Mod+ 241. JOSEPH ATWILL RESPONDS TO CAESAR’S MESSIAH CRITICS

I thought he might. But for the record, which precisely does he have in mind? It would be useful also to have a reference to the bit in Josephus' account that relates to it.
A handy link of these (from [URL='http://christianity.about.com/bio/Mary-Fairchild-16017.htm']Mary Fairchild)[/URL].

Of the 44 "prophecies" about Jesus listed on that page, I would count only 8-9 of them as being possible to verify. This means that whether or not the remaining items are true is irrelevant because they either are not specific enough (born of a woman) or cannot be validated physically (ascended to heaven).

AP
 
A handy link of these (according to one source).

Of the 44 "prophecies" about Jesus listed on that page, I would count only 8-9 of them as being possible to verify. This means that whether or not the remaining items are true is irrelevant because they either are not specific enough (born of a woman) or cannot be validated physically (ascended to heaven).

AP

Well, if you are going to nick my link, at least give me credit, AP. ;)
 
Reducing the bible to word games does not address the underlying message.
But that's exactly what the New Testament is: a word game designed by the Flavians as part of the literary genre called Typology!
 
But in 64 AD, five years before the first Flavian came to power, Nero was persecuting Christians, who must definitely have been around for about 30 years. So what would have had to happen is that the Flavians retrospectively moulded the Christian message and sold it to a credulous populace who previously had bought a different message. Why? Apparently, the idea is to soften a threat: the Messiah as a worldly figure who intended to overthrow the state by the sword; not only that, but in disguised form to cast New Testament characters as Flavian heroes.

Where did the Flavians get the idea of portraying Christ as a gentle character, who brought a message not of a worldly kingdom, but a heavenly one? That implies that they invented, or borrowed from some pre-existing sect, the spiritual message of Christianity. So here we have this cynical bunch of manipulators who nonetheless must have in some sense grasped that message and how it could affect the minds of people: make them docile and purportedly more malleable. It seems inconsistent that cynics like this could have invented the main thrust of the message of the Gospels. My bet is that if they interfered, they would have had to have appropriated it from an already existing sect, and dressed it in Flavian garb. Why couldn't that sect have been Christianity as it actually already existed? And if it was some other sect, so what? It was still a message of peace and love that resonates to this day.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that the Gospels as they have come down to us couldn't have been influenced by politics, but the message seems hardly one that Romans of all people could have cut from whole cloth as early in Christian history as is being suggested. The reason Christians were disliked by some was that they didn't fit in: they didn't have a religion, so much as a "superstition", which at the time meant it didn't conform to the Roman idea of religion, which was meant to bolster the state and its ruling classes. Moreover, after the Flavians and before Constantine, the persecutions persisted--see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Roman_Empire

If the Flavians had constructed something that was designed to keep the Christians malleable and fit in better, they apparently failed, judging by the ongoing persecutions. Also, if there are parallels between what is said in the Gospels and what is written in Tacitus, in which direction was the influence? Did Roman satire influence the content of the Gospels, or was Roman satire applied to that content retrospectively and appear in Tacitus' account?

Finally, Atwill is not a linguist: there seems to be some doubt whether he can read the Gospels in Greek. If so, the conjectures he makes about the similarities of names and words in general are based on how they sound and are written in English.
Since the Flavians had invented Christianity and preconfigured Titus using a character named Jesus who in the story--satisfying the prophecies of Daniel--lived exactly 40 years before the end of the Jewish war, they needed to fill in the gap; the Flavian historians achieved this by putting blame on their enemies of the previous dynasty: the Julio-Claudians. No contemporaries writing at the time of Nero, for example, described such events.

Once Christianity was established beginning with the diocese of Rome, there would have been good Christians and bad Christians. Only those Christians who did not "give to Caesar what is Caesars" and pay their taxes would have been persecuted.

Since we rely on Roman histories thereafter it becomes difficult to know the true facts of those developing times. What we can say with certainty relates to the birth and origin of Christianity being with the Flavians in about 75-80 AD because we have much better evidence in the form of the parallels and typology that exists between the New Testament and Wars of the Jews. So if we concentrate on that evidence then the rest of the story falls into place. You don't start with weak evidence about Christianity in, say, the 2nd century and then work back to the origin. We can begin with the origin because that is our best evidence--of such good quality that we can prove the Flavians invented Christianity; just check out the parallels on the previous page, and let me know if you see a pattern, then we can proceed with the proofs. Since we have this primary evidence that leads us to a proof so we don't need to speculate about other aspects of Christian history. Atwill's scope is limited to proving the authors of the gospels/Christianity alone and nothing more.
 
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You are Dan Brown and I claim my five pounds.
Are you not able spot the patterns between the gospels and the official history of Titus' military campaigns as existing by design? Did you even bother reading those crucifixion parallels I posted on the previous page? If so, how are you interpreting the evidence?
 
But in 64 AD, five years before the first Flavian came to power, Nero was persecuting Christians, who must definitely have been around for about 30 years. So what would have had to happen is that the Flavians retrospectively moulded the Christian message and sold it to a credulous populace who previously had bought a different message. Why? Apparently, the idea is to soften a threat: the Messiah as a worldly figure who intended to overthrow the state by the sword; not only that, but in disguised form to cast New Testament characters as Flavian heroes.

Where did the Flavians get the idea of portraying Christ as a gentle character, who brought a message not of a worldly kingdom, but a heavenly one? That implies that they invented, or borrowed from some pre-existing sect, the spiritual message of Christianity. So here we have this cynical bunch of manipulators who nonetheless must have in some sense grasped that message and how it could affect the minds of people: make them docile and purportedly more malleable. It seems inconsistent that cynics like this could have invented the main thrust of the message of the Gospels. My bet is that if they interfered, they would have had to have appropriated it from an already existing sect, and dressed it in Flavian garb. Why couldn't that sect have been Christianity as it actually already existed? And if it was some other sect, so what? It was still a message of peace and love that resonates to this day.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that the Gospels as they have come down to us couldn't have been influenced by politics, but the message seems hardly one that Romans of all people could have cut from whole cloth as early in Christian history as is being suggested. The reason Christians were disliked by some was that they didn't fit in: they didn't have a religion, so much as a "superstition", which at the time meant it didn't conform to the Roman idea of religion, which was meant to bolster the state and its ruling classes. Moreover, after the Flavians and before Constantine, the persecutions persisted--see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Roman_Empire

If the Flavians had constructed something that was designed to keep the Christians malleable and fit in better, they apparently failed, judging by the ongoing persecutions. Also, if there are parallels between what is said in the Gospels and what is written in Tacitus, in which direction was the influence? Did Roman satire influence the content of the Gospels, or was Roman satire applied to that content retrospectively and appear in Tacitus' account?

Finally, Atwill is not a linguist: there seems to be some doubt whether he can read the Gospels in Greek. If so, the conjectures he makes about the similarities of names and words in general are based on how they sound and are written in English.
all of this has been hashed over pretty well. Nero persecuted a lotta folks it's unclear who the "Christians" were at this time. there's no evidence that they were anything like what we would call Christians, or followers of this one guy.

As far as Atwill scholarship... come on.
 
I'll have to reread Josephus to answer this. The last time I read it (and I have read a lot of these Roman historians) was about four years ago. At the time I thought it was much less interesting than Seutonius or Tacitus (my favorites). The Christian material, or the material about Christians, as I remember it, was thin. However, I'm no historian. My feeling about the messiah prophecies has always been that they referred to the 73AD destruction of the temple and related events. I hadn't thought of it as influenced by the Roman court, but don't see how they could be taken to refer to anything else given that those events are the only ones that fulfill the conditions of the prophecy. I know I've had dreams about Jesus being a messiah, but that is a separate issue. Based on the historical record, I don't see any legitimate way to support an argument that those prophecies did not refer to the first century temple destruction and attendant events.

AP
cool. looks like we're half way in agreement... let me try and walk you a couple steps closer :)

First, Seutonius or Tacitus we also on board with the Roman talking points about Titus being the Messiah. Again, this is a very strong indication to Roman manipulation of the Gospels as it makes no sense otherwise.

Also, the details, sequential order, and sheer number of the parallels between the Gospel account and Josephus' WOTJ account seal the deal... this Gospel prophecy was derived from Josephus' book.
 
Bravely said, Ian. It's somewhat incongruent, is it not, that Alex is a great proponent of psychic phenomena, and yet thinks it unlikely that some prophetic source or other could ever have gotten something right?

That source doesn't have to be a prophet to whom we currently apply a specific name. Who knows what went on back in the mists of time before the discipline of historical documentation and research had developed? Myth and folklore will always be with us and are still being created in the modern world despite advances in scholarship. It's not beyond imagining that someone, somewhere, could have made predictions that turned out to be true, but which have been attributed to a mythical figure and woven into some story or other.
Consider a world in which there are paranormal processes, there are people who are living in some kind of spiritual world(s) after their bodily deaths, and the whole show is under some kind of good overall management:
  • Why should we so suspicious about the possibility of some long-term prophecies coming true?
  • Why cannot there be some "supernatural prophecy to a degree never seen before or since."?
  • Surely this forum is capable of considering this possibility without denying it immediately!!
 
Yes, but none of the debunkers, including Chris White, address the system of sequential parallels that Joe has presented as proof of the Flavian invention of Christianity; so they are simply debunking a straw man. They probably have not read the book.
Chris White quotes Atwill extensively.
 
Here's more data:

Code:
Luke 20:19-25               chief priests .. lay hands on Him .. seize on His words ..
                            deliver Him to the power and the authority of the governor ..
                            Caesar .. "denarius" .. Render therefore to Caesar
     Mark 14:24-53          my blood .. fruit of the vine .. mount of Olives ..
                            Gethsemane (means "olive press") .. went forward a little ..
                            certain young man .. fled from them naked .. chief priests
     Luke 22:39-44          mount of Olives .. his sweat was as it were great
                            drops of blood falling down to the ground
     Gen. 49:10-12 pseu-Jon blood .. grapes .. wine press
     Rom. 11:2-25           thou continue in his goodness: otherwise .. shalt be cut off ..
                            if thou wert cut out of the olive tree .. wild by nature, and
                            wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree
     John 12:9-10           chief priests plotted to put Lazarus to death also
                            pressed .. Mount of Olives ..                   WOTJ 6,2,157-163
                            certain young man .. in his armor ..
                            seized upon .. as .. treasure ..
                            carried him as his captive to Caesar .. 
                            commanded to be Pruned
                            tower Psephinus .. monuments of         WOTJ 5,2,54-61
                            queen Helena .. gardens round about ..
                            the dangers that kings are in, under the providence of God ..
                            Titus .. neither his head-piece on, nor his breastplate ..
                            all of them missed him  
                            certain young man .. Eleazar ..         WOTJ 7,6,194-206
                            carried him off, with his armor ..
                            Eleazar .. taken up naked .. sorely whipped ..
                            Jews were terribly confounded ..
                            commanded them to set up a cross .. Eleazar ..
                            he was going .. to suffer a most miserable death
                            certain Jew .. Eleazar .. Galilee ..    WOTJ 3,7,229-231
                            received the strokes upon his naked body
                            in the presence of Vespasian,           Antiq. 8,2,46-48
                            and his sons .. Eleazar ..
                            commanded the demon, as he went out of the man
                            rue .. had lasted ever since the        WOTJ 7,6,178-185
                            times of Herod .. lasted much longer,
                            had it not been cut down by those Jews ..
                            Baaras (a play on the word for son, bar).. root of the same name ..
                            drives away those called demons .. spirits of the wicked

Solving the Mount of Olives assaults:

A "certain young man" was captured on the Mount of Olives, the location the New Testament gives for Jesus' capture. This capture takes place immediately before the symbolic temple of the New Testament, Jesus, is destroyed. The garden Jesus wanders into while on the Mount of Olives is called Gethsemane, an Aramaic word that is usually translated as "olive press." However, as Klausner points out, the word is "difficult" and may also be related to wine. Beth-Shemanaya is a name used in the Talmud to describe a "hall of wine and oil." Naming the garden "olive press" where Jesus' sweat is compared to drops of blood, is also part of the satiric theme. However, the passage in the Gospel of Luke that contains the related darkly humorous image, that of drops of blood that spill from Jesus being like the liquid squeezed from grapes or olives in a press, does not refer to the name of the garden. This must be gleaned from reading versions of the Mount of Olives tale in the other Gospels, in which the name of the garden is Gethsemane. The derisive comedy of the four Gospels work together, regarding Jesus' passion at Gethsemane, to show that the Gospels are not four separate testimonies of Jesus, but rather a unified piece of literature with nothing inadvertent in it. All of their seemingly irrelevant or contradictory details have a purpose at the satiric level.


The "certain young man" turns out to be Eleazar through their obvious shared similarities. The name Eleazar means "whom God aids" in Hebrew and is translated as "Lazarus" in Greek. Wars of the Jews and the New Testament both describe characters named "Eleazar" who have the Jesus-like attributes of having being born in Galilee, having the power to dispel demons, having been plotted against by the High Priests, having been scourged, having survived a crucifixion, and having risen from the dead. These "Eleazars" are the only individuals within these works with so many of Jesus' attributes.
 

In the version of Jesus' capture recounted in the Gospel of Mark there is a character described only as a naked "certain young man" who, unlike Jesus, was able to escape from the attackers. The New Testament and Wars of the Jews each placed their king in the same garden for his encounter with a band of armed men. In the New Testament, Jesus starts at the Mount of Olives, which is just outside Jerusalem's eastern edge, and walks northward to Gethsemane, from where the New Testament states that he "went a little farther." In other words, to the northeastern corner of the city. Josephus describes Titus as travelling from the tower of Psephinus, which marked the city's northwestern corner, toward the monument of Queen Helena, along Jerusalem's northern border from west to east. Notice that in his version of a garden assault, Josephus makes the reader aware that Titus was, "naked" (only figuratively speaking), that is, he was wearing no armor, to create a satirical parallel to the "naked young man" who escapes from the garden in in the New Testament.

Thus, the New Testament and Josephus each describe two assaults that occur in gardens near the Mount of Olives. Notice the conceptual symmetry - each pair of Mount of Olives assaults contains a "naked" individual who escapes and another individual who is captured. The point of these parallel Mount of Olives assaults is to separate the identities of the two "kings," Jesus and Titus - in other words, to separate the "king" who lives from the one who is crucified. This parallel is critically important in that it begins the process by which the New Testament's story of Jesus operates as a forerunner of the stories of both "Sons of God" described in Wars of the Jews - Eleazar (son of the Maccabean messianic lineage) and Titus. Titus is actually described by Josephus in the passage as a king when, in fact at that moment he is only the son of the emperor. This reference to Titus as a king has caught the attention of scholars, who have wondered why Josephus would have made such an obvious error. Josephus, of course, has not forgotten Titus' title. Rather, he is making a comment as to which "king", attacked in a garden outside Jerusalem, enjoys God's favour - Jesus, the king of the Jews or Titus, the "king" of the Romans. Josephus seems to be making a point as to the relative value of faith in the divine and faith in one's self, which was perhaps the same thing to the Flavians, since they saw themselves as gods.

These puzzles reveal the name of the real Jewish saviour who Titus captured on the Mount of Olives and stole the title of "Christ" from - Eleazar, who was satirised as "Lazarus" within the New Testament. Eleazar, like Simon and John, had his identity stolen by the Romans. He was the historical "Christ" who "rose" from the dead. As he was only human, however, Eleazar could not return to life. The puzzles also reveal the that Titus is the "Jesus" Christianity has unknowingly worshiped.

When the elements of the passage regarding the magical "root" are viewed as a group, a picture emerges. The passage describes a single plant that was called "Baaras" (a play on the word for son, bar) which had been around since the time of Herod and had a magical power to drive out demons. The "son" would have lasted longer except that "those Jews" cut it down. What, other than a satire of Jesus, could this passage be?

"Pruned" is, of course, a word that describes a gardening activity. Thus, Titus did not order the "certain young man" to be put to "death," as Whiston's translation reads, but to be "pruned," a word used quite logically on the Mount of Olives. "kolasai" was used by the Greek naturalist Theophratus in the fourth century B.C.E. to describe the pruning necessary to cultivate wild plants. His work on plants was often referenced by individuals from Titus' era such as Pliny ad Seneca, and specifically covered the process by which wild olive tree could be transformed into cultivated ones. Theophratus was the scientific ancestor of Pedanius Dioscorides, the Roman scientist and physician who accompanied Vespasian and Titus to Judea and was a key part of the theme of dark comedy concerning the "root and branch."

This use of the word "pruned" to describe the fate of the "certain young man" is part of a broad satirical theme within the New Testament. The leaders of the Jewish rebellion were used as the historical "tree" onto which Christianity was "grafted." Notice that Paul states that it is an olive tree that is to be grafted onto - the olive tree being, of course, the "tree" that would be "pruned" on the Mount of Olives. The "olive tree" that is "pruned" so that Christianity could be "grafted in" just happens to be on the "Mount of Olives" in a garden named "Gethsemane," a word that means "olive press"!

Was the New Testament character of Jesus based on a real individual? Since the Apostles Simon and John were based on historical characters, it is therefore possible that Jesus was as well. Jesus Christ means "Saviour Messiah". However, the angel who named the child Jesus also began the confusion over the identity of the "Saviour Messiah" by calling him Immanuel. The confusion over the identity of Jesus is also apparent during his trial, when the New Testament introduces another "Jesus", Jesus Barabbas. Jesus also contributes to the confusion regarding the identity of the "Saviour Messiah" by referring to the individual he foresees bringing destruction of Judea not as himself but as the "Son of Man." There seems to be many allegorical Jesuses. "Saviour Messiah" was not merely a name during this era but also a title, one that anyone who saw himself as having been sent by God to "save" Judea might claim. Josephus records that the struggle over who was the true Saviour Messiah of Judea was the real cause of the war between the Romans and the Jews. The authors of the New Testament created their character's dialogue and ministry in order to create a "true" prophet, one who had "accurately" prophesied events from Titus' triumphant campaign; the main focus was on Titus. The "Saviour" they created was a Roman fantasy, a literary figure they used to "prophetically" chasten the "wicked generation" and to set up their satire regarding the Messiah that Titus had "pruned" - Eleazar. If there had been a messianic leader named Jesus who ran afoul of the Roman authorities around 30 C.E., all that is visible of him in the New Testament is his name.

The historical Eleazar was certainly a Maccabean - son of Mathias Maccabee, the patriarch of the self-proclaimed Jewish messianic lineage and the orchestrator of the Jewish rebellion of this era. A coin from the rebellion was discovered that on one side commemorated the rebel leader "Simon" and on the other "Eleazar the Priest".
 
cool. looks like we're half way in agreement... let me try and walk you a couple steps closer :)

First, Seutonius or Tacitus we also on board with the Roman talking points about Titus being the Messiah. Again, this is a very strong indication to Roman manipulation of the Gospels as it makes no sense otherwise.

Also, the details, sequential order, and sheer number of the parallels between the Gospel account and Josephus' WOTJ account seal the deal... this Gospel prophecy was derived from Josephus' book.

That there are parallels between Josephus and the Gospels has long been known and discussed, from what I've researched (take a gander at http://www.josephus.org/#warChron and particularly http://www.josephus.org/LUKECH.html). The author of that site, Gary Goldberg, shows evidence of how both Josephus and Luke may have borrowed from common sources (based on linguistic analyses). That there may have been influences on the Gospels, obviously during Roman times, doesn't seem that controversial. It's a different thing to say that it was the Roman establishment that created Christianity from whole cloth.

Did they create the sermon on the mount, for example, which contains sentiments at odds with Roman values, and is considered by many to encapsulate Jesus' teachings? One would have thought that if Romans intended to influence the Gospels, they'd have done so in a way that would have made Christianity a recognised religion in support of the aims of the state rather than a superstition in the Roman sense, which appears to have prompted a number of Christian persecutions by Roman emperors before Constantine.

It's possible that early ecclesiastical influences are shown in the Gospels. Maybe the "render unto Caesar" saying was an attempt to reconcile, from that ecclesiastical viewpoint, the secular and the spiritual, and maybe that involved political calculation that made its way into the Gospels. But Titus as the Messiah? Why not just say so explicitly? After all, the Roman emperors weren't shy about declaring themselves gods. Why aren't the Gospels treatises on how to be good Romans? Why can't we stand up today, and based on them, declare that invasions of infidel countries like Iraq is justified by the doings and sayings of Jesus? Why must we rather say that they run counter to them?

If Romans after Constantine made Christianity serve the aims of a brutal state, it seems to me that they did it with the complicity of zealous ecclesiastics (surely with political motivations) at one place removed from the main force of the Gospel message. Doctrine and practice rather than NT actual content served the purposes of the state. All the evil things done in the name of Christianity have never been justified by the NT. How convenient it would have been for Constantine and his successors if he'd been able to say that.

More than anything, it's the incongruity of the central message of the Gospels and the ideals of the Romans that makes me doubtful about Atwill's premise. I can't see how any Roman in his right mind would have constructed such a religion, though I'll agree it's possible some politically-motivated modifications were made to the Gospels.
 
How about:
When Titus Flavius was capturing Jerusalem, he read the (early versions) of the gospels and various letters of Paul.
So, out of vanity, he decided to enact in his own actions as much as possible of what they prefigured!


Much more likely!
 
But that's exactly what the New Testament is: a word game designed by the Flavians as part of the literary genre called Typology!

Yeah, I get that that is the hypothesis, and that you appear to be convinced by it. That's fine and dandy. For my part however, I keep seeing the glaring contradiction between the nature of Roman state/religion and the spiritual message of the NT, particularly in things like the sermon on the mount. So a straight question for you: where did that sermon come from and how did it serve Roman ends?
 
That there are parallels between Josephus and the Gospels has long been known and discussed, from what I've researched (take a gander at http://www.josephus.org/#warChron and particularly http://www.josephus.org/LUKECH.html). The author of that site, Gary Goldberg, shows evidence of how both Josephus and Luke may have borrowed from common sources (based on linguistic analyses). That there may have been influences on the Gospels, obviously during Roman times, doesn't seem that controversial. It's a different thing to say that it was the Roman establishment that created Christianity from whole cloth.
Yes, but Joe was the first to see that the gospels are actually riddled with them from start to finish, and that they function as an interactive system in sequence. So saying that there are parallels between the books is an understatement.

But Titus as the Messiah? Why not just say so explicitly? After all, the Roman emperors weren't shy about declaring themselves gods. Why aren't the Gospels treatises on how to be good Romans?
They were creating a religion as a government project, but did not want the hoi poloi to realise a parallel system existed, but only a select few. However, they did want it to be discovered eventually... for legacy. So they could not be too explicit. But once you realise a system is there then you can see that the verbatim parallels are really quite explicit. It's just taken researchers so long for the same reason why visitors to this forum are not spotting the patterns even when it's spoon fed to them. The sorry task has eventually fallen to Atwill nearly 2000 years later after 1000+ years of dark ages and feudal slavery under the Catholics.
 
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