Bernard Muller wrote: ↑Wed Mar 10, 2021 3:43 pm
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,
Richard Carrier has argued that sentence is an interpolation and
Annals 15.44 works fine without it.
Jay Raskins has proposed Tiberius was inserted to replace Nero and Pontius Pilate was inserted to replace Porcius Fetus, a procurator under Nero.
Raskins argues that
Antiquities 20.8.10 supports that proposition, viz. -
Upon Festus’s coming into Judea, it happened that Judea was afflicted by the robbers, while all the villages were set on fire, and plundered by them. And then it was that the sicarii, as they were called, who were robbers, grew numerous. They made use of small swords, not much different in length from the Persian acinacae, but somewhat crooked, and like the Roman sicae, [or sickles,] as they were called; and from these weapons these robbers got their denomination; and with these weapons they slew a great many; for they mingled themselves among the multitude at their festivals, when they were come up in crowds from all parts to the city to worship God, as we said before, and easily slew those that they had a mind to slay. They also came frequently upon the villages belonging to their enemies, with their weapons, and plundered them, and set them on fire. So Festus sent forces, both horsemen and footmen, to fall upon those that had been seduced by a certain impostor, who promised them deliverance and freedom from the miseries they were under, if they would but follow him as far as the wilderness. Accordingly, those forces that were sent destroyed both him that had deluded them, and those that were his followers also.
See
https://jayraskin.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/294/
nb.
a certain impostor, who promised them deliverance and freedom from the miseries they were under, if they would but follow him as far as the wilderness