Kosh

<Monty Python mumble>
Well, he tore the temple shroud.

S.C.Carlson

In Iraq, mainly Syriac and Arabic MSS, right?

Stephen

Eldarion Lathria

They asked at the manger up the street. The one where Brian was born, and Mandy, His Mother, told them of the Babe called Brian.

"But that was not the manger they sought, so they left."

Eldarion Lathria

Juma

[OT and farfetched]It is written somewhere that christ is alfa and omega and have many times heard that this means "the first and the last" which i dont really understand... But look at this: If you draw the fish facing left then it looks like an alpha and if you rotate the fish 90 degrees clockwise then it looks (more or less..) like an omega. (I you stress this further than you could argue that the 90 degree angle also indicates the cross...)[/OT and farfetched]

The Evil One

Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. So "I am the alpha and omega" means "I am the beginning and the end". Basically it's a fancy way of saying God is an eternal being who created the world and will still be around when it's gone.

but I think you are comparing the fish to the lowercase alpha, which didn't exist back then IIUC. As for omega, I kind of see what you mean, but it's a bit of a stretch.

Juma

According to wikipedia:

Tacitus never mentions Jesus, he writes of "Christus". Suetonions speaks of a "Chrestus" as you write and the authenticy of the first "jesus" reference i Josephus is dubious and the reference to a Jesus in the passage where he is mentioned "as the brother of james" the reference is to him as messias is most likely a later change.

Juma

Oops... Thanks.

angela2

"Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular."
If this is a correct translation, I'd say wiki is wrong.
Are these opinions credible in your opinion?

RAFH

Why would this be interesting?

Not only ironic, but highly improbable. Why would Herod help out the Magi? (Hint, its the same reason why Colombo always zeros in on the villian, despite enormous odds and extravagant efforts to push him off the trail, which, most of the time, doesn't exist)

Why would the Son of God need protection? Isn't he immortal? Couldn't/Wouldn't/Shouldn't God the Father, who is omniscient and omnipotent, simply smite Herod as would any good father who could? Could not the angel or God or even JC himself or perhaps Mary given her magical powers, just cloaked themselves in invisibility? Or maybe an army of ArchAngels with the hosts of Heaven (they were in the area so it wouldn't have been too much of a detour) backed up with Flaming Swords That Turn Every Which Way would suffice or maybe just go to Herod and tell him in a dream that his ass is grass if he even thinks about have thoughts about harming JC? Why not just a field of invulnerability around JC? Why not split the earth and create a sea between Herod and JC, the reverse worked for Moses and I would think God could do at least as much for his son (though illegitimate) as he would for a complete stranger like Moses.

Maybe Herod has iron chariots? That must be it because we know for a fact god is helpless against iron chariots.

??? What kind of logic is this? How can a God die? And if JC is resurrected, what kind of sacrifice is that? Given he and dad are immortal and infinite, what matters three da- whoops! it was actually only about a day and a half, but no matter, when your are discussing infinite the difference between 1.5 and 3 is meaningless. Why must JC willingly embrace his own death? And doesn't that constitute both suicide which is a mortal sin and a form of murder which is clearly a mortal sin?

Do you begin to see how it is we non-believers, we doubters, might doubt? I've just discussed a single event and shown how ludicrous it is. The same can be done with the entire mythology.

As for the whole star thing, its even more ludicrous. For one thing, if the Magi, from the East, saw the star in the East, why'd they travel West to follow it?

The Evil One

while wikipedia is monumentally unreliable, in this case it is right. You will note that the passage you quote does not mention "Jesus". It mentions "Christus", treating it as a proper name, which it isn't: it's a title, a title bestowed on him by his followers.

The importance of this is that it demolishes the fundy apologists' claim that Tacitus had clearly fact-checked this and found Jesus' death certificate or somesuch drivel. However, the use of "Christus" suggests that this is not the caase. While I wouldn't care to bet any large sum of money on it, it does rather seem that Tacitus doesn't tell us anything other than what the Christians of his own time believed about their origins: it doesn't help us determine whether those Christians were correct.