Quote:Tiberius (AD 14-37) would be better if you want to play the source comparison game. The primary sources for him are The Annals of Tacitus, written about 109 AD, later even that the Gospels written about Jesus.
Not really. Of those listed below we have something in multiple cases far superior than any of the jesus bullshit: contemporary accounts. Paterculus was an officer under Tiberius in Germania and wrote a history. Seneca died in 39, 2 years after Tiberius. Strabo died while Tiberius was reigning. Even Pliny was nearly 15 when Tiberius died. Recall that Strabo, Pliny, Seneca, and Paterculus have nothing to say about any "jesus" nor did Philo of Alexandria who died c 50 AD.
Quote:Of the authors whose texts have survived, only four describe the reign of Tiberius in considerable detail: Tacitus, Suetonius, Cassius Dio and Velleius Paterculus. Fragmentary evidence also remains from Pliny the Elder, Strabo and Seneca the Elder. Tiberius himself wrote an autobiography which Suetonius describes as "brief and sketchy," but this book has been lost.[92]
Fr. Wiki
Plus Tiberius left thousands of coins, inscriptions, he is mentioned in the Res Gestae Divi Augustus, the so-called "Pilate Inscription" dedicates a building to him.
So, no. Tiberius is not a good example. A better choice might have been Socrates who only exists in the writings of Plato and Xenophon as well as the plays of Aristophanes. Xenophon was a historian, though...which gives him a leg up on the gospel bullshitters.
