Roman Records About Jesus?

[♦ ficino ♦]

Because Kris' Acts of Pilate thread has been locked, I am posting here.  Over on earlywritings.com, there is a discussion about claims in Tertullian, Irenaeus, and Justin Martyr that one can consult Roman records to find out about Jesus' trial etc.

 

DC Hindley posted a very well-written reply in that thread, contending persuasively, I think, that such claims are rhetorical devices.  There's no way those 2nd century apologists had knowledge of actual records about Jesus' trial.  And there's no way their readers ever would have undertaken to check those claims.

 

See link:

 

http://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=554&p=10484#p10477

[Orbit]

Google Josephus Flavius. Some of his histories fell victim to later Christian interpolation, but at least one didn't.

[Wololo]

Check out Tacitus in "Annals". He referenced Jesus as well. It's not a long reference, but it's been generally accepted by scholars.

[centauri]

Jewish outline of the problems with the trial of Jesus as depicted in the Gospels:

http://members.efn.org/~iahu/gesing.htm

 

Lengthy Jewish forum thread on the trial of Jesus:

http://messiahtruth.yuku.com/reply/11383/t/The-trial-of-Jesus-before-the-Sanhedrin-at-Passover-night.html#reply-11383

[Guest]

Check out Tacitus in "Annals". He referenced Jesus as well. It's not a long reference, but it's been generally accepted by scholars.

 

Tacitus lived circa 57-117 CE, so was not a contemporary of jesus.

[♦ ficino ♦]

Sorry guys, I should have been specific about "records."  I do not refer to literary historians like Josephus or Tacitus.  I refer to archival records supposedly assembled by Pilate and housed in Roman archives with other official, state documents.

 

Kris had posted about the so-called Acts of Pilate a few months ago, and I thought this discussion on earlywritings.com had some relevance, since the supposed archival records, to which Justin and Tertullian refer, would come from Pilate's administration.

 

The point of DCHindley's post, which I linked, is to debunk this and other claims in 2nd century Christian apologists.

 

I'm talking documents, not literary histories.

[Ravenstar]

second hand news

[mwc]

     People think that long term records were kept because people like Josephus makes statements like:

 

Against Apion 1

 

7. (30) For our forefathers did not only appoint the best of these priests, and those that attended upon the divine worship, for that design from the beginning, but made provision that the stock of the priests should continue unmixed and pure; (31) for he who is partaker of the priesthood must propagate of a wife of the same nation, without having any regard to money, or any other dignities; but he is to make a scrutiny, and take his wife’s genealogy from the ancient tables, and procure many witnesses to it; (32) and this is our practice not only in Judea, but wheresoever any body of men of our nation do live; and even there, an exact catalogue of our priests’ marriages is kept; (33) I mean at Egypt and at Babylon, or in any other place of the rest of the habitable earth, whithersoever our priests are scattered; for they sent to Jerusalem the ancient names of their parents in writing, as well as those of their remoter ancestors, and signify who are the witnesses also;

  And

 

Life

 

(6) Thus have I set down the genealogy of my family as I have found described in the public records, and so bid adieu to those who calumniate me [as of a lower original].

 

     Exactly what was held in the public record and for how long it was kept is another story.  The genealogy of Jewish priests is something entirely different from the criminal records for the Romans.  Especially since what we're talking about is crucifixion and that was just above killing animals more or less.  If we're talking about killing people that mattered, actual Roman citizens, then better records might have been kept and for longer.  I would think a note of crucifixion taking place might occur but who the person was really was not important for that sort of record keeping.  They certainly didn't write down the names of thousands of Jews, for example, when Varus crucified them after Herod died.  How pointless.

 

          mwc

[Kris]

Interesting stuff Ficino! Thanks for posting. I have read a number of different things regarding roman record keeping. It seemed that Rome had daily reports of various happenings in the areas-- marriages, execution and the like. Not sure if every major event was recorded this way however. To the Christians, Jesus death was such a monumental event that they think it should have been reported--but gee, with all the darkness, etc. everyone in the world should have known something was going on. Odd that if such a record was written, it can't be found!!