The Fate of Christians at the Hands of Romans
Dear BK,
"And we're off...!" This isn't where I intended to start, but I don't blame you for forcing the issue! Had you given me any more time to research, I might have come away with an honorary degree in Judeo-Christian History. :-) (It's good you forced me to the table.)
In reading through some of the persons you presented below, it is worth quickly noting that Philo-Judææus [sic], though a Hellenized Jew, helped Christians apply the understanding of the Greek word "logos" as found in the book of John chapter 1, and that Pliny [the] Younger officially complained about his Christian subjects and asked the Emperor Trajan of Rome how he should deal with them.
It occurs to me that in my readings of my favorite poet, Emily Dickinson, she never mentions the U.S. President who was in term during the height of her writing years, Franklin Pierce (March 4, 1853 - March 4, 1857), nor did she mention Abraham Lincoln (March 4, 1861 - April 15, 1865), the most famous and controversial U.S. President of his time who held office and was assassinated while she was still writing; even so, she makes no mention of him. Nor did another favorite author of mine, Edgar Allen Poe, mention famous U.S. Presidents, James Madison and John Quincy Adams, who served during his lifetime. Nor did Harvard historian William Leonard Langer mention Emily Dickison in any of his historical research and publications. Therefore, it is safe to assume that not all of the men you mention had their attention rivited upon Israel - not upon its politics nor upon its religious debates.
I also noticed when reading through the profiles of the men you presented below (not all of which were historians, by the way, but authors (of fiction in some cases), poets, and philosophers) that none of them mentioned the great Rabbis who lived just before or during their own lifetimes. Nor did any of them mention Israel or the Great Sanhedrin. Perhaps you can produce as many non-Jewish contemporary sources as proof that these Rabbis and the Sanhedrin actually existed. Here's a list to start. Please add you own Rabbis if you come across non-Jewish sources regarding any who lived between 100 BC and 100-150 AD.
1. Sanhedrin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanhedrin
2. Shammai http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shammai
3. Hillel the Elder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_the_Elder
4. Rabbi Eleazer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleazer_ben_Shammua
5. Rabbi Gamaliel I http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamaliel
6. Rabbi Akiva http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbi_Akiva
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You presented the following:
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"The following historians all lived around the supposed time of JC, or a century later and not on of them makes a mention of him at all." - BK
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6. Dion Pruseus - no Wikipedia reference
7. Paterculus - no Wikipedia reference
20. Hermogones Silius Italicus - no Wikipedia reference
25. Phæædrus - no Wikipedia reference
39. Appion of Alexandria - no Wikipedia reference
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**References made to Christians or Christ in writings
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Suetonius
Suetonius was a secretary and historian to Hadrian, Emperor of Rome from 117 to 138 AD. Regarding Emperor Claudius (41-54 AD) and the Riot of Rome in 49 AD, Suetonius wrote: As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus [Christ], he [Claudius] expelled them from Rome.
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Interestingly, Acts 18:2 relates that Paul met Aquila and his wife Priscilla just after they left Italy because Claudius had expelled them. Later, Suetonius wrote about the great fire of Rome in 64 AD: Punishment by Nero was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition.
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Mara Bar-Serapion, a stoic philosopher from Syria, wrote this letter to his son from prison sometime after 70 AD: What advantage did the Athenians gain from putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as a judgment for their crime. What advantage did the men of Samos gain from burning Pythagoras? In a moment their land was covered with sand. What advantage did the Jews gain from their executing their wise king? It was just after that that their kingdom was abolished. God justly avenged these three wise men: The Athenians died of hunger; the Samians were overwhelmed by the sea; the Jews, ruined and driven from their land, live in complete dispersion. But Socrates did not die for good; he lived on in the statue of Plato. Pythagoras did not die for good; he lived on in the statue of Hera. Nor did the wise king die for good; he lived on in the teaching which he had given.
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This letter refers to Jesus as being the "wise king." The writer is obviously not a Christian because he places Jesus on an equal level with Socrates and Pythagoras. Without bias in his reference to Jesus and the church, this letter is a valuable historical reference regarding the historicity of Jesus.
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Lucian of Samosata was a 2nd century Greek philosopher.
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The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day -- the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account... You see, these misguided creatures started with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains the contempt of death and voluntary self-devotion which are so common among them; and then it was impressed them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws. All this they take quite on faith, with the result that they despise all worldly goods alike, regarding them merely as common property.
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Pliny the Younger
Pliny the YoungerPliny the Younger (c. 62 - c.113 AD) was the Roman Governor of Bithynia (present-day northwestern Turkey). Around 111 or 112 AD, he wrote the following letter to Emperor Trajan of Rome asking for advice on how to deal with Christians.
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It is a rule, Sir, which I inviolably observe, to refer myself to you in all my doubts; for who is more capable of guiding my uncertainty or informing my ignorance? Having never been present at any trials of the Christians, I am unacquainted with the method and limits to be observed either in examining or punishing them. Whether any difference is to be allowed between the youngest and the adult; whether repentance admits to a pardon, or if a man has been once a Christian it avails him nothing to recant; whether the mere profession of Christianity, albeit without crimes, or only the crimes associated therewith are punishable -- in all these points I am greatly doubtful.
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In the meanwhile, the method I have observed towards those who have denounced to me as Christians is this: I interrogated them whether they were Christians; if they confessed it I repeated the question twice again, adding the threat of capital punishment; if they still persevered, I ordered them to be executed. For whatever the nature of their creed might be, I could at least feel not doubt that contumacy and inflexible obstinacy deserved chastisement. There were others also possessed with the same infatuation, but being citizens of Rome, I directed them to be carried thither.
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These accusations spread (as is usually the case) from the mere fact of the matter being investigated and several forms of the mischief came to light. A placard was put up, without any signature, accusing a large number of persons by name. Those who denied they were, or had ever been, Christians, who repeated after me an invocation to the gods, and offered adoration, with wine and frankincense, to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for that purpose, together with those of the gods, and who finally cursed Christ -- none of which acts, it is into performing -- these I thought it proper to discharge. Others who were named by that informer at first confessed themselves Christians, and then denied it; true, they had been of that persuasion but they had quitted it, some three years, others many years, and a few as much as twenty-five years ago. They all worshipped your statue and the images of the gods, and cursed Christ.
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They affirmed, however, the whole of their guilt, or their error, was, that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft, or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food -- but food of an ordinary and innocent kind. Even this practice, however, they had abandoned after the publication of my edict, by which, according to your orders, I had forbidden political associations. I judged it so much the more necessary to extract the real truth, with the assistance of torture, from two female slaves, who were styled deaconesses: but I could discover nothing more than depraved and excessive superstition.
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I therefore adjourned the proceedings, and betook myself at once to your counsel. For the matter seemed to me well worth referring to you, especially considering the numbers endangered. Persons of all ranks and ages, and of both sexes are, and will be, involved in the prosecution. For this contagious superstition is not confined to the cities only, but has spread through the villages and rural districts; it seems possible, however, to check and cure it.
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This is quite a letter preserved from antiquity. I reproduced a great deal of it here, because it was so powerful for me in its entirety. "
Pliny the Younger" speaks of Christianity spreading throughout the Roman Empire and he addresses the procedure for persecuting followers out of this "superstition." Pliny also mentions Christ by name three times as the center of Christianity and describes Christian practices, including the worship of Christ "as to a god." (
http://www.allaboutthejourney.org/pliny-the-younger.htm)
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Tacitus
Tacitus, writing about the fire in Rome in A.D. 64. Tacitus (A.D. 55- c.120) was made governor of the province of Asia soon after Pliny’s appointment to Bithynia, and something of his reputation as a historian may be discerned in part of the letter written to him by his friend Pliny:
Thank you for asking me to send you a description of my uncle’s death so that you can leave an accurate account of it for posterity. . . . I know that immortal fame awaits him if his death is recorded by you. (Epistles 6.16)
In his Annals of Imperial Rome written at about the same time as Pliny wrote the above letter, Tacitus describes how the emperor Nero attempted to divert blame from himself to a new and detested religious sect for lighting the fire that destroyed three-quarters of Rome:
But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a deadly superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but also in the City [Rome], where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world meet and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who confessed; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of arson, as of hatred of the human race. (Annals 15.44.2-5)
It appears that Tacitus, like Pliny, despised but perhaps also feared this new movement. He describes the Christians as “a class hated for their abominations . . . a deadly superstition . . . evil . . . hideous . . . shameful.” He accuses them of “hatred of the human race,” which may refer to the Christian refusal to acknowledge Caesar as a god and the Roman state as divine.
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In one sentence from the above passage Tacitus confirms six details mentioned in the New Testament:
1. The public career of Christ occurred in the time of the emperor Tiberius (Lk 3:1).
2. Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor when Christ died (Mt 27:2; Mk 15:1; Luke 23:1; Acts 3:13 and 13:28).
3. Christ was executed as a criminal (Lk 23:2).
4. This occurred in Judea (Mk 11:16).
5. The movement did not die with Jesus, but “broke out” again.
6. The movement spread from Jerusalem to Rome (Acts 1:4 and 28:14).
This sentence agrees, in a broad sense, with the geographic sweep of Luke-Acts, a two-volume work that begins with Jesus in Judea (Lk 2:4) and ends with Paul in Rome (Acts 28:14). Tacitus confirms both the existence of Christ and the spread of early Christianity. (
http://www.ivpress.com/title/exc/2768-3.pdf)
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JEWISH SOURCES
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Benediction Twelve.
After the disastrous war with the Romans from A.D. 66 to 70, the Jewish Sanhedrin (or Senate), ceased to exist as a political and administrative body. The emperor Vespasian brought Judea under direct military rule, leaving the Sanhedrin with a purely religious role. Most of the sects and parties within Judaism perished with the war. Two that survived were the Pharisees, representing the mainstream of Jewish religious life, and the Nazarenes, or Christians, who by then were regarded as heretical. In the eighties the Pharisee-dominated Sanhedrin meeting at Jamnia, a town to the east of Jerusalem, formulated the following synagogue prayer:
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For the renegades let there be no hope, and may the arrogant kingdom soon be rooted out in our days, and the Nazarenes and the minim perish as in a moment and be blotted out from the book of life and with the righteous may they not be inscribed. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who humblest the arrogant.
References in the Talmud indicate that the “minim” and the “Nazarenes” usually refer to Christians. This bitter prayer clearly attests the existence of Christians in Judea in the post-70 period, and it represents a tragic contrast with the frequently happy relations of Christian Jews with their fellow Jews in the period before the war. From Christian sources we read of Jewish Christian priests (Acts 6:7) and Christian Pharisees (Acts 15:5) and of “many thousands . . . among the Jews . . . who have believed . . . all zealous for the law” (Acts 21:20). Opposition there may have been from Sadducean high priests (Acts 4:1-3) and Herod Agrippa (Acts 12:1-3), but the Pharisees appear either to have been neutral, as was Rabbi Gamaliel (Acts 5:34-39), or well-disposed like those who protested at the unjust death of James brother of Jesus (Josephus Antiquities 20.197-203). The grim sentiments of Benediction Twelve reflect the thorough separation of synagogue and church after the end of the war in A.D. 70. (
http://www.ivpress.com/title/exc/2768-3.pdf)
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The Talmud.
The Talmuds were compiled in Jerusalem and Babylon in the fifth and sixth centuries. Their late dating raises questions as to the authenticity of references to Jesus. Of various possibilities the most likely mention of Jesus is this:
It was taught:
On the day before the Passover they hanged Jesus. A herald went before him for forty days [proclaiming]. “He will be stoned, because he practised magic and enticed Israel to go astray. Let anyone who knows anything in his favour come forward and plead for him.” But nothing was found in his favour, and they hanged him the day before Passover. (b. Sanhedrin 43a)
This rather bitter reference is more likely to have arisen in the centuries after Jesus than closer to his times. We note the apologetic detail that since no one defended him he must have been guilty. Here Jesus is a magician and a deceiver of the nation and for this the Jews executed him. According to the Gospels and Tacitus (Annals 15.44), however, the Romans executed Jesus for treasonably claiming to be “king of the Jews.” Apart from the timing of his death to the Passover season there is little else here that coincides with other information at hand, including the manner of his death by hanging. (
http://www.ivpress.com/title/exc/2768-3.pdf)
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Josephus.
Josephus, an aristocratic Pharisee, was born in A.D. 37. During the war with the Romans from A.D. 66 to 70, he was captured by the Romans and later was paid a pension by successive emperors for services rendered to the imperial family. Early in the nineties he wrote the Jewish Antiquities. Pharisees were not always bitterly opposed to Christians, as the Jewish historian clearly shows. Before the war, in an interregnum between Roman governors (A.D. 62), the high priest Annas (son of Annas of the Gospels) convened the judges of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ, and certain others. He accused them of having transgressed the law and delivered them up to be stoned. Those of the inhabitants of the city who were considered the most fair-minded and who were strict in observance of the law were offended at this. (Antiquities 20.197-203)
Those who were “strict in observance of the law” must refer to Pharisees, which suggests they showed a degree of sympathy to James, brother of Jesus, who was leader of the multitudinous Jerusalem church. The members of that church, Paul had been informed, were “all zealous for the law” (Acts 21:20), which explains why the Pharisees were favorably disposed towards
James. James’s reference to “many thousands” of such Jerusalem believers (Acts 21:20), while possibly an exaggeration, nevertheless confirms the impression given elsewhere of large numbers of people involved in Christianity, and that it was a worldwide movement.
In this extract, the authenticity of which is not in doubt, Josephus confirms two important pieces of information from the New Testament.
1. Jesus was “called Christ” (cf. Acts 2:36).
2. James was his brother (cf. Gal 1:19).
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Josephus (continued)
Flavius Josephus (37 - 100 AD), a Jewish general and member of the priestly aristocracy of the Jews, turned to the side of the Roman Empire in the great Jewish revolt of 66-70 AD. Josephus spent the rest of his life in or around Rome as an advisor and historian to three emperors, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. For centuries, the works of Josephus were more widely read in Europe than any book other than the Bible. They are invaluable sources of eyewitness testimony to the development of Western civilization, including the foundation and growth of Christianity in the 1st Century.
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Remarkably, Flavius Josephus mentions New Testament events and people in some of his works. For me, this was some of the most significant evidence against the legend theories that plagued my view of early Christianity. Here are some excerpts I found fascinating:
At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders. 1
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After the death of the procurator Festus, when Albinus was about to succeed him, the high-priest Ananius considered it a favorable opportunity to assemble the Sanhedrin. He therefore caused James the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, and several others, to appear before this hastily assembled council, and pronounced upon them the sentence of death by stoning. All the wise men and strict observers of the law who were at Jerusalem expressed their disapprobation of this act...Some even went to Albinus himself, who had departed to Alexandria, to bring this breach of the law under his observation, and to inform him that Ananius had acted illegally in assembling the Sanhedrin without the Roman authority. 2
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Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. 3
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These three quotes from "
Josephus" really speak for themselves! Professor Shlomo Pines, a well known Israeli scholar, discusses the fact of Jesus' historicity and the references to Jesus by Flavius Josephus:
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In fact, as far as probabilities go, no believing Christian could have produced such a neutral text: for him the only significant point about it could have been its attesting the historical evidence of Jesus. But the fact is that until modern times this particular hare (i.e. claiming Jesus is a hoax) was never started. Even the most bitter opponents of Christianity never expressed any doubt as to Jesus having really lived. 4
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Notes:
1 Antiquities, Book 18, chapter 3, paragraph 3 (translated from 4th century Arabic manuscript). An even more phenomenal Greek version of this text exists, which many scholars declare was "doctored" a bit in a few places. However, this version was quoted as early as 325 AD:
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.
2 Antiquities, Book 20, chapter 9, paragraph 1.
3 Antiquities, Book 18, chapter 5, paragraph 2.
In addition to prosperity teaching and the rising tolerance for sin, there is an insidious but rarely mentioned sin that is increasingly taking place beneath the noses of careless shepherds (pastors) that "makes ME so mad!": sexual immorality. Not necessarily their own sexual immorality, but the sexual immorality within their evangelical congregations. 
