Oldskeptic wrote:Encyclopaedia Britanica:
For the period from Augustus to Vespasian, Tacitus was able to draw upon earlier histories that contained material from the public records, official reports, and contemporary comment. It has been noted that the work of Aufidius Bassus and its continuation by Pliny the Elder covseen such records if he wanted toered these years; both historians also treated the German wars. Among other sources Tacitus consulted Servilius Nonianus (on Tiberius), Cluvius Rufus and Fabius Rusticus (on Nero), and Vipstanus Messalla (on the year 69). He also turned, as far as he felt necessary, to the Senate’s records, the official journal, and such firsthand information as a speech of Claudius, the personal memoirs of Agrippina the Younger, and the military memoirs of the general Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo. For Vespasian’s later years and the reigns of Titus and Domitian, he must have worked more closely from official records and reports.
Well firstly - afaik, the very brief passing mention of “christus” in Tacitus, is only known from Christian copying written from the 11th century and later. That’s a whopping 1000 years after Tacitus had died, and it’s far faaaaaaar too late for a miniscule passing hearsay mention like that to be credible as reliable factual information known to Tacitus at all.
So nothing more than that needs to be said to reject entirely such late self-interested Christian copying as we find in ultra brief passing mention of “christus” from a writer like Tacitus. Apart from which - even if Tacitus did actually write those brief few words about “christus executed”, and even if Tacitus did believe that was said to have been the fate of “christus”, there is no reason why that should actually be true, and certainly Tacitus himself was not even alive at the time to know what may or may not have ever happened to this “christus” whom he never knew!
However, leaving that fatal problem aside -
I don't know if the encyclopaedia Britannica explains how it knows what Tacitus actually looked at for his information, but the above starts off by saying
"Tacitus was able to draw upon earlier histories that contained material from the public records, official reports, and contemporary comment." ... what does that mean? That does not mean he was known to have been sitting in the public records libraries reading the official accounts of events. It just means they think he was in a position to have checked such records if he decided to.
No doubt the Roman emperors of the time were all in a position to have total and full free access to every detail of every Roman record ever written. But I don't suppose any of those emperors ever really checked things in the records before they made announcements about whatever they believed had happened and who they blamed as responsible for things.
Unless real historians (not bible scholars) say differently, I would expect that what passed for careful checking in the days of Tacitus, was vastly different from what we think of as even the most minimal of careful checking by researchers and writers today.
As for Tacitus using a written source such as "such firsthand information as a speech of Claudius, the personal memoirs of Agrippina the Younger, and the military memoirs of the general Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo", that does not sound to me as if such sources would be very objective anyway. I.e., what would you expect people like Claudius or Agrippa to say about themselves and about others in their public speeches? How objective do you think such public speeches were about anything. And remember, we are not in any case interested in what the memoirs of those Roman leaders said about themselves, what you are actually looking for, or rather what you are speculating about, is what they might have said about Jesus!
But apart from all that - we are not talking about consulting official records of the speeches of Roman rulers and military generals (though what they said about themselves and others in speeches, is hardly likely to have been accurate, objective or true anyway). We are talking about only an ultra brief passing mention of someone called "chistus" ; in fact it's only a passing mention just to explain who "Christians" were when Tacitus (or, rather, his 11th century copyists) said that the emperor tried to blame Christians for starting a fire. He (Tacitus) was just explaining that "Christians" got that name from an earlier leader called "christus" who was said to have been executed at the time of Pontius Pilate.
But where he got that story from, or in fact what we really mean is "where his 11th century Christian copyists" got that story from, is anyone's guess. But if they had ever known the contents of Paul's letters then that would have been a very obvious source from which all Christians were getting that story of the messiah crucified ... although iirc, Paul says he actually knew that crucifixion story from scripture!
Or to put all the above far more briefly - it's naive in the extreme to think that Tacitus would have bothered to consult official Roman records just to check where the name "Christians" derived from, such that it was only from those records that he discovered that the name derived from an executed person called "christus"!
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