Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Frank · 04-03-2011, 01:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

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.

It's sort of strange, given the completely different meanings of the two words in Greek. One means messiah, the other just means the good. So I think at minimum this cast dispersion on the idea that Tacitus derived this information "directly" from a Christian source (I would think the profound difference in meanings of these words would not be lost by a scholar like Tacitus).

Or we could think that Jesus wasn't viewed in this way when Tacitus was writing (but I'm not prepared to make that claim, only because it requires a pretty exhaustive familiarity with all the history and available manuscripts, and we would have to question every single piece of work that was supposedly generated in the late first/early second century by various Christian apologists).

The article by Drews makes quite a bit of sense. If it's true that Tacitus was not in the habit of sourcing material from an official record (and it's apparently questionable, maybe doubtful, that such a record even ever existed), then he's just regurgitating Christian legends (and thus there would be no real historical value to these statements, beyond what we learn about the fire of Rome and Nero, and apparently Tacitus' distaste for Nero). The more credible arguments in support of authenticity merely argue against the idea of forgery (which really doesn't get at the information source used by Tacitus).

Frank · 04-03-2011, 04:23 AM

To clarify (my somewhat contradictory sounding post), it seems (assuming Tacitus wrote this, and didn't source his information from an official record) that he merely went on indirect reports regarding Christian legends (versus having any significant contact with Christians). So I suppose it's possible that the information relayed to us by Taticus is very far removed from anything we can consider "reliable" in terms of establishing the historicity of Jesus (I'll chase the logic).

So maybe there's good reason to believe this report doesn't really tell us anything about Jesus (beyond the fact that Christians existed during this period, something I don't think any serious scholar would dispute anyway). But it's all still speculative?? Showing Tacitus actually wrote this piece is only half the battle (for someone who truly gives a shit enough to spin their wheels on this thing). The real battle is to prove his source was reliable, and it appears his mention of Jesus was only incidental to the overall purpose of his discourse (it was an ancillary fact, probably not the sort of thing that would warrant any real investigation on his part). By the sheer fact that Tacitus is so dismissive of Christianity (and elsewhere, Judaism) suggests he wouldn't have taken these claims seriously enough to investigate their veracity (it's all obviously bullshit anyway, and it was a small cult during that period, not a global religion that would warrant being taken seriously). He was interested in telling us about Nero, and Rome, not about some backwater religion practiced by a small group of fanatics that he viewed as fucking nuts.

spin · 04-03-2011, 05:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frank

To clarify (my somewhat contradictory sounding post), it seems (assuming Tacitus wrote this, and didn't source his information from an official record) that he merely went on indirect reports regarding Christian legends (versus having any significant contact with Christians). So I suppose it's possible that the information relayed to us by Taticus is very far removed from anything we can consider "reliable" in terms of establishing the historicity of Jesus (I'll chase the logic).

So maybe there's good reason to believe this report doesn't really tell us anything about Jesus (beyond the fact that Christians existed during this period, something I don't think any serious scholar would dispute anyway). But it's all still speculative?? Showing Tacitus actually wrote this piece is only half the battle (for someone who truly gives a shit enough to spin their wheels on this thing). The real battle is to prove his source was reliable, and it appears his mention of Jesus was only incidental to the overall purpose of his discourse (it was an ancillary fact, probably not the sort of thing that would warrant any real investigation on his part). By the sheer fact that Tacitus is so dismissive of Christianity (and elsewhere, Judaism) suggests he wouldn't have taken these claims seriously enough to investigate their veracity (it's all obviously bullshit anyway, and it was a small cult during that period, not a global religion that would warrant being taken seriously). He was interested in telling us about Nero, and Rome, not about some backwater religion practiced by a small group of fanatics that he viewed as fucking nuts.

I've already made it clear that if it were written by Tacitus it wouldn't constitute any evidence in itself for what it says about christ. That's never been in discussion in this thread.

I've been asking you to take the shackles off and give yourself the opportunity to look at it for what the artifact does in its context. That's when your interpretation falls apart. It doesn't reflect what Tacitus was doing in the text. In fact it is a distraction. Instead of resolving the issue of what the people believed about the start of the fire, it forgets about it. It doesn't even make clear why the christians were arrested and executed. To argue that it is veracious is to accuse Tacitus of being a lousy communicator in the specific passage about the christians, a position not borne out elsewhere in the Annals.

aa5874 · 04-03-2011, 06:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

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.

The Drews' commentary is BEFORE the 2008 finding where ULTRAVIOLET light clearly shows that the earliest extant manuscripts of Tacitus was manipulated.

The discovery of the "E" by ultraviolet light means that the original word was MOST LIKELY "CHRESTIANOS" and not "CHRISTIANOS".

But, Tertullian will make a STARTLING confession.

The ROMANS called Christians by the name of CHRESTIANUS because of "wrong pronunciation". The ROMANS did NOT know accurately of the NAME they hate.

Tertullian addressed his Apology to the Romans.

"Apology"1-3

Quote:

Rulers of the Roman Empire............But Christian, so far as the meaning of the word is concerned, is derived from anointing.

Yes, and even when it is wrongly pronounced by you "Chrestianus" (for you do not even know accurately the name you hate), it comes from sweetness and benignity.

[color-red]You hate, therefore, in the guiltless, even a guiltless name[/color]...

Now, we understand what most likely happened because of the 2008 finding using ULTRAVIOLET light. The ROMANS used CHRESTIANUS.

CHRESTIANUS is a GUILTLESS NAME.

CHESTIANUS is NOT derived from CHRIST who was condemned to be guilty of blasphemy in the NT.

It was NOT a wrong pronunciation as Tertullian would like us to believe. Tacitus, the ROMAN writer, did NOT write about "Christians" he most likely wrote about CHRESTIANUS.

The discovery of the "E" by ULTRAVIOLET light appear to have resolved the issue. The original ANNALS passage did have CHRESTIANOS when it was copied in accordance with the PREVIOUS original since it has been revealed by Tertullian that ROMANS did NOT accurately know of the name they hate.

And "To the NATION" will show that it was indeed CHRESTIANS.

The name Christian, however, so far as its meaning goes, bears the sense of anointing.

"Ad Nationes" 1

Quote:

.....Even when by a faulty pronunciation you call us Chrestians (for you are not certain about even the sound of this noted name), you in fact lisp out the sense of pleasantness and goodness.....

andrewcriddle · 04-03-2011, 07:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Drews has a comment on that issue.

Quote:

Then there is the word “fatebantur.” Theological writers like Renan, Weizsäcker, etc., refer the expression to the belief of those who were captured, and so make them out to have been persecuted on account of their Christianity. Von Soden also translates it: “All who openly confessed Christianity were at once arrested,” etc. (p. 11). Schiller, however, rightly holds that it is not probable, in view of the close life of the Christians at the time, that some of them, apart from all the others, “had openly professed a doctrine that was not yet a peculiar creed, and would be intelligible to nobody.”[47] Others, therefore, such as Arnold, think that the word “fatebantur” refers rather to the crime of setting fire to Rome. In that case, there would, as many historians, such as Neumann, admit, be no question of a persecution of Christians as such, but merely of a police procedure.[48]

In the next place, however, the Christians are not so much “convicted” of the fire as of “hatred of the human race.” Holtzmann (in Sybel's Historischer Zeitschrift) has translated this phrase as “completely devoid of any humane and political culture,” “so that they might be relieved of considerations of humanity in dealing with them.” Schiller sees in it a reference to the custom of the Christians to withdraw from all intercourse with the world, celebrate forbidden festivals in secret meetings, and never sacrifice to the genius of the emperor.[49] Arnold conceives the expression as “an opposition on principle to the omnipotence of the Roman State.”[50] But, as Hochart rightly asks, could Tacitus, who never took seriously the faith of the Jews, and presented the Jewish and, according to Tertullian, even the Christian God to his readers as a deity with an ass's head, regard the existence of a Jewish sect, which differed in no respect from the Jews in the eyes of the Romans, as so menacing to the welfare of the empire that he must call down on it the full anger of the gods of Olympus? “It is inconceivable that the followers of Jesus formed a community in the city at that time of sufficient importance to attract public attention and the ill-feeling of the people. It is more probable that the Christians were extremely discreet in their behaviour, as the circumstances, especially of early propaganda, required. Clearly we have here a state of things that belongs to a later date than that of Tacitus, when the increase and propagandist zeal of the Christians irritated the other religions against them, and their resistance to the laws of the State caused the authorities to proceed against them.”[51] The interpolator, Hochart thinks, transferred to the days of Nero that general hatred of the Christians of which Tertullian speaks. Indeed, the French scholar thinks it not impossible that the phrase “odium humani generis” was simply taken from Tertullian and put in the mouth of Tacitus. Tertullian tells us that in his time the Christians were accused of being “enemies of the human race” (paene omnes cives Christianos habendo sed hostes maluistis vocare generis humani potius quam erroris humani).[52] And even the “Thyestean meals” and “Oedipodic minglings,” of which Arnold is reminded by the circumstance that Tacitus ascribes those horrors and scandals to the Christians, hardly suit the age of Nero, and have all the appearance of a projection of later charges against the Christians into the sixties of the first century—supposing, that is to say, that the writer was thinking of them at all in the expression quoted. It cannot be repeated too often that charges of this kind, if, as is usually gathered from similar expressions of Justin and Tertullian, they were really put forward by the Jews,[53] have no ground or reason whatever in the historical relations between the two during the first century, especially before the destruction of Jerusalem. The schism between Jews and Christians had not yet taken place, and the hatred of the two for each other was as yet by no means such as to justify such appalling accusations.[54] If, on the other hand, they are supposed to be brought by the pagans against the Christians, there is a complete absence of motive.[55]

We may have to distinguish here between what may plausibly have happened and what Tacitus may plausibly have claimed to have happened.

It seems quite possible that Tacitus' account may have been influenced by his own knowledge of later persecutions of Christians. IE procedures that fit the circumstances of the early 2nd century more than the time of Nero are not necessarily evidence against Tacitean authorship.

Andrew Criddle

Frank · 04-03-2011, 07:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

I've been asking you to take the shackles off and give yourself the opportunity to look at it for what the artifact does in its context. That's when your interpretation falls apart. It doesn't reflect what Tacitus was doing in the text. In fact it is a distraction. Instead of resolving the issue of what the people believed about the start of the fire, it forgets about it. It doesn't even make clear why the christians were arrested and executed. To argue that it is veracious is to accuse Tacitus of being a lousy communicator in the specific passage about the christians, a position not borne out elsewhere in the Annals.

Okay, I'll take the shackles off .... your analysis stinks.

Tacitus goes into detail about Roman history, and Romans, he doesn't exhaustively analyze every incidental and ancillary thing he mentions (like little bizarre cults). This is a big deal today (because Christianity has become a global religion), but you're treating this as if Tacitus had some reason to give two shits about these people (in other words, you're projecting the importance we attribute to this subject today onto Tacitus, who was writing at a time when Christianity was barely noticeable to someone like him).

Do you think highly esteemed Romans cobbled with fringe elements of their peasant population? He had no reason to give a shit about the historicity of what he viewed as a bizarre sage and cult leader from a far flung province (from a tribe he had little respect for).

DCHindley · 04-03-2011, 08:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Drews has a comment on that issue.

Quote:

Then there is the word “fatebantur.” Theological writers like Renan, Weizsäcker, etc., refer the expression to the belief of those who were captured, and so make them out to have been persecuted on account of their Christianity. Von Soden also translates it: “All who openly confessed Christianity were at once arrested,” etc. (p. 11). Schiller, however, rightly holds that it is not probable, in view of the close life of the Christians at the time, that some of them, apart from all the others, “had openly professed a doctrine that was not yet a peculiar creed, and would be intelligible to nobody.” Others, therefore, such as Arnold, think that the word “fatebantur” refers rather to the crime of setting fire to Rome. In that case, there would, as many historians, such as Neumann, admit, be no question of a persecution of Christians as such, but merely of a police procedure.

Perseus' Latin Word Study Tool has this gloss for fatebantur (verb 3rd pl imperf ind pass):

to confess, own, grant, acknowledge

Per Lewis & Short:

fătĕor , fassus, 2 (archaic
I. inf. praes. faterier, Hor. Ep. 2, 2, 148), v. dep. a. [from the root ΦΑ, φάω, fari], to confess, own, grant, acknowledge.
I. Prop. (freq. and class.; syn.: confiteor, profiteor); construed for the most part with acc. and inf. as object; rarely with the acc., de, or absol.
II. Transf.
A. In gen., to discover, show, indicate, manifest

So, are they admitting to something (when asked/accused) or are they disclosing something (under questioning/torture)?

The victims of Stalin's purges sometimes tried to implicate so many folks that the government would see that what they were being accused of was in fact grass roots and not some sedition. It didn't work for them either.

DCH

hjalti · 04-03-2011, 09:32 AM

Quote:

...we attribute to this subject today onto Tacitus, who was writing at a time when Christianity was barely noticeable to someone like him

If Christianity was barely noticeable in Tacitus' times, then how noticeable was it during Nero's reign? :huh:

The "noticeability" of Christianity might just be an anachronism.

DCHindley · 04-03-2011, 12:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hjalti

Quote:

...we attribute to this subject today onto Tacitus, who was writing at a time when Christianity was barely noticeable to someone like him

If Christianity was barely noticeable in Tacitus' times, then how noticeable was it during Nero's reign? :huh:

The "noticeability" of Christianity might just be an anachronism.

Then there is the option of the "christians" (little "c") who received the brunt of Nero's justice were not Christians (capital "C", or "our" Christians), but Jewish messianists, and Tacitus was simply wrong when he thought the Christians (capital "C") of his time were the same as those who Nero delt with so ferociously.

Figure too that now that he had replaced three story wooden tenaments, where the poor and slaves lived, with significantly fewer single story stone dwellings, where the elites could live unmolested by the common crowd, what would he have way too many of? Disaffected underclasspersons.

Nero zeros in on Jewish messianists, who are made to tell on any Greeks who sympathized with talk of a blessed messianic kingdom the benefits of which they could participate in (and the Sibylline oracles tell us that some Jews were doing just that), and by getting rid of these types, he thinks he has done the elite classes a favor.

DCH

PhilosopherJay · 04-03-2011, 01:19 PM

Hi DCHindley,

I proposed a number of years ago that Tacitus originally wrote that Nero sent the Procurator Porcius Festus to put down the Christians/Chrestians and Christian interpolators, misunderstanding, changed it to Pontius Pilate.

Thus the original read:

Quote:

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite punishments on a class hated for their disgraceful acts, called Chrestians by the populace. Chrestus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty (i.e., Crucifixion) during the reign of Nero at the hands of one of our procurators, Porcius Festus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular.

Note what Josephus (book 20:8.10) says about the procurator Porcius Festus whom Nero sent:

Quote:

10. Upon Festus's coming into Judea, it happened that Judea was afflicted by the robbers, while all the villages were set on fire, and plundered by them. And then it was that the sicarii, as they were called, who were robbers, grew numerous. They made use of small swords, not much different in length from the Persian acinacae, but somewhat crooked, and like the Roman sicae, [or sickles,] as they were called; and from these weapons these robbers got their denomination; and with these weapons they slew a great many; for they mingled themselves among the multitude at their festivals, when they were come up in crowds from all parts to the city to worship God, as we said before, and easily slew those that they had a mind to slay. They also came frequently upon the villages belonging to their enemies, with their weapons, and plundered them, and set them on fire. So Festus sent forces, both horsemen and footmen, to fall upon those that had been seduced by a certain impostor, who promised them deliverance and freedom from the miseries they were under, if they would but follow him as far as the wilderness. Accordingly, those forces that were sent destroyed both him that had deluded them, and those that were his followers also.

It makes perfect sense for Tacitus to be talking about this "Christ" who was killed between around 59 CE. The Christians reading the passage must have thought that Tacitus had heard the wrong story and took the liberty to correct him.

The sudden leap back from the time of Nero to the time of Tiberius and leap forward again is what is really disconcerting about the passage. Tacitus would have had to explain more about the suppression of the new superstitution if it died out in the 30's and started again in Rome around in the 60's. (The Fire was in 64). If the outbreak of the superstitution happened in the time of Nero, as Josephus reports, there would be no need to explain what happened. The death of the Christ by Festus would have upset the Jews in Rome. Nero could then place the blame for the fire on them.

If we just look at the history by Tacitus and Josephus and stop trying to fit it into the imaginary history of Eusebius, we can see things more clearly.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCHindley

Quote:

Originally Posted by hjalti

If Christianity was barely noticeable in Tacitus' times, then how noticeable was it during Nero's reign? :huh:

The "noticeability" of Christianity might just be an anachronism.

Then there is the option of the "christians" (little "c") who received the brunt of Nero's justice were not Christians (capital "C", or "our" Christians), but Jewish messianists, and Tacitus was simply wrong when he thought the Christians (capital "C") of his time were the same as those who Nero delt with so ferociously.

Figure too that now that he had replaced three story wooden tenaments, where the poor and slaves lived, with significantly fewer single story stone dwellings, where the elites could live unmolested by the common crowd, what would he have way too many of? Disaffected underclasspersons.

Nero zeros in on Jewish messianists, who are made to tell on any Greeks who sympathized with talk of a blessed messianic kingdom the benefits of which they could participate in (and the Sibylline oracles tell us that some Jews were doing just that), and by getting rid of these types, he thinks he has done the elite classes a favor.

DCH

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04-03-2011, 04:23 AM	#172
Frank Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: New York Posts: 2,977	To clarify (my somewhat contradictory sounding post), it seems (assuming Tacitus wrote this, and didn't source his information from an official record) that he merely went on indirect reports regarding Christian legends (versus having any significant contact with Christians). So I suppose it's possible that the information relayed to us by Taticus is very far removed from anything we can consider "reliable" in terms of establishing the historicity of Jesus (I'll chase the logic). So maybe there's good reason to believe this report doesn't really tell us anything about Jesus (beyond the fact that Christians existed during this period, something I don't think any serious scholar would dispute anyway). But it's all still speculative?? Showing Tacitus actually wrote this piece is only half the battle (for someone who truly gives a shit enough to spin their wheels on this thing). The real battle is to prove his source was reliable, and it appears his mention of Jesus was only incidental to the overall purpose of his discourse (it was an ancillary fact, probably not the sort of thing that would warrant any real investigation on his part). By the sheer fact that Tacitus is so dismissive of Christianity (and elsewhere, Judaism) suggests he wouldn't have taken these claims seriously enough to investigate their veracity (it's all obviously bullshit anyway, and it was a small cult during that period, not a global religion that would warrant being taken seriously). He was interested in telling us about Nero, and Rome, not about some backwater religion practiced by a small group of fanatics that he viewed as fucking nuts.

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