Reddit reviews Complete Works of Tacitus

His most significant writings were the Annales and the Histories, the former basically being an account of the Julio-Claudians, the latter picking up at the death of Nero and going to the accession of Nerva. This is essentially the first century of the Imperial period of Roman history, but unfortunately the texts are extremely patchy. The Annales is missing significant sections, most tragically the account of Caligula's reign, and the Histories only covers the (admittedly rather eventful) year 69 CE.

He also wrote a few other works, such as the Germania, which you are thinking of, and the Agricola about the career of the titular governor of Britannia.

His work is really good, and helpfully compiled into a great, single volume translation.

>”Where are you getting that information? And please, an actual source this time. Not one of your proof-texts again. Something from scholars (you know, the people who actual study this stuff for a living) that agrees with you.”

I mean if that’s what you want (for some reason, isn’t the actual data better than someone else’s analysis of it?), we’ve got for example Moses Hadas, one of the greatest classical scholars of the century, who says in his introduction to the Complete Works of Tacitus, on page XII, that Tacitus used sources that “were undoubtedly the best available, and included eye-witness accounts…”, and states on page XVIII “Tactius never consciously sacrifices historical truth…He consulted good sources, memoirs, biographies, and official records, and he frequently implies that he had more than one source before him. He requested information of those in a position to know, as we learn from a reply of Pliny to such a request. He exercises critical judgement in questioning the value of a biased account…Both knowledge and impartiality are recognized as prerequesites for the historian’s task in the first chapter of the Histories…”, and he then himself cites the Cambridge Ancient History as saying of him “’it would be difficult to produce an instance when he has deliberately misstated or falsified facts, and easy to cite passages when he carefully rejects and passes over versions and rumours which suit his book better, but which he eschews…”. See here

So your idea that “concept of even trying to objectively portray historical information did not exist” is refuted by the data itself and, as you desired to see, the scholars.

>”My point about the ‘did not exist’ part was about how the stories of Jesus were transmitted.”

Come now, don’t backslide to try and avoid admitting error. You said quite clearly it was “a society where the concept…”. You were not talking specifically about accounts of Jesus’ life. You specified very clearly that you were saying the very idea of objective history did not exist in that culture, which you stressed with italics.

>”Considering Tacitus was born in 56, I don't think a 14 year old Tacitus would have much of an influence about how history was written.”

I’m not quite sure what you mean here. I was using him to refute what you were saying about the idea of objective history not existing, not that he determined some sort of trend in how history was done.

>”I did not actually think you seriously thought that Tacitus' influence extended to 8 years before his first work came out…”

When did I say anything about “Tacitus’ influence”? I never said he influenced anything. All I said was that he (among others, as was shown) were very much familiar with the idea of factual history, so your idea that that concept was nonexistent at the time is false.

>”What a great way to dodge the fact that I have evidence for my claims…”

You haven’t given any evidence for Trypho being fictional.

>”I put it in the past tense because Peter has already been crucified.”

That’s a completely inaccurate rendering of the text, to the point of being an outright lie. The text was not reporting Peter’s crucifixion. It was reporting Jesus’ prediction of Peter’s death.

>”I'm sorry to break it to you, but Peter isn't alive now and Santa doesn't exist.”

This is a very strange sentence. Did I argue Peter was alive…?

>”Are you saying that the writer knew he was dead but it was a wild guess that he was crucified?”

This is also a really weird comment. What exactly is it you think I’m arguing?

The passage says nothing about crucifixion. It just says he’ll be bound and lead somewhere he doesn’t want to go. That would apply to any sort of execution, even the electric chair.

I don’t think you even read the paragraph that prediction was in, did you?

>”And are you actually saying James went around telling people…”

What I’m saying is that if someone had invented such a shameful report about James (that he not only rejected his God and Messiah, but even after he’d lived and grown up with him his entire life), it would have been corrected in a culture where honor was of the highest importance. You couldn’t just make something up about such a figure and have people accept it. James was a well-known figure in all Jewish circles, Josephus talks about him, even saying his death angered God so much that he punished Jerusalem by sending the Romans in 70 AD!

>”I mostly agree with those datings.”

So you’re not basing your position on any sort of data, just whatever dates happen to be in fashion?

Why not trust what dates were in fashion among scholars in the 1700’s? Or the 1200’s? Do you think scholars in the 2200’s are going to be giving the same dates for the Gospels?

>”The Gospel of John doesn't mention James at all.”

It does when it talks about Jesus’ brothers. Do you or do you not think that James was Jesus’ brother?

>”If I found something from the 1st or 2nd century saying that James was actually Jesus' estranged nephew…”

There is no such document, for good reason.

>”No. I see no reason to believe that John and Matthew had the same views on things.”

…You don’t think they’d know who their master’s brother was? Especially if he were one of their close colleagues and one of the most major figures in the cause they’d dedicated their lives, comforts, and fortunes to.

>”So you believe the Gospel of Thomas (which comes from the same time period as the NT Gospels)…”

No its not. It has obvious heavy Gnostic influence that wouldn’t have been around then.

Plus, you’re missing my point: my point was that there was a real James. He’s not some fictional character that only exists in the texts. There was an actual man, real as you, that those documents are talking about. What someone writing about him thought isn’t as relevant as what actually happened. Do you agree that it so happened in the first century that James actually was Jesus’ brother, and that he did publicly challenge him?

>”Sigh.”

Erm…you really think just linking to a Google search tells me what contradictions you think are in the Gospels?

That answer is about as substantive as this one

This highlights your central problem: a complete lack of depth research.

>”You could even look at this list.”

You seriously trust that piece of garbage source?

For all your talk about scholarship, I think you need to check some out. Everything you’ve said so far has come from worthless sources like this and Wikipedia.

The SAB is the lowest of the low. They’ll take anything that can be solved with the tiniest amount of thought and label it a contradiction to puff up their list.

To illustrate, let’s take their very first one. They start off saying “God the Father did it all by himself”. But neither of those passages say that, they just say God. Then they say “Jesus did it”, and then “God and Jesus did it together”, and label these passages as contradictory.

If they had even the most basic knowledge of Christian thought, they’d realize no orthodox Christian would even bat an eye at this. Jesus is God so its equally accurate to say God or Jesus did it.

Its as if one newspaper said “Barack Obama signs bill”, and another “President signs bill”. They’d label it a contradiction and say “Who signed the bill?”.

Now explain for me: do you see that you went wrong trusting a source like this, and if so what will you try to do to avoid such a tremendous error in the future?