Petergdi

Just to clarify: there aren't any academic Tacitus experts who question the passage, are there?

Peter.

Toto

I believe that Darrel Doughty questioned the passage.

He has some course notes here

aa5874

Tacitus does not mention any character called Jesus anywhere in Annals 15.44 and in AJ 20.9.1, it is not known if Jesus called Christ was dead when his brother James was stoned.

Petergdi

He does not appear to be someone who could be reasonably described as a Tacitus expert.

Peter.

Toto

So a mere Doctorate and a speciality in the historic period, with 30 years of teaching at an advanced level, is not enough for you.

Do you know of any experts on Tacitus who have endorsed the passage?

show_no_mercy

I don't know if HJers or MJers take this into account, but why was Christianity the only "new" religion that had to have such fierce polemical battles against docetists and gnostics? Certainly an unquestionably historical founder of any other religion or cult that I know of never had to deal with "believers" in the new cult who thought that their leader was a phantom or only did his deeds in another realm. Why is this specific to Christianity?

Mohammad wasn't thought to have received the Koran from an angel of Allah in heaven. Joseph Smith wasn't thought to have really been an angel with the appearance of a man. David Koresh didn't do battle with the Archons in a heavenly realm. Why is all of this stuff restricted to early Christianity (and other pagan religions)? I'm not sure I've ever seen any historical Jesus proponents make sense of that - how these "mythical" Jesus archetypes happened so quickly after the founder's death.

Vinnie

I think a case can be made that docetism was partly caused by the shame of the cross. Jesus wasn't "really" crucified. Also, as the religion spread all over the empire people of many different background beliefs jumped on board and took it in various directions.

Vinnie

Petergdi

The "other realm" stuff is a modern invention. There no ancient source that tells us anything of the sort about early Christian beliefs.

The "phantom" aspect is something I think you have misunderstood. Some early Christians thought that Christ could not really have been made flesh. This appears to be connected to ideas of Christ's perfection and the idea that flesh was corrupt in such a way as to be absolutely incompatible with this perfection. So they thought that Christ only seemed to be flesh.

From an orthodox point of view, this is very badly missing the point, because the orthodox teach that it was precisely by becoming flesh and being obedient all the way to dying on the cross that Christ made the way of salvation open to anyone who would follow.

There is a bit of an analogy possible with Roman Catholic doctrine about the communion elements. Roman Catholics believe (at least in theory) that the bread and wine are no longer bread and wine after consecration. They only "appear" to remain bread and wine. This is not a statement about what modern people would call physical reality, but is more of a statement about the meaning of what is going on.

The idea that Christ was a "phantom" does not appear to have anything to do with what could be seen, felt or measured at the time, but only that Christ couldn't have really been flesh because that was incompatible with their idea of perfection.

My undertanding was that Mohammad was thought to have received the Koran from God through Gabriel. Mohammad was certainly on earth at the time. I'm not sure where Gabriel was.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that either Docetism or Gnosticism are "mythical" in the way you seem to imply.

Peter.

No Robots

That's rich, considering that mythicists habitually dismiss all scholars who assert the historicity of Christ.

spamandham

I think it could just as easily be the other way around - the OT was quote mined to find 'prophecies' that fit the Christology of the day.

IMHO, whatever the origins of Jesus, some portions of his story were undeniably (by non-apologists) derived from Psalms and Isaiah. Other aspects seem a rather contrived square peg into a round hole attempt to prove Jesus was special, sort of implying historicity. But overall, we really don't know what is cause and what is effect.

It is possible that Jesus is completely mythical/mystical/allegorical/legendary/political propoganda, and it is possible that some aspect of him is historical. The evidence is of such horrifically poor quality, that we can't really say one way or another with any reasonable degree of certainty.