SteveII Wrote:Tacitus: "Most modern scholars consider the passage to be authentic..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on...ical_value'Authentic' means the passage was probably actually written by Tacitus. The existence of early Christians is not in question, and Tacitus knowing what Christians thought happened to their founder is not surprising. If he came by the knowledge in some other way: Roman documents, for instance; he did not so indicate.
I'm in the camp that there was a Yeshua touted as the messiah who got executed by the Romans (though not the first).
If Tacitus wasn't just repeating hearsay, the passage supports that much, but that's a big if, which is one reason why I put the odds of Jesus having been a real person that the legend grew from at around 51%.
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.