>>17909153
>Basically any historian in antiquity would at least say "so-and-so said XYZ" and then say what he thought about that source.
They only do this occasionally; most of the time, they don't. That you think they do is evidence that you have never read an ancient source. For instance, see pic, a passage from Tacitus which is just a little earlier. He doesn't say where he got any of this information. Are you going to say that all of this untrustworthy?
>Tacitus and Pliny had a pretty close writing relationship.
And where's your hard evidence that Tacitus was citing Pliny? You have none, and that's why this is conjecture.
>what WAS he using? You see the issue?
There isn't an issue. Ancient writers did not often cite their sources. QED.
>No, just the narrative of Jesus being put to death by Pilate
Is it unfathomable in your mind that Tacitus is saying this because it was well known to be true, rather than him getting this from gospel accounts? All you have done here is made it so that you can never be proven wrong. If I produce 100 writers who said that Jesus was killed by Pilate, you'll just say that they're repeating the gospel, and it's not trustworthy evidence.
>Again, that DOESN'T appear in Paul, and Paul is unaware of it ever occurring. So it's the Gospel account.
>AND contradicts Paul, who was the earliest Christian author we indisputably have
Paul is 100% irrelevant to what we're talking about. I don't know why you're so anal about this point.