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On first reading, Tacitus' writings suggest that a person called Jesus once existed. However some have considered that Tacticus' writings are far from contemporaneous, being written almost eighty years after the supposed event. The reference to Christ is merely a passing reference while discussing something else, to explain how the Christians got their name. Others have claimed that Tacitus did not base the reference on official records as, if they had existed, they would have called the victim ‘Jesus’, instead of ‘Christ’ and given Pilate his proper title of ‘prelate’.
Perhaps most damning to the authenticity of what Tacitus wrote about Jesus is the fact that it is present almost word-for-word in the Chronicle of Sulpicius Severus (died in AD 403), where it is mixed in with obviously false tales. At the same time, it is highly unlikely that Sulpicius could have copied this passage from Tacitus, as none of his contemporaries mention the passage. This means that it was probably not in the Tacitus manuscripts at that date in AD 403. 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 also reproducing.
There are a number of other serious difficulties which must be answered before Tacitus' Jesus passage can be accepted as genuine. There is no other historical proof that Nero persecuted the Christians at all. There certainly were not multitudes of Christians in Rome at that date (circa 60 A.D.). In fact, the term "Christian" was not in common use in the first century. We know Nero was indifferent to various religions in his city, and, since he almost definitely did not start the fire in Rome, he did not need any group to be his scapegoat. Tacitus does not use the name Jesus, and writes as if the reader would know the name Pontius Pilate, two things which show that Tacitus was not working from official records or writing for non-Christian audiences, both of which we would expect him to have done if the passage were genuine.
It's also interesting that only two unrelated Christian monasteries had any interest in preserving Tacitus' Annals, and neither of them preserved the whole thing, but each less than half of it, and by shear luck alone, they each preserved a different half. And yet there are still large gaps in it. One of those gaps is the removal of the years 29, 30, and 31 (precisely, the latter part of 29, all of 30, and the earlier part of 31 - the years Jesus' ministry, death, and resurrection were widely believed at the time to have occurred).
Scholars such as E.P. Sanders note, "Roman sources that mention [Jesus] are all dependent on Christian reports." And even renowned Christian apologist William Lane Craig states that Tacitus' statement is "no doubt dependent on Christian tradition."
On top of that no early Christian writer uses Tacitus' passage in their apologetics, even when discussing Christian persecution by Nero:
* Tertullian (ca. 155–230)
* Lactantius (ca. 240 - ca. 320)
* Sulpicius Severus (c. 360 – 425)
* Eusebius (ca. 275 – 339)
* Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430)
Tacitus did in fact write a thorough history of the purported times of Jesus and his ministry, and while this work is lost to us, or the relevant parts missing as described above, Tacitus never makes any cross reference to it during his discussion of christians and Nero nor at any other point in his surviving works.
Perhaps most damning to the authenticity of what Tacitus wrote about Jesus is the fact that it is present almost word-for-word in the Chronicle of Sulpicius Severus (died in AD 403), where it is mixed in with obviously false tales. At the same time, it is highly unlikely that Sulpicius could have copied this passage from Tacitus, as none of his contemporaries mention the passage. This means that it was probably not in the Tacitus manuscripts at that date in AD 403. 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 also reproducing.
There are a number of other serious difficulties which must be answered before Tacitus' Jesus passage can be accepted as genuine. There is no other historical proof that Nero persecuted the Christians at all. There certainly were not multitudes of Christians in Rome at that date (circa 60 A.D.). In fact, the term "Christian" was not in common use in the first century. We know Nero was indifferent to various religions in his city, and, since he almost definitely did not start the fire in Rome, he did not need any group to be his scapegoat. Tacitus does not use the name Jesus, and writes as if the reader would know the name Pontius Pilate, two things which show that Tacitus was not working from official records or writing for non-Christian audiences, both of which we would expect him to have done if the passage were genuine.
It's also interesting that only two unrelated Christian monasteries had any interest in preserving Tacitus' Annals, and neither of them preserved the whole thing, but each less than half of it, and by shear luck alone, they each preserved a different half. And yet there are still large gaps in it. One of those gaps is the removal of the years 29, 30, and 31 (precisely, the latter part of 29, all of 30, and the earlier part of 31 - the years Jesus' ministry, death, and resurrection were widely believed at the time to have occurred).
Scholars such as E.P. Sanders note, "Roman sources that mention [Jesus] are all dependent on Christian reports." And even renowned Christian apologist William Lane Craig states that Tacitus' statement is "no doubt dependent on Christian tradition."
On top of that no early Christian writer uses Tacitus' passage in their apologetics, even when discussing Christian persecution by Nero:
* Tertullian (ca. 155–230)
* Lactantius (ca. 240 - ca. 320)
* Sulpicius Severus (c. 360 – 425)
* Eusebius (ca. 275 – 339)
* Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430)
Tacitus did in fact write a thorough history of the purported times of Jesus and his ministry, and while this work is lost to us, or the relevant parts missing as described above, Tacitus never makes any cross reference to it during his discussion of christians and Nero nor at any other point in his surviving works.
Your balance is always a joy.
