Proving The Resurrection By the Minimal Facts Approach

[Randy Carson]

As for Tacitus, he lived from 56 C.E. (well after human Jesus would have lived, died, and floated back up to heeeven) to 117 C.E. and wrote his annals during the later part ofhis life (he died before completing it), putting most if not all of those writings a good 100 years after Jesus would have lived. In an era without modern documentation or science where life spans were averaging 50 years, it is remarkably easy to pass off a fictional character as a historical one to such an extent that Tacitus would have had no reason to disbelieve the story. Also, as I stated before and regardless of what apologists want to argue, he could have easily been writing about the beliefs of the christians regardless of their historical accuracy, meaning to preserve the historicity of the group and needing to briefly describe them in the process. Tacitus is far from being a smoking gun. Nice try.

Apparently Bart Ehrman and his colleague, James Rives, disagree with your position on Tacitus.

In a blistering response to Richard Carrier's negative review of Ehrman's book, Did Jesus Exist?, Ehrman addressed many of Carrier's objections and errors in great detail. The following on Tacitus should serves as a wake-up call for you Redbeard.

Ehrman writes:

While I’m on the Tacitus reference.   At one point in my book I indicate that “I don’t know of any trained classicists or scholars of ancient Rome who think” that the reference to Jesus in Tacitus is a forgery (p. 55).   Carrier says this is “crap,” “sloppy work,” and “irresponsible,” and indicates that if I had simply checked into the matter, I would see that I’m completely wrong.   As evidence he cites Herbert W. Benario, “Recent Work on Tacitus (1964-68) The Classical World 63.8 (April 1970) pp. 253-66, where several scholars allegedly indicate that the passage is forged.
     
In my defense, I need to stress that my comment had to do with what scholars today are saying about the Tacitus quotation.   What I say in the book is that I don’t know of any scholars who think that it is an interpolation, and I don’t.   I don’t know if Carrier knows of any or not; the ones he is referring to were writing fifty years ago, and so far as I know, they have no followers among trained experts today.  In that connection it is surprising that Carrier does not mention Benario’s more recent discussions, published as “Recent Work on Tacitus: 1969-1973,” “Recent Work on Tacitus: 1974-1983,” “Recent Work on Tacitus: 1984-1993,” “Recent Work on Tacitus: 1994-2003.”   Or rather it is not surprising, since the issue appears to have died on the vine (one exception: a brief article in 1974 by L. Rougé).   I might also mention that there is indeed a history of the question that goes before the mid-20th century.  I first became aware of it from one of the early mythicists, Arthur Drews, whose work, The Christ Myth (1909) raises the possibility.  But Drews did not invent the idea; it goes  back at least to the end of the 19th century in the work of P. Hochard in 1890, De l’authenticité des Annales et des Histoires de Tacite.   I’m not sure if Carrier is familiar with this scholarship or not.  But my point is that I was not trying to make a statement about the history of Tacitus scholarship; I was stating what scholars today think.

     But Carrier’s objection to my view did take me a bit off guard and make me wonder whether I was missing something, whether there were in fact scholars of Tacitus who continue to think the reference to Jesus was an interpolation in his writings.   I am a scholar of the New Testament and early Christianity, not of Tacitus!  And so I asked one of the prominent scholars of the Roman world, James Rives, who happens now to teach at UNC.  Anyone who wonders about his credentials can look them up on the web; he’s one of the best known experts on Roman religion (and other things Roman) internationally.    He has given me permission to cite him by name, as he is willing to stand by what he says.

     My initial email question to him was this:  

I’m wondering if there is any dispute, today, over the passage in Annals 15 where he mentions Jesus (whether there is any dispute over its authenticity).

     His initial reply was this:

I’ve never come across any dispute about the authenticity of Ann. 15.44; as far as I’m aware, it’s always been accepted as genuine, although of course there are plenty of disputes over Tacitus’ precise meaning, the source of his information, and the nature of the historical events that lie behind it.  There are some minor textual issues (the spelling ‘Chrestianos’ vs. ‘Christianos’, e.g.), but there’s not much to be done with them since we here, as everywhere in Tacitus’ major works, effectively depend on a single manuscript.

I then asked him about the article Carrier mentioned with respect to Benario, and this was his reply:

Benario’s article cited below is one of a series he did over a period of decades, in which he summarizes other people’s work on Tacitus; they’re an extremely useful bibliographical resource (although there’s no reason that a non-specialist would be aware of them!).  I’ve just checked this particular article, and can only assume that the particular work to which your adversary makes reference is mentioned on p. 264: Charles Saumagne, ‘Tacite et saint Paul’, Revue Historique 232 (1964) 67-110, who according to Benario ‘claims that the Christians are not mentioned in 15.44, that there is an ancient interpolation, taken from book 6 of the Histories, which were written after the Annals, and that Sulpicius Severus was responsible for the transposition’.  So I’m wrong that no classicist has argued that the passage is not authentic.  Saumagne may not be alone: Benario cites another article on the same page whose author ‘recalls that Christians are not linked with the fire before the time of Sulpicius Severus’.  Nevertheless, I would still point out that 1) Saumagne does argue that this is an interpolation, but only from another of Tacitus’ works; 2) the whole thing sounds like a house of cards to me, since Histories Book 6 doesn’t exist and so can’t provide a firm foundation for an argument; 3) this is clearly a minority opinion, since I’ve never encountered it before.

He then pursued the matter further (he’s a *great* colleague!), and wrote me this:

I’ve had a quick look at the two articles in question.  Saumagne does think that the text has been interpolated, but also that the reference to Christ being killed under Pontius Pilate comes from a lost portion of Tacitus’ Histories.  His argument seems very shaky to me, but in either case it doesn’t affect your own, since Saumagne thinks that Tacitus knew about and referred to Jesus, which is the main thing for you.  The other article, by Koestermann (an editor of Tacitus), argues that Tacitus made a mistake in associating the Chrestiani with Christ, but doesn’t say anything about the reference to Christ not having been written by Tacitus himself.  There may be scholars who’ve argued that the reference to Christ is a later interpolation into the text, but neither of these two did, and I certainly don’t know of any others.

I think that’s enough to settle it.  I really don’t think what I said was “irresponsible,” “sloppy,” or “crap.”

Now, Redbeard, what about your own view that Tacitus was simply relying on hearsay from others?

If Ehrman agrees that the Tacitus passage mentioning Jesus is not a Christian forgery or interpolation, then what is it? An honest mistake by an otherwise scrupulous historian whose work is praised for its quality by scholars who specialize in that field?

Or something that is far more problematic for Jesus Mythicists: the truth?