aa5874

You ask me for proof and then tell me what scholars believe?

There is no proof that Peter or Paul existed in the 1st century.

Peter and Paul are characters in the fabricated Jesus stories written after NERO as found in the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles and the epistles where an unknown quantity of people used the name Paul to write forged letters or to give the erroneous impression that they were writing in the 1st century.

Tacitus wrote nothing about Jesus in reference to Christians at around 115 CE and Justin Martyr wrote nothing about Paul in reference to Christians at around 150 CE.

Before Jesus stories there were Jews who believed in Christ and Tacitus wrote that the superstition of Christians originated in Judea.

It is most obvious that Tacitus was claiming that Jews were Christians originally and that the superstition of Christians did spread to Rome.

But you cannot prove that there was a Jesus story before Tacitus.

But it is known to be true that people who believe in Christ are called Christians and that Jews believe and expected a Christ before the Jesus stories were written.

Since Daniel 9 was written Jews believed and expected Christ, the very Christ that non-Jews believed and expected.

Non-JEWS who believed in the Christ of Daniel were called Christians.

JEWS who believed in the Christ of Daniel were called Christians.


Even in the NT, the fabricated story book of Jesus, Jews were the first to believe in Jesus called Christ, Jews were the first Christians.

The fiction characters called disciples of Jesus were all Jews, plus his thousands of Jewish followers first became christians. Non-Jewish christians were later, after Jewish christians, with the fiction 1st century character called Saul/Paul.

Roger Pearse

It's hard to read this without wondering at the effort people make to make themselves blind to what everyone knows.

What, one wonders, would be "proof" for the existence of anyone in the period, aside from literary testimony or pieces of inscriptions.

The existence of these figures is more than adequately documented by their presence in the New Testament, plus the surviving patristic testimony from the first few centuries.

Such certainty about nonsense.

We all know that Tacitus certainly mentions Christ, crucified under Pontius Pilate in Palestine as the founder of the Christians.

Why are we discussing Justin, and not all the other Fathers? Of the 10 second century fathers, 6 of them definitely believe in Christ as god and man, and another 2 are possibles.

Three works by Justin survive; two apologies, directed to emperors and saying "Christians are innocuous, please do not kill us"; plus a dialogue with a Jew. These works refer copiously to Christ, and even rebut Marcion.

We should all know the techniques of modern deception. They happen at the editing stage. They happen by manipulating what is said, and what is not; by selection and omission and insinuation. This is what we are dealing with here.

There is the little matter of the New Testament; there are the references in Josephus; and there are the statements of the Fathers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, who had access both to eyewitnesses, an oral tradition, and 99 times more data than we have. Where is the evidence that Jesus did not exist? Nowhere; for no-one in antiquity held this view.

Which texts, which inscriptions so describe them?

This argument is dishonest. Let's not have any more of it.

aa5874

Your statement is false.

Tacitus did NOT write that Christus was crucified.


Now look at part of your post insinuating that Tacitus wrote that Christus was crucified when no such thing is in Tacitus' Annals 15.44.


Tacitus Annals 15.44See www.earlychristianwritings.com

arnoldo

Justin also writes the bar kochba was persecuting the christians.

Toto

More precisely, Eusebius writes that Justin charges Bar Kochba with cruelty to Christians. Can you locate this in Justin's writings? Can you explain how this is related to this thread?

Tyro

I agree with Roger Pearse that all the loose assertions about Simon Bar Kochba ever being called Christos must cease. Aa, your theories are growing less and less substantiated for any unsubstantiated assumption you make. Of course I CAN win the lottery today AND tomorrow, but I hardly will.

There is nothing in the writings of Paul or the Church Fathers, or in the Gospels, suggesting that any other group was ever called Christiani, Jewish or not.

Aa is right that Tacitus does not say anything about a crucifiction of the named Christus, founder of the Chrestiani. This does not suggest that the Jesus story was unknown. As scholars like Van Voorst have suggested, Tacitus probably got the information about Christus from Christians. This must mean that there was a tradition about Christus being executed by Pilate, at least in Tacitus' days. Of course this story predates Tacitus' account then. Tacitus would not make this up. Nevertheless, this is not a discussion of the historicity of Jesus. Remember the topic!

In any case, Chrestiani or Christiani believing in a deity they called Christus, in Pliny's and Tacitus' days, can be confirmed, and Tacitus' and Suetonius' accounts suggest these Christians were considered a dangerous superstitious group, and thus were punished. No other group called Christiani or Chrestiani can be found, and no other contemporary person actually being called Christos or Christus in any extant document or inscription, we do not know of. It is thus safe to say that Christians were the only ones called Christiani.

With this sorted out, the question remains: Who were Jucundus Chrestianus and Herennius Chrestianus? Christians in odd dates, or persons with an unusual name? Members of an unknown sect perhaps worshipping "the good" (chreston)? Tertullian says ~197 that Christian was pronounced Chrestianus by the enemies of Christianity. Would a Roman watchman of the first cohors virgilium really have been called Chrestian, if Chrestian was the pagan name for Christian, a hated secterist?

show_no_mercy

Jucundus Chrestianus and Herennius Chrestianus... would Romans call the pluralization of their names "Chrestianus" as Chrestiani? Like we would call a family with the surname "Smith" the Smiths?

Roger Pearse

Indeed, the word "crucified" was not used: my mistake.

The rest of my comment, however...

Roger Pearse

I don't think we should speculate about sources. Tacitus does not discuss them, whatever they are.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

Chrestiani is certainly the plural of Chrestianus.

We need to see the data; how is the term used? I can find precisely one usage in Latin inscriptions:

Publication: CIL 06, 24944 (p 3531)
Place: Rome
D(is) M(anibus) / M() T() Drusi pateres(?) / Primicinio qui vixit / ann(os) XXXXII dies VII / Faustus Antoniae Drusi ius / emit Iucundi Chrestiani oll(a)

Is this where we started? Do we have a translation?

All the best,

Roger Pearse