““This scathing attack on the Christian claim of parthenogenesis may well explain the use of the strange name Panthera/Pantera/Pandera/Pantiri in most of its variations6 for Miriam’s lover and Jesus’ real father (in Greek as well as in rabbinic sources). The last derivation among all the possibilities that Maier discusses, and that he finds “captivating at first glance” but nevertheless dismisses,7 is the assumption of an intentional distortion of parthenos (“virgin”) to pantheros (“panther”).””
