Talk:Tacitus on Jesus/Archive 1

Voorst

"Robert Van Voorst, who is viewed by some scholars as an apologist for Christianity, writes that "the vast majority of scholars" conclude that the passage is authentic" -- Wikipedia doesn't normally make such an aside for every cited scholar, no matter their perceived bias. Why must this particular person be singled out as an apologist? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.205.201.178 (talk) 05:43, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

POV

This article has an NPOV header because parts of the article are POV. The phrase "We have here an enemy of Christianity,a serious historian,accepting the historical existence of Jesus at a time closer to the events then most modern day critics of his existence.", whilst likely true, is designed to put a POV spin on the facts.

Hmm... I agree. Moreover, the article goes on to say that Tacitus "was not particularly interested in the Jews or the Christians." So like, I'm removing the Tacitus=Enemy of Christ, and the NPOV header.Yeago 21:35, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The article seems to me to be inaccurate to the point of Macbeth's wife. Surely T. is saying more than that Xians (and Jesus) were around: look at the word "evil" Kdammers 02:54, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Linking of Nero

OMG, what a silly damned dumb debate.

Alternate Translation

Since when is procurator supposed to translate into prefect... Ah, yes, since Pilatus was not procurator, unlike what is mentioned in a text written in part against Nero by a Tacitus who was maybe a tad eager to make him into more of a monster than he may have been. Actually, the A.T. seems to be, maybe, a bit unreliable. D.

Translation problem

The English translation you offer is slightly inaccurate as a representation of the Latin: the predicate is missing. What Tacitus actually says is that Nero "punished those, whom the mob was accustomed to call Christians, who were hated for their immorality" (per flagitiam). So it is even a bit more scurrilous: he turns the Christians' own name for themselves against them. The stress (the inflected verb) is actually on the "calling", rather than the hating, which is an adjective. One of those beautifully untranslateable Tacitean sentences that carries twice as much weight as the structure will bear. It all reminds one rather of the apocryphal story about the English miners' strike, where a strikebreaker was supposedly interviewed in a fit of rage and talked about "that Arthur Scargill, as he calls himself...". Peter Agocs, Budapest

The inaccuracy of that passage was apparent even to me, and I don't speak Latin. Can someone who does, please check the translation? PiCo 08:12, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I too have found the passages to be translated very poorly. It had "falsely accused" instead of "fasten" for the lain word subdidit. Talk about POV! This article needs some work. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hoshidoshi (talk • contribs) 04:25, 26 March 2007 (UTC).

There may also be another translation problem that reveals that the historian made no reference to Jesus Christ. The Latin word for "Christ" derived from the Greek word "Christos" which means "the annointed one". Thus, there needs to be more sufficient evidence to claim that this Roman historian was referring to Jesus Christ and not any other Christ at the time (many people claimed to be christos). Also, I would hope that someone would check the references/sources for their soundness in regards to this issue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.188.96.2 (talk) 01:09, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Move to "Tacitus on Christ"?

Since Tacitus never uses the word "Jesus", should not this article be renamed "Tacitus on Christ" or "Tacitus on Christus"?--Panairjdde 17:56, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I see your point, but prefer the current title. The debate is whether the passage provides evidence for Jesus of Nazareth. We use "Jesus" to refer to that particular guy. Paul B 22:48, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

The article should be renamed to Tacitus on Christus. As it is now, the article title itself implies a conclusion which isn't supported by the source. This title is now referenced in about 11 other articles which link here, repeating the problem of that unsourced statement. --Vinsci 17:55, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

What about Tacitus on Christianity or Tacitus and Christianity? That's a better description of what most of the passage is about, and I think most of the scholarly discussion on this passage is more concerned with Christians in Rome and non-Christian responses to them than with the origin of the Christian movement. EALacey 18:22, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm adding NPOV header again

I'll list my reasons soon, if it is not already self-evident. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 10:45, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

It rarely is with articles about Jesus. It may be self-evidently too skeptical to one, and self-evidently too credulous to someone else. I really can't guess which you might think it is. Paul B 11:04, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I think plenty of time to explain has elapsed, so I'm removing the tag. Paul B 09:32, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

LOL I had totally forgotten about this article. Oh well. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 07:24, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

This title is surely incorrect?

Why is it Tacitus on Jesus? As far as I can see, it is Tacitus on Christ as the latter refers to the Messiah, not to any historical figure Jesus or Joshua. I suggest the title be changed as it is misleading. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mike0001 (talk • contribs) 10:16, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

See Move to "Tacitus on Christ"?, above. EALacey 10:22, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

annals authenticity is disputed

Food for thought. According to a book at gutenberg project, Annals was forgery any credibility to this? http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/9098 not sure really how wikipedia works, figured you'd like to see a link to a book which states Annals is forged, might be important for the header or something let people know the book itself is under dispute in whole. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.126.146.195 (talk) 04:36, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

This was argued by J. W. Ross, whose book you cite, and also by P. Hochart, both in the 19th century. They failed to convince historians at the time; Henry Furneaux pointed out in his commentary on the Annals (2nd edition, 1896, pp. 8–12) that many details in the work are confirmed by inscriptions that weren't available to Bracciolini, the supposed forger. More recent sources don't even discuss Ross's theory. Wikipedia's "undue weight" policy states: "Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views." It isn't mentioned at Tacitus or Annals (Tacitus), and shouldn't need to be mentioned here either. EALacey 11:17, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

The article is bent towards Christians?

First it original research in the section on wether on not the passage is reliable. It calls it a fallacy to say that the source is unreliable because it is never mentioned. That is not an arguement from silence in a fallacious way. That is simply showing that his claim is coming out of nowhere.YVNP (talk) 18:49, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Tacitus using "procurator" for Pilate

Most of this material was not based on evidence but on apologetics. The reference to Josephus using "procurator" was simply false, as Josephus wrote in Greek and the term "procurator" came from translators' assumptions. I have also corrected assumptions about why Tacitus should use "procurator" instead of "prefect", as they show no knowledge of Tacitus. --spin (talk) 11:14, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Reliability section

I've just read the reliability section, and it is very amateurish. It also insinuates arguments, and doesn't give reliable sources for those arguments (although it does include some primary sources, mostly in a way that doesn't support the article). In short it isn't reliable itself.

The discussion about this passage does not take place in scholarly sources in these terms. There is no scholarly debate that this passage is by Tacitus, for instance; that just is not in question.

The arguments made refer to primary sources, but we are given no indication as to who (if anyone) advances those arguments.

I don't quite know how to fix it without a rewrite, and I sense that changes are liable to be simply reverted. So I am at a loss as to how to improve this article. Roger Pearse (talk) 20:02, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree. If the vast majority of scholars agree that the text is authentic, there should be some scholarly writers who disagree. Then it is strange that their point of view is only represented by reference to non-scholarly writers in the article. Zwart (talk) 12:47, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

So why doesn't someone cite their arguments for authenticity? Besides, are you for some reason calling Darrell Doughty "non-scholarly"?

Mr Pearse sees amateurishness wherever he disagrees with the content.

My problem with the passage is that some of the contributors have added work which makes little sense either conceptually or grammatically. -- spin^control 06:04, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Someone has become overzealous with the use of "citation needed", placing it several times after a supplied citation. Is it that the person doesn't understand the issue or lacks access to the citations?? -- spin^control 00:37, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Christ or Christians

This article is on a famous passage in Tacitus' Annals which is in part about 'Chrestians' (describing an historical event) and in part about Christ (describing an etymology for the name of Chrestians). I think this distinction should be made very clearly in the article. I also believe that the really important part is the part on the etymology, which might be taken as a very early reference to a historical Christ. I have not seen any discussion about the authenticity of the part on the Chrestians, only of the part on Christ. The discussion on authenticity should be clear about this. I'm going to rewrite the opening lines accordingly. Zwart (talk) 15:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I have no clear idea what you are trying to say. What does "authenticity of the part on the Chrestians" mean? Paul B (talk) 15:41, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Authenticity

The article claims the items in quotation marks. My comments are indented.

"No mention by early Christian writers to Tacitus even when discussing the subject of Nero and Christian persecution."

• • Who says they read Tacitus?

I don't think the argument against authenticity on this point hinges on being able to definitively "prove" that the early Christian writers used Tacitus. Since Tacitus was one of the foremost of Roman historians (and quite frankly, one of the few) who dealt directly with the period during which Jesus was believed to have lived and Christianity is believed to have begun as a religious movement, the idea that the early Christian writers wouldn't have used Tacitus seems the point that requires demonstration.--Kglogauer (talk) 10:24, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

"The passage also apparently mistakenly calls Pontius Pilate a procurator instead of a prefect, an apparent mistake also made in translations of a passage by Josephus.[8] (However, Josephus wrote in Greek and never used the term.) It should be noted that after Herod Agrippa's death in AD 44, when Judea reverted to direct Roman rule, Claudius gave procurators control over Judea.[9] This was made possible when he augmented the role of procurators so that they had magisterial power.[10] Tacitus, who rose through the magisterial ranks[11] to become consul and then proconsul had a precise knowledge of significance of the terms involved and knew when Judea began to be administered by procurators. It is therefore problematical that he would use "procurator" instead of "prefect" to describe the governor of Judea prior to the changes that he tells us Claudius brought in."

• • Tacitus was born about 12 years after Herod Agrippa's death and entered public life about 40 years later (80+ AD). Who says he was familiar with what went on in Judea, a small province when he was born and actually destroyed when he was about 14 years old (70AD), 10 years before he entered public life with the Seige of Jerusalem in 70 AD by Titus (although a small resistance followed)? Why wouldn't he use terms he knew to describe what went on?

The above objection assumes Tacitus' ignorance with respect to Roman political terms, which I don't think we can assume. That he wasn't alive at the time when "prefects" had control of Judea hardly demonstrates his supposed ignorance of the term. As an analogy, I don't suspect that a Roman historian living in Tacitus' time would need to have been born prior to 27 B.C.E. in order to have known the distinction between "imperator" and "emperor", with the former having become something of an anachronism after 27 B.C.E., much like "prefect" did after 44 C.E. Again, the objection is over-reaching and assumes Tacitus' ignorance, which considering he was a historian of Roman state affairs, I don't think we can do.--Kglogauer (talk) 10:24, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

"The passage even implies that the Christians may have been guilty of setting fire to Rome, another argument against veracity, for Tacitus was attempting to lay the blame of the fire on Nero by aspersion."

• • How does it imply that at all? This is perhaps the worst reasoning I can think of.

I second this objection, although for a more direct reason, namely that it's unclear that Tacitus was trying to blame Nero for the fire. For one, judging from the various translations of Annals 15.44, it seems that, at most, Tacitus was saying that some people suspected Nero of ordering the blaze to be set. Tacitus refers to these accusations as either "reports" or "rumors", depending on which translation you read. Tacitus never gives any indication that he thought these "reports" or "rumors" were true or false, so it's uncertain if he thought Nero was to blame. Tacitus was undoubtedly very critical of Nero's reign and the man himself, which is where I suspect the above author was deriving his or her unfounded conclusion that Tacitus was trying to blame Nero. Secondly, the Annals has Tacitus reporting that Christians "confessed" to setting the fires, confessions which he takes no pains in trying to present as having been coerced. It's worth noting, however, that Suetonius unequivocally states in his The Twelve Caesars (Chapter 38), which was written only a few years after the Annals in 121 C.E., that Nero definitely was to blame.--Kglogauer (talk) 10:24, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

"Another source mentions Christians in difficulty in Rome during Nero's reign. Suetonius also mentions Christians being harmed during this period by Nero, but there is no connection made with the fire.[12]"

• • The fire of Rome happened about 6 years (64) before Seutonius was even born (c 70). He obviously had to rely on sources and who is to say his sources would have made the connection?

This objection is unwarranted. Like previous objections from Sweetmoose6, it relies on an argumentum ad ignorantium, in that it dismisses Suetonius outrightly simply because it can't be definitively proven that Suetonius didn't make a mistake in not connecting the persecutions with the fire. The point is that Suetonius didn't connect the persecutions with the fire, so we are obliged to take him at his word when evaluating his account of the fire against that of Tacitus. It's also worth noting that Suetonius does mention the persecutions of Christians under Nero in Chapter 16 of The Twelve Caesars, and does it in the context of providing examples for new regulations that Nero has passed, which strongly favors the idea that Suetonius was not aware of any tradition that held that the Christian persecutions had anything to do with the fire, but that they were simply the result of a legal practice instituted by Nero.--Kglogauer (talk) 10:24, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

---The point is that these objection need to be cited by serious scholars. Some of them appear to be just thrown out there. And it would be nice to see some scholars who argue for authenticity, if, in fact, a majority support that position, rather than 2/3 being taken up by (it seems) spurious critical claims (NOTE: most of the inline citations are to the primary sources and technically that is probably original research anyway).Sweetmoose6 (talk) 01:25, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Further, some arguing for authenticity cite the fact that Tacitus uses the procurator rather than prefect as evidence the narrative is authentic since he wrote so long afterward when things had indeed changed [1].Sweetmoose6 (talk) 02:21, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

The above objection is based on a logical fallacy. We have no way of quantifying if or to what extent Tacitus' supposed use of "procurator" makes the passage more likely to be authentic. While it's possible that the Tacitus passage is, indeed, authentic, authenticity cannot be deduced on the basis of his mistake in using the term "procurator". It's akin to arguing that a proposition is so wrong that it must be right. It's also worth mentioning that the link provided by Sweetmoose6 that supposedly discusses this argument contains no such argument. The only treatment of this issue on that website is the hypothesis that Tacitus may have received written information from Christians who may have simply used the abbreviation "PR" when referring to Pilate's title, and that Tacitus may have incorrectly assumed it meant "procurator" instead of "prefect". There's nothing in that argument, either explicitly stated by the authors or deductively reasoned, that says that Tacitus' use of the term "procurator" made the authenticity of the passage more likely.--Kglogauer (talk) 10:24, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Authenticity and the Criterion of Embarrassment

The statement under the "Authenticity and Reliabilty" section that reads:

however the Tacitus text itself demonstrates that it may be a good resource for Christians to refer to since the text derides Christians and Christianity thus proving it to be free of later tampering by Christians.

is, at best, poor logic, and at worst a subtle attempt at inserting a POV disclaimer designed to undermine the preceding argument that the early Christian writers' silence on the passage may argue against its authenticity. I'm perfectly fine with including a statement on how those who argue for its authenticity employ the criterion of embarrassment to counter this claim, but as it is, the way this sentence fragment is awkwardly clipped on to the end of the "No early Christian writers..." bullet looks POV (and is also very poor sentence structure, to boot). That said, if we are going to include the "criterion of embarrassment" argument in support of the passage's authenticity, then we need to do away with such poor use of declarative phrases like "thus proving", since the criterion of embarrassment alone does no such thing. We also need to present the COE argument in a more scholarly fashion. As it is, the aforementioned sentence fragment reads like an apologetics primer on how to counter the "No early Christian writers..." argument in the field.

My suggestion is that we expand the "No early Christian writers" point by both elucidating the basic premise of it, and then adding the COE argument at the end. Here's a rough draft:

No early Christian writers refer to Tacitus even when discussing the subject of Nero and Christian persecution. Tertullian, Lactantius, Sulpicius Severus, Eusebius and Augustine of Hippo make no reference to Tacitus when discussing Christian persecutions by Nero. If authentic, the passage would constitute one of the earliest, if not the earliest (see: Josephus on Jesus) non-Christian references to Jesus. Those critical of the passage's authenticity argue that early Christian writers likely would have sought to establish the historicity of Jesus via secular or non-Christian documents, and that their silence with regard to the Annals in this manner may suggest that the passage did not exist in early manuscripts. Furthermore, because the earliest surviving manuscript containing the passage is an Eleventh Century Christian scribal copy, skeptics of the passage's authenticity argue that it may be the result of later Christian editing. Supporters of the passage's authenticity, however, counter on the basis of the criterion of embarrassment that the passage's critical remarks on Christianity as a "mischievious superstition" argue against its having been made by later Christian editors who, it is argued, would have cast Christians in a positive and not negative light.

I think the above revision does a far better job of presenting the arguments for and against this particular contention about the passage's authenticity.--Kglogauer (talk) 05:27, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Went ahead with revisions due to an absence of objections. Also clarified the counter arguments against the criterion of embarrassment as according to John P. Meier, et al.--Kglogauer (talk) 06:44, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

It's true that the named authors don't mention Tacitus when discussing Nero, so that's something to consider (if still an agument e silentio). But to prove the historicity of Jesus' life, early Christian authors don't have to appeal to a secondary source such as Tacitus: Both Justin the Martyr and Tertullian suggest to their readers that documents regarding Christ's life could be found in the imperial archives of Rome. Even more difficult seems to me the assumption that the passage was inserted in medieval times out of "embarrassment". That presupposes a need to historically prove Jesus really lived. I am not aware of any such discussion in the early middle ages, but admit I am no expert there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Slovhet (talk • contribs) 19:30, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Precisely. Enemies of Christianity in Roman times didn't argue that Jesus didn't exist; they argued that he was a wicked magician/deceiver/fraud and an illegitimate child. The idea that Jesus didn't exist was invented in the very end of the 18th century. For the first 90% of the history of Christianity, there was no need to "establish the historicity of Jesus", since no one denied it. The early Christians were interested instead in affirming the divinity of Jesus. 128.194.250.110 (talk) 23:37, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Chrestianos and ultraviolet light - citation needed

If someone has photographed this word in ultraviolet light, it would seem preferable to show the photograph or at least cite the paper that makes the claim for the scratched-out e based on that photography.

Personally, I think there should be a separate article on Chrestianos that would take on the question of whether e and i were interchangeable or if one letter's usage predated the other. Thank you, Fotoguzzi (talk) 03:05, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

---

I added the flag. (fotoguzzi) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.105.160.69 (talk) 22:33, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Arguments for authenticity?

Right now we're devoting multiple paragraphs to the minority position that the writings may not be authentic, but next to nothing to the majority position that they are. Should we not offer arguments in favor of authenticity? 68.62.16.149 (talk) 03:23, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, now this article has become apologetics and little related to either Tacitus or history. -- spin^control 05:19, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Consensus achieved

I have removed the headings "criterion of embarrassment" and "criterion of consistency" because they were not suitable as headings for the material they dealt with.

These two arguments are Christian hermeneutics. The "criterion of embarrassment" basically indicates that the users believe that a writer is not capable of expressing a point of view other than their own. The "criterion of consistency" indicates that if people cannot get their facts straight, they are probably telling the truth. -- spin^control 08:53, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi Dok. I have carefully reviewed your changes and references. You have won me over. Consensus achieved. Good work! - Ret.Prof (talk) 11:35, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Good show. Keep up the hard work! -- spin^control 14:57, 4 October 2010 (UTC)