Tacitus on Jesus

[thegreypilgrim]

Oskar Augustsson, a scholar of biblical criticism, has apparently shown in his article 'The Quest For Chrest - an e-illumination' that the "i" in the word Christianos in Annals 15.39-43 was changed at some point from an "e". So, the original word was Chrestiani which supposedly means "the good".

Unfortunately, the population of psychiatric patients who are off their meds that constitute the entire Christ-Myth movement have seized upon this (you'll have to scroll down to the section on Tacitus) to support their case. It seems, according to the crazies, that this is yet another example of those pesky Christians falsifying all sorts of pagan documents and evidence of an original allegorical/ethereal Jesus who was merely "good" being supplanted with a historical Jesus who was a "messiah." It seems there is no bottom to the barrel of nonsensical gruel these people feed off of.

[James Hannam]

If I recall, it is simply that the one manuscript we have has shown evidence of a corrected mistake.

But it is quite interesting. If early Christians were sometimes called Chrestians, then not only does this link us more strongly to the passage in Suetonius, it also raises the question were Christians commonly called "the good"? I'd like to know the answer to that one.

Best wishes

James

[humphreyclarke]

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.’

[knowingthomas]

Wouldn't this interpretation be in trouble with caroleeilertson's remarks on Suetonius:

You're right, Humphrey. The way this is written it doesn't make any sense to read property speculators/usurers into it.
But there still remains this quote:
Suet. Claud. 25.4: Iudaeos impulsore chresto assidue tumultuantis Roma expulit.
Chresto in the ablative could be read as at the instigation of Chrestos :
" ...the Jews, who caused constant turmoil at the instigation of Chrestos, he expelled them from Rome.’
or
‘…the Jews who practised usury and thereby caused constant turmoil, he expelled them from Rome.’
The Jews were expelled by Claudius, ie at the beginning of the second century. So this mention of Chrestos (if we read it this way) can't be Jesus Christ. Or Suetonius mixed up his chronology. In which case Christ was not a familiar figure to him. Curious and curiouser!

[humphreyclarke]

May 1, 2009 6:28:01 GMT knowingthomas said:

Wouldn't this interpretation be in trouble with caroleeilertson's remarks on Suetonius:

You're right, Humphrey. The way this is written it doesn't make any sense to read property speculators/usurers into it.
But there still remains this quote:
Suet. Claud. 25.4: Iudaeos impulsore chresto assidue tumultuantis Roma expulit.
Chresto in the ablative could be read as at the instigation of Chrestos :
" ...the Jews, who caused constant turmoil at the instigation of Chrestos, he expelled them from Rome.’
or
‘…the Jews who practised usury and thereby caused constant turmoil, he expelled them from Rome.’
The Jews were expelled by Claudius, ie at the beginning of the second century. So this mention of Chrestos (if we read it this way) can't be Jesus Christ. Or Suetonius mixed up his chronology. In which case Christ was not a familiar figure to him. Curious and curiouser!

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.

[thegreypilgrim]

Thanks to everyone for their input.

[knowingthomas]

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.

[documentus]

Sources:

historyhuntersinternational.org/catalogue-of-chrest/
historyhuntersinternational.org/2011/03/06/the-vacuum-of-evidence-for-pre-4th-century-christianity/

"Introduction

There are a number of archaeological references to ‘Chrest’ and ‘Chrestiani’ in the first century, which we note here and, as noted in our article Acts of the Chresmologoi: the Role of Oracles and Chronicles in the Creation of Divine Men, the terms ‘Christ’ and ‘Christian’ in the New Testament derive most probably from the Greek ‘Chrest’.

Those making claims have a duty to support them with reliable evidence and cogent argument, in which greater weight is given to reliable data and primary sources. As no such data has ever been available to support the tradition of a first-century Jesus Christ, the burden of proof for historicity has fallen on texts. Examination of the earliest texts shows a history quite different to that of tradition.

An earlier attempt (by the author, below) at interpreting the use of Chrest, whilst good, makes the basic error of assuming that there is evidence for a (Jesus-centred) Nazarene cult in the first decades of the first century of the modern era:

All this is evidence that the terms Christ and Christians, spelt originally Chrest and Chrestians [chrestianoi] were directly borrowed from the Temple terminology of the Pagans, and meant the same thing. The God of the Jews was now substituted for the Oracle and the other gods; the generic designation “Chrestos” became a noun applied to one special personage; and new terms such as Chrestianoi and Chrestodoulos “a follower or servant of Chrestos” — were coined out of the old material. This is shown by Philo Judaeus, a monotheist, assuredly, using already the same term for monotheistic purposes. For he speaks of theochrestos “God-declared,” or one who is declared by god, and of logia theochresta “sayings delivered by God” — which proves that he wrote at a time (between the first century B. C., and the first A. D.) when neither Christians nor Chrestians were yet known under these names, but still called themselves the Nazarenes. The notable difference between the two words [chrao] — “consulting or obtaining response from a god or oracle” (chreo being the Ionic earlier form of it), and chrio “to rub, to anoint” (from which the name Christos), has not prevented the ecclesiastical adoption and coinage from Philo’s expression [Theochrestos] of that other term [Theochristos] “anointed by God.” Thus the quiet substitution of the letter, for [e] for dogmatic purposes, was achieved in the easiest way, as we now see.
- The Esoteric Character of the Gospels, Studies in Occultism by H. P. Blavatsky, Theosophical University Press Online Edition

Various apologist arguments are made to try and explain away the growing realisation that there is no Christ in the first century, but rather ‘Chrest’. However, these fail to address:
The common usage of the word ‘Chrest’ in the first centuries of this era are most-often associated with theurgy, the practise of Greek low magic, as we see here with the ‘Chrest Magus’ bowl and the ‘Jesus Chrest’ spell.
The Christian Church tried to obliterate Chrest, changing the biblical texts to read ‘Christ’. This has not been noticed until very recently.

The association of Chrest and Chrestians with magic is in accord with the our interpretation of much Christian liturgy and ritual as magical in character."

"Not a single artefact of any medium – including textual – and dated reliably before the fourth century can be unambiguously identified as Christian. This is the most notable result of our archaeological survey of sites, inscriptions, libraries, collections and so on from the Indus River to the Nile and north to Britain.

Taking into account the vast volume of scholarly works claiming expert opinion for the exact opposite point of view, let me clarify terms.

There is, of course, much archaeology interpreted commonly as Christian. This does not contradict the bald statement above. The difference lies between data that spells out Christian clearly and unambiguously, and that which expert opinion claims to look as though it is Christian.

There are very many texts claimed to be Christian and composed before the fourth century, though the documents themselves are not dated to that early period. We have found no text before the fourth century which mentions either Jesus Christ, or the term ‘Christian’."

[sankari]

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

[Mike D]

Blavatsky??? Are you serious?

[sankari]

Nov 28, 2011 10:40:26 GMT Mike D said:

Blavatsky??? Are you serious?

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

;D

[sandwiches]

Not quite sure what the Jesus-Mythers are getting so excited about.

Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 220 AD) wrote in the Apologeticus, addressed to the Roman magistrates

www.tertullian.org/anf/anf03/anf03-05.htm#P267_68508

Chapter III.

[1] What are we to think of it, that most people so blindly knock their heads against the hatred of the Christian name;.....

[5] Well now, if there is this dislike of the name, what blame can you attach to names? What accusation can you bring against mere designations, save that something in the word sounds either barbarous, or unlucky, or scurrilous, or unchaste? But Christian, so far as the meaning of the word is concerned, is derived from anointing. Yes, and even when it is wrongly pronounced by you "Chrestianus" (for you do not even know accurately the name you hate), it comes from sweetness and benignity. You hate, therefore, in the guiltless, even a guiltless name.

[parapicchus]

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!

[fortigurn]

Dec 22, 2011 22:55:13 GMT parapicchus said:

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.

When your theory has been published in the relevant peer reviewed scholarly literature, let me know. Not before.

[parapicchus]

You kidding?

The question of the christian interpolation of Tacitus is not an open issue actually in the scientific research, as far as I know, so my article would not be published since it would be de facto a simple clarification and argumentation of the accademic consensus in the matter.

So you are a mythicist?