Debate with a Christian

[pocaracas]

Tacitus' Annals supports the gospel accounts that Jesus was a Jew who lived in first century Palestine who was crucified by the Prefect of Judaea Pontius Pilate and that Jesus Christ's followers (Christians) were already living in Rome when the great fire in Rome occurred.

Here the historian verifies several key things recorded in the gospels as well as the Acts of the Apostles:

1. Jesus was a man who lived during the reign of Tiberius. This is in the gospels.

2. He was crucified by Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judaea under Tiberius Caesar. This is in the gospels.

3. Christ's followers were already in Rome when the great fire broke out under Nero. In the Acts of the Apostles, the Apostle Paul's final days were lived out in Rome.

This is not the only secular reference that corroborates events recorded in the gospels.

Ah, but you see?... I see no extraordinary event corroborated there.
No walking on water.
No rising from the dead.
No bringing the dead back to life.
No curing incurable diseases.
Nothing... just that there was a man with a particular name, who had other people following his teachings.
Big deal... the same happened for Socrates... who, too, "sacrificed himself" because the powers that be went against his thinking.