In short, the evidence shows that the reference to Christ in Tacitus’s Annals is authentic and that it provides factual information about Jesus independent of the New Testament or early Christian proclamation. However, these titles could be used more or less interchangeably in the first and second centuries, as seen for example by the fact that the first-century Jewish writers Philo and Josephus both call Pilate the procurator.14 In any case, Tacitus’s use of the term “procurator” does not appear to have derived from Christians but is another indication that his information was independent of them. In effect, we have more reason to advocate “Chrestus mythicism” than “Christ mythicism.” The Jesus mythicists would have us believe that Jesus Christ did not exist, but that during roughly the same time period there was a Jewish leader who stirred controversy among the Jews and whose name coincidentally happened to be Chrestus. Much of Carrier’s article attempts to weaken the authenticity of references to Christ by the Roman writers Pliny and Suetonius (266–72) before even turning to Tacitus. He was executed during the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius (AD 14–37). The chronological flow of thought is that (1) the movement began in Judea, (2) was checked briefly, but then (3) started up again there in Judea and (4) made its way to Rome, where (5) its presence gave Nero a convenient scapegoat for the fire there. First, there is no manuscript evidence supporting the suggestion that the line about Christ was an interpolation. He was executed by the order of the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate (AD 26–36). N. P. Miller, ed., Tacitus: Annals XV (London: Bristol Classical Press, 1994), xxvii. This idea is based in part on a comment in Roman biographer Suetonius’s Lives of the Caesars written about AD 120 that is also a possible reference to Jesus. Against this theory, most scholars have understood Suetonius’s reference to Chrestus as simply a misspelling of the name Christus. Latin scholar Norma Miller notes: If stylistic criteria mean anything at all, the chapter was written either by Tacitus or by a very skilful imitator of his style. Perhaps the main argument for viewing the reference to Christ as an interpolation focuses on the term used in the preceding sentence for his followers, which is spelled Chrestianos rather than Christianos. 9. From his brief comments we learn the following facts about Christ: This information agrees with the historical facts ascertainable from the New Testament and from other sources, but it is clearly independent of Christian teaching. This point is overlooked by Carrier, “Prospect of a Christian Interpolation,” 271. See Eddy and Boyd, Jesus Legend, 181–82, and the references cited there. However, this alteration of the text results in a confused flow of thought, since what Tacitus says is that the movement “again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome….” What this statement clearly means is that after being checked temporarily, the movement started up again and then reached Rome—meaning it had not already been in Rome before being checked. One of the earliest and most informative references to Jesus in a non-Christian source appears in the Annals of Cornelius Tacitus, a Roman historian writing about AD 115-117. If this is a Christian interpolation, it is restrained beyond anything one would expect. Ironically, Tacitus’s use of the term “procurator” has been criticized as a mistake, since the inscription on the “Pilate stone” shows his official title as prefect (praefectus). Does Tacitus Provide Information about Christ Independent from Christians? This explanation is typically the first line of defense. 11. Jesus: Sources for the life of Jesus …Jewish community in Rome ( Suetonius , The Life of the Deified Claudius 25.4). In his life of the Roman emperor Claudius, Suetonius mentions that Claudius expelled Jews from Rome, an event that most scholars date to the year 49 and that Luke mentioned in passing in his account about Paul in Corinth (Acts 18:2).6 “Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus [impulsore Chresto], he [Claudius] expelled them from Rome.”7 Mythicists argue that Tacitus was referring to the followers of a Jewish zealot Chrestus, not to the followers of Jesus Christ, and that the copyist responsible for the interpolation in Tacitus clumsily inserted the reference to Christus, ignoring the discrepancy between the forms Christus and Chrestianos this created in the text.8 Thus, the interpretation of Tacitus’s statement has become somewhat intertwined with the interpretation of Suetonius’s statement.

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