"Good. Let's begin by distinguishing the existence of Jesus from the existence of people who worshipped Jesus. Surely there are cases in history where people worshipped non-existent beings, no?"

There is a nugget of a good point in there, but it is all mushed up.  Why import this 'worship' business.  Better to say that there is a difference between the existence of Jesus and the existence of people who spoke of Jesus.  Surely there are cases in history where people spoke of non-existent people, no?  Ah, but that is likely to be a different case.

At anyrate, Tacitus cannot be accused of 'worshipping' Jesus.

"And how is this evidence in favor of the existence of Jesus? At best, it is only about what happened to worshippers of Jesus in Rome long after the death of Jesus."

Then you are not reading it.  Look again:

"Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus,"

It does not merely talk about Christians, but specificially references the origin of the Christians, specifically points out that this man was executed under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius.  These comments do not apply to Christians, they apply- as the text itself says- to Christ.  Thus, it is a statement not about people speaking about Christ (the Christians) but rather Christ himself.

"Nevertheless, there is some dispute over its authenticity, with some scholars attributing it to Sulpicius Severus (who died in 403 AD) ."

I am not going to entertain arguments by 'some scholars.'  If you want to make their argument, then you go and get the material that they and apparently you think warrants the dispute, and you present and defend it here.  This is me and you, not 'my scholars' versus 'your scholars.'  

"Apparently, the 4th century was the first time that passage (or even the Josephus passages) were mentioned in support of the Jesus story,"

I'm glad that you mentioned that.  This only helps you if the question at the time was 'Did Jesus Exist.'  Not that the passage may not still have been entirely legitimate- just because someone quotes a passage from something that supports them it doesn't follow that that person forged the passage.  Yet that is precisely the line of reasoning that skeptics apply to ALL passages on this subject.  To listen to the skeptics, we must believe all early Christians were lying scoundrels.  

Fine, but at least we can keep our eyes on the ball and our conspiracy theories straight.   The first time anyone thought to suggest that Jesus did not actually exist was in the 17th and 18th centuries.   Thus, the alleged motive did not exist for a thousand years plus.  You have to keep your motives straight.

"There is no independent evidence, outside of this passage, that Christians existed in Rome during the reign of Nero or that Nero was even aware of such a cult."

One step at a time, fellah.  I do believe we were arguing about whether or not we can say Jesus existed.

So, back to this passage itself.  Hiding behind 'some scholars' you wish to suggest that the authenticity of the passage is doubt, because it was first cited in the 4th century, when it was used to demonstrate a purpose completely different then our purpose here.  Very well, how about some facts in rebuttal instead of speculation?  You have several directions you can go:

1.  Produce evidence of a different textual tradition, with the passage in question deleted or significantly changed.
2.  Produce evidence that Pliny WAS the source- but don't think you are done yet-
3.  Show that Pliny himself did not have a reliable source.

Please note the key words here... 'produce' and 'show.'

It is easy to make claims that cannot be checked or disputed, its quite another to make claims that can.  If the textual tradition of Tacitus is uniform on this point, then I am solid in simply taking the passage on its face as a legitimate entry by Tacitus.  The possibilities of forgery may still exist, but we live in the real world, not fairy-land world, where we get to meander at will regardless of the evidence.  Surely you agree.  Likewise, it is all well and good to say Pliny and Tacitus MAY have had contact, but its another to show that they did, AND conversed on this subject.  Good luck showing that.  On the other hand, if we allow #2, it is also fairly obvious that Pliny would not have been able to rely on his own wits for a source, and would have had to have gained information elsewhere.

Thus, in attacking Tacitus you only move the question to Pliny, and we can play musical chairs all day long, moving the question from place to place, unbound by actual evidence and spurred on by the apparent right to posit speculation in place of apparent fact.... ah.... but perhaps even if we allow that Pliny informed Tacitus, and Pliny was informed by someone else, perhaps we may find that Pliny was informed by someone very credible and in a position to know the information..... in which case, the material can be trusted....  I'm very interested to hear who you think may have been Pliny's source... very interested.

"Nobody is arguing that. My point, which you have not refuted, was that the passage still provides no authentication of the existence of Jesus, even if Tacitus himself actually wrote the passage."

I did refute it.  Specifically.  What I am specially dealing with here is this idea about 'worshipping' someone.  That is a bias that clouds what might otherwise be a good point.

"As long as you are repeating the quote, it is worth noting another problem with it. Pontius Pilate was not a procurator, but a prefect."

Oh? And how do you know this?  I would like to know, because your saying this indicates that there is a source in regards to Pilate that apparently you do trust, otherwise you could not know that Tacitus is wrong.

"This proves that Tacitus (if he wrote the passage) was not working from any official record. Roman governors were called "procurator" only in the late 1st century, and we have archeological evidence of Pilate's real title."

You are running with a million assumptions.  However, as Tacitus was probably writing after 100AD, then 'procurator' would have been employed, consistent with your own analysis here.  But I do not accept your analysis.  It begs way too much.

"And, BTW, the original spelling appears to have been "Chrestus", not "Christus" or "Christos"."

You are mixing this up with Seutonius, I believe.  Different source.  Hold your horses.

"Not so."

Yes so, Copernicus, and if you aren't going to conform your brain to what you see in front of you, there is no sense in conversing.  Let's look at your statement:

"Tacitus (again assuming authenticity of the passage) could have merely repeated what Christians told him at the time he wrote the passage."

The key word is 'could have.'  'Could have' is not an argument.  I could turn around and say that Tacitus could have merely repeated what he found in a Roman source.  'Could haves' are nothing more than mere possibilities unless rooted in something else.  Your comments are not rooted in fact, but conspiracy.  I have many good reasons to believe that Tacitus used a variety of sources, many of them you would no doubt find credible by an large, because he relies- obviously- on these sources quite a bit.  That he suddenly veers off and is dependent on Christian sources as to the source of his material is nothing more than a spurious hypothesis of your own.  

"The fact is that nobody has any clue where that information came from, only that it contains an error regarding Pilate's official title."

Well, finally we have something bordering a correct statement.  In actuality, we do have a clue where his information comes from, as he leaves plenty of clues in general about his sources.  It is you who wishes to suggest that he got it from Christians- and you admit that to that extent you have no clue that that is the case- therefore you have a burden to SHOW it.

Groundless speculation does not pass as rebuttal.

As for Pilate's title, I read something on this point that demonstrated that this is not the argument you take it for.  I'll look for it after I post.

"You are well aware of the charge from sources such as McDowell, and I don't need to "go get it" for you. The point here is that there is a plausible source for the interpolation. Nobody is arguing that the claim is uncontroversial, only that there is reason to suspect interpolation."

If you're going to raise an issue and expect me to take it seriously, you will present it and defend it as though it were your own, or I will ignore it.

We again see how your citation of 'scholars' is only a shield to keep you from supporting contentions.  If I were to follow your own procedure here, I could simply agree with you that some scholars say such and such and reply that, nonetheless, other scholars say such and such.   And then where have we gotten?  Exactly no where.  But this shows the duplicity in your approach.  You are allowed to cite 'some scholars' but you wouldn't in a million years let me cite 'some scholars' in rebuttal.

"You only need one lying scoundrel and a pack of sincere wishful thinkers to promulgate a lie."

Who cares.  You nonetheless need to demonstrate that you have a lying scoundrel at work.  You are not permitted to posit it.  lol.

"It is still hard to believe"

Oh, now an argument from incredulity?  Great.  Now I get to play.

"that nobody would point out this passage by a respected Roman historian during two centuries of debate over the existence of Christ in the Roman Empire."

This again shows you aren't listening.  The debate in those centuries was NOT about the existence of Christ.  If it were, we might actually care about your line of argumentation.  If you wish to support the contention that the debate was over the existence of Christ, you are in luck- there are hundreds if not thousands of ancient manuscripts extant from the time period.  You should have no trouble illustrating that that was indeed the argument.

Barring actual evidence showing that that was their purpose in marshalling this evidence, your argument is reduced to the level of rank speculation.

"Given the methods of dealing with people who denied Christian doctrines prior to the 18th and 19th centuries, I don't see why you would expect"

Another argument from incredulity!  Will all the substantiation for your claims require me to follow you in your leaps of imagination?

"there to be a bountiful literature on the question of Christ's existence."

Sadly for you, you have made reference to the fourth century, not the 18th and 19th centuries, as the support for your view that this statement is not authentic.  From 30AD to c. 310AD Christianity was not by any means the dominant religion and it was the Christians being subject to 'methods of dealing' and not the other way around.   There is scant evidence of any kind of 'methods of dealing' of the sort you imply up to the fourth century to justify your claim.

Or.... perhaps I misunderstand you... are you now saying that Tacitus is a forgery of the 17th and 18th centuries?  Written as a response to the charge that Jesus never existed?  Is that your argument?

"Then why are we arguing over the alleged hearsay in Tacitus? You have not refuted my point that Tacitus could easily have been sincere but mistaken about the existence of Christ."

Your point was refuted before you even breathed.  It was refuted in the very first post.  It is only your contention that it is hearsay.  You have provided nothing but speculation to suggest otherwise.  If you want to demonstrate that it is nothing but 'hearsay' go for it.  "Could easily have been" is an argument from credulity, and it is not intellectually binding.

I can simply point to Tacitus' general thoroughness and overall reliance on Roman sources and this provides positive evidence for my 'leap' that he did so also in this case.  Rank speculation never rises to the level of a 'refutation.'

"You have not produced evidence of any authentic sources that Tacitus was working from, and we know that the reference to Pilate's title was technically incorrect."

You don't know that it was technically incorrect, but as I already said, since Tacitus was writing in the time period you said one term was used and not another, it would follow that this increases his credibility, not decreases it.  I do not need to produce the material that Tacitus was working from.  Your case is very weak indeed if your sole argument is that Tacitus is giving 'second hand' information.

"So I don't see why I must produce evidence against your case that you yourself cannot produce in favor of it."

The Tacitus passage is prima facie evidence that you wish to tell us means something other than what it says.  It IS the produced evidence to support the claim that Jesus existed.  It is your argument- speculative from top to bottom, except for a very poorly defined argument going to the credibility of Tacitus based on Pilate's title- that what we see does not mean what it clearly means.

If you wish us to deny what is right in front of our eyes, then you have to move beyond speculation and pony up.

You know, come to think of it, Tacitus COULD HAVE been abducted by alients and implanted with material about Christ as part of a scheme by the race of ($#)&% to fool us.  Well it is possible.  Since its possible, I suppose its probably actual.  Well, I guess my argument is toast.  :(

"Are you unaware of the letters between Pliny and Tacitus?"

Nope.

"We know that they were friends. We have no evidence that they discussed THIS subject,"

Exactly.

"but one would have expected it,"

Another argument from credulity.  As long as I get to do it, too.

"since Pliny had to write to the emperor for advice on how to deal with Christians."

So, since Pliny writes to Trajan about a matter we are compelled to believe he discusses the same matter with Tacitus- despite any evidence of this.  Is your view reasonable?  Sure, why not.  But that doesn't make it a fact, and certainly it is unjustified to take an inference of this sort and jump around with it until finally you think you've raised some kind of 'refutation.'

"Did you forget that Pliny had Christians in his custody?"

Nope.  

"Being unfamiliar with that cult, he asked advice from his emperor on how to deal with them, since all political and religious associations of that sort were illegal."

Exactly.  You've admitted some things that are going to hurt you now.  1.  It is your contention that Tacitus 'could have' or 'might be expected to have' got his information from Pliny.  But you have just let the cat out of the bag:  "Being unfamiliar with that cult..."

So he sends a letter to Trajan.  Thus, if we are going to allow our speculations to continue, we must presume it most likely that Pliny got the information that he gave to Tacitus from Trajan.

That means that through this very speculative game by which you hope to discredit Tacitus' remarks through Pliny- who you admit was unfamiliar with the cult (I just know that if I had pointed out Pliny was unfamiliar with it, you wouldn't have believed me, so I'm very fortunate indeed that you said it yourself)- you have brought us to the most likely source of the source, Trajan.  And unlike your inference that Pliny and Tacitus talked about this, this view actually has a letter on the subject of Christians to serve as concrete evidence for our inference.

So, that gives us Trajan as our likely source.  What can we say about Trajan?

Trajan was born in 53 AD.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trajan

In otherwords, Trajan would have only been 12 when the Neroian persecutions of Christians occurred.  As his father was a senator, there are very good odds (arguments from credulity are apparently on the table) that he spent his time prior to his time in the army in Rome, where he would have been a first hand witness to the events- as well as to the interrogation techniques he references in his letters to Pliny.  After all, Trajan appears to be quite knowledgeable about how to interrogate Christians.  He had to have learned about it somewhere!

Even if he was not in Rome during this time, I would think that even in the realm of reasonable inferences, it would defy reason to believe that Trajan was not informed by his Father about the events in question.  Even if this were not the case, as both he and his father would spend time in Palestine c. 70AD ( http://www.roman-emperors.org/trajan.htm ) he would be very well informed about the various dynamics of the region, both on account of his own duties as a Roman soldier, and by virtue of his father's time as a Senator as well as later re-location in Judea.

No matter how you slice it, if we are set on dismissing Tacitus via Pliny, Pliny takes us to Trajan, and Trajan is in a position to know at every level, from Rome to Judea, about the events in question, as his advice to Pliny about Christians satisfactorily reveals.  Thus, you have set the wheels in motion to produce for us Tacitus' source, and in doing so, you have firmly established the content.

Bump.  Set.  SPIKE.

I should add that I didn't yet find the actual material I once read covering this whole procurator/prefect business.  The gist was more or less the same, though, that the underlying position was the same in any case, so if the title changed immediately afterwards, one would expect some confusion within the sources- or at any rate, some decision:  use the then out dated term that no one used anymore or use the 'modern' definition that the readers at the time would most likely identify with.

This conversation may go better when you realize I'm five steps ahead of you on every turn.  Let me attempt to boil things down.

"If you refuted it, I can't find the refutation anywhere."

Your refutation is two fold:

1.  The text is questionable.

2.  Even if it were authentic, it doesn't help anyway.

The refutation was in the first post:

The burden should be on the dissenter to deny the prima facie interpretation of the evidence presented. The hypothesis is simply "Jesus existed." The counter hypothesis "Despite evidence 'x', it should be concluded that Jesus did not exist" requires the burden of demonstration when prima facie evidence is submitted. So let's get rolling.

To point 1, you have not presented any real evidence to support the position, only heaps of speculation and citation of 'some scholars.'  Its easy to refute fluff.  All you do is identify it as fluff.  Which I have.

To point 2, you have presented no compelling piece of evidence that Tacitus took his sources from impartial material.  You think it reasonable to believe he didn't, but this thread centers around evidence, not leaps of credulity.  

An attack on Tacitus on this point requires an exhaustive look at his sourcing in general, but such effort would certainly not be favorable for you, and in conclusion,

Barring actual evidence to the contrary, the evidence in hand justifies taking the reference on its face.

"By now you have found the source for that information."

I am aware of all sorts of things.  I do not know of what you are referring to.  You could be talking about a number of things.  I am asking you to tell me which, specifically, you refer to.   What is it?

"Actually, you'll find that there are versions of Tacitus in which the spelling is "Chrestus". That name may have been a confusion on Tacitus's part,"

Funny that you wish to blame it on Tacitus.  There is a reason why textual critics have settled on Christus.  Do you know what that reason is?  Furthermore, while in Seutonius the context does not help us resolve the matter, here in Tacitus it certainly does.  We know exactly who is being referred to.

I would be very very careful making much of anything about 'Chrestus' instead of 'Christus.'  I know you think you are standing on golden ground with it, but I stand ready to make you pay for it if you wish to make hay with it.

"You have missed the point. My original statement was that the authenticity of Tacitus was questionable, but irrelevant even under the assumption that it was authentic."

See points 1 and 2 above.  I have not missed your points.  I have dismissed them as unsubstantiated assertions.  As you say, your 'original statement'  ... that sums it up right.  Assertion up to your eye balls.

"This response misses the point yet again. Your argument for authenticity is that the historical record is essentially self-correcting,"

I am not making that argument here.

"Religions don't work that way."

Snobbery.  Tacitus is not a member of this religious sect, however, so we need not concern ourselves with this objection.

"There is no way to verify religious doctrine. It is all based on trust and faith."

If a portion of that doctrine is 'this man existed' it certainly can be verified.  If a portion of that 'doctrine' is that a man was crucified, it certainly can be verified.  I didn't realize that matters of existence and execution were matters of 'religious doctrine.'  I suppose you invent special cases as you see fit.

"Nonsense. What is left of the apologetic literature from that period suggests that it was all about validating Christ's historicity."

Provide references justifying that or CAN it.  Go for it.  Let's see it.  Pony up.  BRING IT ON.  I want to see the very specific charge "Jesus did not exist."  That's what we are debating, and that's the specific motive you need to establish.  

"Really? You think that widespread torture and executions had no effect on people who doubted religious doctrines?"

Not in the years 30-400 AD.  You can't take historical realities and attitudes from a thousand years later to justify why we can't trust a document that YOU SAY was invented in the fourth century.  I don't think you even perceive the nature of the argument you are making.  You are literally all over the map.

"I thought that I had been quite clear. The first record of references to Christ in Josephus and Tacitus date from the 4th century."

But then you invoked patterns of violence re: the 17th and 18th century as to why we might expect writers in the fourth century might not challenge an interpolation.  That there was "a thriving debate between Christian apologists and their pagan critics in the previous two centuries" doesn't help you one bit in this regards, because Christians did not control the empire.  It was the Christians getting their a$$ kicked every other Roman emporer, and not the other way around.

"That isn't the sole argument, but his information could have been nothing but 'second hand'."

Once again, the word 'could have' forms the weight of your argument.  Consider it refuted:  it could have been from primary sources.  You need to remember you have already admitted you actually have 'no clue' and make sure you weight your argument accordingly.

"He was a historian, not a witness to the actual events. He was not a Christian, and there are no references to any records or sources for the information."

This reveals some ignorance about historians of the day, and perhaps even historians of today, too.  It was common not to refer to specific references or sources, and you can find historical works today that don't, either.  This is especially the case when you see things that are a synthesis.  That isn't to say they don't mention them, but if you are going to consider as spurious anything in Tacitus or Philo or Josephus or whomever that does not include  such references, you will have to throw out quite a bit.

But you will not throw out quite a bit, because you wish to employ a double standard.  Its only the material that is damaging to your position or worldview that you will throw out.  I started with this Tacitus passage for the express purpose of revealing this, and you played into my hand nicely.

"My original point was not that we could prove the references to be false but that they aren't reliable enough to count as reasonable proof of Christ's existence."

Proof?  Who said anything about proof?  From where comes this 'proof' business?  Huh?   I didn't say anything about proof.  Rareairpug?  Did you?  Proof?  Anyone?  'Proof'?

""Quote:
"Are you unaware of the letters between Pliny and Tacitus?"""

"Nope."

"Look it up, then. This is easy to check up on. Here, I'll give you a hand. Check out this page from print.google.com."

Hey, Tweedle-Dee.  Look at what you asked me again and look at how I answered.

Seriously.  I honestly don't know why I bother.

You are mistaken if you think you will be able to raise a single iota of information or argumentation that I have not dealt with or come across before.  While possible, the odds of that happening are extremely slim.

Your refutation is two fold:

1.  The text is questionable.
2.  Even if it were authentic, it doesn't help anyway.

The refutation was in the first post:

Quote

The burden should be on the dissenter to deny the prima facie interpretation of the evidence presented. The hypothesis is simply "Jesus existed." The counter hypothesis "Despite evidence 'x', it should be concluded that Jesus did not exist" requires the burden of demonstration when prima facie evidence is submitted. So let's get rolling.

I made argument (2) in the second post in this thread.  Responding to your reply, I pointed out that you had yet to actually address (2), to which you subsequently replied:  I did refute it. Specifically. What I am specially dealing with here is this idea about 'worshipping' someone. That is a bias that clouds what might otherwise be a good point.  Now you claim that the opening statement in the OP--the very first post--was a specific refutation of a point made in the second post.  

To point 1, you have not presented any real evidence to support the position, only heaps of speculation and citation of 'some scholars.'  Its easy to refute fluff.  All you do is identify it as fluff.  Which I have.

Calling it fluff is not an argument but an attempt to trivialize it.  There is enough substantive debate on the subject of those passages in the scholarly literature to establish that they don't go beyond prima facie evidence.  We cannot easily rule out the possibility that they were forgeries, and, on the assumption that they are not, we cannot show that Tacitus used a reliable source.  Saying that he was a careful scholar is not enough to establish that he was careful in each and every thing he wrote.  That would be a sweeping generalization fallacy, which you appear to be guilty of here.

An attack on Tacitus on this point requires an exhaustive look at his sourcing in general, but such effort would certainly not be favorable for you...

I am not attacking Tacitus in general, but the reliability of those passages as evidence for the historicity of Christ.  If your idea of an argument is to show that Tacitus was usually a reliable source of historical evidence, that does not advance your case in this particular instance.  

Personally, I think that the Josephus passages are by far the best extra-biblical corroboration of the historicity of Jesus, and I don't know why you have chosen to put so much effort into a defense of the Tacitus quotes.  But the controversy surrounding them is equally troubling.  While I don't think that one can dismiss such prima facie textual evidence out of hand, it never rises to the level where one can treat it as reliable evidence that Christ existed.  Frankly, given the rise of Christianity to the state religion of the Empire in the 4th century, one would expect church advocates to find more than a handful of quotes that had never been noticed before.  So little evidence existed that a whole industry of faked relics grew up during the middle ages.  The Shroud of Turin still stands as a shining example of the lengths to which people went to fake evidence for the historicity of Christ.

"By now you have found the source for that information."

I am aware of all sorts of things.  I do not know of what you are referring to.  I am asking you to tell me.   What is it?

Sorry.  I thought that you had discovered it.  If you google "Pilate" and "prefect", you'll come up with tons of references.  Try this one.

I would be very very careful making much of anything about 'Chrestus' instead of 'Christus.'  I know you think you are standing on golden ground with it, but I stand ready to make you pay for it if you wish to make hay with it.

You directly contradict what I said, which was that this was an interesting "side note".  There is a tiny controversy over the spelling of that name in Tacitus (not just Suetonius).  It was not even part of my argument that the Tacitus passages are insufficient evidence for the historicity of Christ.  You are so anxious to win your point that you think you need to refute every statement I make, no matter how ancillary.  Let's try to maintain focus on the real argument.

"I thought that I had been quite clear. The first record of references to Christ in Josephus and Tacitus date from the 4th century."

But then you invoked patterns of violence up to the 17th and 18th century.  There is no significance to bringing up that pattern to justify this claim as: [there was] "a thriving debate between Christian apologists and their pagan critics in the previous two centuries. "

We are talking at cross purposes here.  My point about the 4th century was a piece of evidence that the non-Christian source quotes are suspicious, since Christians had never even brought them out as corroborative evidence prior to that time.  (Worse yet, we have almost the exact same wording from a passage in Sulpicius Severus' "The Chronicle", an unrelated work which may have served as the basis of the interpolation.)  Your response was "The first time anyone thought to suggest that Jesus did not actually exist was in the 17th and 18th centuries".  That isn't true, strictly speaking, but I pointed out that the circumstances were quite different.  During the middle ages, such public questioning would have been suppressed and the perpetrator tortured horribly for making it.  Your mock argument in no way refutes the point that the passage in question can only be corroborated as of the 4th century.  This establishes "prima facie evidence" against the authenticity of your "prima facie evidence".  

When no such pattern of violence existed.  It could not exist during that time, becuase it was the Christians getting their a$$ kicked every other Roman emporer, and not the other way around.

The persecution of Christians waxed and waned in the old Empire, and we do have records of apologia before the 4th century.  Justin Martyr, for example, wrote extensively in defense of the Resurrection, but neither he nor any other apologist in the second and third centuries mentioned the passages in Tacitus or Josephus that made reference to Christ.  Such references would have done much to enhance their credibility.  Yet they only got noticed in the 4th century, when they were extremely helpful to corroborate the new state religion.

"He was a historian, not a witness to the actual events. He was not a Christian, and there are no references to any records or sources for the information."

This reveals some ignorance about historians of the day, and perhaps even historians of today, too.  It was common not to refer to specific references or sources, and you can find historical works today that don't, either.  This is especially the case when you see things that are a synthesis.  That isn't to say they don't mention them, but if you are going to consider as spurious anything in Tacitus or Philo or Josephus or whomever that does not include  such references, you will have to throw out quite a bit.

Again, you miss the point.  We lack corroborating evidence.  You can explain why it is natural that we lack corroborating evidence, but that still does not make the source material more reliable.

"My original point was not that we could prove the references to be false but that they aren't reliable enough to count as reasonable proof of Christ's existence."

Proof?  Who said anything about proof?  From where comes this 'proof' business?  Huh?   I didn't say anything about proof.  Rareairpug?  Did you?  Proof?

Proof in the sense of reliable evidence.  This thread is all about the credibility of your prima facie evidence, which has so far concentrated on an extremely narrow and questionable textual reference.  Again, this is hardly overwhelming evidence for the historical existence of Christ.  I am not the first to point out that Tacitus could only have relied on secondary sources and that we don't have any information on how reliable those sources were.

Coming in late, but....

There is no independent evidence, outside of this passage, that Christians existed in Rome during the reign of Nero or that Nero was even aware of such a cult.

You are kidding, right?

Suetonius in Lives of the Caesars 16.2 writes "Punishment by Nero was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition."

Looks to me like Nero knew about the Christians.

So far, all we have worth any attention at all is this procurator/prefect business.

No, there is quite a bit more, but let me try to stop this discussion from getting bogged down in the lesser point.  My argument was twofold, as you have acknowledged:  The Tacitus quote was (1) of questionable authenticity and (2) irrelevant even if it were authentic.  I think that the case for (1) is far weaker than the case for (2), so I'll forego (1).  I think that there are plenty of reasons to question the authenticity of the Tacitus quotes, but most scholars take them at face value, and that includes a fair number of atheist historians (e.g. Lowder and Carrier).  The same is not true of Sulpicius' Fragment 2 quote, which Carrier doubts is authentic.  More on this below.

"Saying that he was a careful scholar is not enough to establish that he was careful in each and every thing he wrote. That would be a sweeping generalization fallacy, which you appear to be guilty of here."

Absolutely not.  Obviously it does not mean he was careful in each and every thing, but if he is careful in a great many things, the burden is on you to SHOW that in this one case he was not.  Merely suggesting he was not does not constitute an argument.

OK, you concede that Tacitus was not always careful or accurate.  That is enough for me.  The question here is whether the passages under discussion met his usual standards of scholarship.  You should agree with me that Tacitus did not really think of Christianity as anything more than "superstitio", i.e. an alien doctrine that lacked substance.  Sulpicius is said to have replaced Tacitus' "superstitio" with "religio", which is one thing that causes Carrier to doubt its authenticity.

"If your idea of an argument is to show that Tacitus was usually a reliable source of historical evidence, that does not advance your case in this particular instance."

I presume that you are here admitting that Tacitus was usually a reliable source of historical evidence.  That would be good of you to do, because it would save me a lot of time in demonstrating that.  But I will if I have to.

No, I have never claimed or felt that he was generally unreliable.  In this case, I think that he follows the trend of most pagan critics of Christianity.  That is, he does not question that some figure referred to as Christ really existed.  There was no way to prove it one way or the other, so why would Romans bother to deny such a thing?  They tended to believe that Jesus could have worked magic, which they still did not think justified the claims of Christians that he was a true holy man.  The question for anti-christian polemicists was whether Christ did what Christians said he did.  Celsus, for example, argued that many pagan holy men had performed feats of magic that were just as impressive, if not more so.

But it obviously helps me advance my case in this particular instance, because what I'm doing in taking this passage more or less on its face is basing my trust on his general reliability, which can be established pretty well objectively.  Thus, my trust is based on objective evaluation.

OK.  Let's go with your trust to this extent:  Tacitus wrote the passages and believed that he was talking about Christians.  After all, we can be reasonably certain that Christians did exist in Asia Minor at the time that he and his good friend, Pliny the Younger, served as local governors there.

Ah.  I was well aware of the Pilate inscription.  But I did not know that was what you were referring to.  I guess we don't have to re-hash 17th century arguments that even Pilate probably didn't exist, eh?  Anyway, are you aware of any LITERARY texts that reference Pilate as a prefect and not a procurator?  Furthermore, you did not comment on the Gospel of John's reference to the place where Pilate resided as the 'place of the prefect.'

No, but this discussion was only about Tacitus.  His "prefect" remark is an anachronism, and it gives us reason to believe that Tacitus was not working with original documents--Roman records--from that era, which would probably not have confused the title.  I am glad to see that John does not indulge in that anachronism.  Score one for John!  

"(Worse yet, we have almost the exact same wording from a passage in Sulpicius Severus' "The Chronicle", an unrelated work which may have served as the basis of the interpolation.)"

Funny.  I thought the exact same wording would probably be good evidence of quoting from an existing document.  You do realize that this line of argument renders it epistemologically impossible to distinguish from interpolation and quotation?

Actually, Sulpicius Severus' quote is widely regarded as being from a lost portion of Tacitus' fifth "Historiae" book. That quote has spawned a very interesting hypothesis from Eric Laupot. Many have noticed that "Christiani" was yet another anachronism for first century Romans, because Christians were not widely known by that name in the 1st century.  On the other hand, there was a band of Jewish Zealots known as "Christiani" whose rebellion was crushed by Titus in the latter half of the first century.  Laupot argues at length that Tacitus had confused the jewish "Christiani" sect with real Christians.  You can find Carrier's criticism of the claim and Laupot's rebuttal of the criticism here.  

Laupot considers Suetonius' reference to Christiani to indulge in the same confusion.  (Suetonius, like Tacitus, was a friend of Pliny the Younger.)  It is an intriguing idea, because Laupot does a good job of backing up his claim with some independent evidence.  If Laupot is correct, both Tacitus and Suetonius were guilty of confusing Christians with a sect of Jewish zealots.  My own speculation is that the similarity between 'Christus' and 'Christiani' might have led both Christians and non-Christians of those times to mix up the Jesus story with events surrounding the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD and the suppression of Jewish rebels.  After all, the Roman historians were writing decades later, and it would have been an easy confusion to make.

"He was a historian, not a witness to the actual events. He was not a Christian, and there are no references to any records or sources for the information."

"Again, you miss the point. We lack corroborating evidence."

That wasn't your point.  We are working through this one item at a time.  That Tacitus did not provide us with his sourcing in this case does not make it any less valid.  It does not make it LESS reliable.  It is what it is.  We will work on some more corroboration as we go.

Finally, we agree on the fact that the lack of sourcing does indeed detract from the quality of the evidence.  And that is (and was) precisely my point.  Just because a respected historian believed that he was talking about Christians in Nero's time, that does not mean that his belief was based on reliable evidence.  After all, Tacitus didn't consider Christians to be a very important sect, and he thought it important to explicitly point out that "Christus" was the source of the "Christiani" name (auctor nominis eius).  Laupot's argument was that Tacitus had nothing other than the name to base his identification of Christ with the historical events in Rome.

"Again, this is hardly overwhelming evidence for the historical existence of Christ."

That's fine.  I never said it was.  Nonetheless, it is evidence for the historical existence of Christ.  It only ceases to be evidence if you can actually demonstrate that we cannot take it on its face.  You are filled with assertions, but a little light on the evidence front.

Rather the reverse, my friend.  I have never denied the quote as prima facie evidence.  I have merely denied that it counts as the "overwhelming" evidence that you seem to think exists.  What other non-Christian sources of evidence do you have besides these handful of questionable textual references?

...So, I specifically refute this by saying that Tacitus COULD HAVE relied on primary sources...

But you've already admitted that this is all speculation.  That isn't "overwhelming evidence".

"No, I have never claimed or felt that he was generally unreliable."

I didn't ask you if you he was generally unreliable.  I asked you if he was generally reliable.  What is your answer to that?

That's really hard to say.  I've read the Annals, but I had no way to verify his statements.  He did seem to color his statements with a lot of political judgment and moralizing, so he wasn't exactly objective.  He had lots of detailed information on the lives of Romans, but he had Roman records, histories by other Romans, and other sources to draw on.  He has been known to be inaccurate in some details, for example his rendition of Claudius' speech (which we have an independent source for).  His fleeting reference to Pontius Pilate was remarkably brief and devoid of details, so it was a story that he could easily have gotten from Christians (or someone like Pliny) from his own era.

There are several problems with this line of attack.  First and foremost, that no one bothers to suggest that Jesus didn't exist is at the very least good reason to think that the thought never merited mention, and the natural inference is that this is for very good reason:  Jesus' existence was taken for granted.  Secondly, my whole purpose is simply to address whether it is reasonable to believe that Jesus did exist, so whether they thought little of Jesus or not, so long as this point was conceded by all of them- and it certainly appears it was- then that supports my premise.

You cannot assume that Jesus existed because some people in the Empire took it for granted that he existed.  They also took if for granted that Romulus and Remus existed, as well as other mythical figures.  There was only a 10% literacy rate in the Empire, and people believed a lot of fantastic nonsense and rumors.  The question is not what people believed but what reasons they had for believing what they believed.

"OK. Let's go with your trust to this extent: Tacitus wrote the passages and believed that he was talking about Christians."

The problem with this is that in this passage, its clear also he was talking about Christ, specifically one who was executed under Pontius Pilate.

Yes, those few sentences show that Pontius Pilate believed he was talking about Christ's Christians, which Tacitus knew to exist in Asia Minor at the time that he wrote.  But, as Laupot pointed out, Tacitus could easily have confused the Jewish Zealots that led to Titus' destruction of the Second Temple (70 AD) with the Christians that were his contemporaries in the early 2nd century.  That would explain why Tacitus felt it necessary to say auctor nominis eius--originator of their name.  Why bother to point that out?  Wouldn't it have been obvious?  The confusion would have been very natural, since Christians were not a well-known group even in his own times.

But what if those were real Christians and Nero really persecuted them?  Even under that assumption, you don't get evidence of Christ's historicity.  You only get evidence of people who worshipped Christ decades after the alleged execution.

"No, but this discussion was only about Tacitus. His "prefect" remark is an anachronism, and it gives us reason to believe that Tacitus was not working with original documents--Roman records--from that era, which would probably not have confused the title."

Ah, but it is relevant.  You have raised one of several of the most important arguments for why Tacitus almost certainly WAS working with original documents.  This is certainly a point I will return to, when the time is appropriate.

If you had such an argument, I can see no reason why you would conceal it at this point.  If Tacitus were working from original documents, then why didn't he get Pilate's title straight?  It looks more and more like a confusion between Christians and Zealots, both of whom tended to get mixed up by Roman officials.

Uh, that's not what I said.  I have some pretty well thought out views about sourcing questions in general and skeptical criticism in particular that would make my position pretty clear.   However, it is doubtful it would help to explain it, so let me actually respond directly to this point.  The existence or lack of existence of 'sourcing' in theory speaks to the quality of the evidence, but <--- BUT we rarely have the aid of such material in ancient histories so it isn't reasonable or rational to form our conclusions on that point alone.  It is much more reasonable and rational to test an author's overall trustworthiness as much as possible.  This testing will rarely involve 'sourcing' but more often require looking at archeological facts and the writings of other authors.

Sntjohnny, it really looks like you are struggling here to come up with an argument that you know you don't have.  There is no evidence of sources for that brief passage.  You want to rest your entire case on the idea that we should just take Tacitus at face value, yet we know that he made some mistakes and some distortions. He was a part of the senatorial class that despised the arrogance of emperors, especially given his difficult times under Domitian.  So he was motivated to show Nero in a bad light.  He was not preoccupied with Christians, and it is quite reasonable that he mixed contemporary ideas about Christians with stories about Jewish rebels, which we know to have been causing problems for the Romans before 70 AD.  Especially if Laupot was right that the "Christiani" of the Temple era were not Christians.

"he thought it important to explicitly point out that "Christus" was the source of the "Christiani" name (auctor nominis eius). Laupot's argument was that Tacitus had nothing other than the name to base his identification of Christ with the historical events in Rome."

I have my own objections to this line of argumentation.  Namely, it ignores the wider context which explicitly reference events dealing with Christians and it explicitly references the Christ of Palestine.  I am not certain this is a fruitful line of argumentation for us to go down.  The context of the entire passage in Tacitus makes it clear he is referencing Christians, and Christ the one crucified under Pilate.  It really cannot be any other.

Laupot makes a pretty good case.  What we know from Tacitus is that he took the trouble to explain the connection between "Christiani", which was not a widely used name for Christians in the 1st century, and "Christus".  It would have been a very natural confusion to make, if indeed it was a confusion.  Laupot relies not just on the historical context, but on a statistical relation between the wording in Titus and Tacitus' wording.

I think you need to trace this 'overwhelming evidence' thing.  You own that phrase.  I have never used it except in response to your own use for it.  I definately said you'd have to be nuts to deny that Jesus existed.  I stand by that.  And when I first said that, I said that were many lines of evidence that can be drawn.  For you to suppose that I would start on just ONE of them and consider it by itself to be 'nut-worthy' I believe poisons the conversation from the get go.  I am making a cumulative case, and I think that is apparent.

You have made no "cumulative case".  Your entire case is for us to trust Tacitus to have gotten his facts right, even if there is no source material or independent evidence to back up his brief attribution of "Christiani".  If you want to make a cumulative case, you actually have to build something up.  So far, I've seen nothing but appeals to rely on Tacitus' scholarship regarding an obscure religious sect that he obviously knew and cared very little about.

"But you've already admitted that this is all speculation."

That's right.  I said in fact that it was a crappy argument.  However, standing on the general reliability of the source, which can be checked in myriads of ways- and Tacitus has, and has been shown to be a remarkable historian- and bringing that assumption to this portion of his work as well, is NOT speculation.  It is a reasonable method.

Quite clearly, you've got nothing beyond what I've said--a "trust Tacitus" defense of your position.

Now, at this point I have argued the way I have to illustrate some basic facts.  On the one hand, it is my argument that you have no substantive reasons for not taking the passage on its face.  You have acceded now that a great many historians, including atheist ones, take it on its face, as well.  My argument from general reliability I believe is sound enough reason to actually JUSTIFY taking it on its face.

Not really, but I've already pointed out that this in no way represents evidence for Christ's historicity.  At best, it represents evidence of his worshippers historicity decades after Christ allegedly lived.

But I have more.  I believe I can provide a convincing line of argumentation showing that Tacitus almost certainly was drawing off of Roman records.

Finally.  Now, we're getting somewhere.  

To prepare the ground for that argument, I'd like to recall my question about whether or not there are any literary sources (other than the allusion in John) that refer to Pilate as prefect rather than procurator.   The answer to that is 'no.'  Josephus, Philo, and Tacitus all refer to Pilate as a procurator.

It wasn't until after 44 CE that the governor of Judea was called a procurator!  See http://www.usd.edu/erp/Palestine/administ.htm.  These men all used a title that was an anachronism for Pilate.  There is no proof that any of them were relying on source materials or documents to get Pilate's title correct.  But even so, what would it prove?  Tacitus can be taken at face value whether Christ existed or not.  This is no evidence of Christ's historicity at all.  At best, it is evidence of the historicity of Christians.  Nothing more.

Are you aware that Tacitus was a senator?

I have actually read the Annals and his biography in the front material of the Penguin Classics copy that is sitting on my desk right now.  So the answer is yes.

Do you admit that Tacitus had access to Roman records and the imperial archives?

Yes.  Having access to them and using them are two different things.  There is no evidence that the Pilate reference came from any Roman record or imperial archive.  More likely, his knowledge of Christians came from Pliny and other of his contemporaries.

Is any historian truly "objective?"

No, but I don't think it reasonable to treat Tacitus as on a par with modern historians in terms of his scholarship.  He was trained in the Greek tradition, which emphasized the poetic style of historical treatises.  Tacitus has been accused of being more concerned with the turn of a phrase than accuracy, which may account for his rendition of Claudius' speech.

There was only a 10% literacy rate in the Empire, and people believed a lot of fantastic nonsense and rumors.

Interesting.  First, how can that be known?  Second, I've read that it was 15% overall but very high amongst the patrician class.

It cannot be known by any direct means, but there are ways of calculating such figures.  I believe (but am not certain) that I got that figure from The Christians as the Romans saw them, a very interesting book.  I don't think that 15% is beyond reason.  The point here is that most people did not rely directly on textual references to vet their information.  The Empire was a gigantic rumor mill.

Even if we accept these literacy rates for the Empire, does this count slaves, citizens of provinces, or just actual Roman citizens?

I would expect it to count everyone.  After all, some slaves were employed as tutors.