show_no_mercy

Are you saying that everyone Tacitus refers to is the namesake of a religion?

GakuseiDon

Sorry, my question is about your claim that Osiris, Attis and Adonis were "dying/rising spiritual beings". What is the evidence that they were "spiritual" beings? Or what do you mean?

Opinion

Could be possible just like all things but the reference is there.



How much long before his wiki shows it was a bit after Jesus but not like a decade me thinks.

Roger Pearse

This comment does not seem to relate to mine.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

You are mistaken. Please don't play with words like this; it makes people impatient.

I believe so. It was the churchmen who were ignoring the data, in the interest of preserving the stability of the Counter Reformation in difficult times. Anyone can do it; I merely suggest that we don't.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

How so? Not sure I follow.

Tacitus says:

"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. Christ, 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."

1. "All Tacitus' statement proves is that there were early Christians and Nero."

Don't we need to ask why it proves these, and not prove the existence of Christ, Pontius Pilate, Judaea, etc? All we have in both cases are his words, you see.

2. "He also tells us what the Christian's believe."

I can't see any reference to this in the text.

These seem to be a list of someone else's excuses. Let's think critically about them, and evaluate them.

This statement is true, but does it support the assertion? Is there any trace in Latin literature of it being used as a title? Is Tacitus using it as a title? We would need this information before we could make any such statement, surely?

I am unable to extract meaning from this, or connection with the starting assertion. Guessing...

It appears to mean "Unless Tacitus names Jesus of Nazareth, then he cannot mean the man we know by that name." To which we need merely ask "why?" After all, I can refer to Christ without so doing! Why not him?

Of course if he did say "Jesus of Nazareth", what would prevent the argument then becoming "Unless Tacitus named Jesus of Nazareth, son of Joseph and Mary, blood-group E, slight limp, born 25/12/1,... then he cannot mean the man we know by that name." If so, this is the technique of ignoring data by making ever increasing demands. We need spend no time on it, anyway.

I don't quite know what is meant here, but how this would be evidence is unstated.

It is uncertain precisely what the titulature was, actually; the use of prefect and procurator is by no means simple in that period. But if so, using the modern title for an ancient one would be easy and normal. I agree that this means that this is not a verbatim citation from a text from the period. But it doesn't appear to be. This need not detain us, unless the argument is "unless we know the sources of Tacitus, we can ignore them." That in turn would be a fallacious argument.

This is so, but why it is evidence -- 99% of literature is lost -- is not stated.

Speculation.

Do we care?

Speculation again.

The same applies to every other part of his book, tho.

In short, these are excuses to ignore inconvenient testimony, and (pardon me) not very educated ones. We don't ignore ancient testimony on these sorts of grounds.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

aa5874

You very well know that respected translations of Tacitus "Annals" do NOT have the word "Christ" but "Christus".

Look at the passage as translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb. 1942.

Tacitus Annals 15,44
Why did you speculate that Christus means Jesus Christ of the NT?

You very well know that the word "Christus" as found in Latin can mean "Christus" just as it is found in the translations in Tacitus "Annals".

LogicandReason

The red I added to Roger's statement (actually wording) and the green is for my emphasis. So Tacitus clearly says the Christians get their name from a person 'Christus.' There is no historical inference that this is Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus of the Gospel stories. THis statement only says the name derives from 'Christus.'

Neither Pilate nor Judaea are doubted in history.

Semantic trickery. Is Jesus (his name) not called 'The Christ' in the NT? Christos is Greek and translates as 'Anointed One,' which is a descriptive title and not a name. What does the 'Christ' reference have to do with Latin literature.

Simply, Tacitus states that the Christian 'hated class' was named after a founder 'Christus.' He thinks it is a name when it is a title. Jesus Christ is not like Jim Bob...two names.

BS Roger...Pilate was a Perfect, not a Procurator. There is archeological evidence from Caesarea Maritima with his title inscribed in stone. The Title of Procurator doesn't come until 44 CE and Cuspius Fadus.

So, your standard for evidence is 'if 99% of history is lost, anything that survived is evidence?'

And that makes it 'evidence?'

You are a Christian apologist, not a historian Roger. I've seen your (pardon me) constructed websites with fictional history before.

We both speculate but only one will admit it. BTY, nothing you said above discredits my speculation.

fatpie42

Christ means "messiah" in Ancient Greek. It is a title and not a name no matter who uses it and Tacitus' treatment of it as if it is a name shows that he has limited understanding of the supposed historical figure.

Which part of that did you not understand?

The person who would have been crucified would have been Jesus (possibly 'of Nazareth') not 'Christ'. The Romans would have crucified a person by name, not by religious title. Since Tacitus only refers to religious title he is clearly referring to a religious belief, not to records of Roman crucifixions.

There's no subtle trickery here. This should be plain and obvious!

I'd guess the argument here is that Tacitus gives no indication of roughly when the crucifixion is meant to have happened. He simply claims 'it happened' which could easily be a reference to what he has heard of Christian belief rather than the reporting of an actual event in history.

You may not have noticed but, without decent historical evidence, any statements for or against Jesus' historicity on the basis of such documents as this are likely to be extremely speculative. The point is what is most likely, so the fact that Tacitus connected a title of 'Christ' to a group of 'Christians' hardly acts as evidence of a historical Jesus, does it?

Yes, but this part of the book is either referring to claims he has heard or to a crucifixion records he has dug out regarding Jerusalem. Which is more likely? (Especially considering that he thinks Jesus is called 'Christus'!)

LogicandReason

Well said.