Was Jesus an Historical Figure?

True to his name

If indeed I made any “blunders,” they were also made by credentialed historians and scholars. Isn’t that amazing that mr. spin is so much better informed than they are?

Mr. spin says that “Josephus wrote in Greek so one wouldn't expect this Latin term to have been found in his work.” This is not a mystery to any scholar. It is the scholarship on Josephus that has determined that “procurator” is the correct translation. Why? Mr. spin commits his own monumental blunder when he says: “it doesn't apply to a governor, but to a financial managerer.” I have no idea what a “managerer” is – I assume this means “manager.” Well, what does mr. spin think a procurator is? A procurator IS a financial manager!

Mr. spin says I provide no evidence for the fluidity of the terms. I had not room to start; I will do so now:

In practical terms, "both the procurators and prefects in Judea had the power to execute criminals who were not Roman citizens." [Van Voorst] Practically, in this context, "A difference that is no difference, is no difference." Even the Secular Web's Richard Carrier has now stated: “It seems evident from all the source material available that the post was always a prefecture, and also a procuratorship. Pilate was almost certainly holding both posts simultaneously, a practice that was likely established from the start when Judaea was annexed in 6 A.D. And since it is more insulting (to an elitist like Tacitus and his readers) to be a procurator, and even more insulting to be executed by one, it is likely Tacitus chose that office out of his well-known sense of malicious wit. Tacitus was also a routine employer of variatio, deliberately seeking nonstandard ways of saying things (it is one of several markers of Tacitean style). So there is nothing unusual about his choice here.”

I wonder whether mr. spin would care to inform Mr. Carrier of his error.

Mr. spin in any event misses the point on the grounds that Pilate would be BOTH procurator and prefect.

Mr. spin then says I “attempt to cover my lack of argument” by appeal to Tacitus’ use of vocabulary. Indeed? I wonder if mr. spin would like to inform Carrier, as well as the Tacitean scholars from which I derived that quotation – Kraus and Woodman – that “Tacitus would not have used the wrong term.” If mr. spin would like, I will gladly provide him with contact information for all three of these people, so that he may inform them that their scholarly judgments – in particular, Kraus and Woodman’s as specialists in the work of Tacitus – are completely in error.

I will also gladly provide mr. spin with the address of E. P. Sanders, a qualified and credentialed scholar with numerous publications to his credit, so that he can inform him of the flaws in his argument. But no, the point would not be that the term “prefect” would be forgotten – just more familiar, just as I said. That does not mean he will never use “prefect” as mr. spin seems to think, just that he will use “procurator” more often – bearing in mind again that Pilate is supposed here to have held both titles.

True to his name, mr. spin then “spins” my point about Tacitus’ knowledge of terms as “a good argument against [my] own position.” It is so only under mr. spin’s paradigm of dismissing such recognized facts as the use of variatio and/or archaic technology. In essence here, mr. spin takes the approach of a “Tacitus fundamentalist” who reads Tacitus only in narrow, literalistic terms.


In close, I think it speaks for itself that mr. spin says that “actual arguments are not important here.” His own grasp of historiography in general, and Tacitean scholarship in particular, is itself severely antiquated. However, I will aid him in his effort to reform Tacitean scholarship by pointing him to contact information for those such as Kraus and Carrier whom he wishes to correct, on request.