To what extent do you ACTUALLY believe that the Tacitus manuscript reference is genuine?toejam wrote:Do you ACTUALLY believe that Tacitus' reference isn't a reference to Jesus? Are you that down-the-rabbit-hole?
FFS. it's a reference to a Christus/Chrestus. As Tacitus's friends/contemporaries Seutonius and Pliny the Younger similarly referred. If the passage has specific alignment about being crucified in the same process that the NT Jesus of Nazareth was supposed to have been crucified, why no specific alignment with the nomenclature??toejam wrote:How so when I actually disagree with Ehrman on several of his conclusions? So asking him to do TTA podcast is being an apologist?? Sheesh.MrMacSon wrote:.
toejam,
You are clearly a Jesus & Ehrman apologist
Stop trying to change topic.
Do you ACTUALLY believe that Tacitus' reference isn't a reference to Jesus? Are you that down-the-rabbit-hole?
also,[The Tacitus] story, in nearly the same words, omitting the reference to Christ, is to be found in the writings of Sulpicius Severus 360-420 CE, a Christian of the fifth century:
Is [the] Tacitus Reference an Interpolation?
- In the meantinme, the number of the Christians being now very large, it happened that Rome was destroyed by fire, while Nero was stationed at Antium. But the opinion of all cast the odium of causing the fire upon the emperor, and he was believed in this way to have sought for the glory of building a new city. And in fact Nero could not, by any means he tried, escape from the charge that the fire had been caused by his orders. 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 devored 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.
Chronicles 2.29
[Arthur] Drews concludes that the Neronian persecution is likely "nothing but the product of a Christian's imagination in the fifth century." Eusebius, in discussing this persecution, does not avail himself of the Tacitean passage, which he surely would have done had it existed at the time. Eusebius's discussion is very short, indicating he was lacking source material; the passage in Tacitus would have provided him a very valuable resource.
Even conservative writers such as James Still have problems with the authenticity of the Tacitus passage: For one, Tacitus was an imperial writer, and no imperial document would ever refer to Jesus as "Christ." Also, Pilate was not a "procurator" but a prefect, which Tacitus would have known. Nevertheless, not willing to throw out the entire passage, some researchers have concluded that Tacitus "was merely repeating a story told to him by contemporary Christians."
Based on these and other facts, several scholars have argued that, even if the Annals themselves were genuine, the passage regarding Jesus was spurious. One of these authorities was Rev. Taylor, who suspected the passage to be a forgery because it too is not quoted by any of the Christian fathers, including Tertullian, who read and quoted Tacitus extensively. Nor did Clement of Alexandria notice this passage in any of Tacitus's works, even though one of this Church father's main missions was to scour the works of Pagan writers in order to find validity for Christianity. As noted, the Church historian Eusebius, who likely forged the Testimonium Flavianum, does not relate this Tacitus passage in his abundant writings. Indeed, no mention is made of this passage in any known text prior to the 15th century.
The tone and style of the passage are unlike the writing of Tacitus, and the text "bears a character of exaggeration, and trenches on the laws of rational probability, which the writings of Tacitus are rarely found to do." Taylor further remarks upon the absence in any of Tacitus's other writings of "the least allusion to Christ or Christians." In his well-known Histories, for example, Tacitus never refers to Christ, Christianity or Christians. Furthermore, even the Annals themselves have come under suspicion, as they themselves had never been mentioned by any ancient author....
In any event, even if the Annals were genuine, the pertinent passage itself could easily be an interpolation, based on the abundant precedents and on the fact that the only manuscript was in the possession of one person, de Spire. In reality, "none of the works of Tacitus have come down to us without interpolations."
http://www.truthbeknown.com/pliny.htm
Of course it's (supposed to be) a literary reference source confirming a belief in the historical existence of Christ (and thus of the Greek Jesus Story) and of the (tribe of) "Chrestians or Christians". I could write one myself, today. But what use would it be?toejam wrote:^Forged or not, do you think it's not a reference to Jesus?
wtf are you referring to, toejam?toejam wrote:^Oh hang on, so now you're saying it is a reference to Jesus only forged? Which is it? Forged or otherwise, is it or is it not a reference to Jesus?
That, to me, says if Tacitus was referring to anyone (eg. the alleged Jesus) he would not have called that person "Christ" ie. an 'anointed one'; an imperial title.Even conservative writers such as James Still have problems with the authenticity of the Tacitus passage: For one, Tacitus was an imperial writer, and no imperial document would ever refer to Jesus as "Christ."
The apologetic consensus?Leucius Charinus wrote: The consensus considers it "genuine enough" for example.
The entire line in between (“the author of this name, Christ, was executed by the procurator Pontius Pilate in
the reign of Tiberius”) would then be a later Christian interpolation, attempting to convert this passage about the Chrestians
into a Neronian persecution of Christians. This, too, has been proposed before.27 And there are good arguments in its favor.
First, the text flows logically and well with the line removed. Second, the notion that there was “a huge multitude” (multitudo ingens)
of Christians in Rome to persecute, though not impossible, is somewhat suspect; whereas, by contrast, Jews were present by the tens of thousands,
and there were already enough Chrestus-followers under Claudius to result in a city-wide action against them.
Third, it is not clear why Tacitus, much less the general public (as he implies), would regard the Christians as “criminals who deserved the most
extreme punishments” merely for being in thrall to a vulgar superstition (which was actually not even a crime, much less a capital one).28
But if these were the Chrestians who were already hated for their previous urban violence (which Tacitus would have recounted in an earlier book, when he treated the Chrestus riots also mentioned by Suetonius), their deserving of extreme punishments would be a more intelligible sentiment.
Fourth, Tacitus says the people “called” them Chrestians, vulgus Chrestianos appellabat, notably the past tense.29
Why would he not use the present tense if he believed the group was still extant, as Christians were?
In fact, Tacitus makes no explicit mention of this group still being extant in his own day (notably unlike the Testimonium Flavianum,
which does).30 So it would appear this was a group that Tacitus believed no longer existed (probably having been expunged or disbanded since the Jewish War, if not already decisively ended by Nero’s mass executions).31
But fifth, and most convincingly, there is no evidence that this event happened. The burning of Rome itself is well attested, by both literary and physical evidence.32 But no one seems to have ever known Christians were in any way connected with it, until late in the 4th century.
The Letters of Seneca and Paul (a late 4th century forgery), epistle 12, is the first mention of the event in such a connection, claiming Christiani et Iudaei quasi machinatores incendii— pro!—supplicio adfecti, quod fieri solet “Oh! Christians and Jews have even been executed as contrivers of the fire, like usual!” This account does not align with Tacitus in any other specifics, beyond common tropes and lore, so its source is uncertain. As a forgery this text could simply be reflecting a circulating legend of the time, and embellishing freely. But it is also possible that this is the origination of the legend, which then inspired the interpolation in Tacitus at a later date.
The first direct attestation to the Testimonium Taciteum is usually said to be the 5th century text of Sulpicius Severus, Chronicle 2.29-30, which certainly draws on this passage from Tacitus, but notably it does not attest the suspect line. So it is possible Sulpicius simply assumed “Chrestians” meant Christians
(just as Orosius assumed the Chrestus of Suetonius was Christ), and thus he might not even have been looking at an interpolated manuscript. Before these
two texts, there is no evidence anyone had ever heard of Nero persecuting Christians in connection with the burning of Rome. And that is extraordinarily
peculiar.
Carrier R (2014) 'The Prospect of a Christian Interpolation in Tacitus, Annals 15.44'
Vigiliae Christianae, Volume 68, Issue 3, pages 264 – 283
http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 238#p27389
27 Most convincingly by Jean Rougé, “L’incendie de Rome,” and in a different respect by Saumagne (see previous note). Earl Doherty, an undergraduate in classics, also details a respectable argument to the same conclusion, in line with Rougé (see first note). A similar case for interpolation, suggesting it may have begun as a marginal gloss later inserted accidentally, has also been made online by Roger Viklund, “Tacitus as a Witness to Jesus — An Illustration of What the Original Might Have Looked Like,” Jesus Granskad (2 October 2010) at http://rogerviklund.wordpress.com/2010/10/02/. On accidental interpolation as a general phenomenon see Carrier; “Origen, Eusebius, and the Accidental Interpolation in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200,” pp. 490-91
