No he merely states
No mention of WELL KNOWN Christus, right enough, so it can't be the same guy.
Who is responsible for this Hoax, and when was it perpetrated?
Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus
- Thread starter Nick227
- Start date
- Status
pakeha
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2009
- Messages
- 12,331
No worries, Brainache.
I'm finding confirming or debunking things I'd always thought and been told and was taught about the NT and early christianity absolutely the best show in town, outside of my own work.
These threads and the rabbit holes I follow are also showing me just how much information is available on the Internet.
And just how much is behind paywalls.
Last edited:
There are at least 12 fundamental problems with Tacitus Annals 15.44 with Christus.
1. It is an 11th century copy.
2. The very word ChrEstian was manipulated.
3. It does not mention Jesus.
4. It does not mention a crucifixion.
5. It does not state when Christus died.
6. It does not state Christus was from Nazareth.
7. Many persons suffered the ultimate penalty under Pilate.
8. Christus in Annals was not mentioned by apologetics for hundreds of years.
9. Christus in Annals was not mentioned by non-apologetic for hundreds of years.
10. Christus in Annals was not an obscure character--he was well-known.
11. Tacitus Histories contradicts Tacitus Annals--there was NO Jewish Christ up to the time of Vespasian and Titus or up to c 81 CE.
12. When the History of the Church was composed it was the forgery called the "TF" that was used--Not Tacitus Annals.
13. Nowhere in Tacitus Annals it is asserted that the WELL KNOWN Christus was crucified.
Thought I'd put your other objection to Tacitus back in. You unaccountably omitted it from your list.
dejudge said:
Tacitus Annals 15.44 with Christus is exposed as worthless for the HJ argument.
pakeha
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2009
- Messages
- 12,331
That's an interesting list, dejudge.
I'd add, after Craig B's addition:
14. It's possible, given the similarities in volcabulary, Tacitus hadn't the foggiest notion what Christians were or believed and relied on Pliny the Younger's description of them.
15. Most telling to me is the silence of two historians who were adults at the time of the Great Fire and present in Rome at the time: Josephus and Pliny the Younger. Josephus, given why he was in Rome- I can't imagine Josephus missing an opportunity to underline that honest Jews were perecuted because they were confounded with Christians. Pliny, because his death is witness to his nature- such a hideous spectacle as Tacitus relates would hardly go unnoticed by a man who commented on the loss of noble trees in the conflagration.
Obviously 15 is an example of argumentum ad ignorantiam, or worse yet, an argument from incredulity. In any case, now I have an excuse for rereading Tacitus and Pliny the Elder and reading analyses of their writings.
Belz...
Fiend God
Come on, Dejudge. How recent is HJ ?
Stop running away from hard questions.
Stop running away from hard questions.
pakeha
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2009
- Messages
- 12,331
Dear me.
It appears not everyone is awed by Tacitus as an historian:
"“He knew full well that Pilate was a prefect. He would not have had to check any records to know that. He also knew full well that Pilate, like all district prefects, was the private business manager of the emperor, a lowly money collector and landlord, a filthy procurator. He clearly chose to call Pilate a procurator and not a prefect in this passage as a double insult: on the one hand, his aim was to paint the Christians as pathetically as possible, and having their leader executed by a petty business manager was about as low as you could get (and Tacitus would never turn down a good juicy snipe like that); and on the other hand, he was always keen to remind the reader of his persistent protest against granting equestrians real powers, and thus calling Pilate here a procurator does that, by reminding the reader that the chief of police who executes criminals in Judea is a “... business manager” (“and what the hell is he doing with judicial powers?”). The fact that Pilate was also a prefect and thus had real constitutional authority is the sort of honest detail that would screw up Tacitus’ point. So he doesn’t take the trouble to mention it.”"
A rather robustly worded opinion on Tacitus by none other than Richard Carrier.
Curiously enough, the good doctor also gives credence to the idea Pliny the Younger passed along information to Tacitus about Christians
"Tacitus almost certainly got this information from his good friend Pliny the Younger, who would have gotten it from his strong-arm interrogation of a Christian deaconess in 110 A.D. (when Tacitus and Pliny were governing adjacent provinces in what is now Turkey, and carrying on a regular correspondence in which Tacitus evinces asking Pliny for information to include in the history books he was then writing). And she would certainly have gotten the information from the Gospels, many of which were being read in the churches of the time. So yes, Tacitus is in fact giving us useless evidence, since it is not independent of the Gospels (that’s why his account contains nothing not in them, yet that would have been in an official government record, like Jesus’ full name and crime)."
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/132
It appears not everyone is awed by Tacitus as an historian:
"“He knew full well that Pilate was a prefect. He would not have had to check any records to know that. He also knew full well that Pilate, like all district prefects, was the private business manager of the emperor, a lowly money collector and landlord, a filthy procurator. He clearly chose to call Pilate a procurator and not a prefect in this passage as a double insult: on the one hand, his aim was to paint the Christians as pathetically as possible, and having their leader executed by a petty business manager was about as low as you could get (and Tacitus would never turn down a good juicy snipe like that); and on the other hand, he was always keen to remind the reader of his persistent protest against granting equestrians real powers, and thus calling Pilate here a procurator does that, by reminding the reader that the chief of police who executes criminals in Judea is a “... business manager” (“and what the hell is he doing with judicial powers?”). The fact that Pilate was also a prefect and thus had real constitutional authority is the sort of honest detail that would screw up Tacitus’ point. So he doesn’t take the trouble to mention it.”"
A rather robustly worded opinion on Tacitus by none other than Richard Carrier.
Curiously enough, the good doctor also gives credence to the idea Pliny the Younger passed along information to Tacitus about Christians
"Tacitus almost certainly got this information from his good friend Pliny the Younger, who would have gotten it from his strong-arm interrogation of a Christian deaconess in 110 A.D. (when Tacitus and Pliny were governing adjacent provinces in what is now Turkey, and carrying on a regular correspondence in which Tacitus evinces asking Pliny for information to include in the history books he was then writing). And she would certainly have gotten the information from the Gospels, many of which were being read in the churches of the time. So yes, Tacitus is in fact giving us useless evidence, since it is not independent of the Gospels (that’s why his account contains nothing not in them, yet that would have been in an official government record, like Jesus’ full name and crime)."
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/132
How about this for a rabbit hole:
Josephus doesn't mention the persecution, because he was involved in it. He was in Court circles, lately come from Jerusalem to defend some Priests. Who they are and what their crime is, goes unmentioned. Why? Josephus is usually very forthcoming on things he was directly involved with.
I think these "Priests" might have been some of the Zealots who were at the time trying to block access to the Temple for foreigners, especially representatives of Caesar. If Josephus was defending them, he didn't do a very good job, because these Zealots were the Christians that Nero burned.
So Josephus is big-noting himself for getting in good with the Royal Family, but skipping over the part where lots of his fellow Jews got massacred because he doesn't really have very much influence.
In Acts James describes the followers of Jesus as "Zealous for the Law". Their cult was what Josephus called an "innovation" and the various leaders who espoused this "Philosophy" were "False Prophets".
Learned Roman readers of Josephus would have known about the fire and all that followed, but Josephus might not have wanted to make himself look worse to his fellow Jews than he already did.
Must dash, I'm late for a very important date...
So there we have another un-evidenced imagination based story from Brainache--The "Priests" might have been Zealots but the Zealots were the Christians that Nero burned."
Of course, there is no evidence at all that Nero burned Zealots and no evidence that the ChrEstians worshiped HJ--an obscure crucified criminal as a God.
Josephus mentioned nothing about a new Religion practiced by the priests but claimed they worshiped God.
Josephus appears to have been in Rome c 62/63 CE if he was born in the 1st year of the reign of Caius.
Life of Flavius Josephus
Now, Josephus claimed he was shipwrecked and gave some details of his ordeal at sea so if after escaping from drowning at sea and he ended up in Rome consumed in a Fire then we would expect Josephus to mention it.
Josephus does not appear to have been in Rome at the time of the Great Fire during the time of Nero.
Except Josephus also says
"And now I perceived innovations were already begun, and that there were a great many very much elevated in hopes of a revolt from the Romans." This points to c 66 CE or two years after the Great Fire. Either Josephus was in no hurry to return home or since it didn't effect him or his mission personally he simply didn't mention the fire.
It should be noted if you look at the sequence of Suetonius he mentions that "punishments were also inflicted on the Christians, a sect professing a new and mischievous religious belief" among Nero accomplishments and 16 paragraphs latter mentions the fire. Suetonius makes no mention of Christians being charged with setting the Great Fire...as he gives that "honor" to Nero himself.
Given the tone of 16:2 vs that of 38:1 it appears that the "punishments were also inflicted on the Christians" happened before the Great Fire. People try to say 16:1 with its "punishments were also inflicted on the Christians" indicate after the fire but regarding the Fire's aftermath Sueonius states "Furthermore, to gain from this calamity too all the spoil and booty possible , while promising the removal of the debris and dead bodies free of cost he allowed no one to approach the ruins of his own property; and from the contributions which he not only received, but even demanded, he nearly bankrupted the provinces and exhausted the resources of individuals."
The tonal shift implies that punishments to Christians happened before the Great Fire not after...which mean Josephus would have still be able to mention it.
Or Suetonius was so hell bent on blackening Nero's name that he didn't want to credit him with killing off those nasty Christians.
None of these Ancient Historians are Objective in the Modern sense of "Objective History".
I think rearranging the timeline based on this, is a bit silly.
Not so much rearranging the timeline but showing that the timeline may not be valid in the first place.
dejudge said:
You must have forgotten that it is stated Josephus did return home in the very sentence which preceded the passage you quoted.
Life of Flavius Josephus
It was AFTER Josephus returned from Rome when he noticed the Jews were planning a revolt.
Another significant point is that Josephus shows that Nero's wife did not show him any animosity and implies that Jews were accepted in Rome under Nero.
Josephus claimed he received presents from Poppea, Nero's wife.
There is no evidence that Josephus was in Rome during the Fire in the time of Nero.
Josephus wrote about his shipwreck where he could have drowned so it would be expected that he would have written about the Fire if it happened when he arrived or while he was there.
Now, it is extremely strange that Saul/Paul was also shipwrecked and arrived in Puteoli of Italy around the same time as Josephus.
Paul arrived at Puteoli of Italy c 59-62 CE after being shipwrecked. [Acts 28]
Josephus arrived at Puteoli of Italy c 62/63 CE after being shipwrecked.
Last edited:
David Mo
Philosopher
I have collected the reasons why the exegetes and not Christian historians reach that minimum consensus about John the Baptist. I have invented nothing. If they have or not reason to attribute to the Johannine baptism the intention to erase the sins is not my business, because what interested me was to criticise the belief that the relationship between John and Jesus is well attested. I do this review in the next paragraph and conclude it is not well attested.
The facility to find evidence where there is not is a feature of evangelical exegesis. I find very interesting criticise it, because it illustrates much about the methods of the biased history.
POST SCRIPT: I am not aware that Josephus disallows the evangelical version about John. Another different thing is that Jewish ritual ablutions had other aims.
eight bits
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2012
- Messages
- 1,580
David
It is a problem with the "HJ scholarly consensus" that it comprises a mixed bag of "scholars." It is possible that some of them do advance the view you report for the reasons you cite. But if the reason is faulty, then one of us needs to point that out, and a search should begin for why other scholars, who don't make these mistakes, nevertheless draw the same conclusion (if they do).
For Josephus on the Dunker, see Antiquities XVIII 5.2, which includes
Whether this contradicts or expands upon Mark 1:4 is debatable ("John [the] Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins."). It is interesting that "Mark" has John crisply distinguish his baptism from the coming Christ's at 1:8 ("...I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the holy Spirit.").
On the narrow issue, then, there is ample textual support, secular and canonical, to deny an imputation of sinfulness to anybody, including Jesus, whom John may have dunked. It is, according to Josephus' telling, in black letters, an affirmation of achieved righteousness.
OK, but taking what you wrote at face value, I asked you a few questions and pointed out some difficulties with what you reported.
Well, it is tricky to report your own view along with a survey of opposing views all in one dish. The view you attribute to others is not supported by the facts, as used in the reasons you cite to explain their conclusion. This raises a suspicion that your best-equipped opponents don't actually argue that way.
It is a problem with the "HJ scholarly consensus" that it comprises a mixed bag of "scholars." It is possible that some of them do advance the view you report for the reasons you cite. But if the reason is faulty, then one of us needs to point that out, and a search should begin for why other scholars, who don't make these mistakes, nevertheless draw the same conclusion (if they do).
Of course, Josephus doesn't comment on Christian thinking about baptism. We know that the idea of sacramental efficacy (that the Christian baptism ritual mitigates previous sins) is prevalent in the first few centuries of the Christian Era, long before any "evangelicals" show up. Jews do indeed wash for a variety of reasons, but the Christian movement was a largely Gentile affair even when Josephus was writing, and has not much looked back to its roots since then.
For Josephus on the Dunker, see Antiquities XVIII 5.2, which includes
http://www.ccel.org/j/josephus/works/ant-18.htm
Whether this contradicts or expands upon Mark 1:4 is debatable ("John [the] Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins."). It is interesting that "Mark" has John crisply distinguish his baptism from the coming Christ's at 1:8 ("...I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the holy Spirit.").
On the narrow issue, then, there is ample textual support, secular and canonical, to deny an imputation of sinfulness to anybody, including Jesus, whom John may have dunked. It is, according to Josephus' telling, in black letters, an affirmation of achieved righteousness.
No he merely states No mention of WELL KNOWN Christus, right enough, so it can't be the same guy.
I think Dejudge is talking about the notion of a “HJ”, which seems to have been a relatively recent invention from Christians, theolgians and bible scholars, apparently from the time when modern science slowly began to convince most educated people that the belief in a miraculous biblical Jesus, which had held sway for almost 2000 years, could not be physically true.
I asked at the very start of one of these HJ threads (or perhaps even in the pre-cursor Piggy thread) if anyone wanted to venture a guess as to when Christians and theologians first began to propose a HJ as distinct from belief in a biblical Jesus, but there was never any answer to that.
Presumably the HJ idea arose only because sometime after modern science got going, educated people gradually had to admit that the biblical accounts of Jesus were impossible … so at a very rough guess, I suppose that would be some time around 1800-1900 onward (where 1900 would be very recent indeed … though if we go back to the time of Newton c.1700, then afaik almost everyone still insisted that Jesus was fully miraculous.
pakeha
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2009
- Messages
- 12,331
Fascinating little question this is.
Where was Josephus at the time of the Great Fire?
Yes, I see your point about the Fire, dejudge. Thanks for clearing that up.
It's clear Josephus was unlikely to have been in Rome at the time of the Great Fire. Still, what a mover Josephus was, making friends of the Empress' favourite actor to get an opening to plead the cause of those priests before Nero!
Of the writers who mention the torture of Christians by Nero, Tacitus was a boy of 8 at the time.
It looks as though the only news we have of the Christians' persecution by Nero was written in the second century, after all. Unless we count Suetonius, also writing in the second century.
And yes, dejudge, those two shipwrecks at the same place around the same time seem like a fantastic coincidence, don't they?
They also remind me of yet another shipwreck in Nero's reign, that of his mother in 59 CE.
That is an odd mode of expression. The idea that Christian theologians invented a historical Jesus as a method of preserving the Christian faith. Of course I would expect such a weird statement from you.
My question was
Evidently you reject dejudge's word, i.e. that the historical Jesus is a "hoax", which is the issue I was raising. If you accept it, you must assert that these pious theologians were sustaining their religion by perpetrating a hoax upon themselves. A charming idea.
The truth is, that the increases in human knowledge forced many religious people to examine the supernatural assumptions of their faiths, and increasingly reject them as untenable, as you state, but a real Jesus was not "invented" by them. He was left in place when the other stuff was stripped away. Or so it seemed.
This is one of the points on which I have the audacity to disagree with dejudge. Consider the Angel Gabriel, dwelling with God in Heaven. Once we have abolished God and heaven and angels, then there's nothing left of Gabe at all. But a divinised peripatetic apocalypticist rabbi--when we strip him of divine attributes, we are left with a peripatetic apocalypticist rabbi, by no means an incredible or even implausible character. And in the Writings You Will Not Read there are interesting patterns in the occurrence of the different supernatural and non-supernatural elements, suggesting that they are separable, and that the postulate of a historical background to at least some of the latter elements is not implausible.
In this sense of a historical Jesus, there are even ancient precursors in Celsus and Porphyry in the second and third centuries, neither of whom denied the personal existence of Jesus, but both of whom rejected his supernatural singularity and, of course, his divinity.
It is, if anything, the Christ Myth Theory that is the recent invention.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory
- Status