SLUGFly

What about cross-referencing? There are two writers Tacitus and Flavius Josephus, both of whom were anti-christian, who confirm that Jesus actually did live and was actually at roughly the time we would say is year 0 by the common calendar. If you found significant events and then...

Wait... sorry, I just realized that what you're talking about is dating the manuscripts themselves not the information contained. I'll post this anyway since it still has to do with dating...

Godfather

It is not the fact that those writers talk about Jesus, but the Jesus they talk about does not line up with the gospels.

There are several "Jesus'" talked about during that time. (We get the name Jesus from the very common hebrew name Joshua.)

You might want to look up these quotes and do a little research. The Infidels.org library has some interesting literature. You might find those quotes aren't all that they seem.

-Godfather

Lucretius

All that Tacitus mentions in just one sentence is a "Christus" who he says was killed by Pilate in the reign of Tiberius ,it's that vague and even then it doesnt say anything about this Christus' age ,so all we can say IF this is a reference to Jesus is that he wasn't a child at some vague date in Tiberius reign when Pilate was in charge of Judea.
So not exactly good dating evidence.

Roger Pearse

I understand. It's easy to confuse oneself, by mixing up different things, isn't it?

Stepping back from individual texts, yes, we would date a given text because it refers to events mentioned in other texts which can be more certainly dated. It's the same principle, of working from what we can date (with minimal opinion) to get to a date for stuff that is less evident. I always think it is best to get one's method sorted out on material that is non-controversial, before applying it to this sort of stuff.

All the best,

Roger Pearse