Chaucer

Your saying "I don't believe that" etc. to my "If one sets out to" etc. statement is not clear. Are you implying that I'm implying that too many coincidences are needed to flesh out the MJ argument against pagan sources (which I am)? Or are you implying something else? As I say, not clear. But I'm proceeding on the assumption that it's the former.

Since there is more than one pagan source, they are the stronger therefore. Many here are perfectly conversant with all of them, and they are also conversant with the arguments against them that I find so dubious because they call for such a sequence of coincidental scenarios. There will also be a number here who will probably say that I'm somehow trying to prove something. As I already said in my previous, any responsible historian cannot deal with proof, only with greater or lesser likelihoods. Anyone here who imputes an effort at establishing proof in what I write here is going after a straw man, since I am only showing what is more likely, as any responsible secular historian would. Furthermore, some here will probably concentrate on one argument with respect to one textual passage, or another argument with respect to another, etc., obscuring the fact that a whole assortment of coincidental arguments are needed for a whole array of texts of similar character. If we get away from the odd coincidences needed to discount an array of similar textual references as a group, we get away from my chief point here. Also, the poster here who has lodged this inquiry has long ago made up his mind about my contributions here (http://www.freeratio.org/showpost.ph...3&postcount=25), so I am addressing his(?) challenge here for the general readership on this board and not for the poster him(?)self, whose continued constructive engagement in this exchange will be a pleasant surprise.

Some in this thread have already enumerated some of the pagan sources I will be citing. That doesn't make the arguments against their viability as a group any less ad hoc. Yes, Josephus's Antiquities is definitely one, and Tacitus's Annals is definitely another. More specifically, the passage in Antiquities that is the hardest to debunk is 20.9.1. --

"Since Ananus was that kind of person, and because he perceived an opportunity with Festus having died and Albinus not yet arrived, he called a meeting of the Sanhedrin and brought James, the brother of Jesus (who is called 'Messiah') along with some others. He accused them of transgressing the law, and handed them over for stoning. But as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done. They also sent to the king, desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified. Nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrin without his consent. Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done. On which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest."

Here, some arguments that have been trotted out against its viability as confirming a historical Jesus include --

The entire reference to Jesus ("the brother of Jesus (who is called 'Messiah')") is an interpolation --

There's already a Jesus further down in the paragraph, a Jesus Damneides, so it's probably the same Jesus here, making the words "(who is called 'Messiah')" an interpolation --

The word order is strange, suggesting some tampering with the text.

The argument that the whole clause is an interpolation has also been used against other passages we're dealing with here. One can either suppose that it is or it isn't. By the time that that argument is used against three or four such passages and not just one, it starts losing its force as a valid argument. I'll return to this at the end of the post.

As for Jesus Damneides, if the Jesus referred to at the top of this passage as brother of James is really Damneides, then how come the later reference to Jesus also spells out that he is Jesus Damneides rather than simply Jesus. Josephus is not prone to giving two identical descriptions in one and the same paragraph. If he bothers in the later reference to spell out that that Jesus is Damneides, then the Jesus referenced earlier is _more likely_ to be a different Jesus. There would be no need to reiterate that the later Jesus is Damneides if the earlier Jesus is the same person -- unless the later Damneides description is also an interpolation, but there we get back to the coincidence game of the MJ argument again. Just how often can one fall back on the interpolation gambit?

As for the strange word order, the literal word order in the original "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ [tou legomenou Christou], whose name was James" is characteristic of Josephus:


Wars 2.21.1
a man of Gischala, the son of Levi, whose name was Johnâ;

Ant. 5.8.1
but he had also one that was spurious, by his concubine Drumah, whose
name was Abimelech;

Ant. 11.5.1
Now about this time a son of Jeshua, whose name was Joacim, was the
high priest.


This is a good example of why one should be steeped in the writing style before plunging in with both feet.

The other reference in Antiquities is 18.63. --

"About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not cease. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life. For the prophets of God had prophesied these and myriads of other marvellous things about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still up to now, not disappeared."

Aspects of this passage have been singled out as possibly bogus and not natural to Josephus. Some have recently suggested the whole passage is an interpolation (that old standby), while for many, many decades previous to that, scholars have instead singled out phrases like "if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly", "He was the Messiah", "upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us", and "On the third day he appeared to them restored to life" as being suspect. Well, it is notable that well after these phrases had already occasioned some general suspicion among a number of careful secular scholars, another version of the passage subsequently surfaced that was apparently dated slightly earlier than any other extant ms. of Antiquitees. This was an Arabic quotation in Agapios' Kitab al-'Unwan ("Book of the Title") --

-- "Similarly Josephus the Hebrew. For he says in the treatises that he has written on the governance of the Jews:
At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them after his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders."

Note that none of the suspect phrases are here in this citation. Is that just a coincidence? This makes it less likely that 18.63 was interpolated wholesale, after all. Way before this Syriac fragment in Arabic of this version of the passage is found, we have scholars already singling out precisely the phrases that are missing in the Syriac version. The fact that a version was _subsequently_ found, and that that version was earlier than any other text of the work, and that that ms. lacked precisely the same suspect phrases, would appear to confirm some scholars' previous guesses that there was an earlier version somewhere that wouldn't have those phrases. Well, they were probably right.

The fact that the Syriac version doesn't have those phrases may not necessarily prove conclusively that the rest of the passage is genuine after all, but it does point to an astounding coincidence when a version previously posited by scholars as a mere hypothesis suddenly turns up and is confirmed as genuinely earlier than any text of the complete work that we have. Evidently, those scholars were on to something. Either we view what was discovered as an extreme coincidence, and a very unlikely one, or this plainly earlier ms. plainly confirms what most scholars had guessed all along: The suspect phrases were never in the original but the passage as a whole was.

What this early version also shows is that the Messiah reference here comes from a citation of claims made by posthumous followers of Jesus, not from Josephus's own perspective.

Some claim that the very term "christ" would be anathema to Josephus. He'd never even use it. Moreover, if he used it, he wouldn't use it without explaining it in detail. I simply don't see the need for Josephus to explain a term that had come to be applied to a notorious convict? It was the term by which he was known; it was the term Josephus used <shrug>. I don't see the need for Josephus to explain the reason for that term. Some claim Josephus would only see it as a reference to plaster, and that's it. But once a notorious convict gets a nickname, he is recognizable under that nickname. There's no mystery here at all.

I don't see a need for Josephus to explain this usage of "Christ".

Actually, an explanation of sorts is offered by Josephus in the restored shorter version of the 18.63 passage in the Syriac fragment: There, the use of the term is confined to the context of an implied quote from Jesus's posthumous followers in connection with their delusion that the dead Jesus had walked among them. Josephus cites such followers as claiming he walked among them and that "_accordingly_, he was perhaps the Messiah" [emphasis mine] they had been waiting for.

Josephus thus makes it clear that it was those followers who had applied the term to Jesus because Jesus walked among the living. Josep. evidently sees no reason to explain this usage beyond that.

If Josephus's reference to a "Christ" nickname is so anachronistic to an ancient Roman audience, then how do we account for

Ant. 3:198 (to anoint a priest);
6:83 (to anoint Saul with holy oil), 157 (to anoint a son of Jesse to be the Israelite king in place of Saul), 159 (to anoint a specific youth as above);
7:357 (the high priest and Nathan the prophet anoint Solomon with oil as king David's designated successor), 382 (repeat of Solomon's anointing with oil after David's death);
9:106 (a disciple of Elisha the prophet is given holy oil to anoint Jehu as king), 149 (7 yr old Jehoash is anointed king by the high priest Jehoiada);
19:239 (Agrippa the Jew anoints his head with oil before visiting the Roman Senate to mediate Claudius' appointment as emperor)

On to Suetonius: The Life of Claudius (25.4)

"As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome."

Fuss is occasionally made over "Chrestus", but "Chrestus" and "Christus" are often interchangeable in old mss. Also, the lag-time between Suetonius and Jesus' own life-time is trotted out, but this lag-time is normal for figures of such antiquity. Should we throw them all out?

Plenty of historic figures would have to be wiped from the historic record altogether if one can get away with this kind of special pleading in this one instance. Not only are the overwhelmingly secular historians (when not entirely non-believers like my father, who was a college history professor and shared a strongly skeptical perspective with many colleagues in his department) not claiming the historicity of some magic conjuror as described in Scripture. Not only are the overwhelmingly secular historians (when not entirely non-believers like my father and many in his department) claiming instead the historicity of an entirely human non-magic Jesus whose mundane life is all too clearly referenced in Tacitus and Josephus, without a whiff of the supernatural about him. But the strictly non-Scriptural references to a consistently human figure consistently devoid of any miracles and consistently found in the Josephan and Tacitan sorts of chronicles are entirely comparable, both in their (relative) scarcity and in their lag time from the subject's death, as well as in the uniformly mundane things that are said about them, to 100% of the primary sources that we have on central figures like Hannibal and Boudica, all of which are posthumous. That's right: That's fully comparable to the entirely posthumous primary sources that we have on Hannibal and Boudica, period -- and on hundreds of others from those ancient times as well.

So do we get rid of figures like Hannibal and Boudica as well? If we do, then that means getting rid of well over half the historic figures of the ancient world in addition to Hann., Boud. and Jes., leaving only mega-kings and emperors like Alexander, Caesar, etc., intact. Happy with that? If not, then once figures like Hannibal are let back in instead, Jesus would also have to get back into the historic record as well. Otherwise, we're being inconsistent. If we take others but not the one, then we adopt the same kind of half-assed cafeteria approach to history that the Creationist adopts toward science. Happier with that?

On to Tacitus: Annals - c.115AD

Annals, 15:44

"Such indeed were the precautions of human wisdom. The next thing was to seek means of propitiating the gods, and recourse was had to the Sibylline books, by the direction of which prayers were offered to Vulcanus, Ceres, and Proserpina. Juno, too, was entreated by the matrons, first, in the Capitol, then on the nearest part of the coast, whence water was procured to sprinkle the fane and image of the goddess. 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 Christians by the populace. Christus, 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. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed."

Here, the MJ-er will sometimes trot our arguments that include --

We are asked to believe that the passage may be an interpolation (again!) --

that Tacitus only got his info from some Christians (when he detested them) --

that Pilate was no procurator, since that title was not in existence at the time of Tiberius.

In fact, Latin philologists dealing with Tacitean texts in detail often stress the extent to which Tacitus adopts a highly distinctive, advanced and polished style of Latin that more or less disappears entirely after Tacitus's death. That whole style is a lost art within a generation or so after Tacitus is gone. It would be very unlikely for someone to come along who can imitate such a style at the time that MJ-ers claim any interpolations would have been made (ca. 3rd-5th century). And this particular passage has a style identical to the rest of the text.

As for its merely being Christians' hearsay here, Tacitus stresses early on in his work that wherever he merely uses hearsay, he is careful to specify that (and indeed he does). Since he makes no such specification here, and since his style here is the same as elsewhere, the only argument left is the anachronism of "procurator". Here, I've seen just as strong an argument being made that the anachronism of "procurator" proves the text comes from Tacitus, since that was what someone in a comparable position would have been termed in Tacitus's time.

In looking over this whole assemblage of texts, one cannot overstress the extent to which the sheer assemblage of argument after argument here weakens rather than strengthens upon repetition in too many different contexts for comfort. Sheer multiplicity goes against the principle of Occam's Razor, for one thing. Isn't it just piling on suppositions a bit too much to suppose that in one passage an interpolation is involved, in another sheer hearsay (Tacitus), in another an alternate spelling that is "really" a different word(!) (Suetonius), and so on and so on? In the end, such an assemblage of suppositions stubs its toe against Occam's Razor.

In fact, piling up arguments in such an ad hoc way is arguing like a lawyer, not like a scholar.

A scholar looks at the documentation and ponders what is most likely. Looking at these extant referencES as a bunch in the pagan world, it becomes more likely than not that a real historic figure is being referenced rather than a myth. One can make one argument against one text and another against another, etc. -- and if one is pressed, one can make the same argument against a number of them(!): interpolation(!) -- but that only underscores the forced nature of these arguments. There are too many such piled-on arguments needed for the basic MJ position itself not to emerge as a position of faith rather than a position of reason and greater likelihood. It is more likely than not, given the pagan sources, that Jesus -- a human, non-miraculous Jesus as described in the pagan sources -- was a historical figure, and it becomes less likely that he is a myth.

I'm perfectly aware that any number of arguments can be made against this passage or that one, etc. But I've yet to see any MJ-er address this overriding question: Why, with the numbers here what they are, does it seem necessary to counter one passage one way and another passage another way and another passage yet another way, etc. -- not to mention the frequent fallback on the interpolation gambit, which only seems to hold up for the inserted phrases missing in the Arabic quotation of Antiq. 18.63 -- all pointing to an excessive pattern of special pleading, when such a number of different passages have to be discounted again and again, in grossly and repeatedly hypothetical ways (re the interpolation gambit, etc.)? That basic question has yet to be addressed above all.

What is revealed in these tortured and repeated arguments in passage after passage is that the MJ argument becomes an argument for the lesser likelihood in each pagan textual case. That is why it becomes an argument from faith, while the HJ argument shows strictly what becomes instead more likely in each pagan textual case.

Chaucer

Juststeve

Chaucer:

Among trial lawyers its always our dream to have the proverbial bus load of Nuns for witnesses. Who could doubt the testimony of a bus load of Nuns? We say this even though we know that one might quibble with each Nun individually. Sister Mary Margaret wears glasses, and Bernadette was talking to Catherine, and Severity was deep in prayers, and they all believe in transubstantiation but no matter what you say about them individually or collectively they’re still a bus load of Nuns.

It seems that you have your bus load of Nuns in the form of secular texts, Christian Texts, archeological evidence and the fact of the advent of a Christian church in the first century. The Mythers can pick at each one individually, but together they’re still a bus load of Nuns. I'd go to trial if I were you.

Steve

Chaucer

Thank you, Steve, for understanding my essential point. As to "going to trial", I'd say that this thread is just about that already.

Stick around!:-)

Best,

Chaucer

spin

Introduction: Hegemony
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The previous incarnation of this thread led to a necessary discussion of the notion of cultural hegemony, in which the artefacts of a political hegemony are manifested at a cultural level as the status quo. That which reflects the hegemony seems normal. In such a cultural hegemony the reproduction of the manifestations of the hegemony is the natural thing to do.

During the early period of christian cultural hegemony a great variety of spurious works were written, various standard christian works were embellished and non-christian works were bowdlerized, as in the case of the Testimonium Flavianum. As the christian hegemony was the means of transmission of classical pagan works as well, any reference to christianity must be seen in the light of that cultural transmission. We must suspect any substantial reference to christianity in christian preserved pagan works. This doesn't mean that they are necessarily bogus, but that cannot be trusted without careful examination. For one to cite such works without the accompanying examination is to not say anything other than that there was a christian hegemony.

It would be hard enough to depend on a writer talking of events sixty years earlier as the only source for those events, but the passage under consideration appears to reflect activities of a christian nature.

Annals 15.44
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Before citing the reference to christianity in Tacitus's Annals 15.44 as significant, we must analyse it. Here I'll propose five major problems with the passage. First, I'll cite the passage in full:

[T2]Such indeed were the precautions of human wisdom. The next thing was to seek means of propitiating the gods, and recourse was had to the Sibylline books, by the direction of which prayers were offered to Vulcanus, Ceres, and Proserpina. Juno, too, was entreated by the matrons, first, in the Capitol, then on the nearest part of the coast, where water was procured to sprinkle the temple and image of the goddess. 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 Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius under the procurator, 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. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed.[/T2]
(The grey section represents what Tacitus actually wrote, as I understand it.)

The analysis
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1) Procurator

The passage refers to Pilate as a procurator, though we know that procurators didn't have the necessary powers to administer provinces until the time of Claudius and Tacitus is one of the major sources for the fact. Pilate was officially a prefect, which is a military posting. At the time of Tiberius a procurator was a financial administrator for a provincial governor. Here's a pre-Claudian reference in the Annals to a procurator is 4.15:

[T2]"Everything indeed was as yet in the hands of the Senate, and consequently Lucilius Capito, procurator of Asia, who was impeached by his province, was tried by them, the emperor vehemently asserting 'that he had merely given the man authority over the slaves and property of the imperial establishments; that if he had taken upon himself the powers of a praetor and used military force, he had disregarded his instructions; therefore they must hear the provincials.'"[/T2]
You note that the procurator has no magisterial powers, but merely had charge of the province's property. This changed with Claudius in A.12.60:

[T2]"That same year the emperor was often heard to say that the legal decisions of his procurators ought to have the same force as if pronounced by himself."[/T2]
They didn't have magisterial power in their own right because they weren't patricians. So, you have the background and circumstances of the passage you alluded to in Histories 5.9,

[T2]"The kings were either dead, or reduced to insignificance, when Claudius entrusted the province of Judaea to the Roman Knights or to his own freedmen, one of whom, Antonius Felix, indulging in every kind of barbarity and lust, exercised the power of a king in the spirit of a slave."[/T2]
Pilate certainly was not a procurator. He was a military prefect in charge of a third grade province answerable directly to the proconsular legate in Antioch. Tacitus, a Roman who had passed through the full range of civil and military appointments, knew the significance of all the administrative positions in the Roman empire, having either held them or administered them. He makes it clear in his writings that he knew when the role of procurator changed. To have called Pilate a procurator was an obvious error and he would have known it, so the reference to Pilate as procurator does not reflect the writing of Tacitus.

(Richard Carrier has tried to explain the use of "procurator" in this passage through the stylistic feature known as variatio, though variatio doesn't usually include the use of knowing errors.)

2) Overblown style

Tacitus is known for his restrain, yet in our passage we get the full gory details of torture and mayhem against the christians. Ronald H. Martin writes of Tacitus' choice not to cite the gruesome detail of Galba's head in his Histories, saying:

"His practice elsewhere suggests that he judged it beneath the dignity of history to record such sordid events." (Tacitus and the Writing of History, U. Cal. Press, 1988, p.73.)

It apparently wasn't beneath the dignity of history for our passage to tell us:

"Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired."

This is below the dignity of Tacitus as a historian.

3) Martyrdom story

As this material doesn't fit the tenor of Tacitus's writing, the only people to whom this passage would have much interest were christians, for it is functionally a story of christian martyrdom, though a story apparently unknown to Tertullian who refers to Tacitus and christians under Nero, but not to this passage. What we find in reading it is that the christians suffer horribly for their faith and even pagan passers by are driven to feel compassion for their sufferings.

The passage does talk of the christians as criminals, which might suggest to some that christians couldn't write such things about christians. However, such a fainthearted approach to the endeavor would render the passage obviously out of place.

The story serves no polemical value to Tacitus's efforts to inculpate Nero for the fire.

4) Continuity

In 15.39.2 we learn that Nero opened his gardens to the people made homeless by the fire and he had temporary structures built to provide shelter for them, yet these acts are unknown to the writer of the martyrdom story who opens the gardens again in 15.44.5 for the spectacle. Maybe Nero forgot that he'd already opened his gardens and built shelters there. It is so unlikely that Tacitus would make such an error after having worked so meticulously at his task of nailing Nero to the wall for his reputed hand in the fire. Someone more interested in inserting a martyrdom story on the other hand would not pay so much attention as Tacitus had clearly done.

5) Discourse structure of Tacitus's analysis of the fire

The description of the fire started in A.15.38. He analyzes the impact of the fire in A.15.41. In A.15.42 Tacitus then describes the new palace of Nero built after the fire as well as further wasteful measures he enacted, but which got nowhere. A.15.43 talks about Nero's city reconstruction measures. We finally arrive at the close of the discourse:

[T2]"Such indeed were the precautions of human wisdom. The next thing was to seek means of propitiating the gods, and recourse was had to the Sibylline books, by the direction of which prayers were offered to Vulcanus, Ceres, and Proserpina. Juno, too, was entreated by the matrons, first, in the Capitol, then on the nearest part of the coast, where water was procured to sprinkle the temple and image of the goddess. 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."[/T2]
What Tacitus has done, and he has consciously constructed his text with meticulous care, was to place the relevant post-dated facts, including the passage about the reconstruction, before this conclusion. This conclusion is masterly:

[T2]"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."[/T2]
There is no escaping the fact that Nero is guilty of starting the fire. Tacitus doesn't need to say it. His statement has all the subtlety of the snake. Having done that he's going to waste that effort to insert a distraction about christian martyrdoms, isn't he? In the narrative, this treatment of the christians is just another human effort after describing the fact that all human efforts didn't banish the sinister belief.

The conclusion about the conflagration being "the result of an order" is drowned by a description of christian martyrdoms and all of Tacitus's work pinning the fire on Nero has dissipated into a gorefest of christians going crispy crackly into the night.

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There are various other problems with the passage, but these five are the most significant. They all point to a writer other than Tacitus being responsible for the christian martyrdom scene.

stephan huller

Very interesting spin,

For what it's worth, I have my suspicions about parts of Tacitus's description of the destruction of the Jewish temple too. Your reasoning seems sound to me at least.

spin

If the above analysis is correct we can consider where the addition to Tacitus comes from. At the beginning of the 5th century, Sulpicius Severus wrote a passage that is similar to the passage now found in A.15.44. It uses Tacitus's comment about the order and tells of the christians martyrdoms, as follows:

[T2]{c:w=10%}-|
{c:w=45%}Sulpicius Severus|
{c:w=45%}Tacitus||
{c:av=top}Intro:|
{c:av=top}(Brief reference to the fire)|
(Long narrative regarding the fire)||
{c:av=top;b-b=3,double,black}Material rewritten from Tacitus:|
{c:av=top;b-b=3,double,black}And in fact, Nero could not by any means he tried escape from the charge that the fire had been caused by his orders.|
{c:av=top;b-b=3,double,black}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.||
{c:av=top}S.S.'s continuation|
{c:av=top}He therefore turned the accusation against the Christians, and the most cruel tortures were accordingly inflicted upon the innocent. Nay, even new kinds of death were invented, so that, being covered in the skins of wild beasts, they perished by being devoured by dogs, while many were crucified or slain by fire, and not a few were set apart for this purpose, that, when the day came to a close, they should be consumed to serve for light during the night. In this way, cruelty first began to be manifested against the Christians. Afterwards, too, their religion was prohibited by laws which were enacted; and by edicts openly set forth it was proclaimed unlawful to be a Christian.|
[/T2]
The new material in Sulpicius Severus is a natural development for that writer and offers nothing unexpected in his work. The material has then been used by the writer of the Annals passage, though it has been augmented with new material:

[T2]{c:w=10%}-|
{c:w=45%}Sulpicius Severus|
{c:w=45%}Tacitus||
{c:av=top}Intro:|
{c:av=top}(Brief reference to the fire)|
(Long narrative regarding the fire)||
{c:av=top;b-b=3,double,black}Material rewritten from Tacitus:|
{c:av=top;b-b=3,double,black}And in fact, Nero could not by any means he tried escape from the charge that the fire had been caused by his orders.|
{c:av=top;b-b=3,double,black}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.||
{c:av=top;b-b=3,double,black}S.S.'s new material: the accusation|
{c:av=top;b-b=3,double,black}He therefore turned the accusation against the Christians, and the most cruel tortures were accordingly inflicted upon the innocent.|
{c:av=top;b-b=3,double,black}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 'Chrestians' by the populace.||
{c:av=top}The witness to christ:|
{c:av=top}(no witness)|
Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius by order of a procurator, Pontius Pilate, 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 center and become popular.||
{c:av=top;b-b=3,double,black}The arrests:|
{c:av=top;b-b=3,double,black}(no arrest)|
{c:av=top;b-b=3,double,black}Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind.||
{c:av=top}SS material: the tortures|
Nay, even new kinds of death were invented, so that, being covered in the skins of wild beasts, they perished by being devoured by dogs, while many were crucified|
{c:av=top}Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were crucified,|
||
{c:av=top;b-b=3,double,black}SS material: christians alight|
{c:av=top;b-b=3,double,black}or slain by fire, and not a few were set apart for this purpose, that, when the day came to a close, they should be consumed to serve for light during the night.|
{c:av=top;b-b=3,double,black}or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.||
{c:av=top;b-b=3,double,black}Compassion for the martyrs:|
{c:av=top;b-b=3,double,black}(no compassion)|
{c:av=top;b-b=3,double,black}Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed.||
{c:av=top}SS's conclusion|
In this way, cruelty first began to be manifested against the Christians. Afterwards, too, their religion was prohibited by laws which were enacted; and by edicts openly set forth it was proclaimed unlawful to be a Christian.|
[/T2]
While the witness to christ is not necessary for the Sulpicius Severus version, it would be strange, had he used the martyrdom story in A.15.44 as his source, to omit either the arrests or the compassion of the passers by.

From the time of Sulpicius Severus to the time of the manuscript containing the Annals and our passage there is a thousand years of opportunity to develop the Sulpicius Severus material as we see it today in A.15.44.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Chaucer,

You have Agapius quoting the TF from "the treatises that he has written on the governance of the Jews:"

The English translation on Tertullian.Org has "Josephus the Hebrew spoke of this also in his books which he wrote about the wars of the Jews:"


Can you explain the discrepancy?

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Chaucer

You see what's happening here: we're falling back into the pattern of concentrating on one passage rather than addressing -- as Steve puts it -- all the nuns in the bus. Spin is more on target with the OP when he's putting out his hegemony ideas in an earlier post than when he's just addressing one textual passage, as here.

The hegemony idea is to the point. Unfortunately, it still takes an incredible series of coincidences to suppose that the Mishnah and Suetonius and Tacitus and Josephus are each, by pure coincidence, compromised through random exposure to this hegemony. Again, that's special pleading, however fancily dressed up.

This is why MJ remains a faith position: We're supposed to seriously consider coincidence upon coincidence for chronicle upon chronicle outside the Christian orbit. Oh, it must have been tampered with! -- and all this wrapped in a bright hegemony bundle!

Now this is a pure faith position, and not a reasoned one.

Furthermore, I'm surprised that no one considers the possibility that since the earliest extant fragment containing the Antiq. 18.63 passage comes from an Arab artifact, and since preservation of many of the ancient pagan world's texts was as much thanks to the Arabs as anyone else, how unlikely is it that many early versions of these pagan materials might have passed through Islamic hands as much as Christian ones?

Chaucer

spin

Next step in this Via Crucis is the Testamentum Flavianum (AJ 18.63-64, 18.3.3).
[HR=1]100[/HR]

The Testamentum Flavianum (TF) is generally acknowledged as having been worked on by christians. The only problem we really have to deal with is just how much of the TF was the work of christians. I have usually argued here that the problem is arbitrary and once some christian work has been acknowledge there is no way to know whether it was some or all of it. One doesn't really have to say any more, for the issue is already dead in the water. But for argument's sake let's look at the stuff a little more....

There is a linguistic discipline these days called discourse analysis whose interest is how discourse works, how sentences can be related one to another to form complex thought. It notices markers in sentences which relate them to earlier or later ones.

Let me look at a few markers in AJ 18.65 (18.3.4), which starts:

[T2]About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder...[/T2]

The two markers that interest me are 1) "the same time" and 2) "another sad calamity". These linkages are called anaphoric references because they point back to earlier material, ie at the same time as some already mentioned event, and another calamity like the one just mentioned. In this case both point back to another event which happened about the same time which was a calamity which put the Jews into disorder. We find the calamity in AJ 18.55-62 (18.3.1-2) which deals with a sedition among the Jews ending with "a great number of them slain".

The beginning of 18.65 points straight back to 18.62 as though it followed directly after it, yet the infamous Testamentum Flavium now intervenes to disrupt the discourse linkage between the two sections of discourse. This is a telling indication that the TF was a total interpolation: it simply does not belong between the sedition of 18.55-62 and the "another sad calamity" which happened "about the same time" in Rome.

While the TF could be stretched to contain an event which might fulfill the linkage to "at the same time", though the TF is more correctly a set introduction to Jesus that dealing with a particular event being referenced by "the same time" because it involves the full ministry of Jesus; nevertheless, the TF cannot be construed to be the first sad calamity implied by "another sad calamity" which happened to the Jews, especially when such a specific calamity comes right before it in 18.55-62.

Discourse analysis shows that the whole TF is not original to its location in the Jewish Antiquities. That suggests that the passage is wholly bogus. We have answered the question posed in the first paragraphs: "The only problem we really have to deal with is just how much of the TF was the work of christians." Answer: all of it.

[HR=1]100[/HR]

In case anyone is really interested in a 10th century Arabic version of the TF, this is how it compares:

[T2]Arabic|
Greek||
At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus.|
About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man,||
-|
if indeed one ought to call him a man,||
His conduct was good,|
for he was a doer of wonderful works,||
and (he) was known to be virtuous.|
a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure.||
And many people from the Jews and other nations became his disciples.|
He won over many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles.||
-|
He was the Messiah;||
Pilate condemned him to be crucified and die.|
When Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross,||
But those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship.|
those that loved him at the first did not forsake him,||
They reported that he had appeared to them three days after the crucifixion, and that he was alive;|
for he appeared to them alive again the third day,||
accordingly he was perhaps the Messiah
or
accordingly they believed that he was the Messiah|
||
concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.|
as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him;||
-|
and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct to this day.[/T2]
The Arabic version still has a comment about Jesus being the christ, though more attenuated than the Greek. It still has the resurrection after three days. Neither of these issues leads us to think that the passage was written by Josephus.


spin

jgreen44

I take it is your contention that Tacitus is citing official Roman records when he writes:

"Christus, 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"