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In reply to the discussion: Holiday message: Atheists dub Jesus a 'myth' on Times Square billboard [View all]yortsed snacilbuper
(7,939 posts)In the Annals XV,44, Tacitus describes how Nero blamed the Christians for the fire of Rome in 64 C.E. He mentions that the name "Christians" originated from a person named Christus who had been executed by Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberias. It is certainly true that the name "Christians" is derived from Christ or Christus (Messiah), but Tacitus' claim that he was executed by Pilate during the reign of Tiberias is based purely on the claims being made by the Christians themselves. They appeared in the gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke, which had already been widely circulated when the Annals were being written. (The Annals were published after 115 C.E. and were certainly not written before 110 C.E.) Thus, although the Annals contains a sentence in which "Christus" is spoken of as a real person, this sentence was based purely on Christian claims and beliefs which are of no historical value. It is quite ironic that modern Christians use Tacitus to back up their beliefs since he was the least accurate of all Roman historians. He justifies hatred of Christians by saying that they committed abominations. Besides "Christus" he also speaks of various pagan gods as if they really exist. His summary of Middle East history in his book the Histories is so distorted as to be laughable. We may conclude that his single mention of Christus cannot be taken as reliable evidence of an historical Jesus.
Once Tacitus is dismissed, the Christians will claim that one of the younger Pliny's letters to the emperor Trajan provides evidence of an historical Jesus. (Letters X, 96.) This is nonsense. The letter in question simply mentions that certain Christians had cursed "Christ" to avoid being punished. It does not claim that this Christ really existed. The letter in question was written before Pliny's death in c. 114 C.E. but after he was sent to Bithynia in 111 C.E., probably in the year 112 C.E. Thus it provides nothing more than a confirmation of the trivial fact that around the beginning of the twelfth decade C.E. Christians did not normally curse something called "Christ" although some had done it to avoid punishment. It provides no evidence of an historical Jesus.