[66] Accompanied by Vespasian and Domitian, he rode into the city, enthusiastically saluted by the Roman populace and preceded by a lavish parade containing treasures and captives from the war. [xxix] A Conversation on the Caesars Messiah Thesis, Freethought Nation [accessed 17 March 2014]. We argue that the Gospels must have been written under the Flavians, not only because they contain so much material that is pertinent to their agenda, but also because there is little if anything in the Gospels that would indicate any knowledge of events that transpired after the death of Domitian (96 CE). It is important to notice that the differences between the type and the antetype passages, cannot defeat the proof of literary dependence. How could Josephus have been aware of this, and yet not dedicated at least a few chapters to giving his views of this good news? 269-274; see 1915 Dent translation.). Mucianus and Vespasian increased the tribute of the provinces, and kept a watchful eye upon the treasury officials. In Caesars Messiah, Atwill reaches a similar conclusion, and also offers the view that another important rebel leader, and possibly a messiah figure to the rebels, was the character Eleazar. [8] Modern history has refuted these claims, suggesting these stories were later circulated under Flavian rule as part of a propaganda campaign to diminish success under the less reputable Emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, and maximize achievements under Emperor Claudius (4154) and his son Britannicus. That, I tell you, is the reason why the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and given to a nation that will exhibit the power of it. Briefly stated: in the central satire, a rogue named Decius Mundus pretends to be the god Anubis, in order to trick a dignified lady named Paulina into having sex with her. Both Ellis[viii] and another self-taught Biblical scholar, Lena Einhorn,[ix] have noticed extensive parallels between Josephuss narrative of events occurring between the years 44 and 56 CE, and a similar series of events and circumstances in the New Testament narrative covering the years 24 to 36 CE. This statement is a clear parallel to the statement made to Moses, the first savior of Israel, in Exodus 4:19: All the men are dead which sought thy life. The parallels then continue with Jesus receiving a baptism (Matt. In order to further justify the divine nature of Flavian rule, Domitian also emphasized connections with the chief deity Jupiter,[106] most significantly through the restoration of the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill. Many jokes are based on a detailed knowledge of their context. a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared: I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for, before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities (Wars6.5.297-299). Also, the spiritual campaign of Jesus Christ as depicted in the book of Luke foreshadows the military campaign of Titus in Judea, in a sequential series of parallels that Atwill calls the Flavian Signature. Furthermore, as Atwill observed: When one looks at the form of early Christianity, one sees not Judea, but Rome. The reigns of the emperors Vespasian (69-79 A.D.), Titus (79-81 A.D.), and Domitian (81-96 A.D.) comprised the Flavian dynasty. Domitian's memory was condemned to oblivion by the Roman Senate, with which he had a notoriously difficult relationship throughout his reign. Order was properly restored by Mucianus in early 70, who headed an interim government with Domitian as the representative of the Flavian family in the Senate. [24] A strong force drawn from the Judaean and Syrian legions marched on Rome under the command of Mucianus, while Vespasian himself traveled to Alexandria, leaving Titus in charge of ending the Jewish rebellion. In addition, Vespasian faced several uprisings in Egypt, Gaul and Germania, and reportedly survived several conspiracies against him. [100] The ancient historians that lived through the period such as Tacitus, Suetonius, Josephus and Pliny the Elder speak suspiciously well of Vespasian while condemning the emperors that came before him. Although the event was reportedly discussed among many, there could be at most a few of the seditious who witnessed the Cannibal Marys display of half her sons carcass, and no witnesses at all to Marys first speech, or to the murder of the child. "A fascinating and provocative investigative history of ideas, boldly exploring a problem that previous scholarship has not clearly or credibly addressed: how (and why!) Next, Jesus spends 40 days in the desert, which parallels the 40 years the Israelites spend in the wilderness. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia (Against Heresies, III, 1, 1). Josephus goes on to explain that this Jesus is nothing worse than a self-righteous big-mouth with a strange and repetitive message: four years before the war began, and at a time when the city was in very great peace and prosperity, came to that feast whereon it is our custom for everyone to make tabernacles to God in the temple, began on a sudden to cry aloud, A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against this whole people! This was his cry, as he went about by day and by night, in all the lanes of the city (Wars 6.5.300-301). This would explain the activities of Paul in his conflicts with James, as a promoter of this early form of Christianity. He offered gifts to the military and dismissed or punished those soldiers loyal to Vitellius. In his review of Caesars Messiah, Robert M. Price wrote: only the most obtuse reader, the most tin-eared, can possibly fail to appreciate the sublime quality of so much of the New Testament, as if Atwills theory does not recognize this; on the contrary, the Flavian Origins theory requires that the New Testament would be perceived as having just such a sublime quality, in order for it to succeed in its evangelical goals. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 buried Pompeii and other towns along the shores of the Bay of Naples. To foster the worship of the imperial family, Domitian erected a dynastic mausoleum on the site of Vespasian's former house on the Quirinal,[104] and completed the Temple of Vespasian and Titus, a shrine dedicated to the worship of his deified father and brother. Some of the wildly self-contradictory aspects of the New Testament may reflect the survival of the rebels literature, which was too popular and well-known at the time to be denied or suppressed, but could be incorporated into the Flavian version of the Gospels alongside newer materials promoting the Roman viewpoint. Domitian's assassination in 96 C.E. The true course of events in Israel and Judaeaduring the ~100 years between the Roman and Herodian takeover which was completed in 37 BCE, and the end of the Jewish war in ~73 CE, has always been a highly speculative topic, which scholarship is unlikely to resolve. The roots of the conflict date back earlier, to the age when the zealous Maccabees (also known as Hasmoneans) rebelled against the Seleucids (the remnants of Alexander the Greats Hellenistic empire) and achieved an uneasy independence in 164 BCE. Thus, to summarize: in Josephus, Mary is eating her child; in the NT pericope, Mary logically seems to be eating the body of Lazarus, who allegedly was resurrected but is obviously dead; and according to Christianitys spiritualized interpretation, the believers are eating the body of Christ the son of Mary, after his alleged resurrection on the third day. Again, this seems to indicate that Josephus was well aware of the existence of Jesus Christ, although there is some debate about what Josephus meant by Christ or whether those few words might have been a late interpolation. Titus and Domitian also revived the practice of the imperial cult, which had fallen somewhat out of use under Vespasian. However, this was arguably going in precisely the wrong direction to satisfy the critics, because the new parallels were, in general, not as convincing as the ones he had already identified. Mundus means World, so Decius Mundus is a Sacrifice for the World. From this, he concludes that the Biblical characters of James and Simon Peter are also likely to be parodies of the real leaders of the Jewish rebellion. Robert Eisenman, James the Brother of Jesus: The Key to Unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Viking Penguin, 1996. Literary imitation has been a common practice in all ages, and was highly revered among the authors of the Old Testament, who were especially fond of chiastic forms. In an ongoing process of religious innovation, the Romans and Herodians may have continued to develop this hybrid of Jewish and Roman spirituality during the 1st century of the common (that is, Christian) era. Christianity, a movement that encouraged pacifism and obedience to Rome, claims to have emerged from a nation engaged in a century-long struggle with Rome. On the contrary, his hope is that humanity, by understanding the origins of these ancient wounds and ancient hatreds, can learn to overcome them and that the people (regardless of their ethnic background or religious beliefs) can achieve the benefits of a more functional democracy that transcends the cycle of violence and genocide. His position in Judaea further granted him the advantage of being nearest to the vital province of Egypt, which controlled the grain supply to Rome. That is, the comedian does not explain or expound upon the meaning of his joke he just tells the joke, and then the audience laughs, which proves that they got it. The magic is broken if the humorist needs to spell it out for the audience. Chiasm involves a series of literary elements that are placed in order and then referred to in reverse order, unwinding the chiasm: for example, ABCCBA. In his book Did Jesus Exist, Bart Ehrman gave the following summary of scholarly opinion about the historical Jesus: there are several points on which virtually all scholars of antiquity agree. Jesus prophesied Woe to you, Chorazain . From a Bayesian perspective, this increases the likelihood of the hypothesis that the Gospels were indeed maintained as secret documents of the early Roman Catholic Church. If this is the case, then the Jewish rebels were pawns in a vast dynastic struggle being played out between the Parthians and the Romans; and Izates himself was another of (possibly several) rebel leaders parodied as Jesus in the New Testament. It seems much more likely that there is some grain of truth in his claim that they had existed much earlier, and that his true purpose in writing about the Roman Gospels was to assert their claims of superiority over the many apocryphal gospels that were proliferating at the time. 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