James Whitehead on “The Panther”
I want to share an amazing story.
Not too long after the publication of my book The Jesus Dynasty in April, 2006 I heard from an old friend who shared my interest in Pantera. This friend moves in literary circles and told me that she had heard of a professor in Arkansas who had recently died who had done a wealth of research on Pantera, had traveled to Germany to study the Pantera tombstone, and had a treasure of unpublished material. I was interested but since she did not know the professor’s name or anymore details I more or less put the story out of my mind.
Last September I was in Austin, Texas as part of the Biblical Archaeology Seminar on “Lost Christianities,” as I reported at the time in this Blog, giving lectures with Profs. April DeConick of Rice University, and Charles Hedrick at Missouri State University. One of my lectures dealt with the “Pantera” tradition. It was a kind of “state of the question” report on what we can say from an historical perspective on the subject. I could have never imagined what happened next.
When Hedrick returned to Missouri State University he mentioned my book and my Pantera lecture to a colleague of his in the English department–one Michael Burns, a poet. He recalled that Burns had mentioned Pantera a few times. As it turns out, Burns had been a student of another poet, James Whitehead, at the University of Arkansas, who had died in August, 2003. In his later years, Whitehead, an accomplished poet and novelist (author of the 1971 bestseller Joiner), had become fascinated with the Pantera legend. He had come across it in Morton Smith’s 1978 book, Jesus the Magician, in which Smith comments on the Pantera tombstone in Germany, making the passing suggestion, partly tongue-in-cheek, that it is possible, though not likely, that this tombstone might be our only “genuine relic of the Holy Family” (p. 47).
Whitehead’s imagination was fired by the idea that the young Mary might have loved and become pregnant from this young man from Palestine who ended up a Roman soldier dying at age 62 on the German frontier. He traveled to Germany to visit the tombstone and contacted a couple of young German archaeologists, Peter Haupt and Sabine Hornung, who guided him in his research. Whitehead ended up writing an entire series of poems on “The Panther,” as he affectionately called his protagonist. He was also working on a dramatic documentary about his own Quest that had taken him to Germany.
Imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail “out of the blue” from Michael Burns back in late September. Burns told me the story of his late mentor James Whitehead, of Whitehead’s passion for the Mary and Pantera story, and he offered to let me look at both the poems and the drama. When I received copies a few days later I was totally “blown away” and deeply impressed by Whitehead’s work. He had somehow captured in his skillful poetic imagination a version of this ‘greatest love story never told,” that was historically plausible and profoundly moving.
Over the past few months I have learned much more about James Whitehead and the illustrious poetic circles at the University of Arkansas of which he was a part (Miller Williams, who read at Clinton’s 2nd inaugural was part of that scene). I have spoken with Michael Burns at length, talked to Gen Whitehead Broyles, Whitehead’s widow, and corresponded with Thomas Kennedy, a dear friend and colleague of Whitehead’s who had accompanied him on his trips to Germany.
The Whitehead “Pantera” material has never been published. It was given to Burns by Whitehead’s widow and he had explored various possibilities of having it published. As we talked I think we inspired one another and over the past few months we formulated a plan to bring out a special edition of this important work–a “chapbook” of the Pantera poems, with lovely illustrations by the renowned Russian artist Eric Pervuhkin. We are also exploring the possibilities of a more widely published edition. Burns will write the preface of course, and I will provide some historical background on the Pantera story, but the book will mainly contain these beautiful poems of Whitehead with some stunning illustrations by Pervuhkin. The Missouri State University Press will publish the initial collectors edition and subscribers are welcome..
I find the whole development quite fascinating, how it came to me “out of the blue,” and where it appears to be heading. And last night, while talking to Burns, he reported another discovery he had recently made. As it turns out the famous British novelist and poet, Thomas Hardy, had picked up on the Pantera story, probably from Adolf Deissmann’s publication of the tombstone in 1906, and written a long and moving poem called “Panthera” published in 1909.
More on that in my next Blog entry…