Freethought & Rationalism Archive

spin · 04-02-2011, 09:15 PM

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Originally Posted by Frank

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Originally Posted by spin

Tacitus places fire related topics specifically before his conclusion in order to make his conclusion have the desired impact. The building of the palace, the attempted construction of a canal, the erection of new tenements along safer lines are all things that lasted well after the chronological time of his conclusion. The canal was probably abandoned with his overthrow.

To get to his conclusion about Nero, one expects that he do the same same thing with the christian story as he did with the other things, ie put it before the conclusion.

Even if we assume an inexact chronology (which is fine), his statement clearly precludes the idea that Nero began persecuting Christians right after the fire.

Did anyone posit such a preclusion?

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Originally Posted by Frank

There was clearly a significant time gap, and in fact during that gap in time, Nero lavished the city by funding these redevelopment projects.

He set a number of projects in operation. So, how long have you decided that must imply?

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Originally Posted by Frank

Tacitus is clearly saying (to rephrase): notwithstanding Nero's expenditures on redevelopment and helping those who lost as a result of the fire, he was still unable to squelch widespread rumors that he was responsible for it (and therefore scapegoated this small religious cult to divert blame away from himself).

Tacitus said he tried everything to dispel the belief, and then he tried something else during which he forgot about the belief.

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Originally Posted by Frank

Something that is also an interesting thing to consider (I'm not sure to what extent this question has ever been explored), what if Christians really were responsible for the fire? Religious extremism often manifests as terrorism.

The writer, you know, the great orator, Tacitus, somehow forgot to be clear about what exactly the christians were martyred for.

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Originally Posted by Frank

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Tacitus was seen by his contemporaries as one of the greatest orators of his time. However, his rhetorical skills are being dismissed without consideration here. When he wrote something as elaborated as the fire discourse, he won't forget what he is talking about by the time he gets to the end.

Indeed he was, and I always liked Tacitus (outside of this context). It sort of pisses me off that Christians have hijacked this great historian (and when you do a google search, you have to weed through piles of Christian fucking rubbish before you can find valuable information).

The particular passage hijacks the sense.

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Originally Posted by Frank

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Total failure.

What do you mean failure? I've provided numerous examples of gory stories by Tacitus

Register another bare assertion by Spin!

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Stop ranting.

Ranting? If I was ranting ... it's certainly better than your persistent whining :moonie:

Stop showing your brains in public.

Your judicious cut after my admonition to stop ranting is telling for the hollowness of your rhetoric. Remembering your vacuous claim about a bare assertion, you omitted:

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Originally Posted by spin

You failed to get the gist of the problem. You didn't find any analogous examples. You just listed a few cases where blood was mentioned as though that was going to achieve something. What you needed was people doing horrid gory things. You know,

[T2]
Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired[/T2]

You just needed immediate gratification due to your lack of concentration, so you couldn't wait to react and how hollow it was.

spin · 04-02-2011, 09:22 PM

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Originally Posted by Frank

Books 11 - 16 Historiae)...

You meant Annales.

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Originally Posted by Frank

...were written in Italy (around 1040), and Annales (books 1 - 6) were written in Germany much earlier (around 850). This is pre-Renaissance.

However, much of the scholarship is very old (the only recent research I've seen was the 2008 ultraviolet examination of the second Medicean (books 11 - 16), which confirmed that the "e" was changed to "i" (I guess a reexamination would be great ... but an affirmative claim that this is a forgery is baseless, particularly since these claims are largely generated by people who lack any credentials in textual criticism).

It can't be a forgery because a scribe used an "e" instead of an "i"!! You still haven't answered whether the monk who copied the last version (or even an earlier version) was French or not. This is the fourth time you've been asked about this.

GakuseiDon · 04-02-2011, 09:34 PM

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Originally Posted by spin

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Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

But why is lighting more fires after dark an issue? You're implying that the Romans wouldn't or couldn't kill people in that manner in the gardens, but AFAICS you are just throwing it out there as though it were obvious. You are raising doubts, not providing evidence.

A large part of Rome had just been burnt down. Lighting promiscuous fires after dark would in no sense be reassuring or probable. More fire would probably be the last thing that people would have wanted to see.

If that's the case, then I agree that this alone is enough to establish the passage as probably an interpolation.

The rest relates to Tacitus' writing style, which I don't know enough to make conclusions about other than to offer my 2 cents, which I have done, so I will leave it there. Thanks for your time, spin.

Frank · 04-02-2011, 11:08 PM

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Originally Posted by spin

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Originally Posted by Frank

Books 11 - 16 Historiae)...

You meant Annales.

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Originally Posted by Frank

...were written in Italy (around 1040), and Annales (books 1 - 6) were written in Germany much earlier (around 850). This is pre-Renaissance.

However, much of the scholarship is very old (the only recent research I've seen was the 2008 ultraviolet examination of the second Medicean (books 11 - 16), which confirmed that the "e" was changed to "i" (I guess a reexamination would be great ... but an affirmative claim that this is a forgery is baseless, particularly since these claims are largely generated by people who lack any credentials in textual criticism).

It can't be a forgery because a scribe used an "e" instead of an "i"!! You still haven't answered whether the monk who copied the last version (or even an earlier version) was French or not. This is the fourth time you've been asked about this.

Dude, I'm not saying "can't" anything (I'm simply not willing to overturn past scholarship pertaining to this issue, based on conjecture, even if the issue may warrant a reexamination, although I'm not even convinced of that much ... what more can they discover about this thing, it's not like there's a secret video tape hidden in the text). Nevertheless, yes finding alterations in a text does help establish authenticity (in this context) when the chain of custody is dubious. It makes it more likely that a change was made to preexisting text, rather than thinking the entire document is spurious (even if it was largely based on authentic writings by Tacitus, it could still be partially spurious, but finding an alteration makes it less likely that this was the case).

Moreover, why is it a problem to think Nero burned Christians? If he's accusing them of burning down Rome, then perhaps he thought "burning" them was their just desert. They burned down our city, let's burn them back. How is this implausible (especially in the context of ancient Rome)? When people do things like bomb us, what's our reaction?

Oh and btw, I'm not obligated to answer your freakin questions. If there was a French monk involved, then post up some data and prove it (not that it would prove anything if the thing was in a French monastery at some point in history .... but whatever the case, you're making the claim, so you can prove it).

spin · 04-02-2011, 11:40 PM

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Originally Posted by Frank

Dude, I'm not saying "can't" anything (I'm simply not willing to overturn past scholarship pertaining to this issue, based on conjecture, even if the issue may warrant a reexamination, although I'm not even convinced of that much ... what more can they discover about this thing, it's not like there's a secret video tape hidden in the text). Nevertheless, yes finding alterations in a text does help establish authenticity (in this context) when the chain of custody is dubious. It makes it more likely that a change was made to preexisting text, rather than thinking the entire document is spurious (even if it was largely based on authentic writings by Tacitus, it could still be partially spurious, but finding an alteration makes it less likely that this was the case).

Moreover, why is it a problem to think Nero burned Christians? If he's accusing them of burning down Rome, then perhaps he thought "burning" them was their just desert. They burned down our city, let's burn them back. How is this implausible (especially in the context of ancient Rome)? When people do things like bomb us, what's our reaction?

Oh and btw, I'm not obligated to answer your freakin questions. If there was a French monk involved, then post up some data and prove it (not that it would prove anything if the thing was in a French monastery at some point in history .... but whatever the case, you're making the claim, so you can prove it).

I guess we can forget the crap about the orthography.

Frank · 04-02-2011, 11:48 PM

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Originally Posted by spin

I guess we can forget the crap about the orthography.

Dude, you can say "shit" (I'm a grown up)

Toto · 04-03-2011, 12:05 AM

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Originally Posted by Frank

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Originally Posted by Toto

Remember the technology of the time. Manuscripts were copied by hand on a regular basis because otherwise they would crumble into dust. So generations of scribes had a hand here, and they were the educated class of the day, literate and well versed in Latin, as monks who spend their careers reading Latin manuscripts would be.

As for the "misspelling" - look up the French for "Christian."

I don't really have any fixed position on whether this is an interpolation. Some posters here have proclaimed that it's just obviously authentic, and that there is a consensus of modern scholars that Tacitus wrote this. But I can't find this consensus. It appears that some scholars have pointed out numerous problems with the passage for the last few centuries, making a reasonable argument for interpolation, and then there are other scholars who brush off these arguments without fully addressing them. It's a pretty unsatisfactory state of affairs.

Books 11 - 16 Historiae) were written in Italy (around 1040), and Annales (books 1 - 6) were written in Germany much earlier (around 850). This is pre-Renaissance.

I don't understand your point. Tacitus wrote around 110 CE. These are copies.

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However, much of the scholarship is very old (the only recent research I've seen was the 2008 ultraviolet examination of the second Medicean (books 11 - 16), which confirmed that the "e" was changed to "i" (I guess a reexamination would be great ... but an affirmative claim that this is a forgery is baseless, particularly since these claims are largely generated by people who lack any credentials in textual criticism).

The case for forgery is not based on textual criticism. :huh:

spin · 04-03-2011, 12:06 AM

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Originally Posted by Frank

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Originally Posted by spin

I guess we can forget the crap about the orthography.

Dude, you can say "shit" (I'm a grown up)

You can say whatever you want. I won't tell anybody.

aa5874 · 04-03-2011, 12:27 AM

I find it extremely disturbing THAT after a passage has been found to be ACTUALLY manipulated by using ultra-violet light in the year 2008 that people are still tyring to use information BEFORE 2008 to show the passage was NOT manipulated.

The 2008 finding using ULTRA-VIOLET light has NULLIFIED all other previous opinion.

This no different to any othet theory, opnion, or verdict that is OVERTURNED due to NEW credible evidence.

Now, that it is known that the earliest copy of Tacitus Annals ORIGINALLY contained the word "Chrestianos" then it can be deduced that the original Tacitus Annals MOST LIKELY did ALSO contained the word "Chrestianos".

But, in any event, Tacitus Annal PROVES nothing for HJ since it is highly questionable.

mountainman · 04-03-2011, 01:25 AM

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Originally Posted by Toto

Drews has a comment on that issue.

Drews has exhaustively summarised the comments on a large range of issues in his treatment of the Tacitus reference, both FOR and AGAINST the authenticity. Therefore, irrespective of which side of the argument is actually favored, one of the most expedient ways forward will be to summarise Drews, and then move forward to contemporary times.

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04-03-2011, 12:27 AM	#169
aa5874 Contributor Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: the fringe of the caribbean Posts: 18,988	I find it extremely disturbing THAT after a passage has been found to be ACTUALLY manipulated by using ultra-violet light in the year 2008 that people are still tyring to use information BEFORE 2008 to show the passage was NOT manipulated. The 2008 finding using ULTRA-VIOLET light has NULLIFIED all other previous opinion. This no different to any othet theory, opnion, or verdict that is OVERTURNED due to NEW credible evidence. Now, that it is known that the earliest copy of Tacitus Annals ORIGINALLY contained the word "Chrestianos" then it can be deduced that the original Tacitus Annals MOST LIKELY did ALSO contained the word "Chrestianos". But, in any event, Tacitus Annal PROVES nothing for HJ since it is highly questionable.

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