Hacker News Reader

Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

Yes. The first major bunch of followers were not that far removed from his death, and we have a couple of historical accounts (exactly a couple, to be precise).

View on HN

One of those accounts uses a different name for him ("Crispus"? Maybe? You'll have to forgive me not looking it up, but it eludes me and I don't want to disappear down a wiki-rabbithole when I should be wrapping presents..!) and has later been interpreted as referring to him; the other account is a focus of great controversy as to its genuine age.

I'm not necessarily trying to pull your point apart, just pointing out that it's not clear-cut. Personally I've never really made my mind up, but at the moment I lean more towards a conglomeration of folk-tales and the lives of several men. I'll probably change my mind again soon.

> One of those accounts uses a different name for him

I think you are probably remembering a (disputed) claim based on an edit made in a particular later copy that Tacitus (one of the earliest independent sources on both Christ and the early Christian community, particularly in Rome) referred to the Christian community in Rome as “Chrestians”, immediately before using the standard rendering of Jesus title as “Christus”. Even if Tacitus did use “Chrestians”, that name for the early community is attested in other sources (and even tied and used alongside Christian in some inscriptions from that community, IIRC), his reference to Christ did not use any alternate title,

Have you heard that "Christus" is also believed to be an interpolation?

https://www.ex-christian.net/topic/65072-richard-carrier-chr...

I wasn't familiar with Carrier’s claim to that effect, but it doesn't seem to have widespread acceptance and seems (from the secondhand description you provide) to ignore what seems to be generally accepted from outside evidence about the term “Chrestianos”.

There’s evidence to the contrary as well. The jury is still out on who the Chrestianos refers to. Honestly, I need to look into it more myself. But it asks the question, why would someone change it in the first place? Not to mention the word Christus is also a forgery. I am open to being wrong, just thought you should know these are forgeries.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com