Ben C. Smith wrote:Mark 15.21: 21 They compel a passerby coming from the country, Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear His cross. [It sounds like the original author of this line expected his or her readership to know who Alexander and Rufus were, in a storyteller's device similar to what we find in Ruth 4.16-17, implying both the existence of their father Simon and his unwilling participation in the crucifixion, and therefore also an historical Jesus who was crucified.]
John 21.18-24: 18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go.” 19 Now this He said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He says to him, “Follow Me!” 20 Peter, turning around, sees the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; the one who also had leaned back on His bosom at the supper and said, “Lord, who is the one who betrays You?” 21 So Peter seeing him says to Jesus, “Lord, and what about this man?” 22 Jesus says to him, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!” 23 Therefore this saying went out among the brethren that that disciple would not die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but only, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?” 24 This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true. [So much about the beloved disciple seems iffy to me, but still, the best explanation for the concerns expressed in this passage seems to me to be that there was such a disciple, implying the existence of the historical Jesus whom he had followed.]
Wouldn't these two be a bit (slightly) stronger than Papias and much (much) stronger than the Talmud, in closeness to the claimed witness?
As such, if these are considered important parts of the historicist case, should we not conclude that they are also a case for crucifixion under Pilate? In the case of Simon, he supposedly has sons who are known to the author and/or audience, who presumably could attest to the tale's historicity -- could they not also find it unconscionable to tell it as something other than a crucifixion under Pilate, if they believed it belonged to a different era? In the case of the disciple whom Jesus loved, wouldn't the same apply, since we are talking about a community that once knew him and is grieving his loss -- while we can't expect perfect accuracy, wouldn't changing something as central to the story as crucifixion under Pilate be a bit of a bold, great lie? And, if it were a lie, to what extent could our sources be trusted anyway, if they were misrepresenting the witnesses to such a great extent? If it were a lie, maybe the so-called witnesses didn't actually know a historical man at all? But if it were not a lie, then we don't have as great a deal of ambiguity as sometimes supposed (but, of course, there's still a huge range of ambiguity, even with a crucifixion under Pilate).
For those theories that put the crucifixion in the first century BC, of course, there's also the fact that the timeline doesn't fit, because the Gospel of Mark and John are presumably post-65, and the generations just don't really stretch that far. There is of course the possibility to remove the date from the time of Pilate by making it more recent, like under Claudius or something, but eliminating the 1st century BC also helps to narrow down the space of options. In addition, it eliminates the Talmud as a witness for an option for this Jesus attested by Simon and the disciple (by the argument), since that passage is the 1st century BC option.
It doesn't completely rule out the idea of "Christ in Rome" (the Suetonius reference to "instigation" by "Chrestus") or some other "stunt double." But there are almost as many theories for who the double is, as there are theorists.
It can be added to this, that rather than viewing Tacitus and his "under Tiberius all was quiet" statement as something against a crucifixion of Jesus (most likely part of his understanding of what "quiet" means), it seems just as likely that the hole in his history right where the story of a crucifixion of Jesus could be narrated might have held a longer account than the brief statement that shows up in
Annals 15.44, one which was found offensive and thus left out. Moreover, if we want to start playing from the historicist deck, we could then follow it up with the idea that
Antiquities 18.3.3 could have originally held a much longer and unflattering account, one that suits the descriptions of "misfortunes" and which pilloried the Jesus figure in the manner of Celsus, as paralleled by the following passages (in
Ant. 18.3) on fables and follies and deceived women. It's almost impossible to disprove such an idea, since the text would now be lost and replaced by the current Christian paragraph, but it's an option for those who have started to walk down this road, and it can avoid any reference to a "Christ" in Josephus also (by still positing an interpolation in
Ant. 20.9.1) and explain its lack of quotation by Origen.
In any case, it still comes back to the fact that if we consider these "traditions" or "witnesses" to be historically valuable, the historical "kernel of kernels" of their claim would be the most likely consequence - a crucifixion under Pilate.
Just by sheer number of witnesses, I suppose, you might conclude that the more likely HJ is one crucified under Pilate. When you add quality considerations, the two chief witnesses above would be in favor of the HJ crucified by Pilate. Seems like if one wants to be an HJ theorist but not a crank, it's difficult to avoid being sucked into that vortex.