Early Non-Christian Ignorance Of A False Date For Jesus' Second Coming

The charge that Jesus and the earliest Christians set a false date for Jesus' second coming is a common objection to Christianity. I've said a lot about it over the years. One of the points I've made is that the early opponents of Christianity show no awareness of such a false prediction, which makes far more sense if there wasn't such a prediction. See here, for example. In that post, I brought up Celsus' treatise against Christianity. It's valuable for a variety of reasons. It's a second-century source, which is early. It was written by a pagan who consulted one or more Jewish sources, so it represents not only the views of multiple non-Christian sources, but also sources of significant diversity (pagan and Jewish). And a large percentage of the treatise has been preserved through Origen's interactions with it. (See my post linked above for documentation.) However, something I didn't do in that post was mention that the topic of false prophets comes up in the treatise. For example, Celsus objected to false prophets in Judaism and elsewhere, even ones he allegedly had met himself:

"And Celsus is not to be believed when he says that he has heard such men prophesy; for no prophets bearing any resemblance to the ancient prophets have appeared in the time of Celsus. If there had been any, those who heard and admired them would have followed the example of the ancients, and have recorded the prophecies in writing. And it seems quite clear that Celsus is speaking falsely, when he says that 'those prophets' whom he had heard, on being pressed by him, 'confessed their true motives, and acknowledged that the ambiguous words they used really meant nothing.' He ought to have given the names of those whom he says he had heard, if he had any to give, so that those who were competent to judge might decide whether his allegations were true or false." (in Origen, Against Celsus, 7:11)

So, it isn't just that Celsus and his Jewish source(s) don't refer to a false date set for Jesus' second coming. Rather, it goes even further than that. They're silent about such a false prediction even though the topic of false prophecy came up, and they objected to false prophecies in other contexts. And the alleged false date for Jesus' second coming isn't brought up in other relevant contexts either (e.g., discussions of eschatology).