Haha, not this again!.

See this thread:

jameshannam.proboards83.com/index.cgi?board=history&action=display&thread=149

Here is a passage from ‘Jesus Outside the New Testament’ ( books.google.co.uk/books?id=lwzliMSRGGkC&dq=Jesus) by Robert E Van Voorst which sheds a bit of light on the matter and shows that Dr Rao is on firm ground.

‘The only textual difficulty of particular importance for our study comes at the first and only use of ‘Christians’ in chapter 44. Most older critical editions read ‘Christianoi’, ‘Christians’. However, the original hand of the oldest surviving manuscript, the second medicean (11th century), which is almost certainly the source of all other surviving manuscripts, reads ‘Chrestianoi’, ‘chrestians’. A marginal gloss ‘corrects it to Christianoi. Chrestianoi is to be preferred as the earliest and most difficult reading, and is adopted by the three current critical editions and the recent scholarship utilising them. It also makes better sense in this context. Tacitus is correcting, in a way typical of his style of economy, the misunderstanding of the crowd (vulgas) by stating that the ‘founder of the name’ (auctor nominis eius) is Christus, not the common name implicitly given by the crowd, Chrestus. Tacitus could have written auctor superstitionis, ‘the founder of the superstition’ or something similar but he calls attention by his somewhat unusual phrase to the nomen of the movement to link it directly and correctly to the name of Christ.’

Looking at the ultraviolet photo I would say Dr Rao and Otto are right saying that the original is Chrestianoi, and go along with Van Voorst’s conclusion. From the Western theological wordbook:

‘Confusing the matter are the variant spellings of Christ and Christian used by Christian and non Christian writers alike. The variants Chrestos, Chrestus, and Chrestianoi often appear, and Chrestus was a familiar proper name, meaning ‘good, useful’. So it was argued that non Christians heard Christos and converted it to the understandable Chrestos, then created the form chrestianoi, which was thus the original form of the word they used to identify believers...Outside the Jewish world ‘anointed one’ would have been virtually meaningless, and Christ thus became thought of as a name more than a title.’

I don't think so. The passage in question, according to Van Voorst reads:

'He expelled the Jews from Rome, since they were always making disturbances because of the instigator Chrestus'

Its probable, though by no means certain that this is a mistake for Christus. Suetonis is only going on vague information.

Get a load of this one:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOkzs887Jp8

This video illustrates the numerous writers, orators, intellectuals, philosophers, poets, astronomer, rhetoricians, satirists, fabulists, historians and Emperors that lived at some time during the so called existence of a Jesus of Nazareth.

Why did so many not write in regards to a Jesus Christ in historical accounts? Perhaps because a Jesus of Nazareth never existed?

Part three will follow this video and detail the works of Thallus, one of the writers who supposedly documents the life of Jesus and religious scholars claim to be the most renowned example of Christ's life, yet examination of his works details he may be nothing more than a forgery.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g3M1godw_k&feature=response_watch
Thallus is unreliable because:
1) His birth and death are unknown
2) Josephus' citation of Thallus is a forgery by John Hudson, changing Thallus from Thallos
3) Calls the resurrected prophets "zombies" (thanks for the strawman, jerkface)
4) Solar eclipses were nothing new and it was common to associate eclipses with historical events
5) No one else records this event or really references Thallus.
6) No evidence an eclipse took place
7) He might be impling that we are all offshoots to moon worship.
8) The majority of secular scholars at that time make no reference to Jesus
9) Thallus did not exist, his passages are forgeries and the eclipse is impossible.

Primary sources seem to be Carrier, William Smith and wikipedia.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2trNzu3N90&feature=response_watch
Tacitus is unreliable because:
1) Fires in Rome were common
2) Most intellectuals of that day do not mention the 64 fire except a passing remark by Pliny the Elder
3) No one else blames the Christians for the fire
4) In 64 AD, there were no Christians in Rome or anywhere else
5) The word Christian had not yet appeared anywhere else.
6) The first christians were still a small sect of Jews.
7) Only historical revisionists think Nero persecuted Christians
8) Tacitus is a "grocery store tabloid hack"
9) The discouse between Seneca the Younger and St Paul talks about the fire; this has been disproved by archeological digs. It is a forgery according to secular and religious scholars.
10) Early Christians were liars, forgers and hypocrites.
11) Tacitus wrote histories, not editorials. It expresses an opinionated viewpoint. All previous documents have him as a professional historian. It uses future knowledge (likes Christians in Rome)
12) Tacitus wouldn't have mislabeled Pilate's government position.
13) Book 15 of the Annals written in 103 AD covers the period of 62 AD - 65 AD. Book 7 -10 cover 29 AD - 33 AD, the period of Pilate's prefecture. Being the judge at that time, every detail was written down for court cases; there was no record of a trial before Pilate, at least not as described by the Gospels. There's no record of the trial in the Annals.
12) Jesus and Christians are not mentioned in the Annals.
13) There were many other crucified messiahs at this time (Athronges 3 BC, Simon 4 BC, Judas of Galilee 6 AD, Theudas 46 AD) It could be any of these.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5k05JavCz4&feature=related
Tacitus is also unreliable because:
1) Any lie told enough times becomes true.
2) Christians were not fed to lions.
3) No initial copies of Tacitus survive.
4) The oldest copy was written by monks in the 11th century.
5) Forgery regarding Christians was then forged. Chrestianos became Christianos. Martyr's Chrestiani came from Chrestus, which means "the good", a complementary title for just about anyone. Therefore, christians did not exist when Tacitus supposedly wrote the Annals.
6) Chrestos was a term used in mystic religions, to denote a perfected being. It was a title for respected mortals and gods. It is therefore consitant that Jesus would be called "the Chrestos" and promoted to god status, as was Alexander the Great.
7) This concept is far from the Jewish concept of the messiah that became the Christian christ.
8) Therefore the validity of the document is in question.
9) None of the top 5 scholars at the "Lorencian" Library thinks that Tacitus wrote the Annals.
10) Tacitus is a shoddy historian.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRwIYwQrRps&feature=related
1) "Christian mafia" is the cause for the forgeries.
2) Pliny the Younger does not mention Christians until 3 years before his death, 80 years after the Crucifixion
3) There are paralells to the forgeries with Tacitus.
-Impute future knowledge. Christians wouldn't for 200 years be able to produce surviving secular sources and documents.
4) Christ is the inspiration, but it could be Athronges 3 BC, Simon 4 BC, Judas of Galilee 6 AD, Theudas 46 AD.
5) Volcano god strawmen. Just because christians followed Christ doesn't mean he existed.
6) Trajan's reply is inconsistent with interrelations of government officials.
7) Romans would have been religiously tolerant.
8) Brings up Scopes trial, witches etc
9) "Christians smear themselves with the mud of literary fraud" How nice.

Watch out Alice, we are through the looking glass now!

As serious as Earl Doherty when he asked the giggling librarian to take his book out of 'fiction' and put it in 'history'...

;D

Hi to all, I'm new and I see that the discussion about Tacitus never dies .
If you read italian, in a rather scientific forum dedicated to early christianity

cristianesimoprimitivo.forumfree.it/?t=58842707

we dismantled (at least I think we did it efficaciously) some of the most common argumentations in favor of Tacitus' interpolation, especially the problem of the non citation of Tacitus by christian and pagan authors.
Sorry it's only in italian.

Ad maiora!