Proving The Resurrection By the Minimal Facts Approach

[Redbeard The Pink]

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:

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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:  


     His initial reply was this:


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


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


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

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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?

I never said that the passage from the annals was forged or interpolated. I said it could be based on faulty history, and it might not even be that. It might just be a misunderstanding of Tacitus' tone and intention when writing that part of the Annals. The passage we're talking about names christians as a superstitious nuisance and briefly describes them as following a founder named Jesus who was crucified by Pontius Pilate.


He notes in the passage itself that he thinks christians are basically full of shit, so it's possible that he didn't take their beliefs seriously but still outlined them vaguely because he was writing, you know, a history book. Kind of pointless to name a group if you don't say anything else to describe them. Like I said before, though, early christians could have convinced Tacitus' generation of Jesus' historicity even if he wasn't a real guy, and that could be the reason Tacitus didn't blink at mentioning his crucifixion amongst the events of history. Personally, though, I'm leaning toward the idea that he was describing what the christians believed for the sake of briefly describing the cult itself, not for the purpose of claiming that Jesus was really crucified by Pontius Pilate.


At this point, we're both essentially appealing to authority and accepting differing views on what Tacitus wrote. To me, there's nothing about Tacitus' writings that guarantees the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, and there are various historians who agree with me for differing reasons, some of which are apparently more supported than others.


You also haven't really addressed the point that even if I were to concede a hypothetical where we pretend that the main-stream, historical opinion on Jesus of Nazareth's historicity is legit, that opinion is that he was a run-of-the-mill Jewish upstart who might have been baptized by John the Baptist and might have been crucified by Pontius Pilate. There is absolutely no mainstream historian who will try to claim there is evidence of Jesus' miraculous powers or his connection to god. In order to prove any of that, you have to look beyond mere existence.


Furthermore, you don't get to say, "Ok, he existed, and there's this history book about him called the bible, and it says that he did X. If he existed, and this history book said he did X, he must have done X."


The reasons for this are at least twofold. First, the bible is not a history book. It is a book of mythology. Mainstream historians agree that this is the case, just as mainstream scientists tend to agree that magic, in the supernatural sense, does not exist. The other problem is that the bible is the claim. All that crap about Saul changing is in christian writings, so you don't get to use that as evidence unless there's other reliable evidence of that, and even then it only proves he was probably hallucinating.


Even then, you have to put words in Paul's mouth through forgery and misinterpretation to make his writings reference the Human Jesus version of the gospel, which by the way is a point you said you'd bury me on and that you didn't touch (as far as I could tell). I'm waiting to get buried, dude. It doesn't seem to be happening.