Jesus son of Panthera or "parthenos"

In his book "The Four Gospels and the one gospel of Jesus Christ" Martin Hengel makes a very interesting observation when discussing the accusation that Jesus was the son of an illicit relationship between Mary and a Roman soldier called Panthera:  "In my view this name could be explained as a distortion of [parthenos]"(Hengel, 2000, ibid, p321, n785. If he is right this again is further evidence both of the confusion of Jesus's early detractors, Jewish and Gentile (eg Celsus), and for the very early date of the tradition of the Virgin Birth.

Others have made the same observation eg

1. Huffman, D.S., 1997. The historical Jesus of ancient unbelief. Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 40(4), p.551.
2. F. F. Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974) 57-58.
3. Moody, D., 1955. The Miraculous Conception: Part III. The Church Fathers. Review & Expositor, 52(3), pp.310-324.

Hengel on "The four Gospels and the one Gospel of Jesus Christ"

In this masterful work Hengel concludes his book as follows:
"The multiplicity of the Gospels may sometimes seem an aporia to us today and perplex us, but in reality - country to all false attempts at harmonization - they become an inexhaustible source of power, the power which created true faith, love and hope. We should reflect on that positively, not least in the ecumenical dialogue between the different confessions which split the one church, in my view in the end of of all externally. Looking back on the history of the church which is now almost 2,000 years old we must say that, thank God, the real unity of the church does not lie in our different, indeed controversial human convictions and efforts, but in the one Lord, the head i.e. 'God incarnate', the judge who himself took judgement upon himself, who, 'obedient to death on the cross', became the redeemer of all; whose body is the church, despite all the failures, selfishness and self-righteousness of its members, because he alone can pronounce us 'godless' righteous. By the will of God we have the one - unique - 'good news', the one Gospel which stands at the beginning of the church, in sometimes very different and human forms. Yet all four Gospels proclaim solely the one Lord of the church and the one salvation brought about by him." Hengel, trans. 2000, "The four Gospels and the one Gospel of Jesus Christ", p.167-8.