Did the Jews really kill Jesus?

[JonathanL]

Read what I wrote and do not try and pretend I "show no shame" That is duplicity on your part. As you seemed to prefer Wiki I gave you another article from the same source.

Wikipedia and Rational Wiki is not the "same source". Wikipedia, flawed as it is, at least has some sort of semblance of reliability.

[Christian3]

Clearly Jesus was not the Messiah, the anointed King, as he did not bring about the Kingdom of God.

Your remark is a both a libel and gross calumny against the Jewish people. For upward of seventeen hundred years the Christian church and its adherents has used those malicious lies to persecute the Jews as Deicides and Christ Killers.

What is the Kingdom of God and where did you hear of it?

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Skeptical Biblical scholar Bart D. Ehrman wrote: "Tacitus's report confirms what we know from other sources, that Jesus was executed by order of the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, sometime during Tiberius's reign."

- Ehrman, Bart D. (2001). Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. Oxford University Press. p. 59. ISBN 978-0195124743.

Another skeptic but celebrated scholar from the Jesus Seminar, John D.Crossan considers the Tacitus passage important in establishing that Jesus existed and was crucified, and states:

"That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus... agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact."

- Crossan, John Dominic (1995). Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. HarperOne. ISBN 0-06-061662-8 page 145.

John P. Meier states that there is no historical or archaeological evidence to support the argument that a scribe may have introduced the passage into the text.

- From John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Doubleday: 1991. vol 1: p. 168-171.

Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd argue that it is "firmly established" that Tacitus provides a non-Christian confirmation of the crucifixion of Jesus.

Suggestions that the whole of Annals by Tacitus may have been a forgery have also been generally rejected by both conservative and skeptical scholars and their studied conclusion.

What you wish as "their opinions" are merely also your wishful thinking any more than are your anti-Christian assertions that color so much of your opinions and speculative attempts to "de-construct Christianity" and destroy it. So desperately passionate..and also so misled.

N.B. Boyd and Eddy are both members of the clergy [i.e.pastors] and therefore they approach these matters from their own theological standpoint.

All the rest remains scholarly contention given that the matter is capable of differing interpretations. The salient fact is that we do not know.

There are reasonable grounds for scepticism, given that second century Christian writers do not mention this event when narrating stories of the Neronian persecutions of Christians.

You appear to want everything to be superficial and lacking any qualification. The assessment of ancient literary sources is not as elementary as that, particularly when they contain commentary pertaining to Christianity, because we cannot entirely rule out the possibility of later Christian interpolations.

I am not denying that a flesh and blood man whom we know as Jesus of Nazareth existed. However, Tacitus does not specifically refer to the man, but a title.

He actually makes no reference to “Jesus” but to “Christus” which is the Latin form of the Greek translation of the Jewish politico-religious title Messiah. Furthermore, Christianity is described as exitiabilis superstitio [deadly superstition] not as “religio” [religion]. The inherent difference between these two Latin terms had important contemporary, legal, and social significance.

The Latin text does not mention any founder of Christianity but merely makes reference to the originator [author] of the [Christian] name. The Latin text is this “auctor nominis eius Christus”. The more precise Latin word conditor [founder] is not employed. Foundational and eponymous are not by any means one and the same thing.

[rogue06]

At least I felt embarrassed at citing Wikipedia but you show no shame turning to Rational Wiki


Their principle argument seems to be the paucity of contemporaneous accounts of Nero's persecution of Christians for the burning of Rome and they use that to base a claim that the passage is a later interpolation.

What this argument overlooks is that we have lost a massive number of works that were very famous and repeatedly copied. For instance we only have 6 out of at least 90 of Aeschylus' plays. Similarly only 7 of Sophocles' 123 plays still exist. They are and were so well-regarded that both of their works are still being performed today.

It is thought that today we only have roughly a third of Aristotle's works. Probably most famously his Poetics (dealing with comedy) which is the missing work at the center of Umberto Eco' excellent novel, The Name of the Rose. Considering how highly regarded Aristotle was by medieval and Renaissance Christians (especially in the West) the fact that so much has been lost can hardly be blamed on Christians seeking to destroy pagan works.

Even many of the works written by Emperors and the like have been lost and you know darn well these were repeatedly copied and shipped all over the Roman Empire. And for the few that are still extant, nearly all of the earliest copies come from several centuries later. For instance, the earliest copy of Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico ("The Gallic Wars") date from something like nearly 800 years after the original was written.

And then there is the 79 AD eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, which annihilated several Roman cities including Pompeii and Herculaneum, and was witnessed by the tens of thousands of eyewitnesses in and around Naples but is only mentioned by one near contemporary account -- that of Pliny the Younger. Keep in mind that Naples had a reputation during Greco-Roman times as being an area with a highly literate population so we should have a slew of eyewitness reports in our hands not just one. And, IIRC, Pliny's account, written some 30 years later, was spurred on in reaction to Tacitus' Histories.

The point being, is that this argument is a non-starter.

To elaborate and expand a bit here, the following comes from several posts both here and elsewhere that I wrote a couple years ago.


The fact is that only a minuscule amount of writings, in way of any sort of contemporary sources from forties through the sixties of the first century A.D., still survives. As the historian and Biblical academic Edward Musgrave Blaiklock, chair of classics at the University of Auckland for over 20 years, put it in his Jesus Christ: Man or Myth?:

"Bookends set a foot apart on this desk where I write would enclose the works from those significant years."

And keep in mind that we also don't have any contemporary accounts concerning Hannibal, the scourge of Rome during the Second Punic War (218–201 B.C.) nor Queen Boudicea, the British Celtic leader of the Iceni tribe that revolted against Roman around 60 A.D.

The same goes for the assassination of Caesar since it wasn't until a half a century later that we have the first written account.

And then there is Elucid.

The "Father of Geometry," Euclid of Alexandria, was the most prominent mathematician of Greco-Roman antiquity who lived during the reign of Ptolemy I Soter, Alexander's general (323–283 B.C.). While his 13 volume treatise on mathematics and geometry known simply as Elements it is regarded as the most successful textbook ever written^[1], absolutely nothing appears to be written about him during his time which is extremely unusually in that highly detailed biographies are available for other important Greek mathematicians for several centuries both before and after him. In fact, it appears that we have to wait until over half a millennium until we find historical references to him (Pappus of Alexandria c.320 AD)!

The same could be said for Pythagoras of Samos (c. 570 – c. 495 B.C.), the Greek mathematician and philosopher and Herophilos or Herophilus of Chalcedon (335-280 B.C.), the physician called the "Father of Anatomy."

One excuse offered is that there just weren't any historians at the time of these latter examples which is utter poopycock. You had folks like Herodotus (c. 484 - c. 425/413 B.C.) known as the Father of History, Thucydides (c. 460 - c. 400 B.C.) the Athenian general and historian, and Xenophon (c. 430-354 B.C.) to name just a few.

More specifically, in the cases of Herophilos and Euclid they both flourished around 300 BC. So that makes both of these men, who were very famous during their life time, active at 300 BC. That was during the time that Timaeus of Tauromenium the ancient Greek historian who was born around 345 BC and died about c. 250 BC. Now to be fair, while Timaeus' History consisted of between 38 and 40 separate volumes, he was primarily concerned with the history of the western Greek world at that time -- primarily Sicily -- and Herophilos and Euclid did most of their work in Alexandria.












1. it served as the main textbook for teaching mathematics from its publication all the way until the end of the 19th century.

2. While some point to Heraclitis of Ephesus, a philosopher who was a contemporary of Pythagoras, and who disliked him and called him a senseless fool, that was actually what Diogenes Laërtius, who lived over a century after Heraclitus' time claimed he said.

[rogue06]

Read what I wrote and do not try and pretend I "show no shame" That is duplicity on your part. As you seemed to prefer Wiki I gave you another article from the same source.

Please stop pretending that I didn't reply to what you wrote. Stop using these sort of excuses to ignore criticism.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Please stop pretending that I didn't reply to what you wrote. Stop using these sort of excuses to ignore criticism.

I chose Rational Wiki to complement your own reference to Wiki.

Perhaps you should have chosen a more learned source!

[37818]

Is there a captioned version of this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4CY73psVFQ
At Youtube.com auto generated cc can be turned on.

At the top on the far right, three vertical dots, select playback settings.
Captions off to English auto captions.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

The situation of Roman authorities allowing or ignoring executions appears to be rather fluid. I believe that it was the well known expert of Hellenistic Judaism, Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough, who discovered that extralegal executions conducted by Jewish leaders weren't all that uncommon during that time. For instance, during the time^[1] of the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexander that in that city Roman authorities regularly turned a blind eye to it just as long as it was restricted to Jews who were not Roman citizens and was confined to religious issues.

Let us put this firmly within its historical context.

It appears that the Greeks harboured long -standing grudges against the huge Jewish community in Alexandria, and this was not only religious but, racial, economic, and social. What they particularly resented was that the Jews had collaborated so willingly with the Roman authorities i.e. the Prefect of Egypt. After half a century of Roman rule the Greeks were disillusioned and had produced a faction of extreme anti-Roman nationalists that were possibly influenced still further by native Egyptians, who were known to exhibit exceptional hatred for the Jews.

However, despite Philo’s silence it is far from unlikely that the Jews were entirely free from any responsibility for this situation with the Greeks. It appears that a modernist party of Jews, not content with its community’s existing privileges was also demanding and possibly usurping the Alexandrian citizenship which, barring a few individuals, had always been reserved for the Greeks. It seems that the Jews wanted an equal share in this communal citizenship not just for the prestige but also because acquiring it would exempt them from the hated provincial poll tax, a privilege that was reserved for the Greeks.

However, Egypt was not Judaea. Judaea was a separate minor province of significantly less importance than Egypt and the difference in the size of its military garrisons was not inconsiderable. Egypt was a hugely important eastern Roman province,while Judaea, although it had strategic importance on the Mediterranean littoral, was a relative backwater.

Furthermore some understanding of the recent history of this region is required. Although practically ignored in the gospel accounts, this region was in fact an area seething with discontent and insurrection. In 9 BCE Varus [Legate of Syria] had put down a major Jewish uprising. In 6 CE Judas of Gamala led another rebellion against the census of Quirinius; and in 66 CE his son would go on to lead the great rebellion against Rome, that was fuelled in large part by the degree of incompetence and maladministration exhibited by some later Roman officials.

To claim, or being suspected of, claiming messianic status was considered by the Roman authorities to be a serious political offence and a capital crime. Within its immediate sphere of influence, only the Roman state could convey the title of king upon a supportive foreign ruler.

As far as the Jews were concerned the Messiah was to be their anointed king and ruler under God.

[rogue06]

I chose Rational Wiki to complement your own reference to Wiki.

Perhaps you should have chosen a more learned source!

This is frankly pathetic. You continue to fixate on my first sentence, incessantly whining about it in response to a post that correctly points out that you used it as a blatantly obvious dodge to avoid addressing the body of my post -- and you continue to do so.

[Dan Zebiri]

So what?

If scholars like Boyd and Eddy happen to be clergy, they MUST be wrong due to their theological standpoint according to you? That exposes your bias and unfounded preconceived notions that subjectively drives you.

You appear wishing that eveything connected to the canonical Christian message to be tarred with conspiracies, interpretations and falsehoods. When there are also scholarly evidence pointing against your anti-Christian bias.

Christians here have already shown such evidence with proper citations but you just discount, minimize and ignore them. That's not very clever of you. Just claiming that "we do not know" as "facts" doesn't cut it.

To Crossan and Ehrman, Jesus is the Christ according to the Tacitus record. That your personal view wants to doubt that is equally doubtful and just as contentious. The fact that skeptics like those two can accept that as fact, casts doubts on your opinion.

N.B. Boyd and Eddy are both members of the clergy [i.e.pastors] and therefore they approach these matters from their own theological standpoint.

All the rest remains scholarly contention given that the matter is capable of differing interpretations. The salient fact is that we do not know.

There are reasonable grounds for scepticism, given that second century Christian writers do not mention this event when narrating stories of the Neronian persecutions of Christians.

You appear to want everything to be superficial and lacking any qualification. The assessment of ancient literary sources is not as elementary as that, particularly when they contain commentary pertaining to Christianity, because we cannot entirely rule out the possibility of later Christian interpolations.

I am not denying that a flesh and blood man whom we know as Jesus of Nazareth existed. However, Tacitus does not specifically refer to the man, but a title.

He actually makes no reference to “Jesus” but to “Christus” which is the Latin form of the Greek translation of the Jewish politico-religious title Messiah. Furthermore, Christianity is described as exitiabilis superstitio [deadly superstition] not as “religio” [religion]. The inherent difference between these two Latin terms had important contemporary, legal, and social significance.

The Latin text does not mention any founder of Christianity but merely makes reference to the originator [author] of the [Christian] name. The Latin text is this “auctor nominis eius Christus”. The more precise Latin word conditor [founder] is not employed. Foundational and eponymous are not by any means one and the same thing.

[Dan Zebiri]

So what?

If scholars like Boyd and Eddy happen to be clergy, they MUST be wrong due to their theological standpoint according to you? That exposes your bias and unfounded preconceived notions that subjectively drives you.

You appear wishing that eveything connected to the canonical Christian message to be tarred with conspiracies, interpretations and falsehoods. When there are also scholarly evidence pointing against your anti-Christian bias.

Christians here have already shown such evidence with proper citations but you just discount, minimize and ignore them. That's not very clever of you. Just claiming that "we do not know" as "facts" doesn't cut it.

To Crossan and Ehrman, Jesus is the Christ according to the Tacitus record. That your personal view wants to doubt that is equally doubtful and just as contentious. The fact that skeptics like those two can accept that as fact, casts doubts on your opinion.

Correction:-

You appear wishing that eveything connected to the canonical Christian message to be tarred with conspiracies, INTERPOLATIONS and falsehoods. When there are also scholarly evidence pointing against your anti-Christian bias.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

So what?

If scholars like Boyd and Eddy happen to be clergy, they MUST be wrong due to their theological standpoint according to you?

That exposes your bias and unfounded preconceived notions that subjectively drives you.

Please do not attribute comments to me that I have not made. It is not a very admirable trait on your part.

So what?
You appear wishing that eveything connected to the canonical Christian message to be tarred with conspiracies, interpretations and falsehoods. When there are also scholarly evidence pointing against your anti-Christian bias.

How can scholarly opinion deal with bias? That is a nonsensical assertion.

I have not stated categorically that the section of Tacitus is an interpolation, I have simply pointed out that we do not know and we cannot entirely rule out the possibility that it is. That this event is not mentioned by second century Christians when narrating various Neronian persecutions, is an interesting omission.

To Crossan and Ehrman, Jesus is the Christ according to the Tacitus record.

Tacitus does not mention “Jesus”. To assume that Tacitus is referring to “Jesus” is making an assumption.

That your personal view wants to doubt that is equally doubtful and just as contentious. The fact that skeptics like those two can accept that as fact, casts doubts on your opinion.

Theirs is scholarly opinion. However, other equally well qualified academics would arrive at different conclusions.

It’ s generally regarded as academic freedom.

Or would you like to see this curtailed and replaced by an overweening orthodoxy to which all must adhere?

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

This is frankly pathetic. You continue to fixate on my first sentence, incessantly whining about it in response to a post that correctly points out that you used it as a blatantly obvious dodge to avoid addressing the body of my post -- and you continue to do so.

You are welcome to address my remarks at my post #158

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Of course, there were stonings to execute Jews under Jewish law, which were ignored by Roman authorities. I do not believe this is relevant to the fact that Jesus was executed by crucifixion under Roman Law for claiming to be the King of the Jews as others were at that time, which would subvert the authority of Rome.

"Look I had a lovely supper and all I said to my wife was that piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah."

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

What is the Kingdom of God and where did you hear of it?

For the Jews of first century Judaea the Kingdom of God was a theocracy established in the land of Israel with a Messiah [anointed king].