avi

You have "considered the arguments".
You have concluded that there exists some merit to the notion that Tacitus did in fact describe the existence of Christianity in the first century.

Correct?

To me, on the contrary, I reject every argument offered in favor of a legitimate historical piece of evidence, attributed to Tacitus, but actually, of unknown origin.

I seek evidence that has not been OBVIOUSLY redacted, interpolated, smudged, fudged, and made over, as is the case of this 'Tacitus' manuscript'.

I will not accept any "evidence" from Tacitus, unless it is unearthed from cave or crypt, under strict surveillance by non-Christians, non-Jews, and non-Muslims.

If the Chinese, (now excavating the rural town northeast of BeiJing, formerly inundated by a flood of the HuangHe Yellow river, hence in a state preserved, from 2k years ago, similar to Pompei,) claim to have found a manuscript, heretofore unknown, of the writings of KongZi, or LaoZi, I will want to ask for an international surveillance team to be present at these excavations. The Chinese have too much vested interest in such a recovery project.

Similarly, the Christians are notorious for deliberate sabotage of excavations, or material recovered from excavations. They cannot be trusted. Dura Europos is a perfect illustration, where, they just happened to discover, right under the surface soil, a copy of a document similar to Diatessaron--> the precise document required to confirm the theory that they had excavated an early third century Christian church. How convenient. Pay no attention to the rainfall that was so extensive that excavation had to be cancelled for an entire season......Nope, that particular papyrus, 1800 years old, was not damaged by the water.....A miracle indeed!!!!

The manuscript attributed to Tacitus, is crap. Accordingly, YES, there is reason to overturn the "majority" opinion of ancient historians, regarding 'Tacitus' manuscript. Reliance on a fake document, to draw conclusions, is absurd.

avi

Toto

avi - if a Christian had really tried to plant fake evidence at Dura Europas, would they not have planted a copy of one of the gospels? Maybe a letter from Paul, or Ignatius? or a picture of the crucifixion?

There is good reason to reject most Christian finds, like the lead codices - but there are usually tell tale signs, like a cast of shady characters and an obvious profit motive. Dura Europas just has no such problems.

Please don't drag this thread off topic and force me to split out a digression on Dura Europas.

Frank

Good & very fair point.

I'm not sure about this (I think there was preexisting doubt among scholars regarding that particular issue).

I fully agree (so much is probably obvious).

I wouldn't call any of this "bad news" (at least not for me)

You just said they found an "e" ... and now there's no vowel? If we say Chrestus wasn't contained in the original, then we have to question the entire passage (because even without the word Chrestus, it obviously references Jesus).

Hmmm, I think it's pretty clear that Tacitus did discuss the fire. What's controversial is whether he mentioned Christians in connection with that fire. We don't have his original manuscripts, and the chain of custody is dubious. It was in the hands of people who had a particular agenda, and whom we can certainly say had the motivation to forge this work (and we know they did alter at least one letter). However, it's also not as cut and dry as you seem to be implying. There's dozens of factors scholars consider when they're examining these sort of documents.

Nonetheless, I'll say this much. The fact that this document was under the control of individuals who both had motivation to alter it, and whom we know did in fact alter at least one letter, pretty much makes it worthless as evidence for anything (so I guess my opposition to your reasoning has weakened in light of what I've learned throughout this thread .... albeit I still think there's considerable doubt).

That's a pretty crude analysis dude. Historical method automatically precludes any claim that violates the laws of nature, as a matter of course. Magical buddahs, god-men walking on water, guys having an intelligent conversation with a sentient burning plant, etc. are presumed mythic, and rightly so.

I'm not saying historical method is perfect, or completely free from irrational influence, but I'm also not willing to dismiss scholarship, automatically, because it may not agree with a position I hold. I do dismiss scholarship when there's a clear conflict of interest (as in presuppositionalist apologetics), but when a bias is not clear, even if I question the scholarship ... I don't subscribe to a bright line rule that dismisses it out of hand.

We have to make distinctions in the reliablity we ascribe to scholarship and evidence.

We do have evidence that confirms a long held suspicion, but I think you're overreaching in your implication that this evidence decisively proves the entire passage was spurious.

We can break this down into little pieces. The passage references someone who was executed under Pilate, who was the founder of a religion. It would be a remarkable coincidence if it was referencing someone other than Jesus (or at least the Christian legend about Jesus). To stay within the bounds of reasonableness, we have to either say the entire passage is spurious, or it probably did use the term Chrestus (since removing the term Chrestus really does little to resolve the controversy).

However, I tend to think that the alteration of this single letter is a profound fact. It completely changes the meaning of the word, so it's very easy to see the motivation to alter it. What's less clear is what the motivation was to introduce this entire passage into the document in the first place (if we believe it's entirely spurious). I'm not saying it's a far reach to believe the entire passage was spurious (because I can quickly imagine what the motivation might have been to alter a work by a respected Roman historian e.g. to lend credibility to ancient reports by Christian writers such as Tertullian). That said, we also have to imagine why, in the process of producing this spurious version of Tacitus' work, the alleged forgers made such a serious grammatical mistake (and this is what we have to assume if we believe it was entirely spurious). Even if it was a spurious copy of a spurious copy of a spurious copy (and so on) ... somewhere in the chain, someone with motivation to alter this text, made this mistake (assuming it was entirely spurious). So it's probably easier to simply assume that only a single letter was altered, versus the entire passage (sort of an occam's razor argument I suppose, although I'm not sure I would frame it that way ... but anyway).

Roger Pearse

The manuscript was written in the 11th century, saying Chrestiani (was it that, or Chrestus?). Someone then added headings in the margin, indicating important things, and one of these was "Christiani" next to this passage. Someone (possibly the same someone) erased the 'e' in Chrestiani, and replaced it with an i.

I would presume, unless someone knew otherwise, that he read it as a spelling mistake (in Latin, remember, not in the vernacular), and corrected it. Most corrections are trivial. Spelling variations in manuscripts are legion.

Quite how altering one letter in one copy in a remote South Italian monastery can have any other significance I don't know. Admittedly it was the only copy in the world of the otherwise unknown text, but the monks can hardly have known that.

What is more interesting, tho, for us, is that the original spelling was retained for 10 centuries despite being "obviously wrong". That's scribes for you. It is permissible to doubt how many of them actually understood what was being discussed, until someone wrote "christiani" in the margin.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Frank

You may be right. Nonetheless, I presume the scholars who have reviewed this issue examined the text exhaustively. Just by reading the text as it exists (without even doing a chemical or other type of forensic analysis) they can glean quite a bit of information. For instance, they can glean certain things about the copyist. They can simply read the text, and figure out the level of literacy that would have been required to amend the work in a significant way. If it was some remote monestary that by chance gained possession of this work, and whomever altered it may not have realized its significance, then it's even harder to imagine the passage was completely spurious. If these monks did read it as a spelling mistake, then maybe it was simply a spelling mistake, or maybe there was a forger more remote in time who initially made this error, or maybe the mistake was made along the way somewhere (by someone who was copying the already altered work), or maybe maybe maybe.

If we were talking about Nero burning people alive, who then then jumped off their crosses and started break dancing, and went on to live long happy lives (even though they should been dead as a doornail), then we could dismiss it as an absurd myth (and enjoy it for mere amusement value). But what we're talking about here isn't unlikely, it doesn't defy the laws of nature, it's not even outside the modus operandi of how Roman leaders ruled (at least in some cases). Even if true, it's only possible value is to show Christians existed during that era (or provide another piece of evidence in that regard). I'm not sure how we ever figure out what Tacitus' sources were, or the entire chain of custody. Ancient history involves quite of bit of induction (certainly not a perfect tool, but the best we have). At some point we have to question the productive value of challenging a claim. Where there's enough doubt, and no clear consensus among even professional unbiased scholars, then it arguably becomes counter-productive to devote very much energy to challenging this thing.

This is how I view the issue. Yes, there's absolutely plenty of reason to question this document, but I also think we've reached the point where we're not going to learn anything new about it (or at least not anything very significant). There's enough meat and controversy surrounding this thing for reasonably people to disagree, and if reasonably people can disagree, then unreasonable people can be much more easily persuaded. It plays into exactly the sort of debate religious apologists love to have. When reasonable people can disagree, they have a case. I'd much rather focus on the things where I know I have a slam dunk argument (which is all the truly material issues).

aa5874

You are not following the evidence at all.

I am refering to the word that should be "Christus". The word "Christus" is NOT in the earliest known copy of Annals.

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UgO8fAJVVM



How in the world could a passage that does not mention Jesus of the NT be an obvious reference to Jesus?

I am beginning to see that all your rational is now lost.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Roger,

I agree that this makes the passage in Tacitus much more likely to be authentic. At the same time, it seems to me that this is an absolute disaster for the idea of an historical Jesus. What this demonstrates is that someone named Chrestus was stirring up Jews against the Romans and he had a bunch of followers called Chrestians.

As I note in a new blog post:

This takes away two of the most famous outside sources for the existence of Jesus Christ, both Suetonius and Tacitus. The TF is now more problematic than ever as evidence, which leaves us only Pliny as the only outside evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ until the mid-Second century.

Now we know that Tertullian is a witness to Pliny using the term "Christ," but we also know that Tertullian thought it was simply a spelling/pronunciation error and Chrestus referred to Christ. Is it possible Pliny wrote Chrestus and Chrestianus in his works and Tertullian simply translated it as Christ and Christians when he paraphrased it in his work?

Now, according to what I understand from your notes on the manuscripts of Pliny , we don't have any existing manuscript by Pliny with references to "Christians" or "Christ," but we have two printed editions from the 16th century, that reproduce letters 96 and 97 based on material extant then, but no longer existing. I am wondering who are the editors of these printed editions and what are the chances that they changed Chrestianos and Chrestus references they found in Pliny to Christians and Christ. Are these straight editions without comments or might they have annotations regarding the translations?

Sincerely,

Jay Raskin

hjalti

Do we actually know that? Aren't we talking about a single manuscript? Couldn't it then just be a spelling mistake? (like IIRC spin pointed out, french has an e). What you propose is of course possible.

I think we can assume that Tacitus originally wrote either e-e or i-i (in Christians and Christ). If we assume that it was originally e-e, then a scribe has corrected Chrestus to Christus. Why wouldn't he also correct the other e?

aa5874

1. The Pliny letters did NOT mention Jesus.

2. Pliny does NOT even know what Christian believe in the letters.

3. Pliny seemed to have encountered Christians for the very first time in the letters.

4. Pliny TORTURED two Christian deaconesses to find out out what Christians did or believed and who or what they worshiped.


Examine the Pliny letters.

It is most STARTLING that Pliny the younger did NOT know of JESUS CHRIST, the Creator of heaven and earth, the Son of God, the Jewish Messiah executed by Pilate, who was the End of the LAW, who was given a name ABOVE every name in the Roman Empire and to whom EVERY KNEE should bow, even the DEIFIED EMPERORS of ROME.

See the Pauline writings and the Gospels of the Canon.

What we have before us is a MASSIVE FRAUD.

Pliny the younger should have heard about Jesus Christ and Christians. "PAUL" made Jesus Christ the most SIGNIFICANT character in the ENTIRE Roman Empire.

The theological, historical and political implications of the Pauline Jesus in the Roman Empire are HUGE.

Why does Pliny the younger have to torture christians in the 2nd century to find out that they merely had some DEPRAVED Superstition?

Pliny KNEW Tacitus and did write at least two letters to him.

Pliny KNEW Suetonius and did write letters to him.

Why did not Pliny know about Christians and what they believed?

Why did Pliny have to TOTURE two female slaves ONLY to find Christians had some DEPRAVED superstition when Pliny KNEW Suetonius and Tacitus?

We are looking at a MASSIVE FRAUD.

The Pliny letters about Christians have only created MORE doubt about authenticity of writings that mentioned Christians in the 1st century.

Frank

And there were sacred banquets and nightly vigils celebrated by married women. But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order.

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called N/A by the populace. N/A, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, 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.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/tacitus.html

Cool hide tags .... anyway, yes without the explicit references to Christ (or Christians) it's still obvious that he's referring to Jesus, unless we imagine there was some other religion floating around who's leader was averred to be executed by Pilate. Indeed, the entire passage makes no sense with these omissions (so yes, I think it's more reasonable to think that either the entire passage is spurious, or "Chrestus" was included).

I'm sure you guys can dig up people who disagree with this, but here's the comments of one expert (who I'd say has very good credentials) who doesn't view the alteration as presenting a problem for authenticity:

Professor Robert Renehen (currently at Univ. of Santa Barbara):