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Christian v Chrestian

This section might usefully point out that in French, a Romance language, Christ is 'Christ' (or 'Le Christ'), but Christian is 'Chrétien' (and Christianity is '(La) Chrétienté'). But I fear that if I were to say this without quoting a Reliable Source, some unbeliever might revert me, especially as 'Chrétien' tends to support the view that Chrestiani (and indeed Chrestus) are very weak arguments against the historicity of at least the broad outlines of Christianity. But as I'm an unbeliever myself, I don't really feel like putting in the effort to look for a RS, not even to improve Misplaced Pages (especially when I expect others will gladly put in the hard work instead of me). But presumably there are some Christians out there who can be bothered to look for such a source, so please do (and please also check up on whether '(La) Chrétienté' (and 'Chrétien') should normally begin with a lower case C, as I suspect they should). Tlhslobus (talk) 02:23, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Yep ... a RS would be necessary. I'm pretty sure that Latin -ist- to French -et- is a natural sound change. Not to mention the fact that the isolated persistence of a Latin manuscript variant—a variant that has been deleted in our only apparent witness—into a modern language would be something so remarkable that reliable sources probably wouldn't be wanting, they'd have precipitated this article. davidiad { t } 02:51, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Actually it is NOT our only apparent witness. Last time I looked it up in the Encyclopedia Britannica many years ago, the oldest apparent pagan reference to Christianity was a statement that 'Chrestus' had been stirring up trouble in Rome around 42AD. You can find many references to this here. Obviously this reference is not too popular since it doesn't support the historicity of Christianity. The Encyclopedia Britannica simply dismissed the reference as clearly mistaken since Christ was never in Rome (though this wasn't quite so clear to me, and sounded more like a rather bad case of assuming the truth of something (in this case the Gospels) whose truth you were supposedly trying to prove). But in any case my point regarding French is NOT that the French E has been inherited from Latin, but that if the I of Christianity can change to E among Christian French speakers who know and presumably care that Christ should have an I, then it can at least as easily change from I to E among pagan Latin speakers who neither know nor care that Christ should have an I. But there's little point in continuing this argument, since we both agree that a Reliable Source is necessary. Tlhslobus (talk) 03:31, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Can you get a more reliable source than this? -- spin| 15:13, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Am I missing something in the abbreviations there, sehr geehrter Doktor? In the etymology section I don't see any connection made between Chrestianus and Chrétien, just Christianus. davidiad { t } 16:40, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I guess I was being absentminded. I was interested in the date of when cristïens became crestïen (11-12th c.), ie when the Mediceus II was copied. The dictionary doesn't supply an etymological connection between chrétien and chrestianus--there isn't any--, but a reliable source for the dating of the vowel change evinced in the manuscript error that was corrected. -- spin| 15:14, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Ahh ... thanks! I was worried both my French and my ability to unpack a dictionary entry had eroded completely. davidiad { t } 16:57, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Meanwhile, on reflection, the E is actually further evidence that it's not a Christian interpolation, because you would expect even a clever interpolation (as this one would have to be) to use an I to avoid people asking awkward questions and thinking sceptical thoughts about the E (which is presumably why the E was eventually corrected back to an I). Indeed to me it's actually at least one of the most powerful arguments (and perhaps THE most powerful argument) against it being an interpolation, if only because the other arguments usually seem so thoroughly weak and unconvincing to an unbeliever like me (for instance, saying 'we have 3 independent sources' invites the reply 'that's not hard to fake when you have thousands of Christian scribes'; and saying 'the criticism of Christianity in Tacitus is too harsh to have come from a Christian' invites the reply 'only if all Christian interpolaters and all their paymasters are very stupid which seems very unlikely', and so on). I wonder are there any Reliable Sources pointing out how powerful an argument for the historicity of the broad outlines of Christianity the E actually is (or at least how relatively powerful it is, since we still have to rely on the supposed reliability of the claim that Tacitus always used reliable sources rather than accepting Christian hearsay, just as he seemingly accepted pagan hearsay about alleged Christian abominations, otherwise despite not being an interpolation the passage may still tell us lilttle or nothing about Christianity's historicity) ? Tlhslobus (talk) 03:31, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

So ... yep, a RS is necessary. davidiad { t } 04:08, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I have researched this topic in the past year or two. The modern French usage issue does not comes into the picture in scholarly discussions from what I have seen. But the academic discussions have taken place and there are multiple elements that point to the reference being to the group of people "hated for their abominations" (read Eucharist, drinking the blood of their founder) who came out of Judea who were present in Rome around 60 AD. And these were clearly not the typical Jews. The other issue you are mentioning has to do with the Divus Claudius 25 item "Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome." which refers to the expulsion around 49 AD. Most scholars hold that it refers to Christians (Louis H. Feldman, Jewish Life and Thought among Greeks and Romans (Oct 1, 1996) ISBN 0567085252 p. 332). But that Suetonius reference only has a marginal impact on what Tacitus wrote years later. However, the overall scholarly consensus is quite clear: There were Jews in Rome at the time of Claudius, they fought among themselves (most scholars hold that the Christians were trying too hard to convert the others) and Claudius sent (some or all of them out) around 49 AD. Then around 60 AD Nero used them as an excuse about the fire. There is scholarly agreement on those issues, and as usual Louis H. Feldman has done his homework better than most others who write on the topic, if you want to look up his work in time. There is probably need for a better overview article than the mess at Origins of Christianity but not on my path to fix it. Yet I can tell you that these days there is not much scholarly debate if there Christians in Rome around 60, there were for sure by most scholarly measures. And in Nero 16 Suetonius mentions that Nero had mistreated the "Christiani" as in "Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition." So that all fits together. So the class men given to the new and mischievous superstition grew to be a significant number by the time Pliny etc. started to deal with them. So think of it this way: by the time Pliny wrote about them in 110 AD or so there were many of them, and they did not all arrive on a single bus from Jerusalem all at once, so the picture fits: they were there in 49, grew in number by 60 and by the turn of the first century there were noticeable enough to be getting attention span from Trajan in 110 AD. That is the straightforward scholarly view. History2007 (talk) 10:07, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't think many unbelievers would dispute much of what you say about Christians. However, what you don't address is what many do dispute (here, presumably among many other places), which is roughly whether there is any historic evidence for the life and death of Christ (and, in this case, whether Tacitus's stuff is such evidence). I don't know how many of these unbelievers are deemed scholarly. And I don't really care what the scholarly consensus is, as I expect there are a lot more Christian scholars in this area than non-Christian ones, and the consensus of Christian scholars regarding Christianity seems to me as irrelevant as the consensus of atheistic scholars about atheism, or of Islamic scholars about Islam, etc, or indeed the consensus of unbelieving scholars regarding Christianity - indeed I care about it all so little that I was perfectly happy to offer Christians a small helping hand on the Christ - Chrestiani matter, which is how I got started here, as you can see. Personally I'd rather like to see Christians do a bit more research on two things - one is the reported bright nova (new star) in the Chinese records for the spring of 5BC, and the other is the reported Roman massacre in the town of Seqiris (I'm not sure I've the spelling right) near Nazareth when Herod died in 4BC. I don't think those reports can ever prove anything, but they might allow for interesting new speculations concerning the star of Bethlehem, the massacre of the Holy Innocents, and how all this might have given Jesus some kind of useful headstart in the messiah stakes - though probably nothing that should unduly disturb the faith of either Christians or atheists :) However I think what started out as a minor digression for me is beginning to get a bit more time-consuming than I had intended, so I think I shall now wish you all the best of luck, and bow out of the conversation. Tlhslobus (talk) 11:23, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

That is a digression as you said, for massacre of innocents etc. have zero impact on the historicity of Jesus, and are just gospel details. And as Tacitus is just one element in the discussion. As for "I don't know how many of these unbelievers are deemed scholarly" these days the answer is almost none, for there is not one professor of history in a good university (no typo here) who denies the existence of Jesus - the challenge has been out for over a year. Please see the Christ myth theory page regarding that discussion. The issue of the "existence" of Jesus has now been settled in "academic circles" and only the amateurs still debate it. The accuracy of the gospel accounts is a very, very different issue and there is hardly any scholarly agreement on their accuracy. Most scholars hold them to have a number of internal conflicts in any case - but that does not relate to the existence of the Jesus they were writing about - even if they do not agree on the details of his life. So almost total agreement on existence of Jesus, and almost no agreement on gospel details, as in the Christ myth theory page. History2007 (talk) 12:23, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Now, after a little thinking, it seems that if the Suetonius, Tacitus, Pliny sequence was not clear to you, other readers may have questions about it as well. So I added a short section here about it and will also add to the end those articles to give a brief summary of the temporal order in which the passages were written by these 3, give links to places like Nero 16, etc. Will do it in a day or so. History2007 (talk) 17:37, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Ouch, I had said I was bowing out of the conversation, but I have been foolishly unable to resist my Guardian Devil urging me to briefly get back in :)

Your 'I will eat a Bible page if a skeptic can find any professor of Ancient History or the New Testament from a reputable university who thinks Jesus did not exist' link doesn't impress. First, quite likely almost nobody is even aware of the existence of the challenge. Secondly it may just mean that genuine skeptics are excluded from 'good' universities, as arguably suggested by two sentences in the Christ myth theory article that you recommend:

Sentence 1) In 2012 biblical scholar Thomas L. Brodie, former director of the Dominican Biblical Institute, published a book in which he argued Jesus is mythical.

I have no biographical info on Brodie other than what's in that sentence, but the term 'FORMER director' seems to perhaps be hinting at a problem facing scholarly sceptics who are unwilling to make at least some concessions that are useful to Christianity. It is of course at least seemingly useful to Christianity to have non-Christian scholars who concede that Christ existed. And I would expect similarly problems for scholars who are skeptical of Islam in Islamic countries, or skeptical of atheism in atheistic countries, etc, which is one of several reasons why I said in my previous post that I didn't really care what the scholarly consensus was - and please don't nudge me into boring you with my rather predictable views concerning related matters such as the peer review process especially when used in relation to this kind of topic (I only mention peer review here because it gets favorably mentioned by someone you were agreeing with on the Christ myth theory Talk page) :) But obviously I have no way of proving any of these suspicions of mine.

Sentence 2) However, academic resistance to the extreme versions of myth theory grew, e.g. John Allegro was dismissed from his university position for writing a book that took extreme positions on the issue and it took Thomas L. Thompson well over a decade to find an academic position.

This second sentence leads me to thoughts similar to those provoked by the first, except that this time there are biographical details, which suggest, at least in my biased view, that Allegro probably got what he deserved, but that Thompson seems quite likely to be a scholar who was forced to live in poverty outside of academia for long periods because his views, despite eventually earning him a doctorate summa cum lauda, were too inconvenient for some (though he seems to have been writing about the alleged mythical nature of the Patriarchs rather than of Jesus). But once again I have obviously no way of proving any of these suspicions of mine.

Of course none of the above need necessarily contradict anything iin your statement that 'As for "I don't know how many of these unbelievers are deemed scholarly" these days the answer is almost none, for there is not one professor of history in a good university (no typo here) who denies the existence of Jesus - the challenge has been out for over a year'.
As for the different matter of 'That is a digression as you said, for massacre of innocents etc. have zero impact on the historicity of Jesus, and are just gospel details.', I suspect it actually could become quite relevant to the credibility of the gospels, and consequently to the plausibility of the claim that Jesus was historic, if there ever were to emerge convincing independant evidence of gospel details such as a star of Bethlehem or a massacre of the innocents. I spent a few hours doing a tiny bit of research on these two topics after writing my last post, but found no mention of 'Seqiris', and was a bit disappointed to learn that the 5BC 'star' seems to have being a comet, and not the interesting nova that the BBC (or maybe Channel 4) had claimed in a program a few years ago. I won't bore you with why a comet is less interesting to me than a nova, beyond saying that it seems to me for various complicated reasons that a nova would make it more likely Jesus was historic, and despite being an unbeliever, I usually feel it's more interesting if he is historic. But in any case, it would have little or no relevance to this article on the Tacitus stuff.

Hopefully next time I will be better able to resist the urgings of my Guardian Devil :) Tlhslobus (talk) 19:09, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I am sorry, per WP:Forum I can not continue that discussion on the star, Brodie, etc., given that it has no bearing on this article, but is a general discussion on gospel accounts. We could have had a fun discussion on this under other circumstances, given that today is the day for a nice drink (or two), but per WP:Forum we must avoid it - I mean avoid the discussion, not the drink or two. History2007 (talk) 20:01, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I guess you're right, and you and WP:Forum have thus thankfully saved me from my Guardian Devil's demand that I should add a few more lengthy 'just-these-last-and-then-I'll-shut-up' paragraphs on the lack of mention of various agnostic positions on the matter, and the relevance of notions like simulated reality, and the Everett Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics :) I hope you enjoyed your drink or two :) Tlhslobus (talk) 02:56, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

WP:Solemnity will come in play as well as WP:Forum soon, so discussions need to end in any case... History2007 (talk) 03:02, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Archarya S.

She is not a scholar, but a wannabe. Now, seriously, she advanced a conspiracy theory about Christianity and she expects to pass as a scholar? Tgeorgescu (talk) 13:46, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't think you get it. The "conspiracy theory" you speak of would be any theory that denies that jesus was god?Greengrounds (talk) 22:16, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Greengrounds, you tried to put that same quote into Historicity of Jesus and I removed it. Please discuss changes likely to be contentious on the talk page first.Smeat75 (talk) 16:20, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Archarya S. is a self-published author and a blogger and is not a WP:RS, please read those guidelines, "Anyone can create a personal web page or publish their own book, and also claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason self-published media—whether books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, personal pages on social networking sites, Internet forum postings, or tweets—are largely not acceptable."Smeat75 (talk) 21:01, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, if you followed up on her work you'd see that she provides several references in her work, some often by renowned French historians. No worry, though. Why waste so much time on this contentious issue on one of the very very few jesus references outside of the bible, when your primary source, the epistles and the gospels have themselves proven to be highly plagiarized and forged. But thanks for pointing me in the right direction. More to follow. Funny that you and your kind puts no standard on reviewing sources that reflect your POV, but when the opposite is true, you pull the laziest easiest card: poor sourcing. I could do the same to that whole article, but then we'd have nothing left. Don't worry, there's ways around your censorship and that article on Jesus is going to go through some big changes. There will be growing pains.Greengrounds (talk) 22:16, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

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