the_cave

I find any parallel with the Eusebius passage to be a stretch. The Justin passage is much more interesting, however (and is clearly related to the TF). Could it suggest that Justin himself interpolated the passage? (Justin presumably getting his information from a TF, which would date the TF prior to Justin--unless Justin interpolated both Tacitus and Josephus, which is possible, but perhaps a little hard to believe!)

Or, if Justin were not the interpolator, which do you find more likely--that the interpolator was paraphrasing from Josephus, or from Justin? I find the former more likely, personally--though I can't deny that the direct connection of Pilate with Tiberius in both Tacitus and Justin is quite fascinating.

gregor

You know "Christ" is a title, yes? I think Sheshonq's point was that it was no evidence of a historical Jesus.

Malachi151

There is no reason to consider it an interpolation. There is every reason to believe that Tacitus wrote it and honestly took the statement at face value and believed that some guy named Jesus was killed by Pilate and was a religious leader.

The fact that he believed this, however, doesn't make it so. Sir Aurthur Conan Doyle (author or Sherlock Homes) believed that pictures had been taken of real fairies, thus proving their existence.

Tacitus also believed that the emperor had healed a blind man with his spit.

Certainly people believed in the existence of a real human Jesus by the 2nd century, that fact is pretty well indisputable. The fact that Tacitus would have believed this himself is of no surprise if many people were making such a claim, and we know that they were making such a claim.

The fact that Tacitus made this claim, however, can never ESTABLISH the existence of Jesus. It is one piece of evidence that must be weighted along with others.

It is very much possible that the dissemination of the Gospels, starting around 70 CE, created the belief among the masses that Jesus was a real person. At that point there would have been no way to conclude otherwise and little reason to doubt the overall veracity of the Gospel narrative.

If Christians believed that Jesus was a real person, and Tacitus got his information from Christians, then there would have been no reason for him to believe otherwise.

Its not an interpolation, there is no reason to argue that it is, and there is no reason to believe that Tacitus wasn't writing about (in his mind) a real person. But that being that case still doesn't establish that Jesus was a real person.

the_cave

The reference to Jesus is not the reason to doubt the authenticity of the passage; it's the claims about Nero's persecution of the Christians that calls it into question, as well as the error in calling Pilate "procurator".

The question is, were there in fact people living in Rome at the time of Nero who were called "Christians", did Nero persecute them as described, and would Tacitus have been aware of this? And, would Tacitus have called Pilate a procurator?

aa5874

There is not enough information in the passage to claim that Tacitus honestly believed that some guy named Jesus was killed by Pilate. The name Jesus does not even appear anywhere in the passage or in "Annals" 15.

It is not known how many persons were killed by Pilate that were named Christus, Jesus, Jesus Christus or Christus Jesus.

Sheshonq

Who cares? We know from Roman records what Pilate's title was.

If you have any evidence that Pilate went through a succession of different titles, then present that evidence. Wishful speculation based upon a totally different person in a totally different century in a totally different context is hardly a defense to Tacitus' historical error.

spin

Erroneous analogy.

The wiki entry is a piece of apologetics which has a number of mistakes, eg

"The procurators' and prefects' primary functions were military", true for the latter, false for the former.

"When applied to governors, this term procurator, otherwise used for financial officers, connotes no difference in rank or function from the title known as prefect." Actually, procurators had those financial powers. Prefects -- with the exception of the Prefect of Egypt (a special case) -- had no real financial control in their administrative duties.

Tacitus knew the status of the governors of Judea (see H. Bk 5.9), and thus that Claudius changed the situation. Roman officials held only one administrative duty at a time and clearly Pilate's was as a prefect. As such he was completely under the power of proconsular Syria. (That's how Pilate was eventually removed from office.) Claudius, changing the system, gave the newly appointed procurators of Judea a certain independence.

Pilate was a prefect as his inscription indicates. This fits with his serving before the time of Claudius who first used procurators in Judea. Pilate simply was not a procurator and Tacitus would have known it.

(Just so that one knows, the veracity of this passage in Tacitus is a separate issue from its possible historical significance. Tacitus is not a primary source for 1st c. Judea history.)


spin

Roger Pearse

Tertullian testifies that Nero persecuted the Christians, so it's not really in question. In Acts, it is taken for granted that Christianity is legal; by the time of Pliny it is taken for granted that Christianity is illegal; this change has to happen some time.

There is no real reason to get excited because a writer living in 110 AD gives the title used in his own day for the governor, rather than one that ceased to be used 70 years earlier. It is, in any case, not quite clear from the archaeology how the titles were used (we need to remember the partial nature of our sources). There was a period under Claudius of confusion, when even the prefect of Egypt was called 'procurator'.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Tiberius

I appointed not procurators, but praefects in my time.

Now where's my money?

Doug Shaver

Very possibly, according to the little research I've done.

What I find far more problematic than Pilate's title is Tacitus' calling Jesus "Christus." I haven't yet found a good reason for thinking a Roman would have done that, especially if he considered Christianity to be nothing but a "mischievous superstition."