Quote from: Copernicus

Since his good friend, Pliny, did not know very much about the history of Christians, it is unlikely that Tacitus did either.  Both were highly educated Roman citizens.

Quote from: Copernicus

We can reasonably believe that Christians existed at that time, because Pliny wrote to Trajan about them, and Pliny corresponded with Tacitus.

These two statements are contradictory!  Which is it, Cop?  Does Pliny know about Christians or not?

My dear Doctor, all you need to do is pretend I am a Christian.  If you could engage in that fantasy for just a tiny moment, you would immediately try to imagine how such statements could be understood as completely consistent and compatible, and you would have no problem.  Alas, I am an atheist.  So you will go to extreme lengths to find any inconsistency you can imagine.  

Here's what I was thinking.  We know that Pliny came upon and imprisoned a group of practicing Christians.  He knew very little about them or how to deal with them, so he wrote his emperor, Trajan, for advice, saying that the wild stories about their bizarre practices appeared to be false.  Trajan wrote back and said that the Christians should not be considered too seditious unless they failed to show proper respect for the state religion--nowadays referred to as paganism.  Hence, you see in my first statement the claim that Pliny "did not know very much about the history of Christians."  Since Pliny knew Tacitus as a friend, a historian, and a scholar, it is reasonable to think that he might have discussed the matter with Tacitus as well.  (Speculation--but reasonable speculation.)

Now consider the second statement that you juxtaposed out of context to the first.  Pliny has some Christians in his custody.  That gives him a kind of knowledge about them, but it doesn't mean that he is an instant expert.  Hence, he wrote Trajan to ask for more information, informing Trajan what he had learned about them.  At the same time, being a good friend of Tacitus, he may well have consulted Tacitus.  At that point, we have Pliny, Trajan, Tacitus, and possibly other Roman officials trying to piece together information on this cult that Pliny had turned up.  They exchange information, mutually informing each other of what they knew about this group, which would have identified its members as followers of a man "Christus" that had been executed by the "procurator" "Pontius Pilatus".  If we add Laupot's hypothesis to the mix, this same group of Romans might well have confused these followers of "Christus" with the Jewish zealot group known as "Christiani" in Nero's time.  (Christians were not typically known as "Christiani" until the 2nd century, according to Laupot.)

Now, suppose that you say to me that you know a man extremely well who attends your church.  He is a solid member of the community.  He has a nice wife and children.  You've known him for 20 years and have complete trust in his judgment.  Suddenly, he is exposed as a serial murderer.  Can you still claim that you know him?  The answer is "yes" and "no".  You know a lot about him, but he isn't really the man that you thought you knew.  

In other words, knowledge is open-ended.  No matter how much you know about something, there is always something that you don't know about it.  It is not a contradiction to say "yes" and "no", because the answer depends on just what is meant by the word "know".  Anyway, if you still insist that I have contradicted myself, I suggest that you don't really know what you are talking about.  

Yes, sntjohnny, I saw your post above Doc's.  I answered him first, because it seemed the quicker of the two to deal with.

I am not asking you to assume anything.  I'm asking you to make the effort to test your speculation.  As I said, it so happens that we can indeed test this particular bit of speculation.  So why won't you test it?

Because I don't agree with your reasoning in its significance.  Even if I did, it's still your case to make, not mine.  YOU do the test!  :)

It is relevant in regards to your claim that Tacitus learned this material from Christians.  If no Christian is on record describing Pilate as a procurator, then it is not reasonable to consider anymore that Tacitus got his information from Christians.

Even under the false assumption that our records were complete of how Christians described Pontius Pilate, your argument would still be worthless.  Tacitus might have heard 'praefectus' and reported it as 'procurator' for reasons of his own--perhaps because it fit with his aesthetic sense of the language.  Who knows?  There are too many ways that your "test" could fail to prove what you want it to.  You are grasping at straws here.

"Since his good friend, Pliny, did not know very much about the history of Christians, it is unlikely that Tacitus did either. Both were highly educated Roman citizens."

Yes they were.  So, they must have got their information from someone.  If not the Roman archives, then who?  The Christians?

What makes your evidence unreliable is that we have no way to know.  Your "test" doesn't prove anything.

"We can reasonably believe that Christians existed at that time"

Who cares?  Compare the language that Tacitus uses with the language of Christians at the time.  SHOW that these factual assertions were part of the Christian belief system.  Don't try to disown it as only speculation in one breath and then use it as the linchpin of your argument in the next breath.  Do the test.

Sntjohnny, it is not clear that Pliny's captives used the same wording that we find in modern copies of the gospel stories.  I don't think that there were any records of the interrogation of Pliny's captives, and we do not even know if they were a source for Tacitus or if Pliny accurately communicated their wording to Tacitus.  You could drive one of your trucks through the holes in your logic.  The only thing anyone can say is that it is plausible that Pliny would have discussed his experience of Christians with Tacitus.  I'm not even trying to prove that he did, only that it is one plausible scenario for his source.

If you want to make the contention that Tacitus got his information from Christians, and you want to make this the pillar of your argument (I normally wouldn't use something I've admitted as 'sheer speculation' to be a pillar of an argument, but that's just me), then you need to take the extra steps to determine if your speculation has any basis in reality.  One does not always have the liberty of going the next step.  In this case, however, we have lots of data by Christians near that time.

AAUUGGHH!!  How many times do I have to tell you that this speculation is NOT the "pillar" of my argument?  It is only ONE reasonable speculation on how the statements by Tacitus might have come from contemporary descriptions of Christians (or by whomever) rather than historical records.

"Easy. The Christians believed those 7 assertions."

But in this very same post you have admitted that it is only 'sheer speculation' that Tacitus got his information in this passage from Christians.

That's correct.  You asked me to elaborate on the speculative scenario I was proposing, and I did.  You then acted like you had scored a "gotcha" point, as if I were somehow claiming that the scenario were more than speculation.

Sheer speculation that Tacitus got his information from Christians does not rise to the level of serving to dismiss 7 factual assertions about Christ.  If you cannot demonstrate that it is reasonable to believe that Tacitus got his information from Christians, you cannot dismiss 7 factual assertions as though they were believed by Christians!  That is why this 'procurator' business is helpful:  It's 1 of the 7 factual assertions.... but can you show that Christians believed it, independent from your necessity that they did in order to redeem your argument?

Progress.  If I can demonstrate that it is reasonable to believe my speculation, then I can dismiss those 7 claims about the Jesus story that Christians in the early 2nd century believed.  I now draw your attention to your own words in the fifth post of this thread (emphasis mine):

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.

I never said that we were "compelled to believe" such a speculation, but you often rephrase my claims with language that distorts my original intent.

"Tacitus repeated their claims, because that explained what Christians were all about--who 'Christus' was to them."

But can you give us any record of Christians claiming Pilate was a procurator?

No, can you?  Can you give us any proof one way or the other that Tacitus wasn't told "praefectus" but changed the name to "procurator" in order to make the text flow better?  I can't, but it was well within the tradition of Greek historians to take poetic license in their histories, and Tacitus was trained in the Greek tradition.  This entire passage is a molehill.  Put down your mountain climbing gear.  

Btw, that is not the only factual assertion made by Tacitus that can be tested against Christian material.   All of them can- but two of them are absolutely foreign.  They are not found anywhere in Christian literature of the time or even before or after.  Oops... I just gave you the results of the test.   Well, it would be good for you to still do the test on your own- see it with your own eyes.

Finally!  If you've got an argument present it.  What "Christian material" did you check, and what did you find?  Why waste all this time with your unnecessary "Do the test" taunts?  Present your evidence.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/

That's pretty exhaustive.

Do the test.

"I've explained it thoroughly a number of times, so I'm not going to repeat it again. This is classic argumentum ad nauseam from you."

No, you haven't.  You've just started to address it.  This is a classic case of you not being able to read carefully.

There is a specific claim:  "It is possible that Christians were the source."

I offered the specific test:  "Then check the Christian sources to see if the material supports that claim."

You think THAT is unreasonable.  You have yet to deal with this point in isolation, even though I have raised it quite a few times in isolation.

"I have your explicit admission that it is reasonable speculation."

That is the silliest line of argumentation I've ever seen you engage in, and you've had some doozies.  Just because something is a reasonable speculation doesn't mean its probable, or likely, or a reasonable conclusion.   Speculation is not enough to dismiss a prima facie interpretation of this passage.

Do I have your explicit admission that you have nothing more than 'reasonable speculations' for rejecting a prima facie interpretation?

hmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

"You asked how he might have come across the information, and I gave you a plausible scenario. You have speculated that he used records from Roman archives to get this specific item of information, but your speculation is no more plausible than mine."

 

Actually, I have already addressed this point.  I pointed you to the general reliability of Tacitus.  That would be testing my 'speculation.'  I pass the test.  That gives my 'speculation' increased plausibility.  I suggested a test for YOUR speculation, which you decline to engage in.  Thus, your speculation remains speculation, while my 'speculation' is in fact more plausible than yours, as I can point to a pattern of reliability in Tacitus and you can point to....

Nothing but your imagination.

"That doesn't make it the "pillar" of my argument. The pillar of my argument is that we have no information on what sources Tacitus used for his passing remark."

Oh, is that really it?  Then we can consider it void, because we have plenty of information on his sources in general, and your only argument resides in trying to excise this particular... 'passing remark'  That methodology is clearly ridiculous, as you could make it about probably 90% of Tacitus material, much of that we consider reliable on the grounds that he has shown himself worthy.  I bet you don't object to THAT material!  But we accept it on the same grounds I am invoking in regards to this passage.

"Nothing I have said depends on that being the actual source of his information."

That's true.  Everything depends on you thinking that any conceivable speculation is of equal weight to a careful evaluation of Tacitus' sourcing in general.

""If you didn't think it worth believing, why did you bring it up?"

"Because it is worth considering."

But not as a reason to believe?  So, if I say something is 'reasonable speculation' that equals 'reasonable to believe' but if you say something is 'reasonable speculation' it only means its 'because it is worth consideration.'   I don't think I have a smilie face available that provides the volume of vomit required to treat this bald faced double standard hypocrisy with the dignity it requires.  grrrrrrrrr

For the record, then- as though it needed to be stated- I do not believe that any and all reasonable speculative comments are ipso facto 'reasonable to believe.'  My position is uncanningly like Cop's position, in that I merely concede it is 'worth considering.'  And for the record, I would never treat such speculations as being on the same level as some sort of demonstrated fact.

"My argument is that Tacitus' passage is not evidence of the historicity of Christ, only of Christians. (Sorry to keep repeating this, but you seem to keep forgetting it.)"

And I keep asking you how it is evidence of Christians, and not Christ, when it gives more details about Christ than it does Christians.

This is where we hear your argument again that Tacitus learned this informaton (possibly!) from Christians, and then we see your non-effort to show that this is anything more than a possibility.

Thus, if we could put your argument in stark relief, the Tacitus passage is evidence specifically of Christ, and only possibly is not.

That's all you've got.  It only possibly isn't.

"When the "time is right"???? That time passed long ago."

No it hasn't.  I'm still plugging away at my project.  It's coming along, and I won't apologize for the fact that life happens despite my desires.  The reason that I would not present it even now to you even if it was complete is because I want to fully expose your hypocrisy.  

YOU ARE THE ONE RAISING THE 'POSSIBILITY' THAT TACITUS GAINED HIS INFORMATION FROM CHRISTIANS, IT IS YOUR JOB TO SHOW THAT THIS IS PROBABLE.

The burden is on you.

"I have already told you what I thought--that the "praefectus"/"procurator" question was a side issue of little consequence."

I have already told you what it can do for you, however.   It is a 'side issue' in regards to a prima facie interpretation of Tacitus, perhaps, but it is not a side issue in regards to the claim that it is 'possible' *gag* that he learned this description from Christians.  As soon as you say that, that opens the door to look at the Christian material to see if they every described Pilate in this way.

If they did, then your speculation is substantiated by documentary evidence.
If they didn't, then your speculation is substantiated by nothing, and perhaps even refuted.

But I have already said this.  See the quote below.

"And don't bother to accuse me of academic laziness. You can't be bothered to back up your own arguments. You expect those who disagree with you to do your heavy lifting for you."

When I make a claim, I back it up.  As you do not dispute the general reliability of Tacitus, I have nothing in this thread yet that I need to back up.   If you want to over-throw the general reliability, you have to do so by poking some hole in the passage.  That hole will have to be based on evidence.

You have suggested some possible holes, but you refuse to take the steps to see if those holes can be substantiated.   Thus, 'general reliability' is still carrying the day.

Would you like to go back on your agreement that Tacitus was generally reliable?  That would then throw the ball back in my court.  The game we are playing right now... well.... let me go back to the original.....

However, while I work on my essay, there are still two things we can still discuss, both of them requiring action by you right now, and this is one of them.

1. If you want to press it as a reasonable possibility that Tacitus derived his information from Christians, then the obvious thing would be to see if another line of argumentation can be developed from the Christian materials themselves. If there is a tradition of Christians describing Pilate as a procurator, then your thesis is vastly strengthened- it would be consistent with available evidence and no longer speculative, but substantiated. If not, it is vastly weakened- it would fly in the face of available evidence and remain mere speculation.

2. You have said repeatedly that this passage only argues for the existence of Christians, but not Christ. But significantly more detail is allotted to this 'Christ' than the 'Christians.' How do you resolve this fact while retaining your premise that the ONLY thing supported is that there were Christians?

As you can see from the posts after this one, I have been relentlessly hammering at you on these specific topics, and no others.

My essay will specifically use the 'procurator/prefect' business to substantiate this particular passage, but that is quite independent of your addressing of these two passages.

That is to say, I don't have to construct any essay at all if I don't want to.  I could keep throwing 'general reliability' at you all day until you produced some actual evidence (and I guess it can't have anything to do with the 'procurator' bit, since you've said that's really insignificant).  I will keep doing that until I have my essay finished.  I am currently on page 23.  You were the one that said "Take all the time you need" right?

"Yes, I'm really frightened that you've 'done the test'. That's why I repeatedly make the unfair demand that you present your findings."

Funny how you missed it.  lol, seriously Cop.  I'd like to say that I see how you missed it, but then you even quoted them.  See my post on Fri Dec 02, 2005 10:16 pm  And yours immediately after.

As I said, it would be good for you to do the test on your own so you can see it with your own eyes.  But I already gave you the results to the test.

A good summary is always welcome.

"In response to my overall position, you opened up this thread on Tacitus in order to show that it contained convincing evidence for the historicity of Christ."

Did I?  Or is that only what you imagined?  See, this seems to me to be a fundamental problem in your approach to this entire question.  For example, you keep throwing the word 'prove' and 'proof' around, as though that is what I'm trying to do.  You think that the case for Jesus' existence is weak.  My aim is to go through a number of lines of evidence and show 2 things.  1.  Cumulatively speaking, it becomes immeasurably absurd to really believe that Jesus didn't exist.  2.  By taking evidences one by one, we can see how in every case, arguments against the evidences rest primarily on conjecture and speculation.

The whole notion that the evidence of Jesus' existence is 'weak' is derived from systematically finding reasons to reject the plain interpretation of various evidences.  Your case is purely a negative case, and as others have discerned, is not applied to any other historical inquiry, showing it to be more or less tailor made to invoke a separate class of methods and expectations for the question of Jesus, and the question of Jesus, alone.

"You have claimed that Tacitus was a reliable source of historical information and that we must trust his statement as accurate on those grounds alone."

No.  My point is that he was a reliable source of historical information, and unless you have good reason to believe otherwise in this case- that is, something based on evidence- you are not permitted to arbitrarily reject the reliability of this passage.  That is my argument.

"MY MAIN POINT has been that, EVEN IF ACCURATE, the statement places the existence of Christians in Rome just a few years before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE."

Yes, but when I ask you to substantiate that passage you think I'm skewing the argument.  This is the third time asking the following question in response to your MAIN POINT:

However, while I work on my essay, there are still two things we can still discuss, both of them requiring action by you right now, and this is one of them.

2. You have said repeatedly that this passage only argues for the existence of Christians, but not Christ. But significantly more detail is allotted to this 'Christ' than the 'Christians.' How do you resolve this fact while retaining your premise that the ONLY thing supported is that there were Christians?

Substantial information in the Tacitus passage is given about this person called 'Christus,' including his mode of death, when, and by who.  Of the Christians we learn nothing other than that they were there.   Yet, inexplicably, you say it is only evidence of Christians, and not Christ.  Something does not add up there.  

As it is specifically concerns your MAIN POINT, I ask you once again to answer my question.

"We can verify independently that Pontius Pilate served as the "praefectus" of Judea,"

Actually, the only evidence of that is the Pilate Inscription.

"a post that came to be known by the title "procurator" only after 44 CE."

That cannot be substantiated.  I deal with it thoroughly in my essay, though, so we may as well just hold off on this.  In the meantime, perhaps you might want to review the raw source material for information that corroborates this claim.  Good luck.

"However, this passing side note in our discussion has become almost the entire focus of your interaction with me, hoping somehow to demonstrate that it tells us something significant about the source of Tacitus's information. You originally promised to do this research and publish the results on your own. At this point, it looks to me as if you expect me to do it for you, which is a complete non-starter as far as I'm concerned."

This is classic Copernicus Obfuscation.  I am indeed working on the procurator information.  I have completed most of it.  However, the work I insisted that you do was different then the project I am working on, though there turns out to be some overlap.  So, I'm sorry to inform you that the only heavy lifting I am asking you to do is your own.  

"The interesting thing about "Christiani" (or "annointed ones") is that early Christians did not refer to themselves by that name."

The really interesting thing is you know jack smack about what Christians referred themselves as.  The first usage of the term is in Acts, as Laupot correctly states, but it doesn't look like Laupot bothered to look the passage up.  Or you for that matter.  I did, however.  Its complete hogwash.  I've been letting a lot of these little things fly, but I won't forever.

"Christians themselves did not use this name for themselves before the latter half of the 2nd century, as far as we know."

Says who?  You know what's really interesting about that is its refuted by the Acts passage that Laupot tried to say supported his view.

"Eric Laupot has proposed a rather shocking hypothesis in this regard"

You've been trying to bait me on this Laupot thing for quite awhile.  I find myself in rare agreement with Richard Carrier.  Laupot rhymes with crackpot, and I think that says all that needs to be said.

"So, where do we stand at this point? Sntjohnny has claimed to have done some research on the use of "procurator" and "praefectus" in the Christian literature."

Well yea, but not just there.  My project is more broad then that.  However, this has nothing to do with the project that you should be working on, which is more narrow.

"He has not revealed the nature of his research or what he found, although he has hinted that his findings somehow show that Tacitus did not get his information about his "Christiani" from contemporary followers of Christ."

What bunk.  First of all, I have made it quite clear that my project concerns the Tacitus passage, but in regards to the 'findings' of the 'test' I have not 'hinted about the findings.'  If you would bother to read- something that you, oh great and mighty linguist that you are should be able to do- you would see that I gave you the findings of the project that I tasked you with, that you quoted those findings, and that I have now referred you to them- counting this time- twice.

So much for "take your time" eh, Cop?

And another thing about that.  As I have explained the purpose of my project a couple of times, and how it is different then what you propose, and why I am investing the time on it, etc, my only thought is that your continued snide remarks about me not producing my research is really a piece of childish ad hominem.  I said I'm working on it, and I am.

Now, how about dealing with the issues that you have a burden to demonstrate?

Also, did you see "Jesus Part 2" yet?

Sntjohnny, I was working on a reply to your previous post, but I see that you have finally completed your essay.  I am delighted to see that, and I look forward to reading it.  I promise to respond, but I ask your patience.  Too many demands on my time are preventing me from giving more thought to this question.  I do, however, enjoy having had the opportunity to learn more about Tacitus and his role in Christian apologetics.

I am by no means going to let you off the hook on these topics, Cop, but I have completed my project. I will submit it to you, but I need to remind you that you are not the target of it. Certain elements of it were what I was going to submit to you anyway. For example, I was already going to focus on 'procurator' in my defense of Tacitus, for reasons explained in the project, when you brought it up 'in passing.'

Sntjohnny, I have finished reading your essay, and I must say that I am impressed by the scope of your effort.  One weakness may be that you have relied almost exclusively on internet resources, but you have certainly done a masterful job of referencing those materials that were easily available on the web.  I don't know whether you have used http://print.google.com yet, but that is one way to broaden the source material on the web.  Unfortunately, Google does not make it easy to cut an paste from that source, and pages are often blanked out randomly (because Google is trying to avoid copyright liability).  What I found from the Google site is that the praefectus/procurator issue is usually relegated to a footnote that takes the Caesarea inscription as hard evidence that Josephus and Tacitus were wrong in calling Pilate 'procurator'.  This is not much different from the online source material that you used.

My primary argument for accepting the prima facie significance of the Tacitus 15 passage is that Tacitus had already established a solid baseline of credibility, and it wasn't fair to withdraw that credibility for this one passage, unless there were some real evidence to justify that.

I understand, but your logic is faulty here.  Just because Tacitus is generally credible, you cannot conclude that this particular passage is as credible as his entire body of work.  That is a classic sweeping generalization error.  It is legitimate for people to question his authority on specific passages, and I have already demonstrated that scholars have found him to play fast and loose with the facts on occasion.  This particular passage does not contain the sort of material that one would expect Tacitus to go out of his way to verify.  It is merely a passing remark about a group of people that Nero scapegoated.

Tacitus clearly describes a man named 'Christus' and tells us when, where, and how he died.  It is a tacitly clear acknowledment that the man existed.  However, as Tacitus was writing c. 115 AD, it would strengthen the weight of the passage significantly if it could be independantly verified some how.  This is in addition to the 'general reliability' argument.

Nevertheless, that information would have been something that we can reasonably expect a follower of Jesus to tell others in 115 AD.  The question is whether Tacitus took the existence of Jesus for granted.  Given that the existence of Jesus was clearly not the point of his description of the Nero event, I see no reason to believe that he went to extraordinary lengths to validate that story.  Had he done so, I expect that he might have had more to say on the subject elsewhere in his histories and that such information would have been preserved by Christian scribes as strong evidence of the historicity of Jesus.  Instead, we just have this casual passing reference.

No Christian document describes Pilate as a procurator (it favors 'governor'), and Christians do not gloss over the nature of Christ's death.  It is unlikely, then, and improbable, that we could turn to Christians as independant corroboration of the Tacitus passage.

I know of no Christian source corroborates or contradicts Josephus, Tacitus, or Suetonius in the use of 'procurator'.  What is the word for 'governor' that appears in the Christian sources that you used?  Greek NT sources use 'hegemon', which does not preserve the Roman distinction between procurator and praefectus.

For those who think that Tacitus could have made a mistake, or simply decided to describe Pilate some other way, we can turn to another ancient historian for independant corroboration.  Josephus can not be accused of drawing his information for Pilate, or any of the other governors of Judea, from Christians.  Josephus clearly had his own agenda, and his own purposes.

True.  Many consider him a propagandist rather than a historian.  I believe that there is even one popular book that has claimed the Romans invented Jesus as a conspiracy to weaken the power of Jewish rebels.  In that highly imaginary scenario, Paul and Josephus would have been part of the effort to spread the lie.  (I don't give this credit any claim, so don't bother to try to refute it, sntjohnny.  )  Scholars tend to dismiss Josephus as a poor historian and certainly not in the same league as someone like Tacitus.  Tacitus himself appears not to have used Josephus as a source.

Josephus, like Tacitus, also had access to the imperial archives.  Both had considerable access because of their station.  And both describe Pilate as a procurator.

Nevertheless, Josephus wrote about events that had occurred before he was born, and he was not even as likely as Tacitus to use such sources or care about accuracy.  Worse yet, there is reasonable argument that his writings were tampered with by Christians after the third century.  Some suggest that Eusebius himself altered the documents, since he seems to have been one of the first Christian to point out those passages.

It might be here argued that Pilate was in fact a prefect, not a procurator, and so Tacitus is in error.  But if so, so was Josephus.  That two men with access to the same records made the same mistake- if it be a mistake- indicates that both were using the same records.

This is no better than any other speculation.  As I have pointed out repeatedly, one can reasonably imagine many sources for the material that these men based their Christian references on.  You want to validate their references, so you jump to the conclusion that they were consulting Roman archives to verify the details of Pilate's career.  My argument is that we cannot jump to this conclusion.  It is not that we must jump to some other conclusion.

It may be that the records themselves were in error, but that is irrelevant for our purposes.  All that matters is that we have good reason to think these records existed, and if they are both in error on the same point, with the same degree of unlimited access (and clear evidence of their using that access throughout their writings), then we have evidence within the Tacitus passage in question itself that he consulted primary records.

Sorry, but this is speculation, not evidence.  Can you name the records that either men allegedly consulted?  All you are saying is that there must have been some documents that they could have consulted to get the information.  Not good enough.  

One alternative is to entertain the notion that both made the same mistake for completely different reasons.  This direction leads to convoluted and arbitrary argumentation, because as easy and as fun as it is to speculate endlessly about Tacitus, Josephus description of Pilate as a procurator is much more robust.  Josephus goes out of his way to call attention to the governing structures in Judea, and lists the various governors, and so on and so forth, and there is no Christian allusion within them in order to play the "All Ancient Christian References are Assumed to be Interpolations until Proven Otherwise" card.

Since "praefectus" is written in stone, and the Josephus manuscripts, originally written decades after the alleged events, were probably tampered with by Christian interpolators, most scholars reject this argument.

In conclusion, we can independantly corroborate an element of Tacitus' passage with another SECULAR source, and such corroboration isn't even possible from Christian sources, anyway.  The shared agreement on the description of Pilate, right smack in the middle of the passage in question, gives us positive reason to infer shared source material or information.  Ie, we can look to Tacitus' general reliability AND this positive evidence within the passage itself in order to infer reliability and relevance.

Sorry, but your argumentation is too weak, notwithstanding your very strong effort to gather evidence in support of it.  Your essay scarcely deals with the question of whether Christians could have been Tacitus' "primary source", and it doesn't address the possibility that Tacitus heard it from secondary sources such as Pliny.  While the bulk of Tacitus' work is detailed and sometimes independently corroborated, this particular passage is quite sparse in detail.  It contains no information that would have differed from Christian sources.  That doesn't mean that it must have come from Christian sources, but it does mean that it could have.

I have lead off this defense of Tacitus in this way to undercut objections about the alleged change by Claudius to the title of the governor in the region.  If anything, both Josephus and Tacitus' description here, if wrong, strengthens the argument that both were using the same information.  Ultimately, however, whether they were right or wrong in their description, ultimately, is irrelevant to the fact that they corroborate each other.

And I have pointed out why that apparent corroboration is irrelevant.  Your argument is that the stone inscription from Caesarea was somehow mistaken information and that Christian scribal copies of textual records from these two sources must therefore be taken as more convincing.  I find that conclusion ridiculous, and so, apparently, do most historians.

No, geegee, it's not interpretation.  Cop's argumentation relies exclusively on 'reasonable' possibilities, not evidence.  The difference is methodology.

--------------------

"Sntjohnny, I have finished reading your essay, and I must say that I am impressed by the scope of your effort. One weakness may be that you have relied almost exclusively on internet resources,"

I know the essay was quite long, and I think some re-organization is probably in order at some point, but I think you missed what was going on.

I did rely on internet resources for my primary source material, but I made only some use of internet resources in terms of scholarly materials.  In other words, I linked to and read most of all of the available textual evidences that are available from that time period.   Tacitus' Histories, his Annals, Josephus' Wars and Antiquities, Seutonius, Dio Cassius, and Philo.  There really isn't anything else.  These are primary sources, and most of my arguments relied on conclusions derived from them, not 'scholars.'

So, though I did attempt to look at some of the scholarly writings, and did use print.google in one case, as I explained in the essay, the textual evidence is there for all to see, and does not require 'scholarly affirmation.'  We'll return to this.

"What I found from the Google site is that the praefectus/procurator issue is usually relegated to a footnote that takes the Caesarea inscription as hard evidence that Josephus and Tacitus were wrong in calling Pilate 'procurator'. This is not much different from the online source material that you used."

Yes, that's about right.  It seems to be merely footnote material, but as I argued along several lines, that conclusion is hastily arrived at, and unsupported by the textual evidence.  

"I understand, but your logic is faulty here."

No it isn't.  It's merely creating a baseline of credibility.  You have three basic approaches, the first two are reasonable, and then there is yours:  Innocent until proven guilty, Neutral, guilty until proven innocent.

I don't mind 'innocent until proven guilty,' but 'neutral' was the position that I begin with.  The logic is simple:  If the man has actually SHOWN himself to be 'innocent' on numerous occasions, mere speculation on any other passage does not constitute to a reasonable objection against the passage.

I won't argue it with you anymore.  For one thing, my essay was in addition to that argument.  I only mentioned it in the essay so that those without the context of this thread would understand that.  For another thing, any normal human being will see the sense of the argument, and I'm willing to submit the verdict to lurkers.

"Nevertheless, that information would have been something that we can reasonably expect a follower of Jesus to tell others in 115 AD."

This is a hypothesis that I attacked, though you apparently missed it.

Here is the link to the essay again:  http://www.sntjohnny.com/pilate/tacitus.html  In the menu at the top, you will see a link (there all along) labeled "Refutation of Proposition that Tacitus learned his material from contemporary Christians."

Thanks.

"The question is whether Tacitus took the existence of Jesus for granted. Given that the existence of Jesus was clearly not the point of his description of the Nero event"

I'd say that when he goes on to tell us how he died, who was emporer, who the judge was, that a little more effort was involved.  I think most reasonable folk would agree with me.

Funny how you think that 'casual mentions' undermine the authenticity of a passage.  Most folks would think a 'casual mention' strengthens it, actually, because then we need not concern ourselves with some agenda lurking behind it's inclusion.

""No Christian document describes Pilate as a procurator (it favors 'governor'), and Christians do not gloss over the nature of Christ's death. It is unlikely, then, and improbable, that we could turn to Christians as independant corroboration of the Tacitus passage.""

"I know of no Christian source corroborates or contradicts Josephus, Tacitus, or Suetonius in the use of 'procurator'."

Exactly.  It does not exist.  Obviously, then, it is unlikely that Tacitus learned Pilate's title from Christian sources.

"What is the word for 'governor' that appears in the Christian sources that you used? Greek NT sources use 'hegemon', which does not preserve the Roman distinction between procurator and praefectus."

You miss the point of my emphasis.   Christian sources do use 'hegemon' and they do not preserve a distinction between procurator and praefectus.  Consequently, it is unreasonable to suppose that Tacitus gained his information from Christians, for if he had, he would have used 'governor,' which certainly would be reasonable for Tacitus to do.  To demonstrate that, I cited a passage from Dio Cassius where Claudius explicitly equiovocates between 'governor' and 'procurator' and Dio Cassius wrote in Latin, not Greek.

I also pointed out that Philo described Pilate as a 'governor.'  

The reasonable conclusion is that Tacitus did not get his information about Pilate from Christians.

"Scholars tend to dismiss Josephus as a poor historian"

That is not particularly true.  I provided a link on the very subject.  I again refer you to my essay, where the link is in the 'sources' section.

"and certainly not in the same league as someone like Tacitus."

As much as I agree with this in general, I'm afraid that I cannot allow you to invoke the quality of Tacitus to attack Josephus while simultaneously thinking it reasonable that on this ONE PARTICULAR PASSAGE it is LIKELY that Tacitus abandoned his own superior league standards.  You cannot invoke this and then abandon it as it suits your fancy.

"Tacitus himself appears not to have used Josephus as a source."

Good, we got that settled.  I was afraid I'd have to demonstrate this, but you have conceded it.  That makes the citation of Pilate as a procurator two separate and independant attestations.

"Nevertheless, Josephus wrote about events that had occurred before he was born, and he was not even as likely as Tacitus to use such sources or care about accuracy."

How'z that cake? You know, once you eat it, it's gone.


"Worse yet, there is reasonable argument that his writings were tampered with by Christians after the third century. Some suggest that Eusebius himself altered the documents, since he seems to have been one of the first Christian to point out those passages."

Ah, really.  The passages about Pilate, too?  Please refer me to these passages in Eusebius about Pilate.  I have heard a lot of dirt about Eusebius, but I've not heard anyone say that the passages about Pilate were interpolations, too!  This is new to me!

"This is no better than any other speculation."

No, actually it's not.  You were the one who clamored for corroboration, and here you have it.  You have admitted that Tacitus did not borrow from Josephus, so you have two independant sources making the same apparent error.   How did they BOTH make the same error?

"As I have pointed out repeatedly, one can reasonably imagine"

One can reasonably imagine a lot of things.  It does not follow that we should think all of them to be equally probable or likely.

"many sources for the material that these men based their Christian references on."

I refer you again to the link I cited above.  I have now refuted this scenario on the grounds that two components of the information were almost certainly not in the vocabulary of Christians.

"You want to validate their references, so you jump to the conclusion that they were consulting Roman archives to verify the details of Pilate's career."

Let me pretend that my conclusion was merely 'jumping.'  Let me ask you a straight forward question:  "Do you think it supports their credibility or diminishes it, even in the slightest, in learning that they both had superior access to archival records, and made the same apparent error?"

Or do you really think it means absolutely nothing?

"My argument is that we cannot jump to this conclusion."

You have appeared to have missed a big chunk of my essay's argumentation.  At this point in the thread, we now have two pieces of arguments that in themselves I personally find compelling.  They are:

1.  Tacitus was generally reliable, barring evidence to suggest otherwise, we should presume he was probably reliable in this case, too.
2.  Tacitus and Josephus both had access to archival records, are not known to have been influenced by each other, and yet made the same 'mistake.'  The obvious inference is the existence, apparently, of some mistaken record.

As I point out in my essay, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference whether or not the procurator/prefect thing shows that Tacitus was really making a mistake.  Whether right or wrong, two independent sources with access to the highest levels of information using the same term lends credibility to them both.  The relevant word is 'corroboration.'

I thought you liked corroboration.  Except when it bites you in the arse, eh?

But there was a third argument, which you appeared to miss.  It's really what prompted the essay to begin with.  Simply put, do we have any positive reason to believe that Tacitus WAS aware of the governing structure in Palestine at the specific time when Pilate was the governor?  I found out that the answer to that is yes.  So, point #1 above is buttressed by the discovery that Tacitus was informed about the governing structure in the region.  It is no longer 'mere speculation' as to whether or not he had researched it or not- he certainly did.

But somehow you missed that.

Conclusion 3 is the summary.  The evidence and the argument for Conclusion 3 was a substantial part of my essay.  Again, 'corroboration' was the key.  I brought forth evidence from Dio Cassius, Philo, Tacitus, and Josephus, all operating on a shared understanding of the governance in Palestine during the reign of Tiberius.  Tacitus gives us an explicit acknowledgement of the facts on the ground at the time and place in question.

"Sorry, but this is speculation, not evidence."

lol, sntjohnny, that is a ridiculous argument.  Wait a minute, that's YOU!   Somehow when you are the one speculating, it's gold.

"Can you name the records that either men allegedly consulted?"

On the same page as my essay, for 'Other Pages', there is a link to my philosophy of history.  We do not have the records that either men consulted on a variety of... scratch that, a MAJORITY of their passages.  However, in some instances a strong inference can be made to the existence of such records.  Please see my reference to argument three above, where I prove positive evidence of an informed view of the governing system in Palestine during the reign of Tiberius.

"All you are saying is that there must have been some documents that they could have consulted to get the information. Not good enough."

So you are conceding that there must have been some documents that they could have consulted to get the information?  That's throwing in the towel.  Surely you mean something else.

" there is no Christian allusion within them in order to play the "All Ancient Christian References are Assumed to be Interpolations until Proven Otherwise" card."

"Since "praefectus" is written in stone, and the Josephus manuscripts, originally written decades after the alleged events, were probably tampered with by Christian interpolators, most scholars reject this argument."

The passages about Pilate are Christian interpolations, too?  I've never heard this before.  Please, give your sources.

"Sorry, but your argumentation is too weak, notwithstanding your very strong effort to gather evidence in support of it."

I happen to think that arguments #1 and #2 are decent on their own, and certainly strengthened when put together.  But I did not stop there.  My essay did not even list this post's #1, but had 7 separate conclusions.  One of them, #3, effectively shows that Tacitus had informed knowledge of Palestine during the time of Pilate.

"Your essay scarcely deals with the question of whether Christians could have been Tacitus' "primary source","

It dealt with it.  There is a whole separate page linking off with the very hard to notice title:  "Refutation of Proposition that Tacitus learned his material from contemporary Christians."

Hard to miss, I know.

As for Pliny, since Christians are the presumed source for Pliny, too, dealing with the 'Christian sourcing' speculation deals with him, too, at the same time.

"It contains no information that would have differed from Christian sources."

But I demonstrated that to be completely false.  'Procurator' is nowhere to be found in Christian sources, so it can hardly be argued that it contains 'no information that would have differed from Christian sources'!

You must have missed my 'full catalog' page.  I refer you again to my essay, where under 'other pages' (and linked to elsewhere a dozen times), I have a link titled:  "Full Catalog:  Every reference to Procurator and Prefect in Ancient Histories."

Included in that full catalog are all of the Christian sources, too.  If you find an instance in the Christian sources between 30 AD and 120 AD where Pilate is described as a procurator, I will send you $1,000 dollars (in installments, of course.  .  I kid you not.  As such an instance does not occur, and we have a wealth of Christian material, it naturally follows that there is at least some material in Tacitus' description that can NOT be tracked down to Christian sources, who exclusively used 'governor,' a fully justified term, as I demonstrated by pointing my reader both to Dio Cassius and Philo.

But I suppose they were interpolated, too.

"That doesn't mean that it must have come from Christian sources, but it does mean that it could have."

Is this where I say "speculation is not evidence"?

The difference between my 'speculation' and yours is that I go the extra step to see if there is any meat to it.  Is there anything in the Tacitus' comment that cannot be taken from Christians?  As long as it exists as a possibility, even if as remote as alien abductions, you consider it a live argument.  But as at least one thing is iron-clad not in any Christian material, and another nearly so, I'd say we have to say that 'possibility' is unlikely, indeed.  It flies in the face of the evidence.  

All of which is available on that page.  There is no other evidence available.  I've got it all.  There is nothing else.  I covered it exhaustively.

"And I have pointed out why that apparent corroboration is irrelevant."

It is especially relevant if it is a mistake!

"Your argument is that the stone inscription from Caesarea was somehow mistaken information and that Christian scribal copies of textual records from these two sources must therefore be taken as more convincing."

You obviously did not read my arguments closely.  Did Celsus also make use of 'Christian scribal copies' ?  Here is what I actually said:

"Even if Pilate was a prefect, and Tacitus was in error, that Josephus makes the same error shows the two were using the same source information.  That is far simpler than thinking that they both arrived at the same mistake via independant means."

Clearly, I don't really care.  The whole Pilate Inscription thing came up only incidentally.  I was surprised to find the evidence for the notion that Claudius turned the title so weak and flimsy.

"I find that conclusion ridiculous, and so, apparently, do most historians."

Well, I have a full catalog on that page of every instance of 'procurator' and 'prefect.'  If you can find me the textual evidence documenting Claudius' change in governance in it, I'd be most obliged.  As I documented EVERY SINGLE INSTANCE you have no where to hide.

In fact, historians do not find the conclusion ridiculous.  As I explained on that page, I actually contacted the historian, and she could not tell me what the sources were for that conclusion.  She gave me references to some scholarly works- which might yet yield the primary source information- but as I completely listed all of the primary source information that I could find was relevant at the time, it is unlikely that there is anything left.

So, ironically, Mr. Corroboration is throwing his lot in with a single piece of stone, and throwing out actual examples of corroboration.

Keep in mind that I argued that my case was actually strengthened if Tacitus and Josephus were both in error.  So, obviously, then, I don't particularly care which way the winds are blowing on that matter.  Nonetheless, I explained in my essay that there were a number of compelling reasons to rethink the implications of the Pilate Inscription in this regard.