Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Chaucer · 03-29-2011, 10:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

So Chaucer - give us a link or a reference to the professional historian who has concluded that the Tacitus reference is genuine.

That's like asking, which is "the" scientist who has concluded that evolution is real. How does "the entire professional community" grab you?

You ask for "the" historian who has so concluded. There is no "the" historian about it. It is indeed "the entire professional community".

Chaucer

Toto · 03-29-2011, 11:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chaucer

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

So Chaucer - give us a link or a reference to the professional historian who has concluded that the Tacitus reference is genuine.

That's like asking, which is "the" scientist who has concluded that evolution is real. How does "the entire professional community" grab you?

That would be interesting if it were true. If the entire profession is so united, surely you can find one name?

These notes from a university course do not seem to know about this universal view.

Quote:

The text is full of difficulties, and there are not a few textual variations in the mss tradition (e.g., "Christianos" or "Chrestianos" or even "Christianus"? - "Christus" or "Chrestos"?) -- which at least reflects the fact that this text has been worked over.

It is not even clear what Tacitus means to say - e.g., whether he implies that the charge of setting the fires brought against Christians was false; whether some Christians were arrested because they set fires and others because of their general "hatred for humankind"; what those persons arrested "confessed" to--arson or Christianity? -- or whether they were executed by crucifixion or immolation, or some one way and some in another.

But the real question concerns the historical reliability of this information -- i.e., whether we have to do here with a later Christian insertion. When I consider a question such as this, the first question to ask is whether it conceivable or perhaps even probable that later Christians might have modified ancient historical sources; and the answer to this question certainly must be yes! Then, with regard to this particular source, I note that the earliest manuscript we have for the Annales dates from the 11th century, and must therefore have been copied and recopied many times, by generations of Christian scribes (and Christian apologists). So there were certainly many opporunities to modify what Tacitus originally wrote.

...

Roger Pearse · 03-29-2011, 12:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chaucer

That's like asking, which is "the" scientist who has concluded that evolution is real. How does "the entire professional community" grab you?

That would be interesting if it were true. If the entire profession is so united, surely you can find one name?

These notes from a university course do not seem to know about this universal view.

Quote:

The text is full of difficulties, and there are not a few textual variations in the mss tradition (e.g., "Christianos" or "Chrestianos" or even "Christianus"? - "Christus" or "Chrestos"?) -- which at least reflects the fact that this text has been worked over.

It is not even clear what Tacitus means to say - e.g., whether he implies that the charge of setting the fires brought against Christians was false; whether some Christians were arrested because they set fires and others because of their general "hatred for humankind"; what those persons arrested "confessed" to--arson or Christianity? -- or whether they were executed by crucifixion or immolation, or some one way and some in another.

But the real question concerns the historical reliability of this information -- i.e., whether we have to do here with a later Christian insertion. When I consider a question such as this, the first question to ask is whether it conceivable or perhaps even probable that later Christians might have modified ancient historical sources; and the answer to this question certainly must be yes! Then, with regard to this particular source, I note that the earliest manuscript we have for the Annales dates from the 11th century, and must therefore have been copied and recopied many times, by generations of Christian scribes (and Christian apologists). So there were certainly many opporunities to modify what Tacitus originally wrote.

...

I don't think these notes would pass peer review in any reputable journal.

Chaucer is surely right on the consensus of Tacitus scholars. If this is in question, perhaps a joint effort at research would be the way forward?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Toto · 03-29-2011, 12:13 PM

It does seem to be in question.

There is an apologetic site that is unable to come up with any Tacitus scholar who supports the passage.

There is some discussion of Doughty in this archived thread.

avi · 03-29-2011, 12:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

That would be interesting if it were true. If the entire profession is so united, surely you can find one name?

These notes from a university course do not seem to know about this universal view.

I don't think these notes would pass peer review in any reputable journal.

Chaucer is surely right on the consensus of Tacitus scholars. If this is in question, perhaps a joint effort at research would be the way forward?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Thank you very much, Roger, appreciated.

However, notwithstanding our enormous confidence in the broad strokes of your erudition, could we impose upon you, to answer Toto's well placed question to friend Chaucer, namely, can you please furnish a link, to one or more of these Tacitus scholars, who may well wish to dispute the logical conclusion derived from reading a link which points to the oldest extant manuscript of a copy, supposedly derived from an original by Tacitus-->it is a fraud to claim that Tacitus wrote about Christianity.

avi

Roger Pearse · 03-29-2011, 12:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

It does seem to be in question.

There is an apologetic site that is unable to come up with any Tacitus scholar who supports the passage.

There is some discussion of Doughty in this archived thread.

I have just done a search in JSTOR for Tacitus Christians Interpolation, and found nothing discussing the suggestion that the passage is interpolated, at first sight, although several articles taking it for granted that it is Tacitean.

Does any classical scholar actually assert that it is interpolated? Has anyone ever done so? (i.e. does anyone have anything bearing on the question that we can use as an access point to the data).

All the best,

Roger Pearse

UPDATE: I have also just done a Google Books search for the same terms. The first result consisted entirely of non-scholarly results. Restricting it to after 1900 and published by some university press, I still get nothing that suggests the issue is on the table.

There must be something out there. Anyone else care to have a go?

hjalti · 03-29-2011, 12:45 PM

Van Voorst said something about this issue in his book, Jesus outside the NT, IIRC

----

Found it on earlychristianwritings:

Quote:

But there are good reasons for concluding with the vast majority of scholars that this passage is fundamentally sound, despite difficulties which result in no small measure from Tacitus' own compressed style. The overall style and content of this chapter are typically Tacitean. The passage fits well in its context and is the necessary conclusion to the entire discussion of the burning of Rome. Sulpicius Severus's Chronicle 2.29 attests to much of it in the early fifth century, so most suggested interpolations would have to have come in the second through fourth centuries. As Norma Miller delightfully remarks, "The well-intentioned pagan glossers of ancient texts do not normally express themselves in Tacitean Latin," and the same could be said of Christian interpolators. Finally, no Christian forgers would have made such disparaging remarks about Christianity as we have in Annals 15.44, and they probably would not have been so merely descriptive in adding the material about Christ in 15.44.3.

hjalti · 03-29-2011, 12:48 PM

Quote:

The overall style and content of this chapter are typically Tacitean.

Well, spin seems to think that the gory details are not very Tacitean.

Toto · 03-29-2011, 12:53 PM

More from Doughty's class notes:

Quote:

In defense of authenticity, it has been argued that no matter what the textual or historical difficulties, no Christian would ever have written such phrases as "pernicious superstition" or "the home of the disease" or "loathed for their vices"... that a Christian scribe would never have let such things stand if he was redacting the passage... and that there is not a hint of Christian theology or tendentiousness in the entire chapter.

This is the most common argument against the possibility of a Christian interpolation here. As I observed above, however, the reference to Christ having been "crucified under Pontius Pilate" is certainly a "hint of Christian theology" (viz. Ignatius). The reference to Christianity as a "pernicious superstition" characterized by "hatred for all humankind" could easily be verisimilitude, reflecting what Christian apologists later attributed to pagans and what someone thought Tacitus also might have said. The apologetic nuance of even these remarks, however, is the qualification "which was checked for the moment, only to break out once more" -- i.e., the idea that persecution of Christians is of little avail (cf. Acts 5:33-39). We might also ask how many Christians were present in Rome in Nero's time -- enough to constitute an "immense multitude"? The legends concerning persecutions of Christians in early times greatly exaggerate the actual events. (See the careful discussion by Robin Lane Fox in his book Pagans and Christians, 419ff). And what we read in Tacitus reflects this tendency.

Since I have now spent so much time pondering this text, however, I might speculate a bit regarding its possible redactional composition. To begin with, it is not obvious here that Christians or anyone else were charged with setting the fire. The most probable meaning rather is that Nero created a "diversion" (the phrase subdidit reos is vague) in the form of a "spectacle" or "circus" - by "subjecting to the most extra-ordinary tortures those persons hated for their abominations by the common people..." -- i.e., persons later referred to as "criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment" (presumably for various crimes). And this may have been the original content of Tacitus' account, the purpose of which--reflecting his negative opinion of Nero--was to depict Nero in an ugly way: so we are told "... it was not as it seemed for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed."

The confusing reference, however, to people being arrested because they "confessed" has the appearance of a Christian motif, as well as the idea that "based on their information," an immense multitude was convicted, both of which resemble what we read in Pliny and later Christian Martyr Acts. So the Christian elaboration may include at least the identification of the despised people as "Christians" (christianos appellabat), the reference to Christ as the founder of the movement, his crucifixion under Pontius Pilate, and the revival of the movement in Judea and even in Rome, as well as the references to people confessing to be Christians and then ratting on their Christian brothers, and their being put to death because of their "hatred for the human race.". ...

Frank · 03-29-2011, 01:00 PM

Very nice idea to spin this off into its own thread (kudo's to the mod). I'm not a scholar in this area (my academic background is law, not history, although I consider myself a history "buff" to some extent). I've discussed this issue on other boards, and the references (to Christ) by Tacitus are obviously a popular sub-topic within the broader subject of "Jesus mythicsm" (but, and speaking as a secular person who has zero motivation to promote the "existence" argument, I've never seen anything beyond conjecture that implicates this work as a forgery, redaction, or interpolation).

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03-29-2011, 12:13 PM	#14
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	It does seem to be in question. There is an apologetic site that is unable to come up with any Tacitus scholar who supports the passage. There is some discussion of Doughty in this archived thread.

03-29-2011, 01:00 PM	#20
Frank Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: New York Posts: 2,977	Very nice idea to spin this off into its own thread (kudo's to the mod). I'm not a scholar in this area (my academic background is law, not history, although I consider myself a history "buff" to some extent). I've discussed this issue on other boards, and the references (to Christ) by Tacitus are obviously a popular sub-topic within the broader subject of "Jesus mythicsm" (but, and speaking as a secular person who has zero motivation to promote the "existence" argument, I've never seen anything beyond conjecture that implicates this work as a forgery, redaction, or interpolation).

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