sugarhitman

I have just recently learned of this Tacitus, who was a Roman Senator and historian. And this is what he says about Yeshua:


"Christus, from whom the name had its origin suffered the EXTREME PENALTY during the riegn of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, PONTIUS PILATUS, and A MOST MISCHIEVIOUS SUPERSTITION, thus checked for the moment, again broke out 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 centre and become popular."



This from a Roman Senator! He was in a position to know, as he had to have official historical government documents.


From this we learned that Christ was knowned about very early and not the creation of Rome. As Tacitus makes clear that the Romans regarded Christ and his followers as "evil." So why would they create something they viewed as evil? And what did he mean by christianity being "checked at the moment"? And how was this "evil" checked? This proves that 1. Yeshua existed. 2. Christians were indeed persecuted by the Roman goverment.


I wonder what the critics has to say about this?


Also there are other sources who testify to this same thing like Josephus, and the Jewish Talmud....surely these testimonies are not fiction.

Keith&Co.

I wonder how many hits would come back on a google search for 'critic skeptic evidence tacitus christ?'

But i've got too much on my plate to do your homework for you.

Someone else'll be along in a moment, i'm sure.

Cesc

Im no expert, but if he wrote that in 116 I believe he was describing the Christians as they described themselves at that time (in 116). Same for Josephus, although I believe at least the last part of his passage is an obvious forgery. If Tacitus didnt just use Josephus as a source.

Wasnt Pilatus a prefect and not a procurator?
The Jesus from the Talmud would probably be Jesus ben Pandira?

GenesisNemesis

I wonder if you'll ever care what the critics have to say about anything?

ksen

I tried it and the first page comes back as supporting the Tacitus passage as being pretty strong second-hand knowledge of Jesus and what his followers were saying at the time of Tacitus.

Were you expecting something different?

Toto

You're a little late to the game.


You could just put Tacitus in the search box for this forum, or on the search page for infidels.org. To summarize: there are a few who claim that Tacitus had access to official Roman documents, but most critics feel that he was just repeating what he had heard from Christians, so that this passage is only evidence of the existence of Christians.

Then there are critics who think that this is a forgery, added to Tacitus.

It is quite suspicious that Tacitus' volume on on years around 30 CE was not preserved by Christians.


Surely? The cite from Josephus has been discussed here to death. It is either a complete forgery or a partial forgery.

The Jewish Talmud does not mention a Jesus of Nazareth.

If you want to actually discuss these questions, please do some homework.

chrisengland

I use to think it was virtually all scholars who thought certain parts of Josephus passages are forgeries. But I,ve heard that it might not be after all and that it there is rising scholary support that the passages are genuin.
I don't know if that meens a mojority do though.
I think it was actually Roger Pearce on here who said it had growing support.
Chris

sugarhitman

Tacitus was a Senator surely he is in a position to know whether this is true or not. In his "History" Tacitus is shown to be a shrewd historian not given to folklore. If this wasnt true he would have said so.

Also Antiquities, The jewish wars, the First Apology all say that Pilate was a procurator...as well as this Senator....who is in the know.

jeremyp

So you would argue that this bit is accurate history (apart from confusing the title "Christ" with somebody's name).

So if the first part was accurate, then the above must be also. If not, what method do you use to separate the fact from the fiction?

chrisengland

What did Tacitus actually say?