Growing Religious Threat

[shrike3]

37. Nero reigned in the first century.

54-68 A.D. One of his things was cracking down on Christians. Did Tacitus and Suetonius make all that that up? Suetonius explicitly mentions in his biography of Nero that Christians were among those punished, around the year of the Great Fire of Rome, 64 A.D. Suetonius is thought to have lived 69-122 A.D., There were probably people around them who remembered the Great Fire and maybe lived through it. Years ascribed to Tacitus: c. AD 56 – c. 120. He, too, wrote about the fire. He also mentioned Pilate.

Pliny the Younger, the Roman governor of Bithynia and Pontus (now in modern Turkey), wrote a letter to Emperor Trajan around AD 112 and asked for counsel on dealing with the Christian community. Again, did he make that up?

There's plenty of evidence that early Christians existed. Not so much Jesus existed, certainly.