Abstract

© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Thursday, October 11, 2001

Christian Censorship in Josephus

Christians are fond of quoting authorities to their bemused converts. It stems from the absolute authority they give the bible as the supposed infallible word of God, but they extend it to any written word that an evangelist choses—under the influence of the Holy Ghost—to quote. Usually the authorities quoted are simply other fundamentalist believers, but they expect their flock to take them on trust and being sheep, they do!

What, then, does the historian know about Jesus Christ? He knows, first and foremost, that the New Testament documents can be relied upon to give an accurate portrait of Him. And he knows that this portrait cannot be rationalized away by wishful thinking, philosophical presupposition, or literary maneuvering.

John Warwick Montgomery, History and Christianity.

This quotation is untrue in every particular, but being a Christian, it can be written without a blush. It is even only possible to write this rubbish because many of the historical records of Jesus have disappeared. Lost!

Who lost them? The Christians!

Flavius Josephus was the Roman name of Joseph ben Matthias. Josephus during the second half of the first century AD, produced two long and detailed histories of the Jews and the events leading to the Roman victory in the Jewish Wars, History of the Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews, but has almost nothing to say about Jesus and even that is probably added by Christians to fill a prominant gap left by the censors.

Josephus was born in Jerusalem only a few years after the crucifixion. He shows an interest in the Jewish religious groups of the time. He tells us about the Jewish religious parties, about John the Baptist who Christians say was the herald of the Messiah and about Jesus’s brother, James, whose death he says was a reason for the start of the War in 66 AD. But he tells us nothing about the crucifixion or how it occurred. A man almost contemporaneous with Jesus and whose reputation was built on detailed histories of the Jewish people fails to mention him except in two brief passages, if they are genuine.

The precocious Josephus had studied all the Jewish religious sects before the age of 19 when he decided to become a Pharisee. He became a clerk to the Sanhedrin and at 26 went as an envoy to Rome to plead for some priests sent to Nero by Procurator Felix for trial. With the help of Poppaea, the Empress, who was possibly a Jewish proselyte or at least a godfearer, he succeeded. He was thus in Rome at much the same time as Paul, the Apostle to the gentiles.

Back in Jerusalem in 64 AD, revolt was simmering. Josephus was patriotic enough but had seen the power and extent of the Empire and knew that rebellion was futile. When the war broke out Josephus was made a general by the Sanhedrin and fought in Galilee with John of Gischala, the Zealot leader of the Galilaeans. Vespasian captured him after the town of Jotapata had been sieged for 47 days and decided to use him as an interpreter. Josephus got on well with Vespasian, predicting that he would become Emperor, which he did. Vespasian asked Josephus to write an account of the Jewish War for his campaign Triumph, a Roman victory parade. It was to be a warning to the people of the East not to try to defy Roman might.

Josephus wrote a draft in his native Aramaic which he called On the Capture of Jerusalem. This he polished into his book, the Jewish War. To gather his material, as the appointed historian of the Emperor, he was granted access to official archives, to the Reports of Roman Governors, the campaign diaries of Vespasian and Titus, the Emperor’s commentaries and he also corresponded with Agrippa I, for a short while King of Judaea before the war. His work had the ultimate stamp of approval—that of the Emperors themselves.

When Josephus uses official sources it is usually evident. He often tells us who filed the report from which he is quoting and transcribes it verbatim with little effort to paraphrase. Thus even non-signalled passages from official sources can be identified by their style. When writing from experience he is more informal, sounds less official and is less impersonal in the information he imparts.

Our present versions of the Jewish War mention none of Jesus, John the Baptist or Menehem, who revolted in 66 AD, but they do tell us of Judas of Galilee and Theudas, both messianic nationalist leaders. He records that the Jews merely protested when the Romans erected a statue of Caligula in the Temple, an act grossly contemptuous of the Jewish religion. This is a curiously subdued response for the fanatically religious Jews. In their outrage, history suggests they must surely have rioted, if not revolted.

Also strange is the omission of the fire in Rome in 64 AD which Nero attributed to the Christians. Such passages smack of censorship because Josephus usually fastidiously records the smallest detail of events relevant to his subject. It looks as though a whole chapter might have been erased by Christian censors because it depicted Jesus and his followers as fomenters of rebellion.

Testimonium Flavianum

Some manuscripts of the Jewish War contain a passage on Jesus extracted from Josephus’s companion volume, the Antiquities of the Jews, proving that someone has tampered with the original text, presumably in an attempt to fill the obvious gap left by the initial excision.

The inserted passage is favourable towards Jesus even though he was viewed, rightly or wrongly, by the Roman hierarchy as a terrorist. Josephus would have been taking an unlikely risk by making such an assessment. Remember he was a captive who had been adopted by Vespasian and given certain privileges in return for certain duties—privileges which could easily have been withdrawn. Domitian, who was Emperor when the Antiquities of the Jews was published, could have been no lover of Jesus or his followers. He even ordered all descendants of King David to be rounded up for questioning in an attempt to detect potential rebels and he banished two members of his own family for wanting to be Christians.

In versions of the Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus, edited by Christians, are two passages describing Jesus. Neither is in the Jewish version of the Josephus’s Antiquities. The longer passage, the so called Testimonium Flavianum (18:3:3), is cited by Christians as independent confirmation of Jesus’ existence and resurrection. It reads:

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvellous things about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.

At that time lived Jesus, a wise man, if he may be called a man; for he performed many wonderful works. He was a teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him many Jews and Gentiles. This was the Christ. And when Pilate, at the instigation of the chief men among us, had condemned him to the cross, they who before had conceived an affection for him did not cease to adhere to him. For on the third day he appeared to them alive again, the divine prophets having foretold these and many other wonderful things concerning him. And the sect of christians, so called from him, subsists to this time.

Josephus, Antiquities 18:3:3 (Lardner’s translation)

Church historians never doubted this testimonium of Josephus for over a millennium. As Josephus was a Jew, it was considered all the more valuable, and that he nevertheless himself still did not believe in Jesus was even more confirming evidence of the power of the redemption of Christ.

In so far as he confesses Christ, acknowledging him to be the son of God, he was compelled and constrained to do so solely by the power of God.

Cardinal Baronius, 1588

The church claimed even an unbeliever and an adversary of the faith had to confess to its truth! Quite why is hard to say. It is like the soldiers who were present at the crucifixion in Matthew. That such remarkable witnesses can nevertheless not believe seems to be a failure of something in the redeeming powers of the Christ, rather than the opposite. But Christians are still not too critical, or even thoughtful.

Robert Eisler in The Messiah Jesus and John the Baptist examined the “Testimonium Flavianum” in Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews that the Churches had used since Eusebius as independednt, that is extra-biblical, evidence of Jesus as Christ. Medieval Jews are on record as saying their own Hebrew manuscripts of Antiquities did not contain this passage. Of course, the Christians claimed the passage had been erased, and indeed it had been in many instances. Many Jews were ready to accept it as the work of Josephus, but they regarded him as a careerist and opportunist, who possibly inserted it because some members of the Flavian family were influenced by Christianity. Others noted that, if the testimony were indeed authentic, it could only be the work of a Christian, and whether it was Josephus seeking to impress Christians or Eusebius it did not matter.

Giphanius, Hubert van Giffen, Protestant philologist and lawyer, is said to be the first Christian scholar to declare the testimonium a forgery, though there is no such written claim in his own work. It was a dangerous thing to say. The first extant printed questioning of the testimonium was by the Lutheran theologian, Lucas Osiander. He regarded the Josephus passage as entirely spurious. Snellius, Professor Sebastian Schnell, was the next. Critics of the passage were chiefly philologists while its defenders were theologians. A Portugese rabbi, Rabbi Lusitanus, first pointed out that the testimonium interrupts the logical structure of the narrative, and must therefore be regarded as an interpolation. According to Pastor Johannes Muller, Lusitanus states:

Josephus telleth first how Pilate hath given cause for rebellion whereupon the text should continue to say how about the same time still another tumult happened unto the Jews, but because in between them is told the history of Jesus, the text doeth not hang together, the other tumult pointeth to the first.

The French Huguenot Tanneguy Lefevre argues in quite a similar strain:

To speak in plain Latin, this interpolation could not have been more ineptly inserted anywhere else.

In this part of the text two calamities (thoruboi) are mentioned. Josephus ends the first with:

And so the riot (stasis) ceased.

The second, described in chapter 5, he connects with the first, saying:

And about the same time another calamity disturbed the Jews.

A thorough examination of the validity of this paragraph in Josephus was made by Nathaniel Lardner, according to a correspondent, John Seed, writing Credibility of the Gospel History in the 1730s and 40s. He was a Christian but a liberal religious dissenter, even something of an early Unitarian. His Works were published in 11 volumes in London in 1788 and there were later editions. Since Lardner, many other scholars have written about it, so no Christian apologist can plead ignorance of their findings. Eichstadt (1814) and Niese (1893-94) repeated Lefevre’s argument, and Professor Norden again in the twentieth century. Now, only scholars speaking for the churches, that is scholars who eschew scholarship when it comes to their belief, regard the passage as genuine. The truth is, it is a forgery. Why should we accuse it of being a forgery?

1. The church fathers liked to quote passages that supported Christianity, yet not one of them quoted this passage in defence of Christianity until Eusebius did in the fourth century, about 330 AD, though the works of Josephus were famous. Previous Christian writers make no reference to Josephus’s commendation of Jesus even when it would have suited them, as they must surely have done had it existed. Eusebius (died c 340) quoted it three times, but Origen (died c 254), although he was the first scholar the church had and one of the best, writing in about 250 AD long before Eusebius, is clear in two passages that the Antiquities did not note Jesus as the Christ. He quotes other parts of Josephus but never this passage. Indeed, he puzzled:

   Though he [Josephus] did not admit our Jesus to be the Christ he none the less gave witness to so much righteousness in James.

   Elsewhere adding:

   …although [Josephus] disbelieved in Jesus as Christ.

   He was explicit about it, and could hardly have been explicit unless Josephus had said so explicitly. In other words, it was not simply an omission of the testimonium from the text but the negative of it. Nor could it have been a doubtful inference from his saying “Jesus was called the Christ”, perhaps implying he was not, because no church man has made that inference from Matthew where the same expression is found. Whatever Origen read in his edition cannot have been the text as it was the century after and now is, but quite a different text, hostile to Jesus and the Christians. Josephus had flatterred Vespasian as the messiah, and depended upon it for his life, so it seems quite unlikely that he would have risked it by a concurrent denial. Plainly Origen’s version of Josephus’s works did not have the passage to which we are referring, but by 330 AD the version used by Eusebius did. Jerome’s Latin version has the insertion but it is less assertive, rendering “He was the Messiah” by “He was believed to be the Messiah”. It shows that the text of Josephus has been altered. Who would or could have altered it?—only Christians. So, there is no proof of the testimony before Christianity was the state religion, and able to suppress hostile and contrary writings, a power conferred by an edict of Constantine and re-enacted by the Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian after Julian’s Pagan revival. Christians even imposed laws requiring capital punishment for anyone who concealed possession of writings hostile to Christianity. Christians were in a position to censor books, even those that had already been issued, and because books were expensive, being hand copied, the owners, whether individuals, booksellers, or libraries and synagogues, would rather they were altered so that they could retain them than let them be confiscated and burned, or risk hiding them with worse consequences. Many glosses and marginal notes in the manuscripts of Antiquities we still have show every one of them, Greek, Latin, Slavonic, and others were owned by Christians.
2. The passage is amid stories about calamities that have befallen the Jews. This is not a calamity as it stands, but has been inserted instead of the original piece which will have described Jesus’s failed rebellion—certainly a calamity.
3. Josephus says this man performed “wonderful works” yet fails to describe any one of them though he quotes the miracles of others.
4. The passage is too pro-Christian. Josephus says that Jesus was the Christ, an unlikely statement for him to have made, not only because he was a Pharisaic Jew but also because he was critical of messianic movements. Josephus, a Jew in the pay of the Roman Emperor and at his mercy as a captive, could not possibly praise a man killed—as far as the Romans knew—as a rebel and a threat to Rome. Only a Christian could write this. So, what do we find? Not that the passage was forged but, Christians declare Josephus to be a secret Christian!
5. For the same reasons Josephus would not have said the Christian religion was the “truth”. Josephus was effectively a prisoner of the Romans, given a privileged position because he flattered the Roman general, Vespasian, who later became emperor, and because Vespasian found him useful. He would have been courting personal disaster to say that the followers of a crucified rebel told the “truth” about him when he was under the guardianship of the general who put down the massive Jewish rebellion in 68 AD.
6. Stating that the sect of Christians “…subsists to this time”, implies it was written a considerable time after the events he was describing. Conceivably, such a point could have been made when Josephus wrote about 60 years later, but it would have matched the time when Eusebius wrote better.

Josephus’s work will have referred to Jesus but unfavourably. Because the passage was not quoted even in an attenuated form, we can conclude that the reference was too defamatory for Christian bishops to quote. Christian redactors found unsuitable references to Jesus, and interpolated brief but suitable references based purely on Christian belief. The passage sounds much like Josephus in style. If it is a bald insertion it has been written in a style compatible with Josephus’s, but it could be a skilful redaction of a genuine passage. Phrases such as “tribe of Christians” and “wise man” which are typical of Josephus are possibly relics of the original. Christian editors who Christianised the text might have cleverly retained these phrases to keep the flavour of Josephus.

The passage giving testimony to Jesus in Antiquities comes during a catalogue of calamities that the Jews experienced at the time of Pilate taking office. Josephus seems here to be drawing upon official sources and lists Pilate’s raising of the standards in Jerusalem and his taking Temple funds to finance the construction of an aqueduct into the city. Then he mentions Jesus and concludes with two incidents in Rome that occurred, according to Tacitus, in 19 AD. This chronology implies that Pilate was governor earlier, and Jesus was active much earlier, than Christians today believe.

The next section of Antiquities has skipped almost two decades to a revolt led by “The Egyptian” (the one that Paul was mistaken for in Acts) in Samaria in 35 AD. So two tumults in Jerusalem and two incidents in Rome bracket a short paragraph praising Jesus, then there is a jump forward of 15 years to the next strand of the story. Something looks amiss.

Following the testimonial to Jesus, the first of the two incidents in Rome is introduced by:

About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder…

but there follows a description of a woman tricked into intercourse with a man pretending to be a god in the Temple of Isis in Rome, a passage eight times longer than that allocated to Jesus and of no apparent relevance to the Jews, despite its introduction. The only relevance to the story of Jesus was that the conniving Priests of Isis were crucified by Tiberius, although it might have been included as a satirical commentary on the myth, new at the time, that Jesus was born of a virgin. Logic requires this introduction to be that of a passage about the tumult accompanying the arrest of Jesus and described in the gospels. This section was deleted in some copies of Josephus and strongly edited and put forward in others so that the ministry of Jesus would not be described as a calamity.

Eisler says the word “tumult” has been deleted by a Christian censor. Because something was deleted, it must have been hostile to Christianity. Many such deletions made in Jewish works, so it is not at all peculiar. Jesus was hanged because he led a rebellion. That is clear from the gospels. What Christian textual analysts of the events in Josephus will not consider let alone credit is that the original reference to Jesus here was a reference to a tumult. Eisler suggests a minimum of hostile text that deleted, shown here by ellipses, left the existing version. He reconstructs the passage in this way:

Now about this time arose an occasion for new disturbances, a certain Jesus, a wizard of a man, if indeed he may be called a man, who was the most monstrous of all men, whom his disciples call a son of God, as having done wonders such as no man hath ever yet done … He was in fact a teacher of astonishing tricks to such men as accept the abnormal with delight … And he seduced many also of the Greek nation and was regarded by them as the Messiah … And when, on the indictment of the principal men among us, Pilate had sentenced him to the cross, still those who before had admired him did not cease to rave. For it seemed to them that having been dead for three days, he had appeared to them alive again, as the divinely-inspired prophets had foretold—these and ten thousand other wonderful things—concerning him. And even now the race of those who are called messianists (christiani) after him is not extinct.

Because the passage sounds like the work of a Christian, it must have been added to Antiquities some time between Origen and Eusebius, when Christians got the power to edit books. After the Christians became supreme in the reign of Constantine they evidently planted evidence on Josephus, turning the leading Jewish historian of his day into a witness for Jesus as Christ. Eusebius is one of the few Christians to admit that lying for the advancement of the church was acceptable[†]Eusebius Lying. Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, gives the sources of this “fair” view as Eusebius’s flawed character and two passages, (a) in Ecclesiastical History 8:2:2-3 and (b) in Ecclesiastical History, Martyrs Pal 12:1, in which the historian directly admits to sins of omission if not of commission:
a. “…we have decided to relate nothing concerning them except the things in which we can justify God’s judgment. Hence we shall not mention those who were shaken by the persecution, nor those who in everything pertaining to salvation were shipwrecked, and by their own will were sunk in the depths of the flood. But we shall introduce into this history in general only those events which may be useful first to ourselves and afterwards to posterity.”
b. “I judge it more suitable to shun and avoid the account of these things, as I said at the beginning. But such things as are sober and praiseworthy, according to the sacred word—“and if there be any virtue and praise”—I consider it most proper to tell and to record, and to present to believing hearers in the history of the admirable martyrs.”

The notion that a lie (pseudos) could be justified by its purpose, that it could be “noble”, came from Plato. Eusebius seemed to accept this, and used it to justify the Jewish scriptures as being edifying fiction. The early Church took to Plato because his concept of “ideas” or “forms” suited the Christian belief in heaven and souls. (though Paul started it all). He most likely interpolated this passage into Josephus.

Some Christians admit that Josephus’s quotation about Jesus is “contested”, but do not say what they mean, and otherwise treat the quotation as authentic. Contested means that the majority of scholars since the early 1800s have rejected the entire Testimonium Flavianum as a Christian insertion, but Christian clergy and preachers, disdainful of honesty, still say it is genuine. Even though Christians of all denominations are aware that the passage is suspected, by the best experts, of being a forgery, they still quote it in support of their Jesus. This is not only dishonest, it is exploiting the Christian’s self-styled virtue of being truthful to spread lies. They follow their masters Paul and Eusebius in using lies to propagate their own “truth”. The people fooled by this are mainly ignorant. The intelligent will cringe at the dishonesty involved and disregard Christian “evidence”.

It is remarkable how the preconceived version of Jesus that Christians over the years have manufactured by such steps as this censoring of Josephus holds them in thrall. The obvious unbuttered truth is that Jesus was hanged as a rebel, and here in Josephus the obvious explnation of the facts is that a reference to it has been excised and a passage supporting the Christian myth inserted. The change was necessitated because it was hostile, and that is what Origen says long before Eusebius reports something quite different.

Antiquities, does mention both John the Baptist and James, the brother of Jesus. Josephus also, in passing, mentions Jesus later in Antiquities:

So he [Ananus, son of Ananus the high priest] assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before him the brother of Jesus, he who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others (or some of his companions) and when he had formed an accusation against them, he delivered them to be stoned.

Antiquities 20:9:1

Many scholars think this too is forged. If not, it confirms that a previous mention had been made of Jesus. An unfavourable reference to Jesus in the original version must have been excised to render it publishable but Christian copyists, finding that their crudely censored versions contained no reference to Jesus felt obliged to insert one. So what Origen could not see, Eusebius could.

More space is devoted to John the Baptist in our editions of the Antiquities than to the master whose coming the gospels assure us he was proclaiming. A section covering the career of Jesus in considerably more detail than the short passage we now have must have been deleted.

Acta Pilati

Provincial governors had to dispatch, to the Emperor, “acta”, official reports of all that occurred under their jurisdiction. Important trials such as those requiring the death penalty had to be filed, particularly if the trial concerned an attempt at insurrection against Imperial rule. On the evidence of the gospels Pilate must have filed an account of the trial of Jesus, and one must have existed in the Roman archives.

We know that Tiberius had an almost obsessive reverence for the legal and civic reforms introduced by his predecessor, Augustus, and paid meticulous attention to the governance of the provinces. Officials had to take care not to step outside of their powers and particularly not to oppress their inferiors. Taxation was light and the policy in frontier regions was to avoid conflict. It is inconceivable that Tiberius should not have been informed of the trial of a man charged with riotous assembly and treason.

Josephus had access to the Acts of the Governors and he would have needed it to get an accurate view of events between 6 AD when his earlier source, the books of Nicholas of Damascus, court historian to Herod the Great, ended and about 55 AD when his direct experience as a scribe to the Sanhedrin would have become relevant. So for the period of about 50 years, which covered the ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus, Josephus’s main source would have been Roman and Herodian archives.

Justin Martyr was certain that Pilate would have sent a report of the crucifixion to Tiberius at Rome. He knew what the duty of a Roman governor was, and it involved being a dutiful bureaucrat. He had to despatch his reports, but Justin cannot have had access to the records and could not have verified there definitely was such a report. Christians take refuge behind this uncertainty, but Justin himself has no doubt and writes (1 Apol 48,53) “And that He did those things, you can learn from the Acts of Pontius Pilate, ” and “And that these things did happen, you can ascertain from the Acts of Pontius Pilate.”

Justin was also confident that the Roman records of the census of Cyrenius would reveal the birth details of Jesus and his family.

Now there is a village in the land of the Jews, thirty-five stadia from Jerusalem, in which Jesus Christ was born, as you can ascertain also from the registers of the taxing made under Cyrenius, your first procurator in Judaea. (Justin Martyr, 1 Apol 34)

The point about these assertions is that no such evidence has ever been adduced by Christians, whether the Acts of Pontius Pilate or the census of Cyrenius. When the Christians took control, they obviously had access to these records, but they have never produced them and they are not part of the New Testament as they ought to be. It shows that they did not support the Christian case.

If Jesus did live, it seems incredible that there was no reports like these, because Romans were usually meticulous officials. Of course, the Acta might have said nothing more than what the gospels accept—that Jesus was crucified as a rebel against Roman authority, a man claiming to be the king of the Jews, at a time when the proper king of the Jews was the Roman Emperor. Such a report would prove Jesus was a criminal in Roman law, not that he was a god. Christians might have wanted to preserve such a report nevertheless, but did not. It must therefore have given detail of the acts that led to Jesus being crucified—that he led a rebellion and captured Jerusalem. Christians would not have wanted to keep such incriminating evidence and there is little doubt that they therefore destroyed it and presented forgeries to the world when they took power under Constantine.

In the fifth century, someone forged a report that Christian theologians know is a forgery but nevertheless quote as if it were genuine.

In his History of the Church in 325 AD, Eusebius informs us that the Acta Pilati, were published in 311 AD by the Emperor Maximinus Daia precisely to prove that the claims of the Christians were false and the verdict of Pilate was correct. Oddly these documents date Jesus’s trial and crucifixion to 21 AD, apparently at odds with Josephus who says Pilate did not take up office until 26 AD. Eusebius concludes the Acta Pilati were forgeries. But it is stretching credulity to suggest that the Roman administration were so incompetent as to unnecessarily change the date when they were altering the record to discredit the Christians.

What reason could they possibly have to want to alter the date especially with Josephus so well known? It is more likely that the triumphant Christians only a few years later decided to alter Josephus to put Pilate’s rule outside of the period when the Acta were dated. The Christians had control of the copying of books after the time of Constantine but their opponents could have hidden copies of the Roman records. By altering Josephus, any copy of the true record that emerged could be shown by reference to Josephus to have been a forgery. And altering the dates in Josephus needed only two simple numeric changes—to the Greek number for the length of Pilate’s Prefecture (from 18 to 10 years) and the Greek number for the length of the Prefecture of Gratus, his predecessor (3 to 11 years).

Gratus had appointed four High Priests according to Josephus. Now John’s gospel (11:49) describes Caiaphas as “High priest that year”, implying that it was usual for High Priests to be changed each year. That is just what Gratus had been doing, confirming that three years was his term of office. Gratus had appointed a new High Priest for each year he was governor and had appointed the fourth one, Joseph Caiaphas, for the next year, but Gratus was then recalled.

Pilate arrived, found Caiaphas High Priest and kept him in place for his full term of office. When Pilate was recalled, Vitellius, Legate of Syria, Pilate’s boss, sacked Caiaphas also. So there is good reason to believe that Pilate and Caiaphas ruled Judaea in tandem for eighteen years from 18 to 36 AD. The policy of Tiberius was not to change governors believing that, like blowflies, they left the body alone when they were sated. Pilate’s long period of office is testimony to the policy if not the theory.

To return to the Acts of Pilate: we are faced with the following chain of logic.

• Either the Acta Pilati existed or they did not.
• If they did not exist Pilate must have neglected his duty in not submitting them but Pilate was a conscientious bureaucrat and would not neglect such matters. It is difficult to believe that none were written or submitted.
• If they existed either they were favourable to the Christian story and so would be part of the Christian canon or they were unfavourable to the Christian story and so would have been destroyed or altered. They are not part of the canon and so they were unfavourable to the Christian cause. They were either destroyed or altered.
• If they once existed but had been destroyed someone must have known and therefore claims that they once existed would have been made. Claims that the Acta once existed have been made.
• If they once existed but had been altered someone must have known and therefore claims that they had been forged would have been made. Claims that the Acta have been forged have been made.

It looks very much as though the Acta Pilati once existed as would have been expected but have been destroyed by the Christians. The only reason they would have destroyed them is that they did not match the story the Church wanted to be believed.

There is a Slavonic text of Josephus’s Jewish War which seems to be an early version. it is not free of Christian alterations but tells a different story from the usual. Jesus is not named as such but is called the “Wonder Worker” and led a band of 150 disciples into Jerusalem in a pathetic attempt at revolution. He was crucified around 21 AD. Christians tell us this is a mediaeval forgery!

Suetonius

The apparent allusions to Christians in The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius (120 AD), one in the section on Claudius and one in the section on Nero, are ambiguous. The short mention of “Chrestus” in Suetonius shows that the Roman author was not sure of his subject by spelling Christ’s name wrongly, if that is who he meant. Suetonius wrote of a Jewish revolt at Rome in the reign of the Emperor Claudius apparently instigated by “Chrestus”:

As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of one Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome.

Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars (Claudius 25:4)

The passage implies that there was an actual person named “Chrestus” in Rome at the time instigating trouble. Jesus was not in Rome instigating the Jews in 45 AD, so Suetonius must have meant another person. By 41 to 54 AD when Claudius was Emperor scholars doubt that Jesus’s supporters could have spread to Rome in sufficient strength to cause a revolt.

“Chrestus” is not another spelling of “Christus”, as some Christians pretend. Chrestus is the Latin form of a Greek name Chrestos. It means “Excellent One” in Greek. Christus means Messiah, so “Chrestus” would have to be a mispelling of “Christus”, meaning Christ to imply a Christian presence in Rome at the time.

Chrestus as a proper name is so common that it occurs over 80 times on Roman inscriptions. Chrestus was a common name in Rome because it was given to hard working slaves, many of whom earned their freedom over the years. Suetonius might have been simply giving the name of a Roman rabble-rouser. He possibly read “Christus ”and, assuming the common name was intended, corrected it to “Chrestus”. So he perhaps should have written “Christus”, meaning a messiah, but not specifically Jesus. The disturbance would have been caused by messianic Jews possibly responding to the messianic claims of a contemporary. If Chrestus indeed meant Jesus, the riots were by orthodox Jews incensed by early Christian missionaries on Stephen’s wing.

So, in summary, plausible explanations of this passage in Suetonius are:

1. Chrestus was a freed Jewish slave fomenting zealous Jews into believing the messiah was soon to come.
2. Chrestus is an error by Suetonius who took his source to mean that, Chrestus being the name with which Suetonius was familiar, but the riots were by messianic Jews rioting with each other about whether the messiah had come or not, possibly in reference to the claims of Jesus’s followers.

The linking of a word so close to Christus and “Jews” in the same context, favours the second explanation, so Suetonius can be taken as a rather weak witness to the fact that Jews even in Rome were in a turmoil over messianism at the time, possibly as a result of Christian claims. At a stretch, it shows that some people—presumed to be Christians—might have been claiming that the messiah had come.

Even if Suetonius is referring to Christians in Rome, this only confirms the existence of Christians, not the earlier existence of Jesus. There were Christians in Rome during the first century AD but this does not imply that Jesus was himself historic.

Thallus and Pliny

The testimony of the Pagan historian, Thallus, is also worthless but is often quoted by the liars of Christendom. Eusebius says Thallus wrote, in Greek, in three volumes the history of the world from the fall of Troy down to the 167th Olympiad in 52 AD. None of Thallus’s work exists any more except a reference to the crucifixion in the remaining writings of a third century Christian, Julius Africanus. Africanus’s own work survives only in fragments, but refers to the lost history of Thallus as describing Jesus’s death being accompanied by an earthquake and darkness. Africanus says Thallus in the period before 221 AD, wrote in the third book of his history, that the darkness which supposedly covered the earth at the time of the crucifixion was an eclipse:

Thallus calls this darkness an eclipse of the sun—wrongly in my opinion.

Plainly this has little value since the passage could easily have been inserted into Julius Africanus and we have no way of checking whatever Thallus said. The earthquake and darkness are confirmed nowhere. They are peculiar to the New Testament. Yet, from this, Christian apologists have argued that a non-Christian contemporary of Jesus testified to the midday darkness. Thallus might be saying what the Christians believed, but the explanation is impossible because Jesus was crucified at the new moon. Solar eclipses cannot occur at Passover when the moon is full. The moon, in its monthly track round the earth, is in the diametrically wrong place. Even Africanus realized this.

The fragment is damaged. It speaks of “…allus”. Is this Thallus? Thallus was a popular name common on Roman inscriptions. Josephus (Antiquities 18:6:4) refers to a Thallus:

Now there was one Thallus, a freed-man of Caesar’s, of whom he borrowed a million of dracmae, and thence repaid Antonia the debt he owed her.

Thallus was born about 50 AD, so must have been writing about 80 AD or later, after the first gospel written, Mark’s. If he had used Mark’s gospel as a source, the observation is not independent, and Thallus would have probably have been a Christian himself, to have been reading it at such an early date after it was written.

The Talmud and Lucian

The Talmud contains virtually no mention of Jesus. There was much persecution of the Jews by Christians during the Middle Ages, and many Jews were afraid that the presence of unfavorable references to Jesus in the Talmud of the time would bring down greater revenge by the Christians. References were eliminated by Jewish copyists so that Christians would have no excuse for burning their books and synagogues, as they were wont to do. Scholars have collected the references from ancient copies of the Talmud and published them, but they remain disputed.

Jesus in the Talmud was a bastard and a magician who learned magic spells in Egypt or else stole the secret name of God from the temple and used it to work magic or miracles. The father of Jesus was a soldier named Pantera. Talmudic stories were set down in the period from 200 to 500  AD, and, even if reflecting the earlier situation, were coloured by Jewish attempts to deal with Christianity. The Talmud therefore is not historically accurate and is only marginal use in assessing Jesus as an historical person.

Another fragment, quoting the letter of Mara Bar Serapion, also has not been accurately dated. It says that the Jews killed their “wise King”. Christians will say this is Jesus, but this fragment is, again, worthless for this purpose.

Lucian’s sarcastic comment, written in the second century, is evidence that the Christians of the time thought that a man had been crucified in Palestine as the basis of their sect. It also shows that they were a brotherhood, confirming that the use of brother in the bible acknowledges membership of the common order not blood relationship, and the gullibility of the gentile Christians is also lampooned.

It was then that he [Perigrinus] learned the wondrous lore of the Christians, by associating with their priests and scribes in Palestine. And—how else could it be? He made them all look like children; for he was prophet, cult-leader, head of the synagogue, and everything, all by himself. He interpreted and explained some of their books and even composed many, and they revered him as a god, made use of him as a lawgiver, and set him down as a protector, next after that other, to be sure, whom they still worship, the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world…

The poor wretches have convinced themselves first and foremost, that they are going to be immortal and live for all time, in consequence of which they despise death and even willingly give themselves into custody, most of them. Furthermore, their first lawgiver persuaded them that they are all brothers of one another, after they have transgressed once for all by denying the Greek gods, and by worshipping that crucified sophist him-self and living under his laws. Therefore they despise all things indiscriminately and consider them common property—receiving such doctrines traditionally without any definite evidence. So if any charlatan or tricksters able to profit from them, comes along and gets among them he quickly acquires sudden wealth by imposing upon simple folk. Lucian, Perigrinus

The “evidence” quoted from Pliny Secundus, Pliny the Younger, is also of dubious value. He had to punish the Christians in Asia Minor as a subversive group. In a letter to the Emperor Trajan of about 112 AD, some eighty years after the presumed date of the crucifixion, Pliny wrote that he had found Christians to be harmless people who sang hymns at daybreak (just like the Essenes) to their Christ as to a god, and asked the Emperor whether therefore he had to take action against them. This correspondence proves that there were Christians living in Asia Minor in 112 AD, which is hardly surprising as it was one of the first places proselytised by Paul. But the fact that Roman officials found Christians practising their “superstition”, as Romans called, it tells us nothing about Christianity’s origins. Singing hymns to a god called Christ says nothing about the historical Jesus. Christians could have invented their myth of Jesus Christ to explain why they were worshipping a god called Christ.

Tacitus

Another major ancient historian who supposedly mentions Jesus is Tacitus. Cornelius Tacitus (55-120 AD) wrote his Annals at least 70 years after Jesus’s crucifixion. Jesus is not mentioned by name anywhere in the extant works of Tacitus. In his Annals, Tacitus says that the Christians were accused by Nero of setting fire to Rome in 64 AD. He accuses the Christians of hating the human race.

He says that members of this mischievous sect were horribly tortured and their confessions led to many others being convicted, and, in Book 15:44, he mentions Christus:

Nero looked around for a scapegoat, and inflicted the most fiendish tortures on a group of persons already hated by the people for their crimes. This was the sect known as Christians. Their founder, one Christus, had been put to death by the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. This checked the abominable superstition for a while, but it broke out again and spread, not merely through Judaea, where it originated, but even to Rome itself, the great reservoir and collecting ground for every kind of depravity and filth. Those who confessed to being Christians were at once arrested, but on their testimony a great crowd of people were convicted, not so much on the charge of arson, but of hatred of the entire human race.

Tacitus, Annals, (D R Dudley’s translation)

Even if this is genuine, what does this tell us about Jesus? From the way in which this is written, Tacitus did not claim firsthand knowledge of the origins of Christianity. By 120 AD the Christian tradition that Christ had died under Pilate had been established. Tacitus was not recording a historical event but the Christians’ own explanation of their origins. And Tacitus would have thought an action like this typical of Pilate. He is repeating a story which was then commonly believed, namely that the founder of Christianity, one Christus, had been put to death under Tiberius.

In any case, scholars maintain there could not have been many Christians in Rome even by 64 AD and that Tacitus, writing 60 years later, is confusing the Christians of his day with those instigated by Chrestos in Suetonius, messianic Jews. This would better explain the accusation of “hating the human race”, in conventional terms a curious accusation to make of Christians but one which could apply to Jews, especially orthodox Essenes, who considered themselves as God’s Elect, thought gentiles were inferior and hated the Romans.

If Tacitus had been using the Roman imperial records, to which he had access, the report would grow in importance. Had he? Note that he calls Pilate the “Procurator”. This shows he was not using official records because Pilate was the “Prefect” of Judaea. The lesser title of Procurator only came into use later. He also calls Jesus by the religious title “Christos”. Roman records would not have referred to Jesus by a Christian title, but by his given name. Tacitus is telling us nothing historical but only contemprary knowledge.

Gibbon points out that, if Nero persecuted Christians, it was the only example of Roman intolerance up to the Jewish War. Even Origen, the early Christian apologist could declare that “the number of martyrs was very inconsiderable”. The Christian fathers, Acts, Justin and Origen all say little or nothing about the Christian persecutions of Nero, because the victims were predominantly Jews. The only other reason for the silence would be if the passage in Tacitus was interpolated. Notice that Acts concludes by saying that Paul was not forbidden to teach in Rome, he did it with all boldness—and the year was around 64 AD.

In truth, these are serious difficulties that prevent this passage from being taken as genuine, and suggest it is a Christian interpolation (Comment). In summary:

1. No other report that Nero persecuted the Christians has ever emerged.
2. Multitudes of Christians cannot have been in Rome in 60 AD, unless Christian is being used more widely than it is today—to mean messianic Jews rather than believers that the messiah had come in Jesus.
3. The term Christian was not in common use in the first century.
4. Nero was indifferent to the religions in his city, and did not need any group to be his scapegoat because the rumour that he started the fire was an early slander of an unpopular man.

Damning to the authenticity of this passage is that it is cited, among obvious fairy tales, almost word-for-word in the Chronicle of Sulpicius Severus (d 403 AD). Again, no one before had mentioned this part of Tacitus, and nor do contemporaries. It was probably not in the manuscripts of Tacitus at that time, but copyists in the Dark Ages might well have copied the passage from the Chronicle into the manuscript of Tacitus they were reproducing.

Missing Records

Christians explain the lack of official records of the events of Jesus’s life by claiming that they were totally unimportant at the time. For a vast empire, insignificant events occurred in a distant country of which Romans knew nothing and cared less. To children in Sunday school this sounds quite convincing. But it is not true and should not be repeated by honest adults.

Palestine was not a minor country of little importance to the Romans. The Jews were already widespread as merchants and artisans in the Empire and Judaea was strategically important astride the trade routes to Persia, Arabia and India, and the military corridor by land from Africa to Asia. The countries to the east had been serious rivals to Rome not long before and were still strong and independent. They remained a threat at the time of Barabbas though later the Romans briefly annexed them.

Romans mistrusted Jewish links with these countries. Many Jews still lived in Parthia preferring to remain even though Cyrus the Persian had allowed them to return from Babylonian exile. And the Jews, though inhabiting only a tiny country, had a record of militancy that, combined with their strategic position, meant they could not be ignored. Thus events in Judaea were watched keenly by Roman observers at diplomatic and military levels if not by the hoi polloi, and statesmen demanded regular and accurate dispatches.

Jesus was proclaimed a king as even the gospels admit and as such he was a rival to Caesar and a threat to the Empire. That was no trivial crime and required detailed reports from the Roman governor to the Emperor. If, though, as Christians maintain, it was not worth recording and indeed was not recorded, it seems curious that early opponents and critics of Christianity failed to question the absence of independent evidence of Jesus’s existence. The Christian apologists did not attempt to answer any such questions, so apparently they were not put. Only in modern times have critics argued that Jesus never existed at all.

In the early days of Christianity, its critics’ main argument was a different one—Jesus was a bandit and a magician and, remarkably, that the records of the time proved it! A Jewish source says Jesus was crucified at Lydda as a false teacher and a beguiler. Celsus and Lucian early in the second century and Sossianus Hierocles late in the third tell us that Jesus was a sorcerer and a fomenter of rebellion who committed highway robbery at the head of a band of men. These documents existed because later scholars refer to them. But where are they now? Gone! Nothing of this remains now because Christians, when they came to power under Constantine, began to destroy anything contrary to their own view.

The death penalty was prescribed for anyone owning or trying to preserve any books describing Jesus as a magician or an agitator!

The writings of Arius and Porphyry were ordered to be burnt. De Judaeis by Antonius Julianus completely disappeared. We only know it existed because Josephus mentions it. Another book, vital because it was written at the end of the first century by Justus of Tiberias, who organised the revolt in Galilee, has also gone. But Photius, Bishop of Tyre in 448 AD, commenting on Justus’s book which still existed then, expressed surprise that it made no mention of Jesus. Justus knew the events of that period from direct experience and could hardly have avoided mentioning the execution of a claimant to the Jewish throne. But the Christian censor had been at work for a century. Thus Photius tells us that when the writings of Eunapius, a critic of Christianity, were republished after the death of Julius the Apostate, all anti-Christian references had been expunged.

Passages were removed from Lucian. The works of Celsus and Sossianus Hierocles were suppressed and we now only have quotations made from them by Christian polemicists. Many old manuscripts in museums and archives are testimony to the Christian censors blotting out sentences or sometimes obscuring whole pages by spilt ink.

Besides official censorship, Christian editors and copyists, altered passages as they saw fit. Even Josephus which has managed to survive has been “improved”. The paragraph in Antiquities of the Jews bearing witness to Jesus was not in its present form in 250 AD and is thought by many to be a Christian forgery.

The missing books of Tacitus possible owe their disappearance to their having references to Jesus. The books of Tacitus come to a halt at the siege of Jerusalem. The Romans considered both Christians and orthodox Jews to have participated in the Jewish War, and Sulpicius Severus, a Christian writer, does not demure. He asserts, in his Chronicle written in the fifth century, that the Romans destroyed the Jerusalem Temple to stop it from being an inspiration to the Jews and to the Christians. (These Christians could only be those of the Jerusalem Church, the Nazarenes or Ebionim.)

However this is not confirmed by the works of Josephus as they stand today and it is an amazing statement to be made by a Christian especially at such a late date. Because it is quite contrary to anything the Church would want to maintain, it could not be an invention of the time. Yet, if it is based on a contemporary source, it must have been a prestigious one to carry weight against Josephus. The only source with such prestige is Tacitus. Since it is just at this point that the works of Tacitus are lost, there is again a strong hint of Christian suppression.

Jews also had to alter their records if the Christian censor was not to burn them. Explicit references to Jesus were replaced by references to “a certain one”. The version of the Old Testament written in Greek, the Septuagint, was also tampered with by the Christians who then accused the Jews of altering their own version. In the pogroms of the Middle Ages, Jewish Scriptures were burnt by the cartload. In 1263 AD King Jayme I of Aragon in Spain ordered that all Jewish books should be destroyed.

The greatest act of Christian vandalism of all was the destruction in the fifth century of libraries like that of Alexandria and the Pagan schools that had propagated Greek scholarship. This wholesale destruction of accumulated wisdom in the name of God precipitated the dark ages from which we did not recover until the Renaissance. Are the churches are different now? The Catholic, John P Meier, with the approval of the Imprimatur, advised in A Marginal Jew, in 1991 AD that Secret Mark, the Gospels of Thomas and the Gospel of Peter, the Egerton Gospel and all other non-canonical texts about Jesus were worthless and might be thrown “back into the sea”. We can be certain that if Christians had anything to do with it many modern discoveries would never see the light of day. They would be incinerated.

Lack of Evidence

The lack of evidence makes it impossible to prove that Jesus ever existed.

1. There are no proven, legitimate references to the existence of Jesus in any contemporary source outside of the New Testament. Even the New Testament is really not a contemporary source, as it was written from 30 to 120 years after Jesus died.
2. There is no evidence that the town of Nazareth ever existed at the time.
3. The earliest New Testament accounts do not refer to any details of the life of Jesus. The authentic Pauline epistles imply only that he was a god.
4. The existence of Jesus is not necessary to explain the origin or growth of Christianity (see Earl Doherty’s detailed arguments).

The most convincing evidence that Jesus lived is the fact that he died as an opponent of the Roman state. No myth, to explain the worship in the Roman empire of a celestial or cosmic god called Christ, would have been invented with the immense disadvantage that the god died opposing the state. It was this embarassing fact that the early church desperately tried to ignore that led to the lack of citations by Paul and other early Christians to the life on earth of the god. It shows that Jesus was historical, but was not the person that Christians think he was!

Comment by Vincent Cook

Mike, I have the following comments on: Manipulating the Good News. It has been a while since we last exchanged messages about the prutah coins and the 21 AD crucifixion date (btw, thanks for crediting me on your website). I have come across something that supports your early chronology.

It turns out that early lists of the Roman popes have some extremely important clues as to when the main event actually took place. As you might expect of post 311 AD documents, there are false or misleading statements in them that tend to lead the uninformed reader astray, but the fabrications are not consistent across the entire collection of documents, making it possible to deduce what was really in the pre 311 AD documents. Some scholars say the pre 311 AD source documents can be attributed first to Hegisippus, then a later edition by Hippolytus.

Most Jesus-besotted scholars nowadays tend to belittle these lists, claiming that they are “confused” or have “copyist’s errors” and thus got all their dates wrong, and even that they added an extra Pope in the first century—until just a few years ago, Popes Cletus and Anencletus still had separate feast days, now the official word from infallible authority is that they were the same person. What they are really trying to say is that their faith based late chronologies aren’t consistent with what their own earliest surviving records show.

Go to http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu to get the original latin texts. Of particular interest are the Catalogus Liberian—which is part of a larger work called the Chronography of 354, which also features a list of Roman Consuls, vital for understanding the consular dating system—and the various editions of the Liber Pontificalis—which date from the 6th Century) and the Catalogus Pontificum. The crucial points to pay attention to are:

1. when Peter and Paul got executed
2. when Linus, the second Pope, took over
3. how many years Peter was Pope, and
4. how many years passed between Peter’s crucifixion and Jesus’s crucifixion.

The oldest document, the Catalogus Liberian, flatly declares that Jesus was executed March 25th, 29 AD. However, it also claims that Peter became the Bishop of Rome the very next year—leaving no time for him being Bishop of Antioch, nor for counter-evanglizing in Corinth, etc against Paul—and passed the see on to Linus in 56 AD—long before the alleged start of the Neronian persecution in 64 AD and the date given by Eusebius for the execution of Peter and Paul, namely 67 AD. The Catholic Church today tends to favor Eusebius and his much later chronology.

Logically, to accomodate Peter’s time in Antioch, we either have to shift Peter’s pontificate forward by about a decade—which makes a fusion of Cletus and Anencletus in modern lists very convenient for compressing the time scale—or we have to shift Jesus backwards in time, or we have to shorten or eliminate Peter’s pontificate. There are a couple of crucial clues that suggest a backwards shift.

First of all, some of these documents state that Peter and Paul were executed in a year when Nero was Consul. There are just four years that qualify—55 AD, 57 AD, 58 AD and 60 AD. Note that the year naming convention applies only to Consuls serving at the start of the year. Nero’s consulship in his final year doesn’t count because he wasn’t among the first Consuls that year. The original source must have indicated who the co-Consul was, allowing a reader to pin down the precise year, but the copyist saw fit to omit that information.

Second of all, some of the Liber Pontificalis manuscripts state that Peter was executed in the 38th year after the crucifixion of Jesus. This means that you would have to subtract 37 years from the above dates, giving us possible crucifixion years for Jesus of 18 AD, 20 AD, 21 AD, and 23 AD. I think you can begin to see why the surviving Papal lists are “confused” and have so many “copyist’s errors” and why Eusebius deviates from these records and why Hegisippus and Hippolytus were not so lovingly preserved. Not only did the con artists of the 4th Century have to fix Josephus, they also had to rewrite their own church histories.

It is possible to combine this evidence with Tacitus’s Annals, Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews, and the Acts of the Apostles to get an even more precise chronology. Acts says that Paul was shipped off to Rome shortly after Porcius Festus took over from Antonius Felix as Procurator of Judea. There is sharp disagreement among modern scholars as to when this handover was, with the Jesus-besotted favoring a late chronology here too. However, Josephus is quite emphatic that Felix benefitted from his brother Pallas’s influence with Nero upon his return to Rome, and Tacitus gives some extremely compelling reasons why Pallas fell out with Nero just four months after Nero took the throne.

This means that Paul’s hearing before Festus must have occurred not long afterwards, most likely in the summer or fall of 55 AD—the season of the year is inferred from some of the details of Acts. Paul probably got to Rome in 56 AD, just in time to install Linus as bishop. Acts tells us he then spent two years under house arrest, which bring us to 58 AD.

Acts doesn’t tell us what happened after that, but it is not hard to guess. Peter and Paul were caught in some treasonous plot that Christians didn’t particularly care to remember, and were both executed for it on June 29th of Nero’s third consulship (58 AD), as the original version of the papal list must have indicated. The original version of the papal list must have also indicated that this was the 38th year after Jesus’s crucifixion in 21 AD.

And what did they do to provoke Nero? Amazingly enough, the gospels give us a hint. Paul’s Epistle to the Phillipians is considered by most scholars to be among the genuine Pauline epistles, and it has a couple of fascinating details about what Paul was doing in Rome during his house arrest.

In the letter, Paul claims to have “saints” in the imperial household, and even to have “made it evident to the Praetorian Guard” that his “bonds are in Christ”. What the heck does that mean? Was this just pious boasting, or was a revolutionary Kingdom of God activist really that close to the nerve center of imperial power (with all its intense intrigues) and remotely exercising influence within the palace? Paul also mentions envy and rivalry were inducing selfish men to promote Kingdom of God propaganda too. Could that be a reference to Paul’s rival, Peter? Or perhaps to Nero’s rival Pallas?

Whatever was really going on in the palace and among the guard, Nero certainly would have been alarmed to discover dangerous Kingdom of God radicals so close at hand. This, and not the desire to find an innocent scapegoat for the fire in 64 AD—as the Jesus-besotted would have us believe—would explain why a Neronian persecution was initiated.

Thanks for bringing attention to the papal lists. I must confess to being a bit surprised myself when I started looking at the details in these documents. There is no mistaking the significance of this statement in the Liber Pontificalis:

Post hanc dispositionem martyrio cum Paulo coronatur, post passionem Domini anno XXXVIII.

It is also interesting that the order of the popes gets changed in the Liber Pontificalis relative to the earlier Catalogus Liberian, even though the consular year dates are consistent. The order given in the earlier document is correct, but it appears that a tradition about Peter having ordained both Linus and Cletus led to the assumption that they served as successive popes, causing Clement to get shoved down the list.

Another point of interest is that two out of the three Liber Pontificalis manuscripts say that Peter was bishop in Antioch for seven years, while one of them says ten years. With this data, we can reconstruct the following first century chronology:

• Jesus executed 21 AD
• Peter (Antioch) 23-30
• Peter (Rome) 30-55
• Linus 56-67
• Peter & Paul executed 58
• Clemens 68-76
• Cletus 77-83
• Anaclitus 84-95
• Evaristus 96-108

From Lile

Remsburg (The Christ) gives good reasons to think of it as a interpolation. He is discussing “Nero, in order to stifle the rumor, ascribed… but only to gratify the cruelty of one man (Annals Book XV sec. 44)”.

In the middle of that passage which takes up quite a long paragraph, there is this brief sentence that he puts in italics, “The founder of that name was Christus, who, in the reign of Tiberius, was punished as a criminal by the procurator, Pontius Pilate”. He states that “This passage, accepted as authentic by many, must be declared doubtful, if not spurious, for the following reasons:”

1. It is not quoted by the Christian fathers.
2. Tertullian was familiar with the writings of Tacitus, and his arguments demanded the citation of this evidence had it existed.
3. Clement of Alexandria, at the beginning of the third century, made a compilation of all the recognitions of Christ and Christianity that had been made by Pagan writers up to his time. The writings of Tacitus furnished no recognition of them.
4. Origen, in his controversy with Celsus, would undoubtedly have used it had it existed.
5. The ecclesiastical historian Eusebius, in the fourth century, cites all the evidences of Christianity obtainable from Jewish and Pagan sources, but makes no mention of Tacitus.
6. It is not quoted by any Christian writer prior to the fifteenth century.
7. At this time but one copy of the Annals existed, and this copy, it is claimed, was made in the eight century—600 years after the time of Tacitus.
8. As this single copy was in possession of a Christian the insertion of a forgery was easy.
9. Its severe criticisms of Christianity do not necessarily disprove its Christian origin. No ancient witness was more desirable than Tacitus, but his introduction at so late a period would make rejection certain unless Christian forgery could be made to appear improbable.
10. It is admitted by Christian writers that the works of Tacitus have not been preserved with any considerable degree of fidelity. In the writings ascribed to him are believed to be some of the writings of Quintilian.
11. The blood-curdling story about the frightful orgies of Nero reads like some Christian romance of the dark ages, and not like Tacitus.
12. In fact, this story, in nearly the same words, omitting the reference to Christ, is to be found in the writings of Sulpicius Severus, a Christian of the fifth century.
13. Suetonius, while mercilessly condemning the reign of Nero, says that in his public entertainments he took particular care that no human lives should be sacrificed, “not even those of condemned criminals”.
14. At the time that the conflagration occurred, Tacitus himself declares that Nero was not in Rome, but at Antium.

Remsburg continues:

Many who accept the authenticity of this section of the Annals believe that the sentence which declares that Christ was punished in the reign of Pontius Pilate, and which I have italicized, is an interpolation. Whatever may be said of the remainder of this passage, this sentence bears the unmistakable stamp of Christian forgery. It interrupts the narrative; it disconnects two closely related statements. Eliminate this sentence, and there is no break in the narrative. In all the Roman records there was to be found no evidence that Christ was put to death by Pontius Pilate. This sentence, if genuine, is the most important evidence in Pagan literature. That it existed in the works of the greatest and best known of Roman historians, and was ignored or overlooked by Christian apologists for 1,360 years, no intelligent critic can believe. Tacitus did not write this sentence.

I think you’ll be impressed also with 40 writers he lists during the time, or within a century after the time that Christ is supposed to have lived, but are silent upon the Jesus we are looking for. I can remember another writer by the name of Stein mentioning 60 writers, but I don’t know if he lists them individually as Remsburg does.

According to Robb of Robb Marks bookseller The Christ is the most sought after book he has. The publisher is Prometheus, and I’m sure you’re aware of their skeptical press. I really admire this mans work. I think you’ll be as impressed with him as I. Anyway, if you want the book, I would get in touch with Robb before I bought it from Prometheus itself, because Robb sells these books actually cheaper than the Prometheus press due to his very low postage rates. He’s a good man to deal with.

A little history on John E Remsburg (1848-1919). From the flap cover it mentions that he was “one of the most popular and widely traveled freethought lecturers of the late nineteenth century. Raised in poverty in small-town Ohio and largely self-educated, Remsburg entered adulthood as one of the youngest soldiers in the Union Army. During the Civil War, he acquitted himself with distinction in the battle of Fort Stevens and received a special certificate of commendation from President Lincoln himself. After the war, he became a school teacher and eventually superintendent of public education in Kansas.

By 1880 Remsburg had become a committed freethinker when he published Thomas Paine: The Apostle of Religious and Political Liberty. At this time he also began lecturing on freethought and quickly proved to be a great success. When he retired, twenty years later, he had delivered more than 3,000 lectures and addressed audiences in over 1200 cities and towns in North America. Among Remsburg’s other significant books were ‘The Bible’ and ‘Six Historic Americans.’

It is nice to share information with like-minded individuals. I’ve always enjoyed reading freethought works, and have a couple of hundred that I still reference quite a bit when I get time for on-line debates such as the format that the Secular Web now has. I will always put Remsburg work in the top five, easily.

You seem like a very well read man, and I have one more recommendation for you that I’m sure you will like to get also if you haven’t already purchased it because it will literally cause your heart to start pounding because of the discoveries it brings forth. It’s called Forgery in Christianity by Joseph Wheless, and I’ve never found so many nails to drive in a casket than what I found here. He spends a great deal of time quoting early church fathers, and if I only had one book that I could offer a Christian to read, and I could get them to read it, it would be this very book. Be forewarned, do not start reading this book unless it is early morning or afternoon, because once one reads the first 10 pages, including the foreward, you will not put it down until you complete it! I’ve steered friends to this book, and more times than not, I hear the same response of them not eating, working, sleeping until they have at least completed half of it. I hope I’m not wrong this time, but I think surely this one is on the www.infidels.org site under historical documents. It’s 406 pages.

After this, I’m headed back to your site. It’s good to know you’re a freethinker, Mike. Thank you for your time, and for a great site. John

Thanks for the comment and references. All I can say is that these reasons look convincing enough. My feeling is that Christians would not insert something that said they hated the human race and named names. For the same reason, the Christians repeating earlier sources might have been embarrassed by it and omitted mentioning it. But the weight of evidence you cite is er… weighty! Best wishes, Mike.

Comment

Vincent Cook

Dear Mike: I have a come up with a couple more lines of evidence in support of your early chronology for Pilate’s tenure in Judea and for the crucifixion.

Chapter three of the Gospel of Luke fixes the start of the Kingdom of God agitation in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius, which is also identified as the year that Annas and Caiaphas were high priests. According to your chronology, the transition from Annas to Caiaphas—and Pilate’s arrival on the scene—took place in 18 AD. However, in conventional chronologies the reign of Tiberius is generally reckoned as having begun either upon Tiberius’s elevation to becoming an equal co-ruler with Augustus in 13 AD, or upon Tiberius becoming the sole ruler in 14 AD. So why would Luke refer to 18 AD as the 15th year of Tiberius? Or could this refer to some other year?

To unravel this puzzle, we need to take a closer look at what Luke actually wrote, and a closer look at how the Romans actually reckoned the years of their rulers during this period. It turns out that the traditional assumptions are wrong.

The key to this mystery is that, during this period, there wasn’t a distinct office of “Emperor” for ruling over Rome. Rather, Tiberius’s stepfather, Augustus, had maintained the fiction of a Republic while ruling as a military strongman by having the Senate vote him a variegated collection of legal powers and honorific titles at various times that allowed him to control the old Republican institutions, command the legions, and rule over the provinces—some directly through his own legates, some indirectly through Senatorial appointees) while pretending that he was merely acting as an agent of the Senate and People of Rome. It is important to understand that Tiberius didn’t acquire these powers and honorifics all at once—he couldn’t simply inherit them from Augustus, as in a traditional monarchy. Rather, Augustus shared his powers with Tiberius such that Tiberius assumed different roles at different times, gradually gaining power at the expense of his stepfather. Moreover, Roman coins and inscriptions clearly indicate that more than one such role was used for designating the year of Tiberius’s rule.

To briefly summarize this evidence, certain items—including coins minted in the Latin-speaking western provinces, Senatorial decrees, and milestone markers—would bear a date indicating the number of years one held tribunicia potestas—“tribunal power”. Tiberius first acquired this power for a five year term in 6 BC, and then acquired it again for an unlimited term in 4 AD.

On the other hand, some mints in the Greek-speaking east preferred using just the title sebastos on coins, the Greek equivalent for the honorific cognomen Augustus—the revered one. Based on a synchronism found on coins minted in Antioch, we know these years were counted for Tiberius beginning in the year 14 AD, which is indeed the year that several historians say that the Senate voted to give Tiberius the cognomen Augustus also, while elevating the deceased Augustus to the status of a divinity—which, it should be noted, made Tiberius the son of a god, a title that was actually used on some western coinage. This is also the year most modern historians would describe Tiberius as becoming “Emperor”, though the honorific titles he gained at this time didn’t really convey any additional power that he did not already possess.

Finally, there is the role of imperator—commander—to consider. It is well known that Tiberius acquired an imperium equal to that of Augustus in 13 AD. However, Tiberius was actually an imperator before that time. While the exact legal scope of his earlier imperium isn’t known, we do know that starting in 4 AD, Tiberius had an imperium proconsulare—proconsular command—with control over large armies and numerous important provinces. More importantly, some of the western coins minted during this period advertise imperator as one of Tiberius’s titles, with one such coin from Lugdunum—modern Lyons in France—also having a tribunal date of 10 AD, several years before Tiberius achieved de jure legal equality with his stepfather. If one were to count the number of years Tiberus was an imperator—as might be the case with a report coming from a provincial official who happens to be under Tiberius’s imperium—such a count would begin with the year 4 AD.

So which year was the 15th year of Tiberius’s reign? At least three different answers are possible—the 15th year of his tribunicia potestas was in 13 AD, the 15th year of his imperium was in 18 AD, and his 15th year as Augustus was in 28 AD.

So which of these possibilities was Luke referring to? It is noteworthy that Luke does not use the word sebastos to indicate Tiberius’s reign, notwithstanding the preference of later Christians for basing their chronologies on the date that Tiberius became Augustus. Rather, the Greek word used by Luke was hegemonias. Early translations of Luke used the word imperii as the Latin equivalent of this—that is, early Christians understood Luke to mean the 15th year of Tiberius’s imperium, which was 18 AD. Thus, we have a direct confirmation of your chronology from one of the gospels—that is good news indeed!

Turning to another source, the fourth century heresy hunter, Epiphanius, made some interesting remarks about the Acta Pilati in his work the Panarion. Early proto-orthodox Christians had sharply disagreed with each other about when to celebrate Easter, with Roman Christians preferring to fix it on a Sunday, while Christians in Asia Minor preferred to celebrate Easter on what they believed to be the anniversary of the crucifixion according to the Jewish calendar, namely the 14th day of Nisan—the Gospel of John implies a Nisan 14 date also. While the Roman point of view ultimately prevailed as orthodoxy, Epiphanius reported that there was still some heretical partisans of the 14th, the Quatrodecimans, in Cappadocia in his day.

It seems that their heresy had evolved over time, however. Given the Judaizing implications of using a Jewish calendar, Epiphanius notes that some of these heretics were now celebrating the anniversary of the crucifixion according to the Roman solar calendar using the date given in the Acta Pilati. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing whether they were using the text produced by Maximinus Daia or one of the later Christian forgeries. What is of interest here is that Epiphanius reports that he had personally inspected their Acta Pilati manuscripts, and that the crucifixion date was variously given in them as March 18th or March 25th.

We know that March 25th was also a date favored by other Christian sources, but there is a strong possibility that it was favored because of a miscalculation of lunar cycles by other Christians trying to retrofit their chronologies to a supposed 29 AD crucifixion. With the Greek numbering system applied to Roman dates, the confusion between the 18th and the 25th might also have been the result of a copying error. Given the lack of evidence one way or another, both dates have to be taken seriously. Given Epiphanius’s account, the question arises for your chronolgy—are either March 18th, 21 AD or March 25th, 21 AD compatible with a lunar date of 14th day of Nisan? Could either one of these March dates have appeared in the original Acta Pilati?

Reconstructing the Jewish calendar used during the Second Temple period is not a simple task, since it is a matter of conjecture as to how the Temple authorities actually regulated their calendar. However, Karaite Jews—a small non-rabbinical sect that seems to have descended from the Sadducees—regulate their calendar according to a primitive observational rule that may well be the historic Temple method—in essence, the Karaite rule is that once the barley crop is ripe, one counts the first visible crescent moon of the following month as the start of the first day of Nisan—though Karaites prefer the older name for Nisan, Aviv.

While we have no way of knowing when the barley was ripe in Judea in 21 AD, we can at least calculate visibility of crescent moons and come up with a possible range of solar dates in March of that year corresponding to a lunar date of the 14th. The Swiss astronomer Dr Rita Gautschy has done such visibility calculations for various sites in Egypt; her calculations for timing of the first visible sightings of crescent moons in Alexandria are probably close enough to Jerusalem to be useful for our analysis. Her entry for March of 21—AD indicates that the crescent moon would be first visible on the evening of March 3rd—Julian calendar. Of course, if the weather wasn’t cooperating, the crescent moon might have been first seen a night or two later, though we don’t really know how the Temple authorities would have handled such complications. Dr Gautschy’s calculations imply that 14th of the lunar month could have started as early as the evening of March 16th, but it may well have been the evening of March 17th instead. In the latter case, since Jewish days start at sunset, the 14th would have extended into the daylight hours of March 18th, thus providing a possible match with one of Epiphanius’s dates.

It is possible that Epiphanius, in his zeal to protect the faithful against the doctrines of religious dissidents, inadvertently preserved an authentic crucifixion date for us, further bolstering the case that Maximinus Daia had published a genuine document that was later suppressed. Best regards, Vince

This piece of work of yours seems remarkable. As you say, it looks to be convincing confirmation of the ideas of Dr R Eisler that I have argued on the AW! pages, and that I have considered to be preferable to the usual reconstructions (or inventions!).

I am hoping you will let me add your new contributions to a suitable page, as you have previously.

Many thanks for this original work and the support you are giving. Best wishes, Mike

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