(February 12, 2013 at 11:13 am)DeistPaladin Wrote:(February 12, 2013 at 6:18 am)Confused Ape Wrote: The whole point of this topic is that everyone is supposed to be taking the attitude there was no historical Jesus. This means no man behind the myths and legends who could be classed as an historical Jesus. I'm asking people to come up with ideas about how a weird cult in Judea about someone who didn't exist got started and how it spread to Greek speaking gentiles and then Rome.
I wish people would read my opening post properly instead of assuming I'm saying that Tacitus's report proves that Jesus exists.
Tacitus is an interesting piece and the most compelling evidence that there might have been a real man behind the myth. Actually, I would argue ONLY piece of evidence that there might have been a man behind the myth.
Were there any other similar pieces of evidence OR were it not for the long Christian history of forgery, interpolation and pseudo-epigraphy, OR were it not for the evidence that the document was tampered with, I might actually consider it compelling.
As it stands, we have a few problems:
1. The document is 2nd century. This is not contemporary.
2. The reference is oblique. It doesn't even mention Jesus by name. "Christos" means "the anointed one". It's a title, not a name.
3. The document refers to Pilate as "procurator", a title not in fashion until later centuries. His title was "prefect".
4. The reference was so oblique, it's plausible that he might have just been taking their claims at face value, considering Pilate killed a great many Jews and their leaders.
But even putting all this aside, dismissing my concerns as a nit-picking, and taking it all at face value, it tells us two things about the "historical Jesus":
1. There was some unnamed guy called the messiah ("Christos")
2. He was crucified by Pilate.
So we're still at square one trying to figure out what the real story might be.
Quote:Tacitus is an interesting piece and the most compelling evidence that there might have been a real man behind the myth.
How so? Tacitus never sees a jesus. What he writes is hearsay. He is only repeating what he heard not what he saw. He is talking about Nero blaming the christians for the burning of Rome and them shouting something about a Chrestus as their saviour. That word as been forged by a later hand.
