mountainman

While I think the first two were historical I have quite severe doubts about the historicity of the persecution of christians by Roman Emperors between Nero and Diocletian.

Thanks for pointing out that the known persecution of the Jews and the Manichaeans needs to be also understood as a backdrop and a necessary part of the political and religious context of the 4th century.

mountainman

These early persecutions have been examined by a large number of academics and scholars, with varying resultant summaries. I have not yet gathered up representative samples of opinion on each of these persecutions and am still trying to get at the underlying historical sources by which it has been asserted that these things actually happened.

In the final column on the latest table above I have added a column that provides arguments found against the historicity of the relevant persecution. Again, I am still trying to work towards the identification of all the SOURCES for our current "Belief System".

For example, the persecution under Trajan appears to be based in part on the Pliny Trajan correspondence which has been mentioned in many threads. If these letters exchanged are bogus, and if they represent the only sources, then as a direct consequence of this, we have no evidence for any persecution of christians under Trajan.