Tacitus on historicity of Jesus - reliable source or not?

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Weak yes. jmfcst is perhaps a little too attached to it, but it's reasonable corroboration considering that there's really no reason to follow a mythical-Jesus hypothesis anyway.

“weak”, huh?  You mean just like those same hacks also claimed the corroboration concerning the existence was of Pilate “weak”, and that the nonNT corroboration about Pilate was due to relying upon Christian sources….that is, until the Pilate inscription was found in 1961 and shut down that line of hackery.

What we are dealing with here is the EXACT same illogical argument they used to dismiss the existence of Pilate.

But, in this case, don’t  expect a Pilate-like inscription to be found regarding Jesus, for there would have been no reason for Rome or Jews to have treated Jesus as nothing but a footnote.

If there were Roman and/or Jewish inscriptions in stone referencing Jesus, then these hacks would use them to cast doubt on the NT claims of Jesus being an outsider.  As it is, the fact that Jesus is just a footnote to both nonChristian Romans and nonChristian Jews is exactly as one would expect given the NT account…but don’t expect these hacks to understand that.

And I am not “too attached to it”, for if you go back and read the opening of that thread, I didn’t even mention corroborative evidence until BM asked for it, so I only provided it for the purpose of catching him up.  And the ONLY reason this “discussion” about Tacitus went on for so long was due to Dibble’s deliberate idiocy.

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What we are dealing with here is the EXACT same illogical argument they used to dismiss the existence of Pilate.

Except I'm not denying the existence of Jesus, (which, for the millionth time, I find likely) just how reliable the passage in question is in regards to confirming it.

are you are or you not denying that: Jesus was a SINGULAR person and a Jew who was regarded as a teacher and healer, that he was baptized by John the Baptist, and was crucified in Jerusalem on the orders of the Pilate for sedition against the Roman Empire?

yes or no?

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And the ONLY reason this “discussion” about Tacitus went on for so long was due to Dibble’s deliberate idiocy.

Oh come on now, be honest - you could have just stopped responding at any point. You are every bit as stubborn as I am, don't you even bother trying to deny it.

I'd also like to point out that not one other person has accused me of "deliberate idiocy" on this topic - I think you are letting your personal dislike of me color your opinions.

No, the only thing it shows is that I hate idiocy.  Especially, idiocy for the purpose of hiding denial, whether it comes from Andrew and his stupid destruction of scriptural meaning of Mat ch 19 and Rom ch1, or your refusal to accept the testimony of the best knowm historians of 1st Century:  1st Century Roman history (Tacitus), 1st Century Christian history (Luke), and 1st Century Jewish history (Josephus), even when they corroborate each other claims.

So, Adieu…Auf wiedersehen…Gesundheit...Farewell.

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yo, John Dibble, (to be a bit jmfcst-y)

I'm not an expert on Flavius Josephus by any stretch of the imagination, but I don't think he'd have to rely solely on archives to get information on the execution of Jesus Christ. Especially the name 'Chreistos' must have been quite common even at that point.

correct, it's logically obvious that the context of Christianity regarding the life of Jesus Christ would have well known to Tacitus and the Roman hierarchy, even though Tacitus was a non-believer...unless one is going to argue that Tacitus, historian that he was, wasn't interested enough in historical claims having to do with the decisions of Roman rulers (Pilate’s execution of Jesus) to listen to the central claims of Christianity.

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That's not what 'weak' means in the context of the options in this poll. 'Strong' has to mean that you think the other side has no case at all, and this isn't even a question as to the history of Jesus (on which I'm a strong yes, obviously, since I'm a Christian), it's a discussion of a specific source.

well, I guess if you examine Tacitus’ claims in a vacuum, ignoring other corroborative statement of other historians of the day…anything could seem weak.

But when you’re dealing with three of the best known historians of the 1st Century (Josephus, Tacitus, Luke), and all three are approaching the subject from totally different viewpoints (Jewish leadership, Roman leadership, Christian leadership), hooked into the best historical networks of their time (Jewish history, Roman history, Christian history)…it’s pretty hard to convince a jury of logical people that they all three just happen to find the same story of Jesus sitting in the back of the same Taxi cab and sloppily just all three swallowed it independently on their own.

But, none the less, some of the self-proclaimed ‘scholars” doubted the existence of Pilate, even though the same sources (Josephus, Tacitus, NT) claimed he existed.

Any reasonable (keyword) person, given the tract record of these three sources, would take any corroboration of any fact between these three to the bank, UNLESS there was evidence to the contrary…which in this case there is none.  

Also, any reasonable person would conclude that *IF* the existence of Jesus Christ wasn’t well known and accepted as a given, there is no way Christianity could have begun in Jerusalem, anymore than a religion could have begun in Boston in 1750 regarding some supposedly well known person who was supposedly recently executed in full public view.  People would have simply responded, “Dude, I’ve lived in Boston all my life and have no idea of the events you speak of…”  And the religion would have died right then and there.

But, I’ll leave ya’ll to discuss the finer points of this idiocy among yourselves.

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In regards to Josephus, my point was that he mentioned Jesus by both name AND title while Tacitus didn't. Tacitus referred to only "Christus", seeming to indicate that he thought that was Jesus's name - given it seems unlikely that Roman archival records would refer to him in that fashion, and so it looks like Tacitus didn't use archival records to get that bit of information...

that is a very very stupid statement:

"Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. 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"

I refer to “Christ” all the time, both in reference to Jesus and both as the root word for “Christians”….and not one person in 10 years has accused me of not knowing the name of Jesus.

The NT itself uses “Christ” dozens upon dozens of time without the article “the” and without the name Jesus.

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please stop copying and pasting stupid arguments from the internet, and use your own brain, for once.

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You know both terms, and you know on is a name and the other is a title plus you know the meaning of the title. It's clear why you would use the phrase "Christ", whether you use 'the' or not.

So, basically you’re admitting that YOU don’t know if Tacitus knew the meaning of the title, and you’re admitting that if Tacitus knew the meaning of the title, then there is absolutely nothing strange about Tacitus referring to Jesus as Christ, just as there are many nonbelievers today who refer to Jesus as “Christ” – therefore, you’re admitting that your argument is nothing more than an empty bag.

The same empty bag these “scholars” used to doubt the existence of Pilate even though Tacitus/Josephus/Bible all accepted the existence of Pilate.   They had no contrary evidence whatsoever to doubt Pilate.  

Even though they claimed to be scientists, the only thing guiding their rejection of Pilate’s existence was the axe they were grinding against the bible.  And even though Josephus, who was in the Jewish leadership even PRIOR to 70AD, wrote and wrote about the activities of Pilate related to events beyond the scope of the NT, these “scholars” still did not believe in his existence.

Contrary to all the corroborative evidence from three extremely knowledgeable yet separate sources that were all in a position to know ...these “scholars” held onto their empty bags and denied Pilate’s existence.  And even though they were self proclaimed “scholars”, they proved themselves to be nothing more than cowards who were too scared to face the emptiness of their objections.

And don’t tell me that you’re not denying the existence of Pilate.  I know that you’re not, but your argument is exactly like their flawed argument - your objections are nothing but an empty bag.

Empty bags don’t redo history…they don’t change past facts…empty bags are simply, empty.  In the end, their worthlessness is proven and they are discarded.  They may have comforted the weak minded for a short time.

It doesn’t matter if your argument is declared to you as empty, you’ll continue to comfort yourself with it until it is proven wrong.  Then, you’ll just move onto the next empty bag.  It’s simply in your nature, for although you claim to be seeking knowledge, what you're really searching for is an empty bag to comfort yourself with, which is why even though you are an unbeliever, you can't stop focusing on Jesus Christ, and you'll accept even the most empty of arguments to try to discount him.  

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To those of you who said no, do you accept what he wrote on other historical figures?

as long as those figures aren't mentioned in the bible....cause if they are mentioned in the NT, obviously Tacitus got that info from Christians, who are, of course, unreliable when it comes to 1st Century history.

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To those of you who said no, do you accept what he wrote on other historical figures?

Not necessarily, any more than you should take "collapsable boats" Suetonius or "there was a magical tree at the fortress of Machaerus, I swear!" Josephus or any other classical historian at face value on everything.  For a Tacitus-specific example, he writes down Boadicea's death speech.  A death speech that literally no one would have lived to report and that wasn't given in Latin anyway and is almost certainly 100% fictional.

Well, this whole thread is s bit of a sham since it attempts to isolate certain statements of Tacitus from their corroborative counterparts, as if we are stupid enough to judge it apart from the corroborative evidence.  

Apart from the corroborative testimonies, there is no contrary evidence Jesus wasn’t executed by Pilate, just as there was no contrary evidence to Pilate’s existence.  The discovery of Pilate’s Inscription did NOT alter the past, rather it simply forced hacks to find another empty argument.  There will ALWAYS be empty arguments for people to latch onto, but that doesn’t make them smart, nor does it mean those with simple common sense wont see through it.

What’s more, you’re forgetting the fact that if the Book of Acts just made up a whole bunch of historical secular facts, Christianity would have been immediately discredited in the beginning without an argument if the secular facts weren't in line with reality.  The fact that Christianity began in Jerusalem and spread within the Roman world is evidence in itself that the historical context of the Gospel was accepted as a given.

You simply can’t explain the geographic origin and spread of a religion claiming a history in the immediately past if the secular details of that history didn’t match what was commonly known about the immediate past.   Duh!

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Also notice that Tacitus differentiates between a) the publically known and accepted secular claims of Christianity, and b) the private supernatural claims of Christ’s resurrection, which Tacitus calls “a most mischievous superstition”:

(Roman historian Tacitus)...” a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. (a)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, (a)and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind.”

If  Christianity’s secular claims of Pilate executing Christ were ever in doubt, then why would Tacitus call the claim of Christ’s resurrection “a most mischievous superstition”?!  The fact that Tacitus accepts the historicity of Jesus’ death at the hands of Pilate and yet calls the claims of his resurrection as “most mischievous” is proof that Rome accepted the historicity of Jesus’ death by order of Pilate.

Obviously, if the historicity of Jesus’ death was not accepted as common fact, then there would be no need to isolate the claims of Christ’s resurrection as “most mischievous superstition”.

Also, Tacitus’ statement that “an immense multitude [of Christians] was convicted [in Rome]”, is proof that the citizens of Rome also accepted the historicity of Jesus.  For, there is always a few kooks who can be fooled into buying into a story full of secular historical events contrary to common knowledge, but you’re not going to win over great multitudes with stories that contradict what is commonly known about the immediate past.

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Dibble, if Christianity was based on a false secular history of the immediate past, then obviously that would have been much easier to attack than the supernatural aspects of their claims.

If I made up a religion based on claims of supernatural acts that supposedly happened to a supposedly well known person named Joe Bragg who was supposedly publically executed in Washington D.C. in late 2011 by a supposed United States President David Howell and who later supposedly rose from the dead…

…yet neither you nor anyone else you know living in 2012 had ever heard of Joe Bragg, much less a United States President named David Howell, when you and everyone else knows that Obama was POTUS in 2011…

…you wouldn’t bother refuting the supernatural claims, nor would you call it “a most mischievous superstition”, rather you would call it “asinine” and go straight after the made up claims of secular history of the immediate past that are contrary to everything known about the history of the immediate past.

The fact neither Tacitus nor Josephus attacked the secular historical claims of Christianity is proof that Christianity’s secular historical claims were beyond refutation.  Likewise with the Jewish Christians who lived in Jerusalem – certainly they would have know if Jesus was a historical figure, and if he wasn’t, there is NO WAY Christianity would have been initially taken root in Jerusalem.

It’s just basic common sense. 

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Interesting discussion.

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is nonsense. If anyone is familiar with Tacitus, he generally attacks the beliefs of other, non Roman faiths (the druids in Yns Mon for example) but doesn’t necessarily take the time to refute the basis of their claims.

But, that’s no different than the approach of you and I would take, *IF* there is no secular context to attack.  Take the case of Scientology, there’s not much of a secular historical context to attack, so we simply focus on its supernatural claim, if we focus on it at all. 

But in the case of religion spouting a fictitious grand secular historical context of the immediate past, both you and I wouldn’t waste time attacking the non testable supernatural claims when we could easily discredit those supernatural claims by attacking the secular contradiction.

In the case of Tacitus, not only did he not attack the secular historical context of Christianity, he affirmed it. 

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Tacitus in his talk of the Christians is disinterested with checking or verifying claims.

Why would Tacitus NOT be interested in attacking the secular historical claims of Christianity which also IMPLICATED ROME SECULAR RULE in its claim that the Son of God was killed by the hands of Rome?!  Tacitus was, after all, a Roman historian!

Tacitus had vast access to records and living officials who would have known if the stories regarding Christ’s death at the hands of Pilate were accepted by Rome as historical fact.

The fact that Christianity not only threatened Rome’s religious identity, but also implicated the Roman government, is what made Christianity so “mischievous” in the eyes of Tacitus, a loyal Roman.  But, if the historical context of Christianity was made up, then Tacitus could, with a single argument, totally discredited Christianity’s religious claims, claims that also implicated Roman rule.

But Tacitus did not call the claim of Christ’s execution at the hands of Pilate as “mischievous”, rather Tacitus affirmed the history of that public execution.  Instead, Tacitus attacked the untestable claim of the resurrection, and it was this untestability of the resurrection, interwoven in accepted history, which made it “mischievious”.

It is very very easy to get into the head of Tacitus and see why he viewed Christianity’s claim of Christ’s resurrection as “mischievous” – it claimed a private resurrection of someone who was known to be publically executed by the authority of Rome.

Case closed.

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Just for fun, my all-time favorite passage from Josephus (and an example as to why you should take classical historians with a grain of salt):

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Mikado, do me a favor:

List the number of historical events which are corroborated by both Josephus and Tacitus...then list the number of those historical events rejected by "scholars".

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See, this is what I don’t get about those of you who doubt the historicity of Jesus…

…when I was an unbeliever and looking into the church started by Herbert Armstrong, I didn’t waste time examining the claims of that church I couldn’t test, simply because I knew it would produce ZERO – I had no basis whatsoever to approach Armstrong’s claims of being given by God the answer to 7 mysteries. .

But, since Armstrong was stating that the answers given to him by God were backed up by the bible, then I had a basis from which to test for congruency…so I tested for that congruency knowing that if Armstrong failed the test for congruency, then his claims would be shown to be a house of cards.

That’s just common sense and basic reasoning.

But, in the case of Tacitus and Josephus, they had every opportunity to test the congruency of the historical context of Christianity.  Josephus was a Jewish historian in Jerusalem who had open access to the upper echelon of the leadership of Judaism, Tacitus was a historian in Rome who had open access to upper echelon of Roman leadership…no one can claim that Josephus and Tacitus lacked either the will or the opportunity to discount the historical record of the immediate past as told by Christians, a history that claimed deep involvement and interaction within both Roman rule and Judaism, including indictments against both Rome and Judaism.  So, even if they discounted Christian religious claims, these two epic historians had personal interest to investigate its secular historical claims of the immediate past.

So, even though Tacitus and Josephus had ample motive and opportunity to investigate the secular historical claims and accusations against the institutions that they loved, they never offered an objection against those claims, in fact, they accepted them.

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I'm trying to visualize Tacitus and Josephus, the two great Roman and Jewish historians...with all the contacts they had...never taking the briefest moment to ask those who were 20 years their senior, "Hey, what's with this Jesus story, was he really crucified under Pilate?"...and I’m just not seeing it.

A mere child has enough curiosity to inquire about such basic facts, and these two were historians by choice, renowned in their field, and in the perfect position and surrounded by the best available records and witnesses.

But, I highly doubt they would have had to have asked, with Jesus’ public execution witnessed by thousands, and the subsequent spread of Christianity keeping the memory of his execution in the public conscience…there would be no need for Tacitus or Josephus, or anyone else living in those societies to deny well known facts of the immediate past… which is why neither Tacitus and Josephus denied it, rather they confirmed it.

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I'm trying to visualize Tacitus and Josephus, the two great Roman and Jewish historians...with all the contacts they had...never taking the briefest moment to ask those who were 20 years their senior, "Hey, what's with this Jesus story, was he really crucified under Pilate?"...and I’m just not seeing it.

A mere child has enough curiosity to inquire about such basic facts, and these two were historians by choice, renowned in their field, and in the perfect position and surrounded by the best available records and witnesses.

But, I highly doubt they would have had to have asked - Jesus’ public execution witnessed by thousands, and the subsequent spread of Christianity keeping the memory of his execution in the public conscience…there would be no need for Tacitus or Josephus, or anyone else living in those societies, to deny well known facts of the immediate past… which is why neither Tacitus nor Josephus denied it, rather they accepted it, without question, as fact..

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See, this is what I don’t get about those of you who doubt the historicity of Jesus…

Excuse me, but which of us is that again?

Well, maybe I should have just referred to your overall idiocy in these threads, instead of focusing on a specific example.  Idiocy is one thing I tend to focus on while on this forum, even to the point of trying to reason with Derek over many threads.

Here is a true observation:

At least Sam knows how to conduct a flame war.  No pussyfooting around with paragraph long posts about how much nicer their car is or how retarded someone may be- just straight napalm. 

as I have said before: 

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Sam Spade and KEmperor can both accept idiocy and simply walk away.  I can't.

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Also, you keep mentioning Josephus, but his reference is not being questioned here

That’s because you’re obviously purposely attempting to ignore corroboration, by examining each witness in a vacuum, to avoid dealing with the preponderance of evidence.

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I'm trying to visualize Tacitus and Josephus, the two great Roman and Jewish historians...with all the contacts they had...never taking the briefest moment to ask those who were 20 years their senior, "Hey, what's with this Jesus story, was he really crucified under Pilate?"...and I’m just not seeing it.

The briefest moment? You do realize that they didn't have telephones, e-mail, and Wikipedia, right? The process would involve writing letters to people living in places of various distance[/quote]

…lousy attempt to ignore the fact Tacitus spent much of his career in Rome…what’s more, he was a Roman Senator….he had access to scores of elders who would have know if Rome denied any knowledge of Jesus’ execution at the hands of Pilate, who governed Judea for 10-11 years, and  was summoned back to Rome in 37AD.  Also, Herod Antipas, ruled Galilee for 35 years…both Pilate and Antipas would have had many many previous subordinates who later returned to Rome, thus there would have been no need to write any letters of inquiry in order to establish whether or not Jesus was crucified under order from Pilate


Come on, you’re boring me; you can do better than that.

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Tacitus was born twenty years after the crucifixion; he was still living in northern Italy at age seven during the Great Fire of Rome (he mentions the Christians in the context of their community at the time of this fire, describing how Nero was blaming them for it). He didn't live in Rome for another decade or so, and he didn't write the relevant passage until ~117 AD, some 53 years after his descriptions took place.

eyewitness - someone who has knowledge about an event through seeing it firsthand.

historian - a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it.

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It's also worth mentioning that Book 15 of the Annals, where this description occurs, is generally considered to have still been in a "rough draft" stage; he died before finishing the next volume.

…and, what’s your point?  Are you assuming the finished product would include a historical narrative 180 degrees different from the rough draft?

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I am again going to request the following…

List the number of historical events which are corroborated by both Josephus and Tacitus...then list the number of those historical events rejected by "scholars".

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There's no indication that Tacitus got Pilate's rank 'wrong', either, even if Pilate was not called 'procurator' during his lifetime. The sources disagree as to whether he was a prefect or a procurator, and the simplest explanation is that the position was simply renamed at some point. Which, well...it was. It was attested to have been, twice.

The following call Pilate a prefect:
A single Inscription found in Caesarea

The following 3 call Pilate a procurator:
the NT - from the viewpoint of Judea
Josephus - from the viewpoint of Judea
Tacitus - from the viewpoint of Rome

Given the historical accuracy of titles of officials from the works of NT/Josephus/Tacitus, it is highly highly doubtful that three corroborative yet separate historical views, two from Judea and one from Rome, would have gotten Pilate's rank wrong.

If we knew the whole truth, there’s probably a very simple way to reconcile all 4 sources.  To sit here 1970 years later with just very small fragments of the whole picture, and claim there is no possible reconciliation is extremely arrogant and most likely, dead wrong.

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Also, you keep mentioning Josephus, but his reference is not being questioned here

That’s because you’re obviously purposely attempting to ignore corroboration, by examining each witness in a vacuum, to avoid dealing with the preponderance of evidence.

No, what I'm questioning is whether Tacitus would have bothered corroborating it at all. We know that he was not always the most reliable of historians, even if he was one of the better of his day, and didn't always base his work on reliable sources. I mean seriously, do you think it completely implausible that a man who had the intellectual dishonesty to make up an entire speech and record it as a historical account could have just gone "meh, sound's plausible enough" and just wrote down some basic information he knew from an incomplete source?

…lousy attempt to ignore the fact Tacitus spent much of his career in Rome…what’s more, he was a Roman Senator….he had access to scores of elders who would have know if Rome denied any knowledge of Jesus’ execution at the hands of Pilate, who governed Judea for 10-11 years, and  was summoned back to Rome in 37AD. Also, Herod Antipas, ruled Galilee for 35 years…both Pilate and Antipas would have had many many previous subordinates who later returned to Rome, thus there would have been no need to write any letters of inquiry in order to establish whether or not Jesus was crucified under order from Pilate

1. Part of your argument here relies on the idea that these "scores of elders" would have cared enough about the Jesus issue to look into it. Nobody is saying that there was a concerted effort to deny it, but the fact is that to Rome as a whole it was a minor issue most wouldn't have known about and among those who did and weren't Christians wouldn't have cared much about.

2. Pilate and any of his or Antipas's subordinates who had returned to Rome would have more than likely been dead for decades by the time Tacitus had begun writing Annals - seeing as I don't think you believe they rose from the dead, I think even you would have had a hard time arguing that they were available for a visit.

Aside from the trial of Jesus…the mere trial of Roman citizens who converted to Christianity, and the Jewish petitions to Rome against Christians, throughout the Mediterranean, would have brought attention to the historical claims of Christianity.  Just in the case of Paul, his case was heard before Felix, Festus, Agrippa the Great, and then later tried in Rome after he appealed to Caesar.

Christian historical claims of public secular events would have been widely known in Rome.

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The reconciliation is the fact that the position got renamed twice. It was procurator before AD 6 and after AD 44, the latter period being when NT, Josephus, and Tacitus were written. It was prefect between those dates. There's no conflict.

but Tacitus did use the title prefect to refer to others...so he did know the difference between the titles...so I am not so sure it is that simple.

...heck, for all we know, it might be as simple as the stone inscription calling him prefect was a mistake that was discarded immediately after it was chiseled and reused as the underside of the step in the theatre where it was found in 1961.

There are just too many unknowns…but what is known is that we are nearly 2000 years separated from three corroborative histories from three renowned 1 Century historians from three completely different backgrounds.