Ben Stada

In the Tosefta, the Palestinian Gemara and the Babylonian Gemara, Ben Stada is a Jewish sorcerer dated to around 100 CE recorded as having brought spells out of Egypt by marking them in his skin (hiding a parchment with them written on it in a cut in his thigh) on a sabbath. He is said to have been the son of a certain women's hair-dresser called Miriam whom many have tried to identify as Mary Magdalen's daughter. It is generally accepted that he was the one Akiba & his student Shimon referred to as a Mamzer. Thush sometimes he is called Plony Ben Stada.

In the Tosaphoth his stepfather is called Pappos Ben Yehudah (Paphos ben Jehuda -Gittin90a). The Babylonian Gemara further makes a record of a testimony of three witnesses which do not agree in trying to establish whether Ben Stada had a second name by which he was also known the name being "Ben Pandira". This attempted connection may be a stab at a Heretic of the first half of the first century BCE who also appears in the mishnah Yeshu Ben Pandera.

The mamzer sorcerer Plony Ben Stada was hung at Lud (Lydda) on the day before passover in the second century. Sanhedrin 7.16 (25d) indicates that he was stoned.

Mentioned in uncensored versions of:Sanhedrin 67a (Lydda, Passover, Padira, family):Shabbath 104b (Eliezer, Egyptian sorcery, Padira, family):Kalah 1:16 & Kallah 18 (mamzer):Mishnah Yevamot 4:18 (Akiba's student Shimon ben Azzai 90-125 CE declares Plony to be a mamzer)