Historical chronology - can we get anything right?

[Digit]

I'm not sure what point you are making here.

The point is that Turkeys are unlikely to write favourably about Christmas!

Roy.

[Minimalist]

Well said, Dig! That pretty much nails it.

[Grumpage]

Digit hasn't nailed it for me. I must have a mental block on this one. I still don't get it. Please, put me out of my misery.

[Minimalist]

I think the point here is that Tacitus could have mistaken the scale of the persecution whereas later writers just ignored it as perhaps merely an incident.

Alright, let's consider this idea for a bit. The Annals, as we have them now state:

Yet no human effort, no princely largess nor offerings to the gods could make that infamous rumor disappear that Nero had somehow ordered the fire. Therefore, in order to abolish that rumor, Nero falsely accused and executed with the most exquisite punishments those people called Christians, who were infamous for their abominations. The originator of the name, Christ, was executed as a criminal by the procurator Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius; and though repressed, this destructive superstition erupted again, not only through Judea, which was the origin of this evil, but also through the city of Rome, to which all that is horrible and shameful floods together and is celebrated. Therefore, first those were seized who admitted their faith, and then, using the information they provided, a vast multitude were convicted, not so much for the crime of burning the city, but for hatred of the human race. And perishing they were additionally made into sports: they were killed by dogs by having the hides of beasts attached to them, or they were nailed to crosses or set aflame, and, when the daylight passed away, they were used as nighttime lamps.

As Tacitus lived in the Second century most people allow that he was getting his information directly from christians...and one could certainly wonder if his friend Pliny's interrogations of christians in his province did not enter into that. Nonetheless, the first obvious error is his calling Pilate a "procurator." The term was certainly in use in Tacitus' time but prior to 44 AD the term "praefect" was used and an inscription from Pilate himself on a building dedicated to Tiberius in Caesarea uses the title "praefect."

Second, the passage claims that a vast multitude was convicted but this flies in the face of logic and the testimony of Pliny and the reaction of Trajan. There is simply nothing in the Pliny/Trajan correspondence that gives us any idea that they had any familiarity with christians, at all, and certainly did not consider them to be a sect of crazed arsonists. Arson had been a capital offense under Roman law since the 12 Tablets of the Early Republic. It was not something that the Romans would have taken lightly. Also, it seems odd for Tacitus to mention a vast multitude of christians in Rome but, when he does his run up to the Great Revolt in The Histories, he does not mention any christians as being some sort of power-bloc. For that matter, neither does Josephus who does mention the Essenes who nevertheless remained a small fringe group. Could Christians have been less than that?

Third, there is no evidence that the Romans really made much of a distinction between early christians and Jews.

Fourth, and probably most damning, is the argument from silence in that no one, neither Roman nor Christian, seems to know anything about this until the 5th century. Much like Josephus' Testimonium Flavianum, no early writers quote it, not even Origen in the 3d century who could have used it in his argument against Celsus. Both Josephus and Tacitus were considered great historians and an observation from either one would have been a great prize for christian apologists.

[Digit]

The reports that we have on these people were written by others who for what ever reason had no desire to do them any favours.
A classic example is the Christian condemnation of Judas, yet Jesus told him to do it and Christian belief required that Jesus be executed. So why condemn Judas?
Many historians condemn Chamberlain over his 'piece of paper', but had we gone to war at the time of Munich, we would have been defeated.
History is written by the victors.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

Digit hasn't nailed it for me. I must have a mental block on this one. I still don't get it. Please, put me out of my misery.

LOL. Okay, let's take Herod.

The only written sources we have about him (mainly Josephus and a few derogatory comments in the NT) are written by people who hated him. Josephus is depicted as a crazed, murderous, tyrant. To hear Josephus tell it, all the Jews hated him because he was not a real Jew and a Roman puppet. He killed off the remaining Hasmonean heirs and at his death wanted the nobility of the country slaughtered.

Yet, Herod seems to have ruled his kingdom, under Roman control of course, in an age of growing prosperity. His building projects alone must have greatly contributed to the economic well-being of his subjects if only because of the scale of those projects. Moreover, he built the seaside town of Caesarea which brought great prosperity to his kingdom. The lack of serious revolts against Herod suggests that the opposition to him was overstated. It is completely possible that the temple crowd of pharisees and sadduccees were displeased with him for reasons of their own...probably having more to do with their own power. Yet he provided work and prosperity and the Romans provided peace. But the one-sided biography we have of him omits praise for his accomplishments.

Nero (and to a lesser extent Caligula) seem to have laid heavier exactions on the Roman upper classes (neither neglected to fund the games for the mob!) but it was the upper class that rebelled against them. And the upper (literate) classes were the ones who wrote the histories.

[Grumpage]

I think we may have our wires crossed just a little or maybe not - I'm not sure. It's rather late over here and I need to be more awake to sort this out. Until tomorrow- cheers.

[Minimalist]

I tend to forget the time difference.

[zale]

Digit hasn't nailed it for me. I must have a mental block on this one. I still don't get it. Please, put me out of my misery.

LOL. Okay, let's take Herod.

The only written sources we have about him (mainly Josephus and a few derogatory comments in the NT) are written by people who hated him. Josephus is depicted as a crazed, murderous, tyrant. To hear Josephus tell it, all the Jews hated him because he was not a real Jew and a Roman puppet. He killed off the remaining Hasmonean heirs and at his death wanted the nobility of the country slaughtered.

Yet, Herod seems to have ruled his kingdom, under Roman control of course, in an age of growing prosperity. His building projects alone must have greatly contributed to the economic well-being of his subjects if only because of the scale of those projects. Moreover, he built the seaside town of Caesarea which brought great prosperity to his kingdom. The lack of serious revolts against Herod suggests that the opposition to him was overstated. It is completely possible that the temple crowd of pharisees and sadduccees were displeased with him for reasons of their own...probably having more to do with their own power. Yet he provided work and prosperity and the Romans provided peace. But the one-sided biography we have of him omits praise for his accomplishments.

Absolutely. As an orthodox jewish friend of mine said to me once, "funny how virtually everytime archeologists dig up something new in Israel, it turns out to be built during the rule of Herod. For someone who apparently ruled so badly, he sure seems to have done a lot".

In fact it was probably his excellent rule that brought the ire of the pharisees and sadduccees, for it reduced their influence.

[Ishtar]

. To hear Josephus tell it, all the Jews hated him because he was not a real Jew and a Roman puppet. He killed off the remaining Hasmonean heirs and at his death wanted the nobility of the country slaughtered.

Just a left of field thought here... but could this view of Herod not be a projection of Josephus's own psyche? Could he have been accused by some of not being a real Jew and just a Roman puppet?

Anyway, that apart ... the infanticide of Herod is a regular mythical occurrence - we have the exact same story told about Krishna and King Kamsa, and also the reason given in the story of why Moses was rescued from the bullrushes by an Egyptian princess is also because of an infanticide. On top of that, there is no historical record of an infanticide in the 1 - 32 CE year period.

In addition, Josephus says that Herod got rid of the Pharisees and Sadducees and put the much-hated Boethus family in their place. I believe that the original Sadducees (in the form of the Zadokites) were the source of many of the NT stories, although I'm not sure at which stage in their development.

This Wiki extract is derived from Josephus on the matter:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boethusians

The prevailing opinion now is that the Boethusians were only a variety of the Sadducees, deriving their name from the priest Boethus. Simon, son of Boethus from Alexandria, or, according to other sources, Boethus himself, was made a high priest about 25 or 24 B.C. by Herod the Great, in order that Boethus' marriage with the latter's daughter Mariamne might not be regarded as a mésalliance[clarify] (Josephus, "Ant." xv. 9, § 3; xix. 6, § 2. This Mariamne II.[clarify] must be distinguished from the first of the Hasmonean Mariamnes).

Furthermore, to the family of Boethus belonged the following high priests: Joezer, who filled the office twice (ib. xviii. 1, § 1); Eleazar (ib. xvii. 13, § 1); Simon Cantheras (ib. xix. 6, § 2); his son Elioneus (ib. xix. 8, § 1); and the high priest Joshua b. Gamla, who must also be included, since his wife Martha (Miriam) belonged to the house (Yeb. vi. 4).

The hatred of the Pharisees toward this high-priestly family is shown by the words of the tanna Abba Saul b. Baṭnit, who lived about the year 40 CE at Jerusalem (Pes. 57a; Tosef., Men. xii. 23). It must be especially noticed that "the house of Boethus" heads the list of the wicked and sinful priestly families enumerated by Abba. It is, however, only an assumption—although a highly probable one—that the Boethusians were the followers of this Boethus and members of his family; for the assumption is not proved, as there may have been another Boethus who really was the founder of the sect.

As the beginnings of this sect are shrouded in obscurity, so also is the length of its duration. The Talmud mentions a Boethusian in a dispute with a pupil of Akiba (Shab. 108a; Soferim i. 2); yet it is probable that the word here means simply a sectarian, a heretic, just as the term "Sadducee" was used in a much wider sense later on. A Boethus, son of Zonim, and nearly contemporaneous with Akiba (compare Yer. l.c. 10b), is mentioned in the Mishnah (B. M. v. 3); he was not, however, a Boethusian, but a pious merchant. A jew amora, c. 300 C.E., was also called "Boethus."

.

[Grumpage]

Minimalist - I've resurfaced. Thank you for your detailed replies but they don't help and it's probably my fault. Let's go back:

(iv) Tacitus got it wrong or simply exaggerated.

Two thoughts on this. One, Tacitus and Pliny were friends and Suetonius was a member of Pliny's staff so it seems reasonable to guess that he knew Tacitus as well. Suetonius' comment on christians during Nero's reign is that they were practitioners of a mischievous superstition and Pliny, arriving in Bithynia-Pontus to assume his governorshp seems never to have encountered them before arriving in Turkey. How could Tacitus have gotten it so wrong when his other associates were so dismissive of the christians?

Second, Nero is one of those characters in history about whom we have nothing written except by his enemies. Herod the Great is another example of this phenomena...as is Caligula.

In the suggestion that Tacitus made a mistake I was just quoting another writer. I have no view on the matter.

My difficulty arose in your reply which seemed contradictory. First, you asked how Tacitus could have got it so wrong etc implying that he had not made a mistake. Second, you implied that Tacitus was Nero’s enemy and, again by implication, that he was maligning Nero and, therefore, lying (or at least exaggerating).

I couldn’t reconcile these two positions so I asked for clarification on the second one which you (and Digit) promptly supplied. But it did not help. I’m probably responsible for this confusion since the meaning of your second thought was clear to me from the start - it was its apparent contradiction to the first one that was and still is the problem. I should have just come out and asked you about that up front. On reflection, it looks like I misinterpreted your first thought for it is obvious from your posts that you believe the Tacitus passage to be suspect.

I’ve managed to get myself into a right muddle over this and I trust your reply will settle things once and for all.

Oh yes, what is LOL.?

[Minimalist]

Just a left of field thought here... but could this view of Herod not be a projection of Josephus's own psyche? Could he have been accused by some of not being a real Jew and just a Roman puppet?

An interesting point but probably for a different reason. In his autobiography Josephus notes that his family included royal blood on his mothers side and included a number of priests. Further, Josephus himself was apparently so highly regarded that he was sent as part of an embassy to Nero to plead for the release of some priests who had been arrested by the procurator, Fadus. On his return, he was drafted to command the rebels in Galilee. So, on the surface it would appear that he was simply one of the Jewish nobility which felt slighted by Herod. Of course, all of his writings date from the period after the suppression of the revolt and by that time he had gone over to the Romans and was widely regarded as a traitor by the survivors in Judaea. But Josephus was not writing for them. He was writing for a Greco-Roman audience.

Anyway, that apart ... the infanticide of Herod is a regular mythical occurrence - we have the exact same story told about Krishna and King Kamsa, and also the reason given in the story of why Moses was rescued from the bullrushes by an Egyptian princess is also because of an infanticide. On top of that, there is no historical record of an infanticide in the 1 - 32 CE year period.

Agreed. "Matthew" is considered the most Jewish of the gospels and the story would have evoked clear memories among a population which was schooled in Jewish mythology. It would have meant little to the Greco-Romans and is not repeated in any of the other gospels which are geared at Greco-Roman readers. Also, Josephus, who repeats every calumny ever raised against Herod with great detail, has somehow managed to miss this one! [/quote]

[Minimalist]

Morning, Grump....or afternoon I suppose where you are.

My difficulty arose in your reply which seemed contradictory. First, you asked how Tacitus could have got it so wrong etc implying that he had not made a mistake. Second, you implied that Tacitus was Nero’s enemy and, again by implication, that he was maligning Nero and, therefore, lying (or at least exaggerating).

The first question was rhetorical. Personally, I think that the passage was added to Tacitus in the 14th century when the Annals was compiled from the fragments that were left. That is really the only reason why no other xtian writer in the 2-4th centuries makes note of it. Tacitus was simply too famous for such a passage to have been overlooked when the church began concocting their 'history' of Roman persecution. There were many highly literate scholars, Clement of Alexandria for one is reputed to have had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of ancient sources... yet he is silent on the subject.

Second, Tacitus was an equestrian whose father had served as an officer in Germany and Gaul. Tacitus (in Histories) acknowledges that he began his career under the first Flavian Emperor, Vespasian. As an equestrian his family would have been under the exactions of Nero after the Great Fire. So, yeah, he would have been a "class-enemy" of Nero. As with the earlier reply to Ish about Josephus and Herod, these "historians" did not miss an opportunity to recount every slander aimed at their targets.


LOL means Laughing out loud. Typical internet shorthand.

[Grumpage]

LOL means Laughing out loud. Typical internet shorthand.

OK, thanks, over and out.
OK means OK. Typical internet shorthand.