Hi and welcome back! Now, we come to the last 1st-Century Friday post for a while. After this, we may revisit my master list as time goes on, but I think we’ve finally hit the wall on writers who were even vaguely contemporaneous with Jesus. However, I’m taking us out Read more…
When we checked out Josephus recently, a contemporary of his emerged from the shadows: Justus of Tiberias. We don’t know much about him, which is strange considering what he could have had to say about the earliest Christians. So today, let’s check out Justus of Tiberias — and marvel at the mystery surrounding his absence from the record.
I can easily see why 3rd-and-4th-century Christians felt an irresistible urge to edit Josephus’ work to better support their own claims. Around then, they were just starting to wonder why they lacked that kind of corroboration, and it bothered some of them a lot.
Needless to say, Tacitus is not even vaguely contemporary with Jesus. He wasn’t even born until 20+ years after Jesus supposedly died. By his adulthood, pretty much everyone contemporaneous with Jesus would have died already. Under that thinking, I, a Gen-Xer, could be considered contemporaneous with F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940).
Hi and welcome back! For a while now, we’ve been exploring the world of 1st-century writers in the Roman Empire. Our goal has been to see what those writers said — if anything at all — about Jesus, early Christians, or the goings-on in Judea during Jesus’ supposed lifetime. And Read more…
Hi and welcome back! It’s Friday, and that means our attention turns to history. Specifically, we focus on a voice from the 1st century to see if they said anything about Jesus or Christianity during Jesus’ supposed lifetime. This time around, that voice is female. Pamphile of Epidaurus wrote some excellent Read more…
Today, let’s look at what Thallus wrote — or rather, at what later Christians said Thallus wrote, and why it’s just not convincing as a source.
This time, our focus centers on some names that often get included in such lists, but maybe shouldn’t be on them. These writers either didn’t write anything that even vaguely touched on religious or philosophical topics, or didn’t write anything that survived. Today, let’s look at some of them: Phaedrus, Columella, and Marcus Servilius Nonianus. And I’ll show you why they don’t make my cut.
Today, our focus rests upon Gaius Plinius Secundus, more popularly known as Pliny the Elder. As he lived between 23/24 CE – 79 CE and was good friends with Emperor Vespasian (who ruled from 69-79 CE), he was very well-placed to know all about this stuff. Let’s see if he did.
Hi and welcome back! It’s Friday, and that means it’s time to meet another writer on our 1st-century list. Today, our lucky winner is Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger, aka Seneca. This illustrious Roman lived between 4 BCE and 65 CE and spent his life as a philosopher, statesman, writer, Read more…