ReformedBaptist
Well-Known Member
Could see where to exactly put this and I didn't want it limited to Baptist discussion, so here it is. ha! I hope it is a benefit to those who may engage in a discussion with someone who doesn't know of secular/pagan witnesses to the person of Jesus. This came up last weekend when a small group from my church went to a Pagan festival to share the Gospel.
Cornelius Tacitus
Speaking of the fires of Rome, which Tacitus reports was the result of an order by Nero himself, writes of the blame Nero put to the Christians:
This quote is from "The Annals of Imperial Rome" by Tacitus, translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb with an introduction by Alison E. Cooley, and published by Barnes & Noble New York, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-7607-8889-9, page 330.
This serves as a remarkable witness from an ancient secular author who is considered the greatest historian of ancient Rome. It was written between 114-120AD and was his fifth and final writing. Tacitus was born around 56AD and died around 120AD. It is unfortunate that many parts of this history is lost which contained more information about Tiberius, Gaius-Caligula, the beginning of Claudius' reign, and the later and end of Nero's.
For our Pagan friends (or otherwise) who supposed no secular source existed to give a witness to the death of Christ, to which I replied "Tacitus" we also offer the following quote from Otto Betz, "No serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus."
To this quote I add the following apologetic.
The reasoning that so little witness from secular/pagan historians from history exist for the crucifixtion of Jesus Christ as an argument that it cannot be known to have occured is fallacious. Tacitus mentions Pilate only once. F.F. Bruce wrote, "Pilate is not mentioned in any other pagan document which has come down to us..." In addition, in 1961 Professor Antonio Frova, an Italian archeologist, discovered an inscription on a stone slab found at a theater in Ceasarea bears the name of Pilate. (The New Dictionary of Biblical Archeology, p. 111). If it is an established fact of history that Pilate lived then it may be equally established that Jesus lived and was crucified under his rule.
Dr. Cooley quotes Tacitus as writing, "This I regard as history's highest function, to let no unworthy action be uncommemorated, and to hold out the repobation of posterity as a terror to evil words and deed."
If the question then is asked: Why so little secular evidence for the death of Christ seeing that it was so signifcant? We may well answer: Why should the death of the leader of those called Christians who were so despised and abhored by the Roman world be of much consequence to Roman nobility and historians? I would think the account we have from Tacitus would not have been mentioned at all had not Nero laid the blame of the fires of Rome upon the Christians...
Cornelius Tacitus
Speaking of the fires of Rome, which Tacitus reports was the result of an order by Nero himself, writes of the blame Nero put to the Christians:
This quote is from "The Annals of Imperial Rome" by Tacitus, translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb with an introduction by Alison E. Cooley, and published by Barnes & Noble New York, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-7607-8889-9, page 330.
This serves as a remarkable witness from an ancient secular author who is considered the greatest historian of ancient Rome. It was written between 114-120AD and was his fifth and final writing. Tacitus was born around 56AD and died around 120AD. It is unfortunate that many parts of this history is lost which contained more information about Tiberius, Gaius-Caligula, the beginning of Claudius' reign, and the later and end of Nero's.
For our Pagan friends (or otherwise) who supposed no secular source existed to give a witness to the death of Christ, to which I replied "Tacitus" we also offer the following quote from Otto Betz, "No serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus."
To this quote I add the following apologetic.
The reasoning that so little witness from secular/pagan historians from history exist for the crucifixtion of Jesus Christ as an argument that it cannot be known to have occured is fallacious. Tacitus mentions Pilate only once. F.F. Bruce wrote, "Pilate is not mentioned in any other pagan document which has come down to us..." In addition, in 1961 Professor Antonio Frova, an Italian archeologist, discovered an inscription on a stone slab found at a theater in Ceasarea bears the name of Pilate. (The New Dictionary of Biblical Archeology, p. 111). If it is an established fact of history that Pilate lived then it may be equally established that Jesus lived and was crucified under his rule.
Dr. Cooley quotes Tacitus as writing, "This I regard as history's highest function, to let no unworthy action be uncommemorated, and to hold out the repobation of posterity as a terror to evil words and deed."
If the question then is asked: Why so little secular evidence for the death of Christ seeing that it was so signifcant? We may well answer: Why should the death of the leader of those called Christians who were so despised and abhored by the Roman world be of much consequence to Roman nobility and historians? I would think the account we have from Tacitus would not have been mentioned at all had not Nero laid the blame of the fires of Rome upon the Christians...
