Hence Tacitus continued the great error started by Pliny: a confusion of the Suetonian Christiani (Jewish rebels) with the pacifist Christians (adorers of a Jewish archangel).
That confusion could only have the his origin in the use of the title "Christ" by different sects.
Hence, just as Tacitus confused an historicized deity with the founder of a seditious sect, my question is the following:
Could the reverse confusion (this time by "Mark" himself) be happened?
The possibility is that "Mark" (author) confused the legend of a historical Zealot leader with the sacred "oral tradition" of the Lord Jesus Christ himself (not a historical person). In other terms, was "Mark" a kind of "Jewish Tacitus" in this confusion?
Note that this is not the same thing argued by Ben in the his mythicohistorical (hybrid) approach to Christian origins, since in Ben's reconstruction, "Mark" (the euhemerizer of the mythological Christ of Paul) was really a follower of the historical Jesus (the figure behind the Gospels). He merged deliberately the mythical pauline Christ with the historical Jesus of which he was follower.
What I am saying is that the merging of the two figures was the result of a mistake, of an error, of a confusion by both the parts:
- Pliny and Tacitus confused the two Jesus from one hand...
- ..."Mark" confused the two Jesus from the other hand.
While Richard Carrier has already proved, in my view, the error by Tacitus (The Prospect of a Christian Interpolation in Tacitus, Annals 15.44, particularly whereas he concedes the authenticity of the entire Testimonium Taciteum but he claims that Tacitus confused the Suetonian riotous Chrestus with the pacifist Gospel Christ), what has to be still proved is a similar confusion done by "Mark".