From jmpfund@bgnet.bgsu.edu Sun Nov 12 12:47:54 2000 Received: from mxu1.u.washington.edu (mxu1.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id MAA386214 for ; Sun, 12 Nov 2000 12:47:53 -0800 Received: from sp07.notesnet.bgsu.edu (sp07.notesnet.bgsu.edu [129.1.7.7]) by mxu1.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id MAA25363 for ; Sun, 12 Nov 2000 12:47:52 -0800 Received: from [129.1.190.167] ([129.1.190.167]) by sp07.notesnet.bgsu.edu (Lotus Domino Release 5.0.2b) with ESMTP id 2000111215422949:2790 ; Sun, 12 Nov 2000 15:42:29 -0500 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: jmpfund@popj.bgsu.edu Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <20001112163920.11630.qmail@nwcst338> References: <20001112163920.11630.qmail@nwcst338> Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2000 15:45:33 -0400 To: classics@u.washington.edu From: James Pfundstein Subject: Tacitus (WAS: Conclusion to Jesus Quest) X-MIMETrack: Itemize by SMTP Server on MAIL03/SERVER/BGSU(Release 5.0.2b |December 16, 1999) at 11/12/2000 03:42:30 PM, Serialize by Router on MAIL03/SERVER/BGSU(Release 5.0.2b |December 16, 1999) at 11/12/2000 03:42:34 PM, Serialize complete at 11/12/2000 03:42:34 PM Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Eric Laupot wrote: > >I never claimed Tacitus was entirely disinterested. >He at least, however, does not make the historical >claim that the dead came to life, people walked on >water, loaves magically multiplied, etc.; also, >unlike the Evangelists, he signed his name to his >works. Lots of useful historical texts are anonymous-- for instance, the _Historiae Romanae Fragmenta_ that are our best source for the life of Cola di Rienzo. Some are pseudonymous-- the _Historia Augusta_ comes to mind --and although these sources tend to be used cautiously, sometimes they have to be used. Mr. Laupot's distaste for miraculous bread notwithstanding, the Gospel narratives can't be considered useless as historical testimony, particularly for the life of Jesus. Two issues Mr. Laupot has blinked in this sub-thread on Tacitus: 1.) Tacitus makes stuff up. He particularly makes up speeches and deliberations of major historical characters, where he could not possibly have had any eyewitness testimony. The more circumstantial the account, the better. There is a whole genre of rhetorical composition under this heading, the _suasoria_, with which Tacitus was imbued (like every educated Roman man) as a youngster; and every contemporary reader would have understood invented speeches/deliberations as a genre convention of history dating back to Herodotus and Thucydides. (For an immediately relevant example see Tacitus, _Historiae_ 4.14) 2.) Mr. Laupot is not actually quoting Tacitus-- he is quoting Sulpicius Severus _using_ Tacitus. Severus' motivation to introduce "Christianos" etc. into the text is self-evident: to provide a (quite reasonable, though erroneous) etiology for Roman persecution of Christianity. Whether he did so or not is open to dispute, but it has been shown (by Phil Snider, I think) how easily the Christian references can be clipped from the text in question. If I were a textual critic (the mind boggles; the head reels; the center cannot hold, mere anarchy is loosed upon the world; what rough beast shuffles off to Buffalo to be born?) I would certainly bracket them. JM("Monstrum Horridum")P .