Around 1st century Rome, how good were they at keeping records?

Question

You know were they good enough that if a man was publicly crucified, and then came back to life and was viewed by 500 people, would something like that have been recorded by independent (read: not the Bible) record keepers?

For comparison, does anyone know of any other recorded events around 30 A.D. in Rome/Middle east?

Answer 1

It likely would have been noted somewhere. Imperial actions by Rome are pretty well recorded. Most of the materials from the Hellenists were lost (destroyed by the Christians) during the persecution and eradication of the "Pagan"religions.
The Romans were also fanatical about recording natural events like eclipses, earthquakes and anything else that gave them accurate time fixes.
This was because their calendar systems were not very consistent and changed with each emperor being numbered in the years of his reign.
If an eclipse or an earthquake had occurred in Jerusalem during Pilate's term as governor it would have been recorded.
Josephus would almost certainly have spoken of it to clarify his timing of events in "War" or "Antiquities."
The fact that no such event appears except in the Gospels is quite suspicious. The Earthquake was supposed to have been strong enough to open graves and start the dead bodies walking around in the city.

There are some problems about events during that period because the Christians spent almost 1400 years gathering and either destroying or stashing everything they did not like. Anything that disagreed with what they claimed happened.
Anything from the practitioners of competing religions.
They burned every library and every work by the Greek priests and philosophers that they could. Most of the works of the ancient greek math and philosophy we are indebted to the Arabs for. They managed to save copies and when Islam finally invaded Europe after 800AD they brought the texts with them.
Let me get back to you about events.

Setting the stage

During the time of Julius; Britain is invaded, Pompey is killed after being trapped in Egypt by the treachery of Herod, Julius makes Judea free from tribute(no taxes) in return for that. The Germanic tribes are finally subdued and Syria becomes a province. After Pompey is killed Cleopatra declares herself to support Julius, and has one son from him. After Caesar she has three other children by Marcus Antonius.
Cleopatra suicides on August 12, 30 BC after Octavian invades Egypt and defeats Marc Anthony, rather than be taken to Rome and made part of the Triumph.
Now we are in the reign of Octavian,He was the first Roman Emperor. 27BC to 14 AD.
He spent most of his reign consolidating power. He finally negotiated peace with the Parthians. Expanded roads and reforming the tribute system. created the first official postal system. He wrote his own biography and copies still exist.(Res Gestae Divi Augusti)
Next we have Tiberius.

And we come into your era of choice.

Holy crap, we have the revolt of the Roman legions in Germany and Tiberius send Germanicus with a small army to punish them. Germanicus tell the mutineers to follow him into Germany and keep all the loot as their pay. German resistance to Rome is finally totally crushed(?). Germanicus is made famous by this, viewed as a threat, and of course dies. In 30AD his wife Aggripina and his sons are arrested, are exiled, and, (um) die too.
Tiberius died March 16, 37AD , at the age of 77

There is an incredible amount of detail about the Romans and there Rulers. We have very accurate accounts of their lives and even have statues and images made in their lifetime. Most of them had coins minted showing their faces.
We nave records of busunesses and families from the period. We lack much of the ephemera and minuta, but still have enough to get a pretty accurate picture.
Even in The Puppet Kingdom of Judea we have records of the Roman dealings with Herod the Idumean (Herod the Great) and his family. We even have a not too bad record from the Judeans themselves up until about 60 years previous to Herod, and acceptable even to the death of Herod. After the Zealots get control, the records from the Jews are not very good.
We have excellent accounts of the death of Herod and the death of his children.
Inn 4 AD Herod the Idumean dies. Herod Antipatros (Antipas) replaces him as a client King supported by Rome. He builds a port city called after the Roman Emperor Tiberius. He is forced to excecute the son of the High Priest Zechariah of the Maccabee faction. That son is John. John was not the poor-boy most people imagine him to be. He was the pretender to the throne, and was campaigning against Antipas. Here are two other points. After the death of Herod the Idumean (4BC) Rome orders the Governor of Syria to conduct a Roman survey of Judea so they can figure out how to divide the country up, and how to tax it.. No census before then, no taxes. And after the death of John, Herod decides on a stupid war against the Nabateans. Disaster follows.
Anyway the best explanation of the death of John comes from Josephus who include much material explaining the politics involved and the persons. It is both part of his "Jewish Antiquities" and "War."
Antipas managed to survive in power until 37 AD. Following his death Judea became a Roman Province and came under direct Roman Rule and we have the destruction of Judea and Jeusalem by Vespasian and his son Titus when the Zealots try to reclaim Judea as a private kingdom by rebelling in 67AD.

The thing is that there are good records of everybody involved in these histories including their political affiliations, their families and personal details.
Everybody except Jesus that is.
For Jesus we have nothing to tell us his birth-date. Nothing to explain his family, or even a date of death. What meager accounting exists is 4 supposed gospels, two of which seem to be copied from a lost greek text. An almost certainly fraudulent 3rd century addition to the works of Josephus and a few later assertions by christian historians that are entirely unsupported.
The works of Josephus have been backed up by archaeology. We have other records from other places that do support them in spite of centuries of religious book burnings by the Church.
We can go into museums around the world and find records that were dug up supporting the history of everybody involved who was of any note at all.
Except Jesus.

Odd isn't it.

Answer 2

Ah a good one. The Romans were probably pretty good records keepers, I mean look at everything else they did manage to accomplish. But the question you maybe should be asking is how good the people that followed the Romans were at perserving the records that the Romans did put to paper or papyrus or copper sheets or whatever they wrote on way back then. Ah that is indeed a conundrum. Ya'll have a very Merry Christmas now!

Answer 3

The history of the Roman Empire is documented in great detail from contemporary sources. For example, it is known that many thousands of Jews were crucified by the Romans in the time of Jesus (a common Jewish name of the time). As far as I know, there exists no contemporary Roman record of the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. The earliest Roman historians to mention Jesus and early Christianity in passing, such as Tacitus, Suetonius and Pliny the Younger, were writing several decades later, and their references are very brief.

Answer 4

Romans of that era were known to meticulously keep records. Historical documents have been shown to include such written documentation as a soldier's laundry list, census for various towns, and taxes collected from various people.

Answer 5

Well....we have laundry lists from that time.

It is possible though not likely that Rome didn't notice the whole thing. What isn't possible is that they didn't record a census that was the reason that Mary was supposed to be in Bethlehem.

Answer 6

not only were the romans excellent record-keepers, but there were a number of historians and essayists in the province of judea at the time. not a single one of them commented on a miracle worker with a multitude following him. there was nothing especially interesting going on at the time that they would have failed to notice this.

Answer 7

They were good enough that if a man were celebrated for entering a city his name would have been written down some where.

Answer 8

Philus and Josephus, both histories available in English.

Answer 9

they were best in keeping records ( they recorded each & every trail & events)

there was no mention of jesus in it ..so jesus is only a fictional character