Did Jesus Really Exist? Jesus Outside the New Testament part 4

Bismillah ir rahman ir raheem,

As salamu 'alikum wr wb, (May the Peace, Mercy of Allah and Blessings be upon you).

Did Jesus Really Exist? Jesus Outside of the New Testament. Part 4.

Tacitus: The Executed Christ.

Now I have already dealt with the testimony of Tacitus before in the past. So Allah-willing after publishing this particular entry I will also re-public the article I did before. Just so it flows with the theme that I am following on now.

“Cornelius Tacitus is generally considered the greatest Roman historian, yet we do not know his parentage, the city or year of his birth and death (perhaps ca.56 and 120), or even his praenomen (perhaps Publius or Gaius). We do know that he held a series of important administrative posts, including proconsul of Asia in 112-113, where he was the neighboring administrator to his friend Pliny the Younger.”

“The Annals is Tacitus’ last (and unfinished) work. Dating from around 116, it treats events during the years 14-68 C.E. (from the death of Augustus through Nero) in either sixteen or eighteen books. The Annals also survives only in parts, with only Books 1-4 and 12-15 intact.”

(pg 39 Jesus Outside of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence" by Robert E. Van Voorst)

[2] “But neither human effort nor the emperor’s generosity nor the placating of the gods ended the scandalous belief that the fire had been ordered. Therefore, to put down the rumor, Nero substituted as culprits and punished in the most unusual ways those hated for their shameful acts [flagitia], whom the crowd called “Chrestians”. [3] The founder of this name, Christ, had been executed in the reign of Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilate [Auctor nominis eius Christus Tiberio imperitante per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicato adfectus erat].”

“The textual integrity of this section has on occasion been doubted. The text has some significant problems, as attested by the standard critical editions. These and other difficulties in interpreting the text have also led to a few claims that all of it, or key portions of it, has been interpolated by latter hands.”

(pg 41-42 Jesus Outside of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence" by Robert E. Van Voorst)

“Sulpicius Severus’s Chronicle 2.29 attests too much of it in the early fifth century, so most suggested interpolations would have to have come in the second through fourth centuries.”

“Finally, no Christian forgers would have made such disparaging remarks about Christianity as we have in Annals 15.44, and they probably would not have been so merely descriptive in adding the material about Christ in 15.44.3”

‘However, the original hand of the oldest surviving manuscript, the Second Medicean (eleventh century (, which is almost certainly the source of all other surviving manuscripts, reads Chrestianoi, “Chrestians.” A marginal gloss “corrects” it to Christianoi.”

(pg 43 Jesus Outside of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence" by Robert E. Van Voorst)

“The secondary literature discussing Tacitus is extensive. The largest problem in scholarship on Chapter 44 is the connection between the fire and Neronian persecution of Christians. Is Tacitus correct in strongly linking them, or were they unconnected events, as all the other surviving ancient historians who write about the fire contend?”

(pg 44 Jesus Outside of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence" by Robert E. Van Voorst)

For “had been executed,” the Latin reads somewhat periphrastically suppplicio adfectus erat, Supplicio means “punishment”, especially capital punishment, and adficere when construed with punishment often denotes “inflict.” So when combined, they mean “inflict the death penalty upon,” to execute. Tacitus expresses the idea of dying in a variety of ways, and this expression suits his style. But he does not say explicitly that Jesus was crucified.”

(pg 47 Jesus Outside of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence" by Robert E. Van Voorst)

“Tacitus’s description of Pilate as a procurator is in all likelihood an anachronism.”

“This was born out by the dramatic discovery in Caesarea Maritima in 1961 of the so-called Pilate Stone, the first inscriptional evidence of Pilate, dating from about 31. It reads, with brackets containing reconstruction of the lost Latin lettering, “The Tiberieum of [the Caesareans], [Pon]tius Pilate, [Pref]ect of Judea, de[dicates].”

“Most scholars agree that Tacitus, like other contemporary authors, has made use of the procurator title that was more common in his own time, rather than the earlier and historically correct “prefect.”

(pg 48 Jesus Outside of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence" by Robert E. Van Voorst)

86. Pace Paul Winter, who argues that Tacitus had no direct dealings with Christians and writes from hearsay (“Tacitus and Pliny” The Early Christians,” JHistStud 1 [1967-68] 31-40; idem, “Tacitus and Pliny on Christianity,” Klio 52 [1970] 497-502),

(pg 50 Jesus Outside of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence" by Robert E. Van Voorst)

Justin Martyr, writing his First Apology to the emperor around 150, states that a record of the trial and punishment of Jesus called the “Acts of Pilate” was sent to Rome that even contained evidence of Jesus’ miracles (1 Apology 35, 48(, Although Tertullian repeats this claim 9 Against Marcion 4.7, 19; Apology 5, 21), it appears on the whole unlikely. No corroboration can be found for it, and we have no indication that Roman governors wrote reports about individual non citizens whom they put to death.”

(pg 51 Jesus Outside of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence" by Robert E. Van Voorst)

“As R.T. France concludes, while the evidence from Tacitus corroborates the New Testament accounts of the death of Jesus, “by itself it cannot prove that events happened as Tacitus had been informed,” or even the existence of Jesus.”

(pg 52 Jesus Outside of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence" by Robert E. Van Voorst)

Conclusion: The reports attributed to Tacitus are questionable.  I will also publish another entry I have done some years ago immediately after this entry.