Evidence: The Gathering

[Randy Carson]

Bart Ehrman discusses Tacitus at length in this post in which he destroys mythicist Richard Carrier:

http://ehrmanblog.org/fuller-reply-to-richard-carrier/

He also discusses the "dying and rising gods" theory.

Let me know what you think.

I read the whole section on Tacitus, and I can't find where he says one thing I disagree with, or that isn't the position I hold (except to note that he seems to have shifted in my direction a little bit, since writing his book). I have never argued that the Tacitus passage in 15.44 was an interpolation  (if you don't know, it means "written-in later, by Christian forgers", as they clearly did with Josephus), and consider the passage to be genuine, with the only question being what Tacitus meant and where he got his information.

Rocket-

I consider your remarks above to be good news...you accept the passage from Tacitus as being genuine. You might also consider that scholars also accept the Testimonium to be genuine IF the obvious additions are removed. And even after trimming them out, the TF is quite supportive of the existence of the historical Jesus.

No wonder Ehrman, O'Neill and all competent scholars reject the views of the Jesus Mythicists such as Fitzgerald and Carrier.

Unfortunately, this forum is chock-full of folks for whom mythicism is the lazy man's way out of dealing with the strong arguments of Christianity...if Jesus never existed, then no need to even TRY to come up with an explanation of the Five Minimal Facts, for example.

I have always disagreed with Carrier that Prefect and Procurator were "the same thing", since in light of that argument it makes no sense for Tacitus to have noted that in 44 CE, Procurators were given power to govern provinces. If they were "effectively the same thing", as Carrier argued and Ehrman dissected, such an order would have been superfluous, and certainly not noteworthy even if it was a clarification-order.

Indeed, Ehrman specifically states that my claims here, about the problems with reading Historicity into the works of Tacitus, regarding the source of T's information about the trial of "Chrestus" by Pilate, are accurate, at least according to the email he got and posted from his respected colleague James Rives:

Quote: "I've never come across any dispute about the authenticity of Ann. 15.44; as far as I'm aware, it's always been accepted as genuine, although of course there are plenty of disputes over Tacitus’ precise meaning, the source of his information, and the nature of the historical events that lie behind it.  There are some minor textual issues (the spelling 'Chrestianos' vs. 'Christianos', e.g.), but there’s not much to be done with them since we here, as everywhere in Tacitus’ major works, effectively depend on a single manuscript."

That is effectively my entire position. So I'm not sure what you wanted me to read in that blog.

Nothing specific. I just thought you might be interested.

BTW, one or two of the members of this forum are in the habit of posting the Chrestianos/Christianos image found at Wikipedia as if they have discovered the smoking gun or something. Rives suggests that there is nothing to that.

You might enjoy this recent interview Ehrman gave:

http://ehrmanblog.org/how-jesus-became-g...nist-hour/

I'll give it a look. In return, here's a Catholic Apologist's review of the book: http://www.catholic.com/blog/trent-horn/...cal-review

And btw, thanks for your courteous dialogue.