Theos-Talk Archives (August 1996 Message tl00308)

Commenting the testimony of Tacitus Jerry wrote:

>There is no question that by 110 A.D., when the above was
>written, the story of a Jesus crucified under Pilate was well
>established in the Christian community.  Therefore Tacitus'
>explanation is not historical evidence of the event, but merely a
>repetition of Christian belief, which Tacitus would have no
>reason to question.

It is interesting to conclude that the history about Jesus was probably
before 110 AD, and as you agree, reflects a christian belief that is
present in gospel today. Why Tatian and Suetonius never mentions the
history about Jesus living one century before? Probably this question
only arises several centuries later, and was never mentioned at early times.
In http://marie.az.com/~mrosen/ Hayyim ben Yehoshua writes:

>It is certainly true that the name "Christians" is derived from Christ
>or Christus (=Messiah), but Tacitus' claim that he was executed by Pilate
>during the reign of Tiberias is based purely on the claims being made by
>the Christians themselves and appearing in the gospels of _Mark_,
>_Matthew _and _Luke_ which had already been widely circulated
>when the _Annals_ were being written.  (The _Annals_ were published after
>115 C.E.  and were certainly not written before 110 C.E.)

Tacitus, moreover, describes some of the horrible torments to which Nero
subjected the Christians (Ann., XV, xliv). The Roman writer confounds the
Christians with the Jews, considering them as a especially abject Jewish
sect; how little he investigated the historical truth of even the Jewish
records may be inferred from the credulity with which he accepted the
absurd legends and calumnies about the origin of he Hebrew people
(Hist., V, iii, iv).

Abrantes