Evidence: The Gathering

[Randy Carson]

Tacitus. AD 116.

Thanks for actually making an argument for the skeptic position. It's pretty rare than anyone here actually does that, so I appreciate your time and effort.

A) 116CE is not contemporary with c.33CE. It is 80 years past, nearly three whole generations later. So again you are wrong.

Publius Cornelius Tacitus (AD 56-117) was a senator and historian of the Roman Empire known to us through the surviving portions of his two major works: Annals and Histories. Considered one of the greatest Roman historians, Tacitus referred to Christ, his execution by Pontius Pilate and to the existence of Jesus’ followers. More on that last bit below.

Notice the date of Tacitus' birth; he would have been about 39 years old at the time that the last living apostle John wrote his gospel in AD 95. The immediate successors of the apostles - people like Clement of Rome, Polycarp of Smyrna, Ignatius of Antioch - were all still alive at the time that Tacitus was in Rome and gathering the data that later formed his two works of history. Clement of Rome, for example, was a disciple of Peter and Paul, and he was in Rome (and pope) until his death in AD 99. So, that's not "three whole generations" from Jesus to Tacitus. Peter taught Clement, and Tacitus was in Rome at the same time that Clement was head of the Church in that city.

Jesus --> Peter --> Clement

IOW, Tacitus was a contemporary of the first generation of disciples of the original apostles. It wasn't "three whole generations" later.

B) Tacitus doesn't actually speak about Jesus. He speaks about a man named Chrestus. Now the thing about the Latin name Chrestus is that at the time it was so common both as a given name and a title that there are literally thousands of references to different people with the name in the surviving fragments of Roman records and books. So the very best you get from Tacitus is that there was a group in Rome at c.65CE who followed an unidentified Chrestus who was killed under the orders of Pilate.

Oh, sure. Pilate killed lots of people who were called "Chrestus" and who had followers who proclaimed that their particular version was God.

Seriously, only one "Chrestus" had a group of followers who became so "notorius" that Nero blamed them for the burning of Rome. Tacitus wrote:

“Therefore, to put down the rumor, Nero substituted as culprits and punished in the most unusual ways those hated for their shameful acts, whom the crowd called 'Chrestians.' The founder of this name, Christ, had been executed in the reign of Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilate. Suppressed for a time, the deadly superstition erupted again not only in Judea, the origin of this evil, but also in the city [Rome], where all things horrible and shameful from everywhere come together and become popular. Therefore, first those who admitted to it were arrested, then on their information a very large multitude was convicted, not so much for the crime of arson as for hatred of the human race. Derision was added to their end: they were covered with the skins of wild animals and torn to death by dogs; or they were crucified and when the day ended they were burned as torches. Nero provided his gardens for the spectacle and gave a show in his circus, mixing with the people in charioteer's clothing, or standing on his racing chariot.” (Annals of Imperial Rome, 15:44)

C) The authenticity of the passage, or it's sources are heavily in doubt, because there is no shred of evidence that Nero persecuted any group calling themselves 'Chrestians' or 'Christians' after the burning of Rome. The fact of the matter is that the church itself invented the 'persecutions', along with most other supposed persecutions by the Roman state in the 4th century.

Atheist (and AF forum member) Tim O'Neill notes:

"This clear reference to Jesus, complete with the details of his execution by Pilate, is a major problem for the Mythicists.  They sometimes try to deal with it using their old standby argument: a claim that it is a later interpolation.  But this passage is distinctively Tacitean in its language and style and it is hard to see how a later Christian scribe could have managed to affect perfect second century Latin grammar and an authentic Tacitean style and fool about 400 years worth of Tacitus scholars, who all regard this passage and clearly genuine."

Atheist author and NT scholar Bart Ehrman agrees: Tacitus provides solid support for the existence of the historical Jesus.

So again you fail Randy. Tell me, how do you put up with such constant and unremitting failure?

When it happens, I'll let you know.