Talk Elections

To give some background, in our latest lover's quarrel (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=148677.0) jmcst and I are having a severe disagreement over the historical reliability of Tacitus confirming the historical existence of Jesus. I don't think it is (even though I do think there was likely a historical Jesus on whom the Gospels are based to some degree or another) and jmfcst thinks I'm an escaped mental patient for saying so. He's said that most of the forum supports him on this, and has gone so far as to put me on ignore because apparently my disagreement with him makes me a hack.

So dear forum goers, I'm curious as to which, if either of us, you agree with.

A strong yes or no indicates you think the other side has no case at all, a weak one indicates you think the other side's points have merit but aren't convincing enough to make you side with them. If neither side is convincing, just vote unsure.


Some background on the subject for those of you who don't wish to read that whole thread linked above:

The text in question:


The wiki articles, with some choice bits for your perusal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus#Tacitus


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Christ




Also, I'll just go ahead and apologize in advance for turning a dispute into a poll, but at least I think the topic isn't completely inane. Part of me felt I had to do it. I may not like jmfcst and think he's irrational at times, but I do respect his intelligence and how he takes his own views seriously, so I have taken the degree to which he has insulted me on this rather personally.

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 yes.  It certainly indicates that there was a Jesus, but it can't be used to say anything about what he was like because we have no way of knowing what the source of his information was.

One other oddity I'd like to point out that I didn't in the other thread - Tacitus calls Jesus "Christus".

"Christ" is the title Jesus is given, not part of his name. If the Romans had recorded the matter of Jesus getting crucified, even if just in the manner of logging "We executed Jesus on X day of Y year", they wouldn't have name him "Christus", or anything even remotely close, since the word Christ comes from the Greek "Khristós". ("the anointed one") An official report written at the time in Jerusalem probably wouldn't have used a Greek term.

Even if Tacitus had used an earlier Roman source to get the basic information, that source would have been based on some rather incomplete research since it didn't even get the man's name right, and it wouldn't have likely been the original source of information for the reasons stated above. Of course, this could just be me not understanding which languages were prevalent in which areas of the Roman Empire. (if someone does have info on that I'd like to know about it)

This is in contrast to what is considered to be the most authentic of Josephus's mentions to Jesus - "and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James,".  Josephus's work on the subject also came out two decades before Tacitus's did, so the name of Jesus was known by this point.

“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.

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.



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.

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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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.

The elites from the Western half spoke Latin, the elites from the Eastern half spoke Greek.  Indeed, most of the soldiers raised from the Eastern Empire would speak Greek and use Greek as their lingua franca, and colonial administrators would almost certainly be bilingual in Latin and Greek (as most heavily-educated Romans were).  Though Pilatus would've definitely had Latin as his native tongue, he would've been fluent in Greek and been able to converse with the Temple Priests and other Jewish elites in it (though it'd be very doubtful he'd know any of the Aramaic of his subjects).

This isn't a simple yes or no as you are actually asking me multiple questions here.

1. Jesus as a singular person - There likely would have been a singular person who the gospels were based on, with possibly some things other messiah claimants did/said getting misattributed to him during the period where the traditions were passed on orally.

2. Jesus as a Jew - Given he supposedly claimed to be the Messiah, I would find it strange if he wasn't.

3. Regarded as a teacher and healer - Most religious founders/leaders are regarded as this by at least their own followers. The degree to which he would be viewed as such by outsiders would of course vary. (given Tacitus viewed Christianity as a "superstition" I would say that he did not)

4. Baptized by John the Baptist - I had made no assertions on this particular subject as I had not researched it before. Looking at the wiki article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism_of_Jesus#Historicity) on that particular subject it seems most scholars view it as likely, that they have some convincing arguments to make their case, and that I don't see any counterarguments (which Wikipedia is usually good about providing) I will say this is likely.

5. Crucifixion - If he preached anything close to what was in the gospels there more than likely been a number of folks in the area who would be angry at him, and given that Roman policy often was about taking steps to keep the mob appeased I wouldn't find it unlikely at all that his enemies would work to have him executed in one way or another. Crucifixion was a method Romans used to execute traitors, so if he was charged with sedition then it's one of the more likely methods that would have been used.

6. Execution ordered by Pilate - Given Pilate is well verified as having been the Prefect in Jerusalem around the time, if any type of execution occurred it likely would have more likely than not gone through him.

Interesting. I still find it unlikely that any direct Roman records of the event would name him Christ, but does indicate that at least the term Khristós would have been in use before the time of the crucifixion. I'll have to ponder this some more.

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.

Duly noted that you're not 'too attached' to it. I'm sorry I said that.

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.

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. Hell, it doesn't even look like he bothered to talk to any Christians about it, as they would have known Jesus by name and title. Whatever source he used seems to have had only partial knowledge on the matter.

I'm sure if Tacitus had cared about the beliefs of Christians (given he only dedicates a single sentence to it and expresses disdain, it seems that he didn't care much) he would have gotten both name and title by doing more detailed research into it, but it seems he only bothered to get a basic familiarity on the subject.

Right, and that's why I think Josephus is a better corroborating source than Tacitus is on this particular subject.

Of course Tacitus didn't talk to any real christians. The main thing he does about them is mentioning them in passing to both illustrate Rome's moral decay (always a favourite topic), and Nero's cruelty. Tacitus is essentially worthless as a source on early christianity. (Doesn't he mention their cannibalistic rites elsewhere? Or was that someone else?)

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.

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.

Yes jmfcst, I know what the passage we're debating is - it's in the opening statement. We've only been debating it for days, did you think I had forgotten the contents or something?


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.

But what about Tacitus? Why would he use just the title? Two possibilities occur to me:

1. He didn't know Jesus's actual name due to only a passing familiarity with Christian beliefs, and mistook "Christus" as the man's name.
2. He did know it was a title and chose to omit Jesus's actual name intentionally. But why would an unbeliever, especially one who considered Christianity a 'superstition', use the title alone? So maybe he knew it was a title, but not what it meant? If that's the case it still shows incompleteness in research that could have been fixed by talking to even one Christian. But on the other hand, if he did know what the title meant and knew its significance using it in that fashion would be like saying that Jesus was the Christ - an odd thing for someone with such disdain for the believers to do, don't you think?


This one I came up with on my own, thank you very much. Of course to you ANYTHING I say contrary to what you think is automatically going to be dumb, because I happen to be the one to say it. Also I again note that you are the ONLY person here saying that the arguments I've presented are dumb. The poll results thus far have only you (presumably) going with the strong yes option. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, YOU are the one being unreasonable? You might want to put your ego to the side for a moment to think about it.

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.  

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.

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!

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.

Jmfcst seems to not understand one rather basic thing - that Tacitus accepted something is by no means a reliable historical confirmation based on records.

It is not difficult to surmise that someone would accept a mundane claim. All religious movements start somewhere and have founding members. It would be far more absurd to think that someone had made the entire thing up from start to finish and started spreading it around. So if Tacitus is getting a basic rundown of what the Christians believe, he probably wouldn't find it absurd that there was a founder and that he got executed under the circumstances given how the times were - it just wouldn't seem unusual, so those mundane aspects would be something easy to just accept as likely true and move on. People accept mundane claims all the time, even without any corroborating evidence, because they are mundane and they don't feel it would be worth the effort to try to confirm it.

Given that there's no source for the information on "Christus" given, that Tacitus had expressed disdain for Christians, that Christianity was a minor fringe group whose only claim to fame in his eyes seemed to be being hated, arrested, tortured, and executed by a famed mad emperor, and that none of the information isn't something he couldn't get from hearsay, I just find the possibility that he just accepted some hearsay too great to think the sentence a reliable confirmation of Jesus's historicity. That's not to say that Tacitus couldn't have done good research, but as has been pointed out even though he was one of the better Roman historians he was still not above the types of errors they would make.



I'm sorry, but given the gross ignorance which most Roman citizens would have had about Christian beliefs at the time I don't think it's proof of that. I mean this is a time when Christians were thought of as having cannibalistic rites by many. Nero was able to use them as scapegoats precisely because of the ignorance of the citizenry - that's hardly a good claim to the Roman citizens accepting the historicity of Jesus, much less even knowing who the heck he was at all. You have to keep in mind that this wasn't an age of widely available information - it was primarily only the elite who could afford to give their children full formal education. It's not like the general citizenry were that educated on historical matters.

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. 

As Mikado mentioned, it depends. There are areas where he's more reliable on some things than others. Since he only wrote a single sentence about Jesus himself (with the rest of the stuff around it being about the early Christians themselves) and it wasn't sourced it's not easy to say how reliable it is on the subject of Jesus himself considering the information that was given could have easily been gained from hearsay. Cases where he wrote about people who held more fame than Jesus (at the time) have much more detail to compare against other sources, so confirming reliability is much easier in those cases.

This is a piss poor example to use for comparison for multiple reasons:

1. We actually live in the times.
2. Nobody is actually following, or has ever been recorded to follow, the made up religion you just made up.
3. We have better, more reliable means of recording, storing, and transferring information. (printing press, internet, video, etc.)
4. We have reliable evidence that contradicts your made up religion.

Apples and oranges, as you like to say.

Let's try a different example. Let's say that there were no direct historical records or archaeological evidence whatsoever of Joseph Smith himself outside of Mormon literature. Even without any corroborating evidence, we could infer that since a large number of people moved to Utah to practice that religion, supposedly following Joseph Smith to do so, it would seem absurd to think that all these people would migrate to Utah if the man didn't exist at all. We can infer that Joseph Smith probably existed, but since Mormon literature on him isn't likely to be objective the degree to which it is historically reliable is decreased. If later historians wrote about Joseph Smith, accepting that he likely existed using the obvious inference, it would indicate acceptance as you say, but anything they wrote wouldn't be based on independent evidence.


Which is pretty much exactly why I accept that there was a historical Jesus. I can infer it as likely, but it's different from me being able to confirm it. That Tacitus accepted "Christus" as having been a person that existed and started the Christian faith is not what I'm disputing, rather that his passage is a reliable confirmation based on previous reliable records of the person in question.

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):

Tacitus' remarks in the Annals certainly aren't direct confirmation.  The entry is written some eighty years after the execution of Jesus, and, if Tacitus is relying on any kind of documentary evidence in this report, the passage does not reveal that (it speaks only of what people "call" the founder of the Christian movement, and what Christians were suspected of and "hated" for among the Roman populous.  Tacitus also refers to Pilate as a "procurator," even though this is most likely an anachronism, since Pilate was actually a "perfect" or "governor."  Tacitus also alludes to the "abominations" Christians are rumored to be guilty of, which might be an echo of Pliny's charge that Christians practiced "cannibalism" by consuming the body of Christ during their rituals.  The bulk of the passage appears, that is, to be based on innuendo, and even when it does make reference to Pilate, it refers to him with an anachronistic title.  All this does dilute the strength of the testimony to some degree.

However, Tacitus does not in any way deny, and in fact is entirely comfortable boldly asserting, the salient facts about Jesus, namely that he was executed under Pilate, who was surely a historical figure (and by that time one of immense ill-repute among the Romans).  It also corroborates other evidence to the effect that, by Nero's reign, the Christian population of the empire, and the city of Rome itself, was considerable.  

By itself, then, this passage of Tacitus' is probably only indirect corroboration of the historicity of Jesus.  But, at the same time, it does demonstrate that, by the early second century, Roman officials and historians generally acknowledged that there was a man named Jesus, who was called "Christ" by his followers, who was executed under Pilate, and so it is, when seen in the light of the balance of the other evidence we have, corroboration of Jesus as a historical figure.

Interesting discussion.

What we know is this; Tacitus mentions that a man called by his followers as 'Christos' was executed by Pilate. Which is fine by me; it’s not particularly troubling. It is possible that that a man called Jesus is likely to have existed and Tacitus confirms he was killed (note nothing is said of the supposed 'resurrection') However to suggest that;


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. He simply repeats what he hears. For example he repeats verbatim that the druids were able to perform ‘magic’ as they ‘brandished their torches; while a circle of Druids, lifting their hands to heaven and showering imprecations, struck the troops with such an awe at the extraordinary spectacle that, as though their limbs were paralysed, they exposed their bodies to wounds without an attempt at movement.’

They were then overcome by the Roman opposition and he launches into his usual diatribe against the faith. Again, Tacitus wasn’t there. But he reports that according to the source, the druids imprecations actually worked and paralysed the enemy. In fact, he is less dismissive in his tone to the druids than he is to the Christians.

Tacitus in his talk of the Christians is disinterested with checking or verifying claims. A simple check of Roman records (which we know he had access to) would have confirmed that Pilate was a prefect not a procurator. Nor would he have refered to the man as Christos, which is a religious term conferred upon him by his supporters. Roman records would have named ‘Christos’ by his real name. Therefore Tacitus’ quip about Christians is clearly from a Christian source and is subject to bias.

If we ponder for a moment and imagine that Jesus wasn’t a real person (and note that I’m not making that assumption), but he was ‘real’ to his followers in Rome decades later, then his followers could simply be repeating that lie to Tacitus.

Tacitus, of course, claimed that it is possible for an army to swim across the Menai without mass drowning.

Which may be the fate of boundary commissioners if they do the same thing. Boom Boom.

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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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.

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".

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.

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.

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..

Excuse me, but which of us is that again?


Also, you keep mentioning Josephus, but his reference is not being questioned here - I actually would find his reference to be quite strongly reliable. Not just as inference, but perhaps as actual confirmation. After all, Josephus was born in Jerusalem only a few years after the execution of Jesus supposedly occurred - during his upbringing he would likely have heard something of Jesus (given his followers were still active it wouldn't just be 'old news' that people didn't talk about anymore), possibly from people who had some degree of direct exposure to Jesus. (be they people who had met him or even just people who witnessed the crucifixion) His father also was a temple priest, so he would have been quite informed on it as well and if the young Josephus had questions on the subject he no doubt would have asked him about it. His direct exposure to the people and places were much greater than that of Tacitus.


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, the delivery time taking weeks or possibly longer in some cases. Tacitus probably would have already known that Pilate was the person governing over Jerusalem from prior research, so he wouldn't think it unusual that some seditious Jew was executed by him. He wouldn't necessarily want to take the time to confirm that one detail about a person who was to him was a mere historical footnote involved in a mere superstition.

And as mentioned above Josephus wouldn't have had to use contacts - he likely just knew about it from his younger days.

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. 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.

He writes as an old man remembering Rome half a century beforehand, using unknown sources- nothing official, either, or he would have gotten Pontius Pilate's rank right. I'm assuming he just wrote what he could recall that had been told by or about Christian beliefs to him over the years, considering that the remarks in question were basically just an aside, where he briefly describes the group Nero blamed the fire on, and so I think it was less likely that he "fact checked" that part, especially considering he died pretty soon afterwards.

I don't know whether Tacitus was a reliable source or not, or whether you can confirm Jesus was a real person based on this account alone, but I do think there's enough evidence to confirm that a sizable community existed in Rome at the time that did believe Jesus was real, yes.

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:


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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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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.

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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…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".

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?


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.

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.

Alternatively Tacitus could have just used the equivalent rank that was in use for the position Pilate held during his day for one reason or another. The Pilate rank issue is a minor argument against reliability rather than a major one.

Yes, I edited the post to reflect that possibility as well. In Japanese history the first few dozen Emperors bore one of four different titles, すめらみこと 'sumeramikoto', 大和大君　'yamato ookimi', 倭国王 'wakoku ou', or 天の下大王 'ame no shita ookimi', and during the medieval period 帝 'mikado' was used, but these days they are almost always referred to as 天皇 'tennou' like modern Emperors.

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.

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.

Is it even clear what the difference between a prefect and a procurator would be? Procurator essentially just means 'equivalent to a curator', no? (Quite similar to proconsul, etc.) And consistency of terminology is frustratingly rare with antique authors.

I'm actually not at all familiar with the way the cursus honorum looked beyond the early Imperial Age (Roman history just isn't the same after Actium :( ). Would a procurator have been a former curator? I suppose he would, again going from the proconsul analogy. Didn't Pilatus came from a family of Umbrian rural equites? Curator would have been the sort of rank that would be relatively achievable for someone with such a background. So that seems sort of plausible. A bit off-topic, I know, but to be fair this thread and its companion are all sorts of pointless and a real understanding of antiquity seems to be remarkably absent (not that I've really read any of the marathon posts beyond the first half of the first page), so I might as well ask an actually semi-interesting little question.

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.

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. 

Maybe the other people whom he referred to as prefects had held offices that still had that title during his writing period. Maybe the Pilate stone was indeed in error. It's probably not worth bothering ourselves about; we'll almost certainly never know in this life.

Reliable in what sense?  It's not an eyewitness account. It may have been based largely on hearsay, as 'historian' in that time does not mean the same as it does today.  But as part of a larger body of evidence, it provides another source of confirmation of Jesus' existence and his death.  I don't see a plausible alternative to Jesus' existence.  What this passage demonstrates most of all is the response of at least some Romans to the claims made by Christians about Jesus, and that at Tacitus' time, there was not much question as to the outlines Tacitus presents.