For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[Confused Ape]

1- This is a "lost work" of Tertullian ( convenient? ) and even worse was found by Eusebius who also ( coincidence? ) discovered the Testimonium Flavianum of Josephus which no one had heard of before, either.

Even if Eusebius (AD 263 – 339) did invent that quote there's still the question of which records were being referred to. Kenneth Humphries on Jesus Never Existed com says that the Tacitus passage was forged by Sulpicius Severus (c. 363 – c. 425). Did this supposed mention of records give Severus the idea to the forging? (I did a search to see if KH was suspicious of Eusebius quoting from a Tertullian work which is now lost but couldn't find anything on his site.)

I was also pointing out that, according to this lost work, Domitian just had a share in Nero's cruelty even though Domitian was as bad as Nero. I thought it was a biased point of view because Domitian was recorded as persecuting two Christians. Looks like everyone else he murdered didn't count.

Anyway, back to Sulpicious Severus on Jesus Never Existed com.

Quite simply, the reference is a Christian forgery, added to Suetonius to backup the work of the 5th century forger Sulpicius Severus, who heavily doctored the work of another Roman historian – Tacitus – with a lurid tale of brutal persecution ('torched Christian martyrs') which immortalized Nero as the first Antichrist in the eyes of the Christian church (the second Antichrist being the reformist Luther).

He then adds

No Christian apologist for centuries ever quoted the passage of Tacitus – not in fact, until it had appeared almost word-for-word in the writings of Sulpicius Severus, in the early fifth century,

He provided the quote -

The "Tacitus" passage is found in Chronica 2.29..

"Nero could not by any means that he tried escape from the charge that the fire had been caused by his orders. He therefore turned the accusation against the Christians, and the most cruel tortures were accordingly inflicted upon the innocent.

Nay, even new kinds of death were invented, so that, being covered in the skins of wild beasts, they perished by being devoured by dogs, while many were crucified or slain by fire, and not a few were set apart for this purpose, that, when the day came to a close, they should be consumed to serve for light during the night."

The Tacitus passage says nothing about Nero inventing new kinds of death.

Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.

If Severus forged the Tacitus passage why did he write mockery instead of saying that new kinds of death were invented?

The next Greco-Roman writer to mention xtians is Lucian of Samosata c 160 and HE does not mention "jesus" although he does refer to a crucified man in Palestine which indicates that the story was beginning to be fleshed out around then. It is not until Celsus, writing c 180 that we hear of "Jesus."

Eusebius says that Saint Peter was crucified under Nero and early Christian tradition suggests 64 AD.

A forger would have to add a catty remark to the Tacitus passage to make it sound like Tacitus but this led me to ask myself another question about Severus.

a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus,

So, after Severus decided to describe a gruesome spectacle which never happened he must have thought "I'd better not mention anything that Christians weren't saying in 109 AD. People might smell a rat." You'd think that somebody in the 5th century would have jumped at the chance to write crucified instead of executed, mention the name Jesus and hint that the Christians' leader (Peter) had been rounded up with them.

The problem I have with Kenneth Humphries is that, after insisting that Severus forged the Tacitus passage, he ends the page with -

11th century monk corrects Tacitus: "Goodies" to read "Christians"!

Ultraviolet photo of a critical word from the earliest known extant manuscript of Tacitus (second Medicean, Laurentian library, Italy).

The photograph reveals that the word purportedly used by Tacitus in Annals 15.44, chrestianos ("the good"), has been overwritten as christianos ("the Christians") by a later hand, a deceit which explains the excessive space between the letters and the exaggerated "dot" (dash) above the new "i". The entire "torched Christians" passage of Tacitus is not only fake, it has been repeatedly "worked over" by fraudsters to improve its value as evidence for the Jesus myth.

The truth may be that there was an original gnostic cult following a personified virtue, "Jesus Chrestos" (Jesus the Good). Consequently, they were called Chrestians,

As I said in an earlier post, why would Severus want to say that members of a gnostic sect had been persecuted by Nero when forging the Tacitus passage when he specifically mentions Christians in his Chronica 2.29?

The passage still might be forged but maybe it was done by somebody before Severus's time.

[EGross]

We know that in the year 30, Shammai dies in Jerusalem and Rabban Gamliel the Elder takes over, for the next 5 years there will be people fasting and praying for some redeemer.

I found something interesting relating to Christian beliefs about Gamilel The Elder.

Yeah, their use of Gamliel seems to be contradictory in nature. On the one hand, they have Paul saying that he was kind to the Christians and told the Jews to leave them alone, because if they were false, God would handle it. On the other, you have persecutions of Christians going on as well. You have Paul, a supposed Pharisee, who would have hated the Sadducees who ran the Temple, working with the priesthood, who hated the Pharisees. So just being a name dropper does nothing.

We know of a couple, one called Yehudah, who led a rebellion against the Romans, reclaimed some Jewish prisoners, and claimed he could part the seas and get passage back to Egypt. The Romans beheaded him and put his head on a spike, and massacred many of his followers.

I'm having problems finding him - his name might have been translated into something else in articles written in English. Could you give me some more details such as when he was beheaded, please? I find him interesting because he claimed he could perform a miracle.

I was mistaken, he was the one that came about 125 years earlier. The one I meant to post was Theudus who was killed in the year 46CE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theudas

The other was Judah, Teacher of Righteousness, who was killed around 100BCE. Sorry about that. The book "50 Jewish Messiahs" is a decent reference in that area. I used to read some of them to my step son to get him to go to bed and he often went "How could people be so stupid?!"

Now while there is a "Yeshu" in the Talmud, he is a Hellenized Jew, and given the name of his teacher, he would have lived around 120BCE. And in the centuries that followed, he became a sort of polemic character, and where it said "student" "Yeshu" was sometimes added to mock the Christians. (He is stoned to death for teaching idolotry and was excommunicated for having too much of an eye for the ladies). Obviously not the same guy.

Was that Yeshu Ha Notzri who was supposed to have been stoned to death and hung up somewhere on the eve of Passover? From what I can gather, legends say he was also known as Yeshu ben Pandera because his father was a Roman solider.

Originally, many of the statements just had "Yeshu", the "Notzri" part was obviously later editing additions. In the story (Sanhedrin 43a) about the execution, it says:

And it was taught in a baraita: During erev Pesach, they hanged Yeshu HaNotzri, and for forty days before he [was to be executed] a herald [cried out to the townspeople]: “Yeshu HaNotzri is being taken out to be stoned for sorcery and inciting to lead Israel astray. Anyone who knows him to be innocent, come and stand before him [as a defense witness, at such-and-such a time and at such-and-such a place].” And none were found [to testify] for his innocence, and so he was [stoned and then his body was] hung [on the morning of] Erev Pesach [and then his body was taken down and buried before nightfall].

But Ulla said, “Do you [really] think that Yeshu HaNotzri, as a wayward son, was deserving [of seeking additional refuting witnesses after he was already convicted]? He was one who incited [others to worship idols as he did]. And [even God as the] Compassionate One said, “And you shall note spare [him and you shall not listen to him; your eye shall not pity him, you shall not be compassionate] and you shall not conceal him.” [Devarim/Deut. 13:9]. [So why does it appear that we would be compassionate in the case of Yeshu?] It was different in Yeshu’s case, for he had a close association to those who were in authority [Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachia, his Rabbi, and others].

The Pandera is from the bok "Toldot Yeshu", which is a play on Matthew that begins "These are the generations of Jesus" (Toldot means "generations", but offspring, not ancestry). It is another polemic that seems to be of Spanish origin, but there have been Geniza fragments in Cairo that seem to have bits of the polemic exist in earlier periods, although still hundreds of years later.

[Minimalist]

Even if Eusebius (AD 263 – 339) did invent that quote there's still the question of which records were being referred to.

What records? Eusebius seems to have invented the TF out of the air. Origen, writing a mere 75 years earlier makes specific reference to Book XVIII of Antiquities in Contra Celsus, but knows nothing whatsoever about this passage.

This idea that there must have been records is a sore spot. There were no records of Pilate writing reports to Tiberius ( or Claudius!) but that did not stop xtian forgers from inventing some. Once you lose the idea that there was some reality behind any of this shit it begins to seem possible that it is all just made up and later embellished. The fact is, we can not know what is in the mind of the forger nor his intent. Perhaps the person who wrote the original "report" from Pilate was merely indulging his own fantasy? What might Pilate have said in his report had he written one? If later readers innocently or otherwise thought that the report was genuine that is not the fault of the original author and so the charge of forgery becomes moot. We'll never be able to tell how much of xtian tradition was one idiot embellishing the work of another. Remember that somewhere along the lines what started out as an itinerant peasant ended up as a King in flowing robes. That's quite an evolution when you think about it.


On the other note, I don't necessarily agree with Humphreys about Severus being the forger. Severus does not include the crap about Pilate and Tiberius. Had it existed in whatever source Severus used I cannot imagine he would have deliberately deleted it. But it sure as hell is in there NOW which is either an embellishment of Severus' work, or, represents a completely unknown documentary history of which we have no inkling whatsoever.

But if we simply stick with the facts as we have them and disregard the wishful thinking of jesus freaks we are left, at the end of the day, with the simple fact that the Tacitus reference appears in the Middle Ages... and no one prior knows a damn thing about it.

---

Here in Israel there used to be 3 tombs, now I think they dropped what was a wine press house ("But look, it's got a rolling stone in front, it must be the tomb!") and now have the church of the seplucre and one other, a bit further north.

The reality is, however, that if the Church had any physical proof, and I mean ANY, they would have been waving that flag the day they got it. Even the shroud fell apart when it was shown to be a painting. Crosses? I'm sure the vatican has tons! During the middle ages, none believers were making and selling the stuff like it was going out of style. But carbon dating really is a drag.

There is no physical evidence, and the Church knows it, so there is this idea that "the empty tomb proves that Christ arose" which means, no physical evidence is now the keystone to faith.

This argument has been going on for 2000 years. If the Church finds something for real (rather than buying the stuff one of our local antique forgers has been selling), then we will have something to say. Until then, his existance is an expression of faith by the true believer and nothing more.

You are essentially correct, E. Once again, we are drawn back to the 4th century when Constantine's mother took her famous journey to Palestine and demanded to be shown the holy sites. How would you like to be the junior officer assigned to that detail? Would you tell the emperor's mom that the Roman army had twice burned the whole country to the ground in the intervening time or, would you just make shit up? "Where was his tomb? Oh, right here, Ma'am. We have it on good authority." Yeah, right. And xtians have been falling for this shit for 1600 years.

I laugh my ass off when xtian pilgrims go plodding through the streets on their fucking knees because they think they are following in "jesus'" footsteps. Meanwhile, archaeologists like Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron are 30 feet below them digging at first century levels that were covered when Hadrian leveled the site and built Aelia Capitolina on top of it.

But, I'll tell you this. I don't mind the Arabs and Jews ripping those assholes off with phony relics. They deserve it and it is nice that you guys and the Arabs agree on something!

[EGross]

Down the road from us there is an Islamic viallge named "Bethlehem" (most Christians have fled due to modern persecutions). During Christian holidays, the place gets transformed, and all is gaity, and Christians arrive to bring their babies to be placed on a star in the floor that basically means "This is the spot". So they lay their babies there, take the picture, and move along.

Now is that the spot? Not likely. Who the heck went back and found the spot?!

The Tomb of Rachael is also there, and I took an armored bus there once to check it out. When Jacob dropped his wife in a grave, and then centuries go by and the Jews return, who the heck found the right spot? And based on a biblical reference explained by Rashi, the Bethlehem to the North seems a more likely place. (The Jews were supposed to pass by her grave during exile from Jerusalem to Assyria. They would not have been heading south.)

And then we have the grave of Shimon bar Yochai that on Lag B'Omer, tends of thousands (if not more) people go to his gravesite to give the 3-years old boys their first haircut. How do we know he is buried there? Because a famous kabbalist once visited Sfad, walked up a hill, and said "I feel the soul of Shimon bar Yochai at this spot", and so they placed a marker!

Rabbi Meir Baal HaNess also has 2 grave sites, although only the really tacky one is really visited much (nice view of the water).

My point is, nobody knows where people who historically existed (Shimon bar Yochai and Rabbi Meir, at least) are really buried, but at least they get some mention by the historians of their day. But people don't care, they believe what they are told and stop thinking about it.

Nobody knows where he was born, because that star on the floor of the church sure isn't it. Nobody really knows where he got buried, (exume it? Heaven's no. That stake in his sacred heart is the only thing that keeps the world safe!). You would think that other than a handful of polemics, the Jews would have written SOMETHING that would have matched any part of the story, rather than the later edited insertions. Or the Romans. Or the Greeks. Or somebody.

Nope. But then, it's just a matter of faith.

[Minimalist]

I'll bet you don't think "moses" is buried on Mt. Nebo, either?

[Confused Ape]

What records? Eusebius seems to have invented the TF out of the air. Origen, writing a mere 75 years earlier makes specific reference to Book XVIII of Antiquities in Contra Celsus, but knows nothing whatsoever about this passage.

If Eusebius invented this passage he must have done it to make people think that some records existed. Kenneth Humphries seems happy to accept that the Tertullian quote is genuine so maybe Tertullian did talk about records which didn't exist.

This idea that there must have been records is a sore spot. There were no records of Pilate writing reports to Tiberius ( or Claudius!) but that did not stop xtian forgers from inventing some.

So the Tacitus passage could have been forged to supply another fake record, then. The question is who did it and when?

Once you lose the idea that there was some reality behind any of this shit it begins to seem possible that it is all just made up and later embellished. The fact is, we can not know what is in the mind of the forger nor his intent.

Why would anyone want to forge a passage in Tacitus about Nero persecuting Chrestians who were members of a gnostic sect, though? Gnosticism was regarded as a heresy. If the whole idea of faking Tacitus was to invent persecution of Christians in Nero's time, the word chrestianos must have been a spelling mistake by a scribe. It doesn't even make sense to say that chrestianos were named after Christus.

Perhaps the person who wrote the original "report" from Pilate was merely indulging his own fantasy? What might Pilate have said in his report had he written one?

I've just been reading it. The opinion seems to be that it was written as a form of pius entertainment.Acts Of Pilate

Though the Acta Pilati purports to be a report by Pontius Pilate containing evidence of Jesus Christ's messiahship and godhead, there is no record in early Christian lore of Pilate's conversion to Christianity. It seems unlikely that the work was ever meant to have been taken seriously by Christians; instead, its purpose was to offer further conjectural details about the life of Christ as a pious entertainment, part of a larger body of Pilate literature.

On the other note, I don't necessarily agree with Humphreys about Severus being the forger. Severus does not include the crap about Pilate and Tiberius. Had it existed in whatever source Severus used I cannot imagine he would have deliberately deleted it.

Severus was writing as a 5th century Christian about Christian persecution in his own work so there was no need to mention what Tacitus supposedly said about Christ being executed by Pilate. Everyone would have known that in the 5th century.

But it sure as hell is in there NOW which is either an embellishment of Severus' work, or, represents a completely unknown documentary history of which we have no inkling whatsoever.

A good forger would have asked himself what Tacitus might have said if he really had written the passage. Tacitus's catty remark which covers both Pilate and Christians before leading into another rant about Rome being a cesspit captures his style of writing.

But if we simply stick with the facts as we have them and disregard the wishful thinking of jesus freaks we are left, at the end of the day, with the simple fact that the Tacitus reference appears in the Middle Ages... and no one prior knows a damn thing about it.

Christians like to think that the Tacitus passage gives proof that Jesus existed but it doesn't. Most scholars these days say it just gives us some idea of what Christians believed at the time the Annals were written. The interesting thing is that the rant attributed to Tacitus doesn't mention crucifixion or Jesus or even give a hint that Peter was one of the Christians who were crucified at the spectacle.

Yeah, their use of Gamliel seems to be contradictory in nature.

It got even sillier when Christian tradition made him a secret Christian. The Eastern Orthodox Church even venerates him as a saint. I'm sure he'd have been thrilled to know that.

I was mistaken, he was the one that came about 125 years earlier. The one I meant to post was Theudus who was killed in the year 46CE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theudas

The other was Judah, Teacher of Righteousness, who was killed around 100BCE. Sorry about that.

Thanks for the help.

Originally, many of the statements just had "Yeshu", the "Notzri" part was obviously later editing additions.

Thanks for the extra information. I've copied it into a document for future reference.

[Minimalist]

If Eusebius invented this passage he must have done it to make people think that some records existed.

As Eusebius clearly states in Book 8, 2 of Ecclesiastical History: (he is talking about martyrs)

2. But it is not our place to describe the sad misfortunes which finally came upon them, as we do not think it proper, moreover, to record their divisions and unnatural conduct to each other before the persecution. Wherefore we have decided to relate nothing concerning them except the things in which we can vindicate the Divine judgment.

3. Hence we shall not mention those who were shaken by the persecution, nor those who in everything pertaining to salvation were shipwrecked, and by their own will were sunk in the depths of the flood. But we shall introduce into this history in general only those events which may be useful first to ourselves and afterwards to posterity

This is a man with an agenda. Pretty much like Goebbels.

The xtians found themselves, in the aftermath of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, with an ally on the throne. There is no indication prior to this that xtians cared a whit for things such as the "historical jesus" or relics or pilgrimages or whatever. The aforementioned Origen lived in Caesarea, about 20 miles from "Nazareth" yet apparently never felt the need to visit it. Somehow, and I have to think it is due to politics, the need to have an actual "person" became of importance to the proto-orthodox at this time. We are still at a time in history when writing a book was for a specific purpose if not a specific patron.

Why would anyone want to forge a passage in Tacitus about Nero persecuting Chrestians who were members of a gnostic sect, though?

Who said they were gnostics? Might have been the same bunch of Chrestian troublemakers that Suetonius mentioned. Or, it might have not happened at all.

Severus was writing as a 5th century Christian about Christian persecution in his own work so there was no need to mention what Tacitus supposedly said about Christ being executed by Pilate. Everyone would have known that in the 5th century.

Gee....why would xtians repeat the same shit over and over? Oh, its in their creeds that they make everyone recite like little friggin' sheep. The fact remains that Severus did not quote what is now purported to be Tacitus' words...nor, does he cite Tacitus as his source.

Christians like to think that the Tacitus passage gives proof that Jesus existed but it doesn't. Most scholars these days say it just gives us some idea of what Christians believed at the time the Annals were written. The interesting thing is that the rant attributed to Tacitus doesn't mention crucifixion or Jesus or even give a hint that Peter was one of the Christians who were crucified at the spectacle.

Exactly. But xtians are very eager to fool themselves.

[EGross]

I'll bet you don't think "moses" is buried on Mt. Nebo, either?

Had they even gotten it into their heads to place a marker someplace, it would have been made a theme park by now. The Rabbi Meir baal HaNes "grave" has tacky vendor areas, a mulri-BBQ area for having that family meal by the grave, buy your black velvet painting of how maybe perhaps he might have looked like by the vending machine to buy a prayer book. Special "segulot" (good luck charms guarenteed to control god to get what you want) and incence are also available at a low, low, price.

Had they made a marker for Moses, it would probably have included a "space mountain" styled rides, with Disney having bid on the animatronics.

Yeah, I'm jaded.

---

Yeah, their use of Gamliel seems to be contradictory in nature.

It got even sillier when Christian tradition made him a secret Christian. The Eastern Orthodox Church even venerates him as a saint. I'm sure he'd have been thrilled to know that.

Well, on the Jewish side, weird things about Peter (he gave up that Jesus nonsense and wrote a prayer about repentance that some Jews attribute to Peter) and Paul (Gamliel sent him to turn Christianity into something so weird that only non-Jews would follow it, since there was a war coming) that it's probably fair! And while I cannot find a source via Google, I can attest that this kind of stuff does get passed around in the Yeshiva world!

Fair's fair!

[Confused Ape]

As Eusebius clearly states in Book 8, 2 of Ecclesiastical History: (he is talking about martyrs)

This is a man with an agenda. Pretty much like Goebbels.

Which is why he'd quote Tertullian supposedly saying there were records of Nero persecuting Christians.

I'm now going to reply to the discussion points out of order because I've discovered something which Kenneth Humphries left out of his quote from Severus's Chronicle. Here's the full version with the really important bit bolded.

In the meantime, the number of the Christians being now very large, it happened that Rome was destroyed by fire while Nero was stationed at Antium. But the opinion of all cast the odium of causing the fire upon the emperor, and the emperor was believed in this way to have sought for the glory of building a new city. And in fact, Nero could not by any means that he tried escape from the charge that the fire had been caused by his orders. He therefore turned the accusation against the Christians, and the most cruel tortures were accordingly inflicted upon the innocent. Nay, even new kinds of death were invented, so that, being covered in the skins of wild beasts, they perished by being devoured by dogs, while many were crucified or slain by fire, and not a few were set apart for this purpose, that, when the day came to a close, they should be consumed to serve for light during the night.It was in this way that cruelty first began to be manifested against the Christians. Afterward, too, their religion was prohibited by laws which were given, and by edicts openly set forth it was proclaimed unlawful to be a Christian. At that time Paul and Peter were condemned to capital punishment, of whom the one was beheaded with a sword, while Peter suffered crucifixion.

Gee....why would xtians repeat the same shit over and over? Oh, its in their creeds that they make everyone recite like little friggin' sheep. The fact remains that Severus did not quote what is now purported to be Tacitus' words...nor, does he cite Tacitus as his source.

The Tacitus reference to Christians is -

Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition,thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.

Severus could have added - "Christians were named after Christus who was executed during the reign of Tiberius by Pontius Pilate" to his chronicle account but he didn't. Maybe he thought everyone knew that because the Acts of Pilate have been dated to the middle of the 4th century and he was writing in the 5th century. What he does say, though, was that Paul was beheaded and Peter suffered crucifixion during Nero's reign.

I've been looking around the internet for reasons why Severus is supposed to be a forger but no luck so far. I did, however, find this which just adds another question.

Christians Parroting The Party Line

Another problem is the actual authenticity of the passage as it is almost word for word written in the Chronicle of Sulpicius Severus (who died in 403 A.D.), where it is mixed in with obviously false stories. It is highly unlikely that Sulpicius had copied this passage from Tacitus, as none of his contemporaries even mention the passage. This means that it was probably not in the Tacitus manuscripts at that date. It is much more likely, then, that copyists working in the Dark Ages from the only existing manuscript of the Chronicle, simply copied the passage from Sulpicius into the manuscript of Tacitus which they were reproducing.

The above suggests that only the description of Nero's spectacle was copied in so where did the Tacitus explanation of Christians and his rant about them come from? If the entire passage was forged to mimic Tacitus's style, complete with rant, why didn't anyone take the opportunity to hint that Peter had been crucified in Nero's spectacle? What if the entire passage really was forged but at a much earlier date when the legend about Peter's crucifixion hadn't been invented? Severus could have quoted from what he thought was authentic Tacetus even though he didn't bother saying what his source was.

Who said they were gnostics?

Kenneth Humphries is arguing that the Tacitus passage could have referred to gnostics originally. You gave me the link to his page so I could read Erik Zara's report of the word chrestianos being changed to christianos. KH's own speculation about the change is -

The photograph reveals that the word purportedly used by Tacitus in Annals 15.44, chrestianos ("the good"), has been overwritten as christianos ("the Christians") by a later hand, a deceit which explains the excessive space between the letters and the exaggerated "dot" (dash) above the new "i". The entire "torched Christians" passage of Tacitus is not only fake, it has been repeatedly "worked over" by fraudsters to improve its value as evidence for the Jesus myth.

The truth may be that there was an original gnostic cult following a personified virtue, "Jesus Chrestos" (Jesus the Good). Consequently, they were called Chrestians, an appellation which seems to have attached itself at an early date to the sectarians of the "heretic" Marcion. .

This is why I think he shot himself in the foot where his arguments about Sulspicious Severus forging the Tacitus passage are concerned. Seutonius is a bit confusing with his references.

In The Life of Claudius 25.4, we find the statement, "As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome."

Suetonius also makes mention of Nero's persecution in 16.2: "Punishment by Nero was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition."

This is plausibly a reference to the expulsion of Jewish Christians from Rome.

However, it is also possible that the Jews were expelled from Rome for a different cause. Chrestus is a suitable Greek name, so there may have been an agitator by the name of Chrestus in Rome. Or there may have been a different messianic pretender in Rome. It is difficult to say.

Maybe Christian beliefs had expanded since Claudius's time or maybe he was talking about something else entirely.

Anyway, back to KH making a big deal out of Pliny's letter to Trajan.

Curious, is it not, that such a well-placed, well-educated Roman grandee, directly and intimately involved in the Roman judicial system at the highest levels, and a friend of historians Tacitus and Suetonius, should – in the second decade of the 2nd century – remain so ignorant of Christians and the persecution of them – unless, that is, they were nothing other than an obscure, and insignificant bunch of fanatics and the "persecution" is a fable?

"Having never been present at any trials concerning those persons who are Christians, I am unacquainted not only with the nature of their crimes, or the measure of their punishment, but how far it is proper to enter into an examination concerning them."

Pliny hadn't been involved with prosecuting Christians before so he was checking what the official policy was in Trajan's day. What were the real crimes they should be punished for? I'm using a different translation now because of something else KH said but I think this is an interesting little comment

after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble, to eat in common a harmless meal.

Why would he point out that the meal was harmless? Christians Accused Of Cannabilism

Christians also aroused suspicion among the pagan population. Accustomed to public displays of religion, pagans found the private practices of Christians highly suspect; it was often believed that they committed flagitia, sclera, and maleficia[25]—outrageous crimes, wickedness, and evil deeds. Specifically, Christians were most frequently accused of cannibalism and incest -

Maybe Pliny was telling Trajan he'd checked this rumour out and discovered it was just a rumour. KH continues with suspicion about the letters.

It's worth noting that unlike the 247 letters Pliny himself prepared for publication (so-called books 1-9), book 10, which contains the celebrated letters "96" and "97", was published posthumously and anonymously. "It is surprising," says Betty Radice (translator of the Penguin edition), "that no more letters were to be found in the imperial files or among Pliny's personal papers to add to this record of the relations between one of the best of Rome's Emperors and his devoted servant."

The link I gave shows that there were a lot of letters in book 10 but only two were about Christians. Any forger was obviously very subtle because it comes across as them having no need to discuss the matter further after Trajan had given Pliny instructions about prosecuting them. The other thing is if a Christian forger was trying to make out that Christians were always horribly persecuted, why did he have Trajan come across as being fairly lenient towards them?

KH also said the following -

Pliny was a lawyer in Rome before going to the east. He was only a child when the "persecution of Christians by Nero" supposedly took place but his guardian Verginius Rufus was a high-placed commander at the time, loyal to Nero. Following Nero's suicide, Rufus actually declined an offer from the army of the Rhine to become emperor himself. Any "lurid massacre" of Christians, if it had taken place, could have been told to Pliny as a child – but in later life he recalls no such thing.

Pliny might have heard about Nero's spectacle but why would he want to discuss it with Trajan? Going by the letters it's obvious that Trajan wasn't doing the same things to Christians so stories about Nero's day were irrelevant here. Pliny was also a pagan Roman so why would he have been interested in writing a history of Christian persecution? Only Christians wanted to do that.

I'm happy to read arguments about why some documents are fake but I would like the arguments to make sense. Here's another little gem from KH which is included in his section about Tacitus.

His dastardly story of Nero was embellished during the Renaissance into a fantastic fable with Nero 'fiddling while Rome burned'.

The story about Nero fiddling wasn't embellished from anything that Tacitus wrote because it was Suetonius who said that Nero was singing -

Viewing the conflagration from the tower of Maecenas121 and exulting, as he said, in "the beauty of the flames," he sang the whole of the "Sack of Ilium,"122 in his regular stage costume. 3

Was that bit added to Suetonius's account later? If so, it must have been earlier than the Renaissance otherwise Nero would have been fiddling.

Nero took advantage of the destruction to build his 'Golden House' though no serious scholar believes anymore that he started the fire (we now know Nero was in his hometown of Antium – Anzio – when the blaze started.)

We know that Nero was at Antium because Tacitus said it's where he was - Suetonius only reported that Nero did his singing from a tower in Rome. Tacitus gave Nero the benefit of the doubt where starting the fire is concerned but Nero not being in Rome at the time is no proof that he wasn't responsible. Nobody said that Nero ran through the city setting fire to the houses himself. He's supposed to have given orders for the fire to be started so he didn't have to be there at the time.

Had they made a marker for Moses, it would probably have included a "space mountain" styled rides, with Disney having bid on the animatronics.

Well, on the Jewish side, weird things about Peter (he gave up that Jesus nonsense and wrote a prayer about repentance that some Jews attribute to Peter) and Paul (Gamliel sent him to turn Christianity into something so weird that only non-Jews would follow it, since there was a war coming) that it's probably fair! And while I cannot find a source via Google, I can attest that this kind of stuff does get passed around in the Yeshiva world!

There are some people who insist that Paul never existed. What they fail to do afterwards is explain how and why something which started in Judea was taken to non-Jews outside Judea. The above does offer an explanation.

[EGross]

While what paul does say doesn't line up with the historical facts of Jerusalem at the time, he might have existed and just been a liar. After all, he never met Jesus, claims to have been the only one with a vision, and the walled city of Jerusalem in the year 50 when he takes over, Gamliel is dead and can't say "You said I said WHAT?!?!", and the members of the House of Shammi (now fully infiltrated by the zealots and thugs) have forced the house of Hillel to step down, killing the opposition until they conceded, and forcing extreme religious views on those in the walled city.

If Paul had started selling the son of god stuff at that time, he would have been a dead man. If he was a snake oil salesman, then he would have found a market (slaves and women, the downtrodden), and sold stuff to them. People have wondered why he would have yelled at anyone trying to incorporate Jewish stuff into their practice and said "circumcision, torah, and mitzvot I treated as crap in order to accept a Christ" (paraphrasing). He was so much on the other side, that the conspiracy that he was sent out by the pharisees to get jesus away from the jews has come up from time to time. It may be silliness, but it's still fun speculating.