"Laughing At Religion" Meme Thread

[Pat Mustard]

The graph is wrong in at least two instances, neither Tacitus nor Josephus wrote about Yeshua.  Both had later insertions which included passages about Yeshua in their works, written by christians.

The text from Tacitus describes the Christians and their beliefs. It does not deal with Jesus directly. It also is part of the narrative of Nero and fits into the  writings fairly well. I believe it is currently accepted as authentic.

The text from Josephus, on the other hand, is clearly an interpolation.

The texts of Pliny and Seutonius are also both about Christians, not directly about Jesus. Pliny is concerned about what to do with Christians that refuse to pay homage to the emperor (which was tantamount to treason at the time). he was trying to find a way to *not* end up putting them to death. Seutonius, like Tacitus, talks about the Christians and their beliefs, but has nothing directly about Jesus.

The earliest text we have for Tacitus has scrubbed out the word "chrestianos" meaning followers of the good, with "christianos" meaning followers of the christ in all locations where christians are allegedly mentioned. Plus putting christians in Rome during the reign of Nero is highly problematic, because in all likelihood there was no such things as christianities until the 70s CE at the earliest, later than the burning of Rome. And even then they were considered a sub-group of judaism until well into the second century CE.