Quote:They key line here is 'Christ, the author of this name, was executed by
the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius'. This is the first-ever
reference to a historical Jesus outside the NT, dating to around 116 CE (very
near our cut-off date for usable evidence).
If the passage is authentic. I elsewhere demonstrate (following the arguments
of scholars before me who have argued the same) that this line is
probably an interpolation, and that Tacitus in fact originally described
not the Christians being scapegoated for the fire, but followers of the Jew- ·
ish instigator Chrestus first suppressed under Claudius (as reported by
Suetonius: see §1 1). The line about Christ being executed by Pilate was
added sometime after the mid-fourth century. Before then, no one, Christian
or non-Christian, ever heard of this persecution event under Nero,
or of any reference to Christians in Tacitus; this event is not mentioned
even when second-century Christians told stories of Nero persecuting
Christians!
Richard Carrier, 'On the Historicity of Jesus" Pg. 344
Italics added.
