore Jesus, the son of a Roman soldier named Pantheras, in secret.
Origen tried to explain this away by claiming that "Panther" was Joseph's fathers nick name and that this Panther was Jesus' stepfather.

There seem to be references to Jesus in the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds calling him Yeshua ben Pantera (son of Pantera)

Check out the Talmudic Account at <a href="http://torah.freeyellow.com/page85.html" target="_blank">http://torah.freeyellow.com/page85.html</a>
and also Rabbinic Literature <a href="http://www.users.zenet.co.uk/kking/extern6.html" target="_blank">http://www.users.zenet.co.uk/kking/extern6.html</a>

Plebe

Baidarka,
I am skeptical as well and that is why I identified the site as unusual and controversial. I wonder how long it will take before archaeologists get those supposed ancient documents at that site to analyze them firsthand? Probably not for another 30 years or more..
So, on the matter of the wandering around I am agnostic on the matter.

.."What I find interesting and which collaborates the name Yeshu is an unusual and controversial website that claims to feature copies of ancient documents along with a long tradition among those inhabitants in parts of India, Afghanistan and Iran of Yeshu's travels there. The Muslims according to this site have a tradition of this Yeshu being "The Great Traveler." The website is <a href="http://www.tombofjesus.com" target="_blank">http://www.tombofjesus.com</a> and the direct link to the documents in question is here
<a href="http://www.tombofjesus.com/ancient.htm"" target="_blank">http://www.tombofjesus.com/ancient.htm"</a>