DID YOU KNOW?
The answer
The great fire of Rome under Nero. Tacitus says Nero put the blame for the fire on the Christians. To explain who they were, he adds one sentence: Christus, the man they were named for, was executed by Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius (Annals 15.44).
Why it’s interesting
Tacitus wrote around 115 AD, and that sentence is the first fact about Jesus from a Roman writer. It gives no reason for the execution. It says nothing about his life or his teaching.
Scholarly consensus
Learn the Bible.
Not just the stories, but the history, authorship, and scholarship behind it.