Tacitus on historicity of Jesus - reliable source or not?

[John Dibble]

To give some background, in our latest lover's quarrel 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:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

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

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

You must be logged in to read this quote.

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

You must be logged in to read this quote.

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.

[John Dibble]

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.

[John Dibble]

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.

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.

[John Dibble]

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?

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 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.

[John Dibble]

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)

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).

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.

[John Dibble]

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.

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.

[John Dibble]

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"

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 must be logged in to read this quote.

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?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

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.

[John Dibble]

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.

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.

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.

[John Dibble]

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

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.

[John Dibble]

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.

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.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

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.

[John Dibble]

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?


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.

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, 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.

[John Dibble]

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.

[John Dibble]

There's no indication that Tacitus got Pilate's rank 'wrong', either. The sources disagree as to whether he was a Prefect or a Procurator, and the simplest explanation is that he was both, which was far from unheard-of in the Roman administrative system for outlying areas.

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.