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Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus
Caesar's Messiah, a real life Da Vinci Code, presents the dramatic and controversial discovery that the conventional views of Christian origins may be wrong. Author Joseph Atwill makes the case that the Christian Gospels were actually written under the direction of first-century Roman emperors. The purpose of these texts was to establish a peaceful Jewish sect to counterbalance the militaristic Jewish forces that had just been defeated by the Roman Emperor Titus in 70 A.D.
Atwill uncovered the secret key to this story in the writings of Josephus, the famed first-century Roman historian. Reading Josephus's chronicle, The War of the Jews, the author found detail after detail that closely paralleled events recounted in the Gospels.
Atwill skillfully demonstrates that the emperors used the Gospels to spark a new religious movement that would aid them in maintaining power and order. What's more, by including hidden literary clues, they took the story of the Emperor Titus's glorious military victory, as recounted by Josephus, and embedded that story in the Gospels—a sly and satirical way of glorifying the emperors through the ages.
Atwill uncovered the secret key to this story in the writings of Josephus, the famed first-century Roman historian. Reading Josephus's chronicle, The War of the Jews, the author found detail after detail that closely paralleled events recounted in the Gospels.
Atwill skillfully demonstrates that the emperors used the Gospels to spark a new religious movement that would aid them in maintaining power and order. What's more, by including hidden literary clues, they took the story of the Emperor Titus's glorious military victory, as recounted by Josephus, and embedded that story in the Gospels—a sly and satirical way of glorifying the emperors through the ages.
354 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 2005
191 people are currently reading
850 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Atwill
3 books40 followersJoseph Atwill began his religious studies as a youth in Japan at the only English-speaking school in the country, the Jesuit-run St. Mary's Military Academy.
The results of Atwill's research are set out in his book Caesar's Messiah. The second edition of Caesar's Messiah (Ulysses Press, 2006) became the best selling work of religious history in the US in 2007, and its German translation Das Messias Ratsel (Ulstein, 2008), achieved #1 Best Seller status. The Flavian Signature edition of Caesar's Messiah (CreateSpace, 2011) adds the most detailed presentation of the parallels Atwill discovered between the works of Josephus and the Book of Luke. His upcoming book, The Single Strand, is also slated to be published by Ulstein, and a documentary film based on Caesar's Messiah is being released in 2011.
The results of Atwill's research are set out in his book Caesar's Messiah. The second edition of Caesar's Messiah (Ulysses Press, 2006) became the best selling work of religious history in the US in 2007, and its German translation Das Messias Ratsel (Ulstein, 2008), achieved #1 Best Seller status. The Flavian Signature edition of Caesar's Messiah (CreateSpace, 2011) adds the most detailed presentation of the parallels Atwill discovered between the works of Josephus and the Book of Luke. His upcoming book, The Single Strand, is also slated to be published by Ulstein, and a documentary film based on Caesar's Messiah is being released in 2011.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
October 24, 2013
The central thesis of Caesar's Messiah is that the Gospels of the Bible were written -- and the character of Jesus Christ was created -- by Roman intellectuals under the direction of Caesar Titus Flavius primarily with the intention of domesticating the Messianic Jewish movements which were resisting Roman occupation of Judea in the First Century, and secondarily with the intention of subverting the Jewish faith such that observants would be unknowingly worshipping Titus Flavius as a god through the proxy of Jesus. Call it a bit of hermeneutics for atheists.
While the claim is rather bold and surprising, Atwill does a reasonable job of making the case for his central thesis. If one reads the Gospels intertextually with Josephus' War of the Jews, just as one would read the story of the life of Jesus with the life of Moses to gain additional insight, one can read the ministry of Jesus as parallel to the military campaign of Titus during the First Jewish-Roman War, with each major battle sharing a parallel metaphorical story with the Bible. When Jesus speaks of being "fishers of men", for example, at Galilee, being parallel to the hunting of Jewish rebels by the Romans in the Sea of Galilee early in the campaign. One of the more striking parallels to me is that when Jesus enters Jerusalem for the first time, the Bible tells of the "stones crying out," which seemed nonsensical to me when I originally studies those passages in Mormon Seminary, but makes literal sense when read as a metaphor for the catapult driven siege of Jerusalem by Titus as he entered the city. Indeed, the stones cried out as the walls were bombarded by catapulted projectiles just as Titus enters Jerusalem.
All fascinating stuff, but I think Atwill reaches a bit far when intertextually reconstructing the resurrection of Jesus between the four Gospels as a comedy or errors in which characters in one book's representation mistake the characters in the other books' stories for angels which leads them to believe that Jesus has risen. It's as if we are privy to a first century Judean equivalent of a Three's Company episode where the end result of the aggregate of the character's folly is to develop a belief that Jesus came back from the dead. Atwill's argument here is that since the merged stories can lead to such an interpretation, the specific details which support that interpretation are incredibly unlikely to have occurred by chance. My counter to that is that we haven't analysed how many alternate details could be interpreted in a way which would lead to a similar shocking or subversive interpretation -- only how probable this interpretation is. It's similar to the fallacious argument that God must exist because the particulars of this universe which support life are incredibly unlikely to have occurred by chance.
Overall, though, Atwill does have plenty of interesting ideas, and there are more than those I've mentioned. Oh, so many more. Did I mention that Atwill proposed that the idea of Jesus as passover lamb and the "eating of the flesh" were metaphors for cannibalism which occurred within Jersualem when famine struck during Titus' siege? You'll have to read the book for the full explanation, which is truly amusing as a dark, dark satire. I'd recommend it for the boldness of the ideas alone, but keep your skepticism engaged and check outside sources while reading. And, if you start to take it completely at face value, google for Robert M. Price's criticism of the book. It's an interesting rebuttal.
While the claim is rather bold and surprising, Atwill does a reasonable job of making the case for his central thesis. If one reads the Gospels intertextually with Josephus' War of the Jews, just as one would read the story of the life of Jesus with the life of Moses to gain additional insight, one can read the ministry of Jesus as parallel to the military campaign of Titus during the First Jewish-Roman War, with each major battle sharing a parallel metaphorical story with the Bible. When Jesus speaks of being "fishers of men", for example, at Galilee, being parallel to the hunting of Jewish rebels by the Romans in the Sea of Galilee early in the campaign. One of the more striking parallels to me is that when Jesus enters Jerusalem for the first time, the Bible tells of the "stones crying out," which seemed nonsensical to me when I originally studies those passages in Mormon Seminary, but makes literal sense when read as a metaphor for the catapult driven siege of Jerusalem by Titus as he entered the city. Indeed, the stones cried out as the walls were bombarded by catapulted projectiles just as Titus enters Jerusalem.
All fascinating stuff, but I think Atwill reaches a bit far when intertextually reconstructing the resurrection of Jesus between the four Gospels as a comedy or errors in which characters in one book's representation mistake the characters in the other books' stories for angels which leads them to believe that Jesus has risen. It's as if we are privy to a first century Judean equivalent of a Three's Company episode where the end result of the aggregate of the character's folly is to develop a belief that Jesus came back from the dead. Atwill's argument here is that since the merged stories can lead to such an interpretation, the specific details which support that interpretation are incredibly unlikely to have occurred by chance. My counter to that is that we haven't analysed how many alternate details could be interpreted in a way which would lead to a similar shocking or subversive interpretation -- only how probable this interpretation is. It's similar to the fallacious argument that God must exist because the particulars of this universe which support life are incredibly unlikely to have occurred by chance.
Overall, though, Atwill does have plenty of interesting ideas, and there are more than those I've mentioned. Oh, so many more. Did I mention that Atwill proposed that the idea of Jesus as passover lamb and the "eating of the flesh" were metaphors for cannibalism which occurred within Jersualem when famine struck during Titus' siege? You'll have to read the book for the full explanation, which is truly amusing as a dark, dark satire. I'd recommend it for the boldness of the ideas alone, but keep your skepticism engaged and check outside sources while reading. And, if you start to take it completely at face value, google for Robert M. Price's criticism of the book. It's an interesting rebuttal.
April 7, 2009
It's extremely difficult for me to judge the truth/accuracy of the reasoning in this book because I don't think I have enough expertise on 1st Century Roman history. But of all the attempts to uncover the origins of christianity - this book presents one of the most plausible explanations that I'm aware of. Probably a minority of people think (as I do) that Jesus of the New Testament is a mythological character - NOT an actual historical figure. And probably the majority within that minority believe that the myth was originally created by Jews in opposition to Roman rule. THIS book represents a minority within the minority as it presents the idea that the jesus myth was created by a group of Roman rulers as a false rallying point for messianic Jews in order to pacify and subdue their resistance to Roman rule. So it's expected that this book would not be well received, not just by christian apologetics, but by many non-believers as well since it challenges to the core what the vast majority of people believe about the christianity.
Other notes:
-I think it helps to be familiar with the Machiavellian view of how political power operates in order to appreciate the critique in this book.
-The unfortunate comparison to the Da Vinci code is understandable as a back-cover marketing tactic, but it's a little misleading as it banalizes the subject matter here.
August 9, 2014
I would have to say that I'm slightly biased in my religious background to review this book fairly. I have to say that I grew up forced to read the Bible cover to cover into my mid twenties. I even took a Christian/Bible based tour through the "Promised Land" to see the scrolls and locations -including Masada. I was raised believing the scriptures to be literally the word straight from god. Anyways, I'm currently an atheist, I have always felt the Bible had a dark secret it was keeping, and now I thank Atwill for clearly pointing it out. I have never read anything like the critical analysis Caesar's Messiah gives, he absolutely vivisects the Bible by using the book of Josephus to do so. It's brilliant and fascinating. The New Testament is a dark satire engineered by the Roman Flavian Dynasty to contort the Jewish religion and rebellion, and make a mockery of their symbols and prophecies. I wasn't sure if I bought Atwill's first couple examples -but follow him to the end and his findings are absolutely compelling. The 2,000 year old puzzle is solved, the Bible (New Testament) is a bogus joke, but a clever one. Now I only wish my crazy religious family would read this book.
April 19, 2014
Tunnel - Vision
What Atwill attempts with his work is commendable and deserves five stars just for his attempt to conquer such a monumental topic. However, the author is so engaged to prove his hypothesis that he not only ignores suggestions to the contrary but also misses that he actually would have been onto discovering something truly exciting. Looking beyond the shortcomings, researchers can thus find in this book valuable insights into a possible composition mechanism of the New Testament, although not the one presented by the author. Perhaps Cesar’s Messiah could be interesting for lovers of conspiracy theories or for anti-religionists. Instead, the rather complex work commands such high attention to detail and the capacity to absorb and distinguish between an onslaught of individual names and historic events that I doubt it reaching beyond popular polemics.
Atwill starts with a historical rundown that costs him a star. If he wants to clear up the history of Jesus Christ, first he should realign the history of the Jews and the history of Roman dominance in Judea. While he notices the royal implications on the Roman side, he seems unable to grasp what is really at stake. At times, Atwill does not seem to distinguish one group from another. He does not seem to recognize that the Romans may have already tried to exert control over Judaism with the construction of Herod’s Temple long before the Flavians came to power. Jesus, as imaginary as he may be, happened to be a Roman who also believed in the religion of Judaism – a Jew who was a Roman.
There is a glimmer of hope in a few pages of one of the last chapters (15) where the author starts to explore an interesting avenue. But then, as throughout the book, Atwill insists on the Flavians having created Jesus. This is an assumption that I am unable to logically duplicate, even with the best of wills, and even if I had desperately wanted to. I accept that Jesus did not exist in the first century and that his path may at times be shaped after Titus, and I suspect (a different) Flavian-Jewish conspiracy being pulled from behind the scene. But his case is all circumstantial and is in need of at least one solid anchor that is beyond doubt. Atwill probably misses the most important hints at his flawed theory: the destruction of the Temple was an accident, and the Maccabees had already been in bed with the Flavians before the war.
Atwill does not seem to be interested in the internal and external enemies of Jerusalem or of Rome and does thus not see who allied with whom and what their motives might have been. It sometimes appears as if the author did not even study his own sources in full. Otherwise, he could not have missed that the New Testament, without ever spelling it out loud, preaches against everything that was dear to the Roman culture. It even commands its disciples to send the taxes to Jerusalem, not to Rome, if one were to apply Atwill’s frame of thought. That the Flavians would have signed off on this is unlikely (unless the power game is in a sphere of the unimaginable, but the author is not bothered with an alternative scenario that would obviously change the odds of his case dramatically). Furthermore, Atwill has probably not studied the progression of Judaic beliefs into Eastern Christianity and Islam, even though he hints at some street-smarts. Many of his arguments are rendered futile by the persistence of such opposing religious creeds. For example, while Islam accepts John the Baptist, Mary, and Jesus, it refutes the crucifixion and the divinity of Jesus as understood in the West and offers a different avenue for the Holy Spirit through his mother. Thus, parallelisms with the crucifixion to prove that Titus invented Jesus must be so problematic that another star needs to be taken off.
The author also ignores document histories. Forgers were smart enough to use the writing styles and fonts of the target time and to put their works on old parchments. Atwill himself brags with Titus’s ability to forge any signature. Hence, the opinions of classical paleographical experts over the existence of the Gospels are worthless in an environment of total silence about Christianity deep into the second century (other than some dubious works that refer to Christ but not to Jesus). The books that were created after the four Gospels are even more problematic, and their origin might lie centuries out, making his upcoming work about a connection between Paul, Revelation, and Domitian so questionable that I will not bother. Even Nero’s ‘persecutions’ lead through ‘Chrestos,’ a term that perhaps indicates a Mithrianic movement rather than a Christian. Of course, Nero could not have been angry at Christians if Titus came to invent this sect. If then Atwill argues with the supposed works of Paul (who also find parallels in Josephus), he creates a house of cards. Better yet, the author debunks himself when stating that Christianity flourished while Josephus wrote Wars of the Jews. It would then follow that Josephus must have copied from the Gospels to bring them in alignment. Where are the traces of Christianity in Rome from the first century (or in Pompey)?
As the author reports, one of Jesus’s prophecies was that his followers would be named after him. Jesus’s followers were first known as The Way. Hence, the sectarian designation comes from the point of view of a firmly established Christianity since it also breaks with all naming conventions of Judaic sects from before the war (Sadducees, Hasmonean, Idumeans, Zealots, Sicarii, Rabbinic Judaism, Sabeans/Ebionites, Samaritans, and Essenes), all of which expect the Christ – their messiah – to come and save them. Each could have morphed into Christianity. Moreover, the Sabeans (which translate into baptizers) only adopted Christianity in the third century. Before, John the Baptist was their prophet, and they did not know of Jesus, the Christ and Messiah. On the other hand, Atwill uses writers that are centuries removed from the action to prove his point. Tertullian, for example, is so heavily redacted, and has supposedly changed hats more than once, that we cannot be sure what he believed in, if anything. He even advocated opposing core doctrines about Jesus’s nature in one and the same book. Augustine, too, had supposedly converted from Manicheanism, which is comparable to Archbishop Borgoglio of Buenos Aires declaring himself Imam. Eusebius is even worse. Without him, we have pretty much nothing about early Christianity, and he is generally accepted as a fraudster. Why did only Eusebius understand the methodology when every Rabbi before him should have immediately gotten the message? By throwing just about any similarity at the reader, Atwill’s approach is comparable to how the history of the church has been composed. While modern researchers are trying to untangle these webs, Atwill does not contribute much to this difficult process. The more Atwill adds new sources, the more obvious his tunnel-vision becomes. Researchers need to have the courage to experiment and publish versions that are not watertight. However, this one goes so much too far that another star needs to be removed.
Probably one of his worst flaws and the reason for striking down the fourth star is the insistence on the New Testament and Josephus being the interdependent work of the same hand. He goes as far as taking the passages that refer to Jesus Christ in Josephus as authentic and sets out to prove that they are part of a three pillar temple argument. However, the verbiage of the text is undoubtedly post Constantine (details can be looked up in my work, The Great-Leap Fraud, Vol I. from page 225-226; these pages are available online on books.google). The LEGALITY of Jesus’s divinity, as addressed in the text, came to fruition in the sixth century. None of the author’s sources indicate that there are not other possibilities, in particular when considering that both, the New Testament and Josephus (according to Atwill), knew of Jesus Christ, but Qumran, which he also superficially uses as evidence, does not know of this messiah. Instead of an intermix, there is obviously also a sequence to be taken into consideration. Logical thinkers should be able to recognize that real events lie before the prophesy. Josephus’s passages do not refer to Jesus’s prophetic power and are thus absent of one of Attwill’s central arguments. Even if one were to accept them as authentic, all of Jesus’s details remain in the Gospel and not in Josephus, still indicating a sequence. Moreover, the presence of Epaphroditus as an addressee in both works suggests a deliberate machination that was made to look like the New Testament being dependent on Josephus, rather than being interdependent. The problem with any sequence is that it crushes Atwill’s hypothesis.
The author recognizes that the Flavians were pontiffs. He also identifies that the first pope used the same terminology for his title. However, he neither sees the obvious and intolerable competition between the high-priests of differing religions in Rome nor the paradox that Rome and not Jerusalem would become the seat of the Catholic Pontiff.
The author would have been better off to focus on delivering a foundation of the parallelisms between Josephus and the Gospels without venturing into the jungle of declaring Titus as the Jesus champion of the Roman world. Such a work, together with computer based style analysis, would have brought forth truly inspiring discoveries about the relations between these works. It would not only have been popular and sensational on its own, it would have truly contributed to the understanding of the murky mechanisms of religion. Perhaps, he would have found a mathematical key to the composition of the scripture and could have demonstrated that it was the intention of the Gospels to be put in parallel to Josephus and Titus. Researchers may recognize an opportunity to reverse-engineer, realign, and expand on Atwill’s work without ever having to give him credit. Not a single one of Atwill’s parallels can logically be connected to Titus being Jesus (vs. Titus in Josephus being a model for Jesus), and all of them are merely circular, if not the exact opposite of the author’s claims.
If not before, the plot finally falls apart where Christians did not recognize for two millennia that they had worshipped Titus. What is the purpose of the deception if Titus (or later Domitian) does not end up as the undisputed and universally accepted King of the Jews in his lifetime? I am sorry, I truly wanted to give it five stars for trying; but I cannot.
What Atwill attempts with his work is commendable and deserves five stars just for his attempt to conquer such a monumental topic. However, the author is so engaged to prove his hypothesis that he not only ignores suggestions to the contrary but also misses that he actually would have been onto discovering something truly exciting. Looking beyond the shortcomings, researchers can thus find in this book valuable insights into a possible composition mechanism of the New Testament, although not the one presented by the author. Perhaps Cesar’s Messiah could be interesting for lovers of conspiracy theories or for anti-religionists. Instead, the rather complex work commands such high attention to detail and the capacity to absorb and distinguish between an onslaught of individual names and historic events that I doubt it reaching beyond popular polemics.
Atwill starts with a historical rundown that costs him a star. If he wants to clear up the history of Jesus Christ, first he should realign the history of the Jews and the history of Roman dominance in Judea. While he notices the royal implications on the Roman side, he seems unable to grasp what is really at stake. At times, Atwill does not seem to distinguish one group from another. He does not seem to recognize that the Romans may have already tried to exert control over Judaism with the construction of Herod’s Temple long before the Flavians came to power. Jesus, as imaginary as he may be, happened to be a Roman who also believed in the religion of Judaism – a Jew who was a Roman.
There is a glimmer of hope in a few pages of one of the last chapters (15) where the author starts to explore an interesting avenue. But then, as throughout the book, Atwill insists on the Flavians having created Jesus. This is an assumption that I am unable to logically duplicate, even with the best of wills, and even if I had desperately wanted to. I accept that Jesus did not exist in the first century and that his path may at times be shaped after Titus, and I suspect (a different) Flavian-Jewish conspiracy being pulled from behind the scene. But his case is all circumstantial and is in need of at least one solid anchor that is beyond doubt. Atwill probably misses the most important hints at his flawed theory: the destruction of the Temple was an accident, and the Maccabees had already been in bed with the Flavians before the war.
Atwill does not seem to be interested in the internal and external enemies of Jerusalem or of Rome and does thus not see who allied with whom and what their motives might have been. It sometimes appears as if the author did not even study his own sources in full. Otherwise, he could not have missed that the New Testament, without ever spelling it out loud, preaches against everything that was dear to the Roman culture. It even commands its disciples to send the taxes to Jerusalem, not to Rome, if one were to apply Atwill’s frame of thought. That the Flavians would have signed off on this is unlikely (unless the power game is in a sphere of the unimaginable, but the author is not bothered with an alternative scenario that would obviously change the odds of his case dramatically). Furthermore, Atwill has probably not studied the progression of Judaic beliefs into Eastern Christianity and Islam, even though he hints at some street-smarts. Many of his arguments are rendered futile by the persistence of such opposing religious creeds. For example, while Islam accepts John the Baptist, Mary, and Jesus, it refutes the crucifixion and the divinity of Jesus as understood in the West and offers a different avenue for the Holy Spirit through his mother. Thus, parallelisms with the crucifixion to prove that Titus invented Jesus must be so problematic that another star needs to be taken off.
The author also ignores document histories. Forgers were smart enough to use the writing styles and fonts of the target time and to put their works on old parchments. Atwill himself brags with Titus’s ability to forge any signature. Hence, the opinions of classical paleographical experts over the existence of the Gospels are worthless in an environment of total silence about Christianity deep into the second century (other than some dubious works that refer to Christ but not to Jesus). The books that were created after the four Gospels are even more problematic, and their origin might lie centuries out, making his upcoming work about a connection between Paul, Revelation, and Domitian so questionable that I will not bother. Even Nero’s ‘persecutions’ lead through ‘Chrestos,’ a term that perhaps indicates a Mithrianic movement rather than a Christian. Of course, Nero could not have been angry at Christians if Titus came to invent this sect. If then Atwill argues with the supposed works of Paul (who also find parallels in Josephus), he creates a house of cards. Better yet, the author debunks himself when stating that Christianity flourished while Josephus wrote Wars of the Jews. It would then follow that Josephus must have copied from the Gospels to bring them in alignment. Where are the traces of Christianity in Rome from the first century (or in Pompey)?
As the author reports, one of Jesus’s prophecies was that his followers would be named after him. Jesus’s followers were first known as The Way. Hence, the sectarian designation comes from the point of view of a firmly established Christianity since it also breaks with all naming conventions of Judaic sects from before the war (Sadducees, Hasmonean, Idumeans, Zealots, Sicarii, Rabbinic Judaism, Sabeans/Ebionites, Samaritans, and Essenes), all of which expect the Christ – their messiah – to come and save them. Each could have morphed into Christianity. Moreover, the Sabeans (which translate into baptizers) only adopted Christianity in the third century. Before, John the Baptist was their prophet, and they did not know of Jesus, the Christ and Messiah. On the other hand, Atwill uses writers that are centuries removed from the action to prove his point. Tertullian, for example, is so heavily redacted, and has supposedly changed hats more than once, that we cannot be sure what he believed in, if anything. He even advocated opposing core doctrines about Jesus’s nature in one and the same book. Augustine, too, had supposedly converted from Manicheanism, which is comparable to Archbishop Borgoglio of Buenos Aires declaring himself Imam. Eusebius is even worse. Without him, we have pretty much nothing about early Christianity, and he is generally accepted as a fraudster. Why did only Eusebius understand the methodology when every Rabbi before him should have immediately gotten the message? By throwing just about any similarity at the reader, Atwill’s approach is comparable to how the history of the church has been composed. While modern researchers are trying to untangle these webs, Atwill does not contribute much to this difficult process. The more Atwill adds new sources, the more obvious his tunnel-vision becomes. Researchers need to have the courage to experiment and publish versions that are not watertight. However, this one goes so much too far that another star needs to be removed.
Probably one of his worst flaws and the reason for striking down the fourth star is the insistence on the New Testament and Josephus being the interdependent work of the same hand. He goes as far as taking the passages that refer to Jesus Christ in Josephus as authentic and sets out to prove that they are part of a three pillar temple argument. However, the verbiage of the text is undoubtedly post Constantine (details can be looked up in my work, The Great-Leap Fraud, Vol I. from page 225-226; these pages are available online on books.google). The LEGALITY of Jesus’s divinity, as addressed in the text, came to fruition in the sixth century. None of the author’s sources indicate that there are not other possibilities, in particular when considering that both, the New Testament and Josephus (according to Atwill), knew of Jesus Christ, but Qumran, which he also superficially uses as evidence, does not know of this messiah. Instead of an intermix, there is obviously also a sequence to be taken into consideration. Logical thinkers should be able to recognize that real events lie before the prophesy. Josephus’s passages do not refer to Jesus’s prophetic power and are thus absent of one of Attwill’s central arguments. Even if one were to accept them as authentic, all of Jesus’s details remain in the Gospel and not in Josephus, still indicating a sequence. Moreover, the presence of Epaphroditus as an addressee in both works suggests a deliberate machination that was made to look like the New Testament being dependent on Josephus, rather than being interdependent. The problem with any sequence is that it crushes Atwill’s hypothesis.
The author recognizes that the Flavians were pontiffs. He also identifies that the first pope used the same terminology for his title. However, he neither sees the obvious and intolerable competition between the high-priests of differing religions in Rome nor the paradox that Rome and not Jerusalem would become the seat of the Catholic Pontiff.
The author would have been better off to focus on delivering a foundation of the parallelisms between Josephus and the Gospels without venturing into the jungle of declaring Titus as the Jesus champion of the Roman world. Such a work, together with computer based style analysis, would have brought forth truly inspiring discoveries about the relations between these works. It would not only have been popular and sensational on its own, it would have truly contributed to the understanding of the murky mechanisms of religion. Perhaps, he would have found a mathematical key to the composition of the scripture and could have demonstrated that it was the intention of the Gospels to be put in parallel to Josephus and Titus. Researchers may recognize an opportunity to reverse-engineer, realign, and expand on Atwill’s work without ever having to give him credit. Not a single one of Atwill’s parallels can logically be connected to Titus being Jesus (vs. Titus in Josephus being a model for Jesus), and all of them are merely circular, if not the exact opposite of the author’s claims.
If not before, the plot finally falls apart where Christians did not recognize for two millennia that they had worshipped Titus. What is the purpose of the deception if Titus (or later Domitian) does not end up as the undisputed and universally accepted King of the Jews in his lifetime? I am sorry, I truly wanted to give it five stars for trying; but I cannot.
September 9, 2013
The premise of the book was intriguing, but it's execution was horrible. Atwill uses slippery language ("some believe"--who exactly is left unanswered) and fallacious arguments, despite his profession of "logic."
For example, when trying to reconcile the 4 Gospels, he says only those able to think "intelligently and logically" (135-135) will get the "comedy of errors (142)." He then abandons implicit insults and comes right out with ad hominems: Only those who "are illogical will believe that the passages indicate that Jesus rose from the dead" (142).
And how does he solve the "contradictions" within his own "logical" explanation? By requiring the reader to believe another set of facts (in this case, that Mary Magdalene is 4 separate women, one in each Gospel) in order for his interpretation to work. In other words, in order to accept his conclusion that the Gospels are one story, you have to resolve the contradictions surrounding Mary by seeing that she's not the same person in each Gospel (she's a different woman in each story). And how do we know this? Because the Gospels are one story--the conclusion to his argument! That's known as "Begging the Question" in the world of logical fallacies. (Basing a conclusion on an assumption that is as much in need of proof or demonstration as the conclusion itself).
Of course, Atwill also claims that Titus and company invented Jesus and thus Christianity. Titus' "parallel" events begin in 66/67 CE. So how did Nero persecute non-existent Christians in 64 CE as recorded by Tacitus? (Unsurprisingly, Atwill cherry-picks the passages related by Tacitus).
Atwill also stretches "definitions" to make his parallels work. For example, he cites the Bible's phrase of "fishers of men" and compares it to a sea battle where Romans in boats killed some Jews in the water. Clearly, then, the Romans are "fishers of men" and the two are equivalent in the great cosmic joke of Christianity. (But if you disagree, you're being illogical and aren't smart enough to "get it.")
The most absurd thing is that this book is actually going to be made into a documentary.
Full Disclosure: I was raised Catholic but am no longer a practicing Christian. I had no assumptions/bias before reading this book, only an interest in what he had to say.
For example, when trying to reconcile the 4 Gospels, he says only those able to think "intelligently and logically" (135-135) will get the "comedy of errors (142)." He then abandons implicit insults and comes right out with ad hominems: Only those who "are illogical will believe that the passages indicate that Jesus rose from the dead" (142).
And how does he solve the "contradictions" within his own "logical" explanation? By requiring the reader to believe another set of facts (in this case, that Mary Magdalene is 4 separate women, one in each Gospel) in order for his interpretation to work. In other words, in order to accept his conclusion that the Gospels are one story, you have to resolve the contradictions surrounding Mary by seeing that she's not the same person in each Gospel (she's a different woman in each story). And how do we know this? Because the Gospels are one story--the conclusion to his argument! That's known as "Begging the Question" in the world of logical fallacies. (Basing a conclusion on an assumption that is as much in need of proof or demonstration as the conclusion itself).
Of course, Atwill also claims that Titus and company invented Jesus and thus Christianity. Titus' "parallel" events begin in 66/67 CE. So how did Nero persecute non-existent Christians in 64 CE as recorded by Tacitus? (Unsurprisingly, Atwill cherry-picks the passages related by Tacitus).
Atwill also stretches "definitions" to make his parallels work. For example, he cites the Bible's phrase of "fishers of men" and compares it to a sea battle where Romans in boats killed some Jews in the water. Clearly, then, the Romans are "fishers of men" and the two are equivalent in the great cosmic joke of Christianity. (But if you disagree, you're being illogical and aren't smart enough to "get it.")
The most absurd thing is that this book is actually going to be made into a documentary.
Full Disclosure: I was raised Catholic but am no longer a practicing Christian. I had no assumptions/bias before reading this book, only an interest in what he had to say.
Read
October 15, 2012A very thought provoking book. Since I already had a basic knowledge of John Allegro's work with the Dead Sea scrolls, I found this book very interesting. It certainly explains how a religion with a solid foundation in the Torah and rabbinical tradition, does not have a single historical document or other contemporary account written in Aramaic or Hebrew. Ironically all accounts by Jesus' Jewish apostles were recorded in Latin or Greek, who with the exception of Paul probably had very little knowledge of Greek or Latin. It also explains why the new religion rather than following the egalitarian Jewish tradition based on logic and argument became a hierarchical system based on the Roman Emperor and Senate. SPOILER WARNING - Christians who are afraid of questioning the foundations of their faith could become very upset by this book
January 12, 2014
This book is really good. If you want to find out what Christianity and perhaps organized religion in general is all about read this study.
November 1, 2013
The book is an analysis of the origins of Christianity as a Roman state sponsored religion. In a remarkably innovative bit of close textual analysis he demonstrates that Josephus Jewish War, and the New Testament were joint works written to mutually support one another. Taken together the New Testament makes prophecies about the downfall of Judaism and Josephus portrays the apparently miraculous acting out of the manufactured prophecies. The author reveals dozens of close thematic and chronological parallels between the two books leading to the conclusion that the New Testament is a satire on the campaigns of Titus and Vespasian to crush the Jews. This explains why it contains little other than anti-semitic poison and platitudes to justify subjugation to Ceasar. From the very introduction of the Xmas story the aim is to show that Jesua and his family were good loyal Roman taxpayers - traveling all the way to Bethlehem to be taxed even though, living in Galilee they were not really liable to pay Roman taxes at all.
The author makes a strong case, but suffers from a slightly repetitive style. Well worth close study though.
The author makes a strong case, but suffers from a slightly repetitive style. Well worth close study though.
September 24, 2021
Head blown
It is amazing to see the discoveries Joseph has come across in his research of the topic. The evidence he presents turns not only Christianity, but the entire history of the western world, in its head.
It is amazing to see the discoveries Joseph has come across in his research of the topic. The evidence he presents turns not only Christianity, but the entire history of the western world, in its head.
Currently reading
January 28, 2009A bit difficult to get through thus far as the book reads like a thesis, but highly interesting subject matter.
October 27, 2013
I have no knowledge here. I am taking it as read that he isn't distorting the text or choosing versions to suit his case whilst ignoring others, on the perhaps ropey assumption that he wouldn’t get away with it. If anyone knows any different than please let me know.
His main technique seems to be reading the various descriptions of events side by side and so spotting variations on a theme in stories that at first glance are not related. He concentrate on the concepts and timelines of he stories rather than exact phrasing, names of characters in them or exact locations. He claims this was a recognised literary technique or device of the time to encrypt meanings for those in the know. I don't know if this is true. Any ideas how to check it out?
He generates a logical explanation for the many coincidences so revealed based upon politics and otherwise known methods of the Romans of the time.
No statistical analyses of the size of most of the various coincidences, with one exception.
He makes sense of contradiction in the four gospels re Easter Sunday by combining them, reveals they are each others angels and it was Tomb of Lazarus he and calculates 1 in 254 million chance of the four stories combining logically without contradiction. But he does this by assuming his is the only alternative internally consistent narrative. I think he is ignoring other ways the tale can be told and so this perhaps reduces his odds by a factor of a hundred or a thousand? But still impressively slim odds.
On reflection I’m frustrated. If this was science I could read review papers. Even in areas of dispute I could get an overview. But the reviews I have read suggest a huge range of ideas, all convincing to their authors and some followers. Can anyone suggest a work giving a overview of the field?
His main technique seems to be reading the various descriptions of events side by side and so spotting variations on a theme in stories that at first glance are not related. He concentrate on the concepts and timelines of he stories rather than exact phrasing, names of characters in them or exact locations. He claims this was a recognised literary technique or device of the time to encrypt meanings for those in the know. I don't know if this is true. Any ideas how to check it out?
He generates a logical explanation for the many coincidences so revealed based upon politics and otherwise known methods of the Romans of the time.
No statistical analyses of the size of most of the various coincidences, with one exception.
He makes sense of contradiction in the four gospels re Easter Sunday by combining them, reveals they are each others angels and it was Tomb of Lazarus he and calculates 1 in 254 million chance of the four stories combining logically without contradiction. But he does this by assuming his is the only alternative internally consistent narrative. I think he is ignoring other ways the tale can be told and so this perhaps reduces his odds by a factor of a hundred or a thousand? But still impressively slim odds.
On reflection I’m frustrated. If this was science I could read review papers. Even in areas of dispute I could get an overview. But the reviews I have read suggest a huge range of ideas, all convincing to their authors and some followers. Can anyone suggest a work giving a overview of the field?
April 8, 2012
In "Caesar's Messiah" Joseph Atwill presents a grand hypothesis which is a conglomerate of nonsensical hypotheses.
According to Atwill Christianity, the New Testament (alongside Jesephus' "The Jewish War"), Jesus, the Apostels as well as the majority of NT characters are part of a Flavian conspiracy to subdue militant Sicarii Jewish rebellion against Rome, by creating a pacifist version of Judaism. What Atwill fails to do is to present credible evidence (other than far-fetched parallels between NT and Josephus' work) to support his mess of ideas:
for example Jesus is Titus, but at the same time a lampoon version of Jewish rebel leaders, as well as a new pacifist version of Jewish messianic figures;
Christianity is actually a religion designed for Jews, who refused to worship Roman rulers; while at the same time it is a satire of Judaism;
and a first intelligence test designed by the Flavians for the sophisticated reader (while at the same time claiming Christianity was meant for stupid masses of slaves and common folk)
Overall excruciating to read. I give the book one star for its persistence in being incoherent from first to last page.
According to Atwill Christianity, the New Testament (alongside Jesephus' "The Jewish War"), Jesus, the Apostels as well as the majority of NT characters are part of a Flavian conspiracy to subdue militant Sicarii Jewish rebellion against Rome, by creating a pacifist version of Judaism. What Atwill fails to do is to present credible evidence (other than far-fetched parallels between NT and Josephus' work) to support his mess of ideas:
for example Jesus is Titus, but at the same time a lampoon version of Jewish rebel leaders, as well as a new pacifist version of Jewish messianic figures;
Christianity is actually a religion designed for Jews, who refused to worship Roman rulers; while at the same time it is a satire of Judaism;
and a first intelligence test designed by the Flavians for the sophisticated reader (while at the same time claiming Christianity was meant for stupid masses of slaves and common folk)
Overall excruciating to read. I give the book one star for its persistence in being incoherent from first to last page.
December 19, 2013
At times it read too much like at academic thesis, and was hard to sit through for long periods of time. However, there were some very compelling theories and ideas that make sense. I'd love to see this vetted by another biblical scholar and other works on the topic. The Bible after all was written by human hands so there isn't a large leap of faith for me to understand it as a propaganda piece to pacify a violent group of religious zealots. The ironic parallels presented between New Testament and that of War of the Jews were mostly convincing. But, his language at times seemed self defeating and less assertive than it should been. Certainly, with the amount of time required to compose a work like this it should be more sharply presented, with clear arcs of ideas outlining methodology and conclusion. Worth the time if you're curious though, it's compelling.
February 8, 2014
This book is probably more for serious scholars of Early Christian History. From the perspective of this amateur, it was very thought provoking, but I would like to accompany it with other either supportive or critical works. Unfortunately, at this point I've only found people attacking the author directly, and not addressing his evidence or the facts themselves.
I don't know if this book could have been organized better. He is presenting the gospels and "The War of the Jews" as a synthesis, so there is a lot of interweaving and circular discussion, so it gets somewhat confusing. Again, possibly if I were versed in Greek or truly steeped in the history, I could either immediately discount his arguments or affirm them.
I don't know if this book could have been organized better. He is presenting the gospels and "The War of the Jews" as a synthesis, so there is a lot of interweaving and circular discussion, so it gets somewhat confusing. Again, possibly if I were versed in Greek or truly steeped in the history, I could either immediately discount his arguments or affirm them.
Read
January 31, 2020Unfortunately the lowest I can give this book is no stars, but if I could give this book minus stars I would. I want to begin my gutting of this worthless piece of shameless nonsense with a quote from Richard Carrier:
"Notice his theory entails a massive and weirdly erudite conspiracy of truly bizarre scope and pedigree, [whose goal is] to achieve a truly Quixotic aim that hardly makes sense coming from any half-intelligent elite of the era (even after adjusting for the Flynn effect), all to posit that the entire Christian religion was created by the Romans (and then immediately opposed by them?), who somehow got hundreds of Jews (?) to abandon their religion and join a cult that simply appeared suddenly without explanation on the Palestinian book market (?) without endorsement.
I honestly shouldn’t have to explain why this is absurd. But I’ll hit some highlights. Then I’ll reveal the reasons why I think Atwill is a total crank, and his work should be ignored, indeed everywhere warned against as among the worst of mythicism, not representative of any serious argument that Jesus didn’t exist. And that’s coming from me, someone who believes Jesus didn’t exist." [Atwill's Cranked-up Jesus • Richard Carrier]
There are multiple problems with Atwell’s Flavian hypothesis.
(1) The Romans
The Roman aristocracy was nowhere near as clever as Atwill’s theory requires. They certainly were not so masterfully educated in the Jewish scriptures and theology that they could compose hundreds of pages of elegant passages based on it.
There is no evidence the Romans would have cared enough to attempt this or have had the ability to pull it off without leaving a trace.
Rome tended to solve every problem militarily—and up until the 3rd century AD—did so quite well. The Jewish War was effectively over in just four years (any siege war was expected to take at least three, and Vespasian was actually busy conquering Rome in the fourth year of that War). So why would they think they needed any other solution?
Atwill says the use of "typology" by the Flavians was learned from Judaism, but even the ancient pagans thought in these terms, so there was no need for the Romans to borrow the idea from anyone. The use of typology does not prove wholesale fiction on the part of the Romans just because they used something everyone did.
A score of Atwill's errors are the result of not recognizing commonality often simply reflects a commonplace.
(2) The Jews
If the Romans created the figure of Jesus to win the Jews over to a new ‘peaceful Messiah’, they did an amazingly bad job. Imagine: you’re inventing something, making it up, a story you want to ‘sell’ to a certain group of people. You can say anything you want that you think will accomplish your purpose—and the Jesus story is what you come up with? You decide that the Jewish leadership—the same Jewish leadership you want to win over— are the “bad guys” and you choose to show them in a consistently negative light.
Then you describe the main character’s attitude toward these same leader’s cherished Law in a way that would also be deeply offensive to them. The story says his disrespect gave them cause to reject and kill him—wouldn’t it also provide cause to reject the tale itself?
The Jesus in this story goes around forgiving sin—which the Jews strictly said could only be done by God, at the Temple, in Jerusalem alone, through the correct sacrifice—but Jesus does it willy-nilly, everywhere, with anyone who asks, and he does so in his own name. Wouldn’t Jews reading this be just as offended as the story says real Jews were?
His disciples pick grain on the Sabbath, and in their defense, the story says Jesus tells the decent law-abiding Pharisees that he is Lord of the Sabbath. Wow. I would think that would make any self-respecting Pharisee want to explode!
He excuses his disciples for not following traditions like the ceremonial washing of hands, and even goes so far as to make a new covenant excluding the Levites and the Priests altogether! How would anyone inventing a story think any of that would be a story first century Jews would embrace?
The author of First Corinthians acknowledges that the cross represented a “stumbling block for Jews” (1:23)—a reason not to respect Jesus—and all four gospels revolve around the crucifixion. How is a character like this designed to win over Jews?
If you were inventing something you wanted to be accepted by first century Jews, it makes no sense to make the first witnesses of the empty tomb all women. Women were not allowed in this era to be witnesses or testify in court. This would be rejected outright by second temple Hebrews.
In the book of Acts, the “gentile-ification” of Jesus would also tend to make the Jews reject the story. The Jews made it a point not to emulate the pagan Gentile world: wearing their hair differently, and avoiding going to the gymnasium or the theater. And then those Gentiles were told they didn’t have to follow Jewish law and dietary practices! Good night nurse! Pacifying the Jews would not have been doable through a cult that eliminated Jewish law and accepted Gentiles as equals.
The entire content of the New Testament seems to give Jews reasons to reject rather than embrace the story—even down to the language itself. If the Roman elite’s aim was to “pacify” Palestinian Jews by inventing new scriptures, they should have known they wouldn’t succeed by using language the Judean elite despised as foreign: the entire New Testament is written in Greek.
Since this author was supposedly the Jewish Josephus, wouldn’t he have known all these things about his fellow Jews even if the Romans didn’t?
(3) Authorship
Atwill alleges Josephus wrote the entire New Testament, but nearly all scholars of all kinds, agree that the New Testament documents are written in a diverse writing style that cannot be attributed to a single author.
Atwill treats the Gospels as if they are a uniform whole instead of the separate books they actually are.
(4) Parallels
Atwill’s evidence—and I use the term loosely— is based primarily upon what he interprets as ‘parallels’ between Josephus and the New Testament. It is his argument that the parallels add up to an intentional design, a code, that can be pieced together to show how the Flavians invented the character of Jesus, and had Josephus write the entire N.T. all by himself.
Only no one else before Atwill has ever recognized this code, not in 2000 years, “because . . . they didn’t read Josephus. . . no, wait, they did do that. . . . It has to be because Atwill is so much smarter. . . . Yeah, that’s it . . . because the early Christians and any of their opponents could have [and did] read Josephus. They just didn’t see the coded messaging that would have made the case that Atwill sees. Even Josephus experts haven’t seen that. . . . Or experts in the gospels.”[Josephus Code Follies - Dr. Michael Heiser}
Moreover, to get a statistically significant result [using parallels], you need more than one vaguely similar, but completely different, word. You need something like multiple exact matches of otherwise unusual words, or a series of otherwise unlikely coincidences of ordered events or concepts, or something along those lines.
No one else has ever seen Atwell’s ‘code’ because Atwill’s parallels aren’t true parallels. They’re contrived, and too imprecise to warrant any credible belief.
Parallels that Aren’t There
For example, Atwill says that when Jesus calls the disciples to be “fishers of men” this is a secret code related to a scene in Josephus’ “Jewish War.” Atwill says Jesus’ call to become “fishers of men” is a reference to when the Romans “caught Jews like fish” in the battle of Lake Tiberias. The description of the battle includes Emperor Titus’s troops killing Jews who had escaped them in the Sea of Galilee by cutting off their hands or heads and shooting them with darts.
This is not a parallel by any stretch of the definition. It’s an entirely subjective addition to the text, brought in from outside, not found within the text’s actual content, or in any historical evidence pertaining to the text. It’s not evidence of anything but imagination!
Parallels with Puns
Atwill says Josephus uses the parallel between “a fish called the ‘Coracin’ (in Jewish War: 3, 10, 8, 520) [The Works of Flavius Josephus] and Jesus’ prophecy – ‘Woe to you Chorazain’ —in Matt 11:21, to make a pun.
"But there is no parallel—in either the Greek letters, or the meaning… Besides being an example of evidence that doesn’t exist, this is also one of those instances that suggests Atwill does not know how to read Greek. A terrible failing for someone who is trying to perform complicated statistical literary analyses of linguistic parallels between, you know, Greek texts." [ibid]
"No one could possibly have imagined a pun being intended between these two words or references–except someone who reads only English…" [4]
Parallels with Pigs
The Sicarii were a splinter group of Jewish zealots who operated before the war in AD 70. They carried hidden knives, strongly opposed Roman occupation, and attempted to expel them and their sympathizers through guerilla type warfare.[5] Atwill says these Sicarrii can be seen as “emanating from John’s head … like the demons who came out of the demoniac in that they are a ‘legion’, as they are described as ‘too small for an army, and too many for a gang of thieves’ (Jewish War: 4, 7, 408). John is later described by Josephus as a source from which ‘wickedness emanated’ (Jewish War: 7, 8 263) – ‘John filled the entire country with ten thousand instances of wickedness’.”
This makes little sense. The word “legion” nowhere appears in these passages. And why does Atwill think “ten thousand” is somehow equivalent to “legion”? The words are nowhere near the same. The standard complement in a legion was 6000 men, not 10,000 … The Gospels also do not say ten thousand, but “two thousand.” And why does Atwill think a legion is “too small for an army” when a legion was by definition an army? (ibid)
…. Josephus says fifteen thousand men are killed, and that two thousand and two hundred are captured (JW 4.436). But in the biblical swine story, 2000 swine are killed, none are ‘captured’ (which would be meaningless for farm animals already ‘captured’, living in pens, destined for slaughter anyway), and not 2200. Clearly Atwill is struggling hard to invent a link here.
This is only a few examples of the kind of fabricated parallel typical of Atwill’s dubious methodology. It is the rankest of retrofitting.
More Parallels with Mary
Atwill’s analysis of Jewish War: 6.201ff is based entirely upon the name “Mary” as the mother of an eaten child, and Passover, to provide a connection between Josephus and the New Testament. However, “Mary” was one of the most common Jewish female names in the first century, held by one in four Jewish women at the time, and Passover is ubiquitous in all Jewish literature.
In the passage, Josephus uses symbolic-myth to describe the “plight of the Jews” during the Jewish War. What Josephus seems to have in mind is to communicate that Jewish society had been turned upside down by rebellion, and he does this by turning the Passover ‘upside down.’ The lamb of Passover symbolized the saving of human life; the story tells of the opposite. The links between the context of the story of the child and its mother in Josephus and the OT are clear, and obvious, and require no knowledge of Jesus or Christianity, much less imply any comment on them.
“Atwill might have had something … if the Gospels identified the mother of Jesus as “Mary the daughter of Eleazar” or “from the town of Bethezob,” (as the Mary in Josephus is identified), or had any Gospel identified any other Mary as being the actual daughter of Lazarus (“Eleazar”), instead of his sister, as only one Gospel actually does (Jn. 11:2). But alas, no such connections are there.
Mary is too common a name, as is Eleazar, to attempt to hang anything as unique as this story upon it alone. The Gospels fail to identify Lazarus as from Bethezob but instead say he is from Bethany. So it’s the wrong Lazarus.
And Mary is his sister in John, not his daughter as in Josephus. And even this Mary (in John, the only Mary connected to a Lazarus at all), is not the mother of Jesus. So it’s also the wrong Mary.
"… on every count the parallel is refuted, not established. You have to change too many things to make a fit. And once you have to start changing the text all over the place to get what you want, on the basis of no evidence whatever, you are in crank land” (ibid).
If Josephus and the Romans were contriving parallels to make or sell any deliberate point, surely they would have gotten their parallels straight.
(5) History
Tacitus' comment in Annals 15.44 places Roman reaction to Christianity, under Nero, nearly a decade before Atwill says Titus invented it. Atwill says nothing at all about this critical passage; nor does he mention Pliny's letter to Trajan asking what to do about Christians.
How credible is it that Domitian—himself a Flavian—persecuted Christianity and forgot that his own relatives had created it in the first place? If the Roman purpose had been to make the Jews peaceful, it was working—at least for those Jews and others who followed Jesus. For the first few centuries, Christians were peaceful enough they refused to serve in the army and soldiers who converted often left military service. Yet history shows the Romans were anything but pleased to see such ‘peacefulness.’ Christian soldiers were stripped of rank and executed.
Why would some of Domitian’s relatives actually become Christians—followers of a story they themselves invented?
Atwill says he could not conceive how Judaism could produce two movements so diametrically opposed as the zealots and the "peace"-advocting Jesus. But that means nothing. African American society produced Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X in the same generation. There’s nothing impossible about it. This too is meaningless non-evidence.
There is no history of anything Atwill claims. That absence of evidence would mean the Romans pulled off a major conspiracy while leaving no trace of it anywhere—not even its existence—as Atwell doesn’t ‘discover’ it until 2000 years later.
Please.
As Carrier says: "[Atwill] rarely knows what he is talking about, gets a lot wrong, makes stuff up, never admits an error, and is generally … a frustrating delusional fanatic. He also has no relevant academic degrees ... And he appears to have made no effort to acquire fundamental skills (like a working knowledge of Greek or how to use a biblical textual apparatus)."[https://www.richardcarrier.info/archi...]
Yet he claims to be an expert. "When will audiences get a clue?” (ibid).
Indeed.
"Notice his theory entails a massive and weirdly erudite conspiracy of truly bizarre scope and pedigree, [whose goal is] to achieve a truly Quixotic aim that hardly makes sense coming from any half-intelligent elite of the era (even after adjusting for the Flynn effect), all to posit that the entire Christian religion was created by the Romans (and then immediately opposed by them?), who somehow got hundreds of Jews (?) to abandon their religion and join a cult that simply appeared suddenly without explanation on the Palestinian book market (?) without endorsement.
I honestly shouldn’t have to explain why this is absurd. But I’ll hit some highlights. Then I’ll reveal the reasons why I think Atwill is a total crank, and his work should be ignored, indeed everywhere warned against as among the worst of mythicism, not representative of any serious argument that Jesus didn’t exist. And that’s coming from me, someone who believes Jesus didn’t exist." [Atwill's Cranked-up Jesus • Richard Carrier]
There are multiple problems with Atwell’s Flavian hypothesis.
(1) The Romans
The Roman aristocracy was nowhere near as clever as Atwill’s theory requires. They certainly were not so masterfully educated in the Jewish scriptures and theology that they could compose hundreds of pages of elegant passages based on it.
There is no evidence the Romans would have cared enough to attempt this or have had the ability to pull it off without leaving a trace.
Rome tended to solve every problem militarily—and up until the 3rd century AD—did so quite well. The Jewish War was effectively over in just four years (any siege war was expected to take at least three, and Vespasian was actually busy conquering Rome in the fourth year of that War). So why would they think they needed any other solution?
Atwill says the use of "typology" by the Flavians was learned from Judaism, but even the ancient pagans thought in these terms, so there was no need for the Romans to borrow the idea from anyone. The use of typology does not prove wholesale fiction on the part of the Romans just because they used something everyone did.
A score of Atwill's errors are the result of not recognizing commonality often simply reflects a commonplace.
(2) The Jews
If the Romans created the figure of Jesus to win the Jews over to a new ‘peaceful Messiah’, they did an amazingly bad job. Imagine: you’re inventing something, making it up, a story you want to ‘sell’ to a certain group of people. You can say anything you want that you think will accomplish your purpose—and the Jesus story is what you come up with? You decide that the Jewish leadership—the same Jewish leadership you want to win over— are the “bad guys” and you choose to show them in a consistently negative light.
Then you describe the main character’s attitude toward these same leader’s cherished Law in a way that would also be deeply offensive to them. The story says his disrespect gave them cause to reject and kill him—wouldn’t it also provide cause to reject the tale itself?
The Jesus in this story goes around forgiving sin—which the Jews strictly said could only be done by God, at the Temple, in Jerusalem alone, through the correct sacrifice—but Jesus does it willy-nilly, everywhere, with anyone who asks, and he does so in his own name. Wouldn’t Jews reading this be just as offended as the story says real Jews were?
His disciples pick grain on the Sabbath, and in their defense, the story says Jesus tells the decent law-abiding Pharisees that he is Lord of the Sabbath. Wow. I would think that would make any self-respecting Pharisee want to explode!
He excuses his disciples for not following traditions like the ceremonial washing of hands, and even goes so far as to make a new covenant excluding the Levites and the Priests altogether! How would anyone inventing a story think any of that would be a story first century Jews would embrace?
The author of First Corinthians acknowledges that the cross represented a “stumbling block for Jews” (1:23)—a reason not to respect Jesus—and all four gospels revolve around the crucifixion. How is a character like this designed to win over Jews?
If you were inventing something you wanted to be accepted by first century Jews, it makes no sense to make the first witnesses of the empty tomb all women. Women were not allowed in this era to be witnesses or testify in court. This would be rejected outright by second temple Hebrews.
In the book of Acts, the “gentile-ification” of Jesus would also tend to make the Jews reject the story. The Jews made it a point not to emulate the pagan Gentile world: wearing their hair differently, and avoiding going to the gymnasium or the theater. And then those Gentiles were told they didn’t have to follow Jewish law and dietary practices! Good night nurse! Pacifying the Jews would not have been doable through a cult that eliminated Jewish law and accepted Gentiles as equals.
The entire content of the New Testament seems to give Jews reasons to reject rather than embrace the story—even down to the language itself. If the Roman elite’s aim was to “pacify” Palestinian Jews by inventing new scriptures, they should have known they wouldn’t succeed by using language the Judean elite despised as foreign: the entire New Testament is written in Greek.
Since this author was supposedly the Jewish Josephus, wouldn’t he have known all these things about his fellow Jews even if the Romans didn’t?
(3) Authorship
Atwill alleges Josephus wrote the entire New Testament, but nearly all scholars of all kinds, agree that the New Testament documents are written in a diverse writing style that cannot be attributed to a single author.
Atwill treats the Gospels as if they are a uniform whole instead of the separate books they actually are.
(4) Parallels
Atwill’s evidence—and I use the term loosely— is based primarily upon what he interprets as ‘parallels’ between Josephus and the New Testament. It is his argument that the parallels add up to an intentional design, a code, that can be pieced together to show how the Flavians invented the character of Jesus, and had Josephus write the entire N.T. all by himself.
Only no one else before Atwill has ever recognized this code, not in 2000 years, “because . . . they didn’t read Josephus. . . no, wait, they did do that. . . . It has to be because Atwill is so much smarter. . . . Yeah, that’s it . . . because the early Christians and any of their opponents could have [and did] read Josephus. They just didn’t see the coded messaging that would have made the case that Atwill sees. Even Josephus experts haven’t seen that. . . . Or experts in the gospels.”[Josephus Code Follies - Dr. Michael Heiser}
Moreover, to get a statistically significant result [using parallels], you need more than one vaguely similar, but completely different, word. You need something like multiple exact matches of otherwise unusual words, or a series of otherwise unlikely coincidences of ordered events or concepts, or something along those lines.
No one else has ever seen Atwell’s ‘code’ because Atwill’s parallels aren’t true parallels. They’re contrived, and too imprecise to warrant any credible belief.
Parallels that Aren’t There
For example, Atwill says that when Jesus calls the disciples to be “fishers of men” this is a secret code related to a scene in Josephus’ “Jewish War.” Atwill says Jesus’ call to become “fishers of men” is a reference to when the Romans “caught Jews like fish” in the battle of Lake Tiberias. The description of the battle includes Emperor Titus’s troops killing Jews who had escaped them in the Sea of Galilee by cutting off their hands or heads and shooting them with darts.
This is not a parallel by any stretch of the definition. It’s an entirely subjective addition to the text, brought in from outside, not found within the text’s actual content, or in any historical evidence pertaining to the text. It’s not evidence of anything but imagination!
Parallels with Puns
Atwill says Josephus uses the parallel between “a fish called the ‘Coracin’ (in Jewish War: 3, 10, 8, 520) [The Works of Flavius Josephus] and Jesus’ prophecy – ‘Woe to you Chorazain’ —in Matt 11:21, to make a pun.
"But there is no parallel—in either the Greek letters, or the meaning… Besides being an example of evidence that doesn’t exist, this is also one of those instances that suggests Atwill does not know how to read Greek. A terrible failing for someone who is trying to perform complicated statistical literary analyses of linguistic parallels between, you know, Greek texts." [ibid]
"No one could possibly have imagined a pun being intended between these two words or references–except someone who reads only English…" [4]
Parallels with Pigs
The Sicarii were a splinter group of Jewish zealots who operated before the war in AD 70. They carried hidden knives, strongly opposed Roman occupation, and attempted to expel them and their sympathizers through guerilla type warfare.[5] Atwill says these Sicarrii can be seen as “emanating from John’s head … like the demons who came out of the demoniac in that they are a ‘legion’, as they are described as ‘too small for an army, and too many for a gang of thieves’ (Jewish War: 4, 7, 408). John is later described by Josephus as a source from which ‘wickedness emanated’ (Jewish War: 7, 8 263) – ‘John filled the entire country with ten thousand instances of wickedness’.”
This makes little sense. The word “legion” nowhere appears in these passages. And why does Atwill think “ten thousand” is somehow equivalent to “legion”? The words are nowhere near the same. The standard complement in a legion was 6000 men, not 10,000 … The Gospels also do not say ten thousand, but “two thousand.” And why does Atwill think a legion is “too small for an army” when a legion was by definition an army? (ibid)
…. Josephus says fifteen thousand men are killed, and that two thousand and two hundred are captured (JW 4.436). But in the biblical swine story, 2000 swine are killed, none are ‘captured’ (which would be meaningless for farm animals already ‘captured’, living in pens, destined for slaughter anyway), and not 2200. Clearly Atwill is struggling hard to invent a link here.
This is only a few examples of the kind of fabricated parallel typical of Atwill’s dubious methodology. It is the rankest of retrofitting.
More Parallels with Mary
Atwill’s analysis of Jewish War: 6.201ff is based entirely upon the name “Mary” as the mother of an eaten child, and Passover, to provide a connection between Josephus and the New Testament. However, “Mary” was one of the most common Jewish female names in the first century, held by one in four Jewish women at the time, and Passover is ubiquitous in all Jewish literature.
In the passage, Josephus uses symbolic-myth to describe the “plight of the Jews” during the Jewish War. What Josephus seems to have in mind is to communicate that Jewish society had been turned upside down by rebellion, and he does this by turning the Passover ‘upside down.’ The lamb of Passover symbolized the saving of human life; the story tells of the opposite. The links between the context of the story of the child and its mother in Josephus and the OT are clear, and obvious, and require no knowledge of Jesus or Christianity, much less imply any comment on them.
“Atwill might have had something … if the Gospels identified the mother of Jesus as “Mary the daughter of Eleazar” or “from the town of Bethezob,” (as the Mary in Josephus is identified), or had any Gospel identified any other Mary as being the actual daughter of Lazarus (“Eleazar”), instead of his sister, as only one Gospel actually does (Jn. 11:2). But alas, no such connections are there.
Mary is too common a name, as is Eleazar, to attempt to hang anything as unique as this story upon it alone. The Gospels fail to identify Lazarus as from Bethezob but instead say he is from Bethany. So it’s the wrong Lazarus.
And Mary is his sister in John, not his daughter as in Josephus. And even this Mary (in John, the only Mary connected to a Lazarus at all), is not the mother of Jesus. So it’s also the wrong Mary.
"… on every count the parallel is refuted, not established. You have to change too many things to make a fit. And once you have to start changing the text all over the place to get what you want, on the basis of no evidence whatever, you are in crank land” (ibid).
If Josephus and the Romans were contriving parallels to make or sell any deliberate point, surely they would have gotten their parallels straight.
(5) History
Tacitus' comment in Annals 15.44 places Roman reaction to Christianity, under Nero, nearly a decade before Atwill says Titus invented it. Atwill says nothing at all about this critical passage; nor does he mention Pliny's letter to Trajan asking what to do about Christians.
How credible is it that Domitian—himself a Flavian—persecuted Christianity and forgot that his own relatives had created it in the first place? If the Roman purpose had been to make the Jews peaceful, it was working—at least for those Jews and others who followed Jesus. For the first few centuries, Christians were peaceful enough they refused to serve in the army and soldiers who converted often left military service. Yet history shows the Romans were anything but pleased to see such ‘peacefulness.’ Christian soldiers were stripped of rank and executed.
Why would some of Domitian’s relatives actually become Christians—followers of a story they themselves invented?
Atwill says he could not conceive how Judaism could produce two movements so diametrically opposed as the zealots and the "peace"-advocting Jesus. But that means nothing. African American society produced Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X in the same generation. There’s nothing impossible about it. This too is meaningless non-evidence.
There is no history of anything Atwill claims. That absence of evidence would mean the Romans pulled off a major conspiracy while leaving no trace of it anywhere—not even its existence—as Atwell doesn’t ‘discover’ it until 2000 years later.
Please.
As Carrier says: "[Atwill] rarely knows what he is talking about, gets a lot wrong, makes stuff up, never admits an error, and is generally … a frustrating delusional fanatic. He also has no relevant academic degrees ... And he appears to have made no effort to acquire fundamental skills (like a working knowledge of Greek or how to use a biblical textual apparatus)."[https://www.richardcarrier.info/archi...]
Yet he claims to be an expert. "When will audiences get a clue?” (ibid).
Indeed.
April 3, 2025
I'm an atheist, so I don't believe in God or Jesus. I tend to promote books with this point of view. However, I also promote rational thinking, which is something that this book entirely lacks.
A possible book far more interesting than this one would look into why Joseph Atwill was apparently so obsessed to write this book. The prose is practically frothing at the mouth. It's full of repetitions, assurances that "scholars" know nothing but Atwill knows all, and heaping helpings of bat-shit crazy. The only reason I bothered finishing this was to peek in the keyhole of someone clearly going through a manic phase.
And the saddest part is that there's nothing here that's actually new. This was all hashed out before by other bat-shit crazy writers. Atwill even acknowledges them, yet somehow claims credit for being the first person in history to figure it all out. Can't have it both ways, Atwill.
Atwill's pathetic premise is that Jesus was actually the Caesar Titus Flavius, who apparently hired Josephus to invent Christianity in order to have a laugh at the Jews.
Huh?
I'm not an expert on the Roman Empire, but I have read many books about the subject, since it's just one of those things I like to read about. I've also read a fair amount on the making of the current Bible.
Apparently, Atwill hasn't read anything published beyond 1900, since people just stopped thinking and learning since then, I guess. He relies on the William Whiston translation of Josephus, which was done in the 1700s. It's the only time I've read the word "furlong" that didn't have to do with horse racing. The idea of a furlong wasn't used in Josephus' day. It was a Whiston mistranslation of some other word for a some length of distance, definitely less than a mile.
Other major problems that Atwill ignores or glosses over:
* Atwill claims that Titus Flavius and the Flavian family created and promoted Christianity. However, the Emperor Domitian was also a Flavian but actively persecuted Christians, even more so than Nero did. So -- somehow Domitian didn't get the memo? Atwill claims he'll write about Domitian in his next book. Next book? Aw, HELL, no!
* Atwill claims something Josephus wrote was extra important because he put it in parenthesis. Well, Josephus didn't use parenthesis, because NO ONE USED PARENTHESIS UNTIL THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. Again, mistranslation by Whiston.
* Atwill claims that the four Gospels were all a satire meant to be read as a whole in order for the upper class twits of the Flavian court to get the joke. Problem -- there were dozens of gospels floating about in the first couple of centuries CE. How would Josephus (the suspected author) know that JUST THESE FOUR would be deemed canonical?
* The earliest version of Mark, considered the oldest of the canonical Gospels, does not have anything about Jesus' resurrection. It stops at the women seeing an empty tomb, and being very troubled. Verses were added centuries later. Apparently, Atwill knows nothing about this, which is not surprising, since he doesn't seem to know much about anything else, either.
* Atwill gives no examples of complex, multi-book satires from the Flavian dynasty. You just have to trust him. Uh-huh.
A possible book far more interesting than this one would look into why Joseph Atwill was apparently so obsessed to write this book. The prose is practically frothing at the mouth. It's full of repetitions, assurances that "scholars" know nothing but Atwill knows all, and heaping helpings of bat-shit crazy. The only reason I bothered finishing this was to peek in the keyhole of someone clearly going through a manic phase.
And the saddest part is that there's nothing here that's actually new. This was all hashed out before by other bat-shit crazy writers. Atwill even acknowledges them, yet somehow claims credit for being the first person in history to figure it all out. Can't have it both ways, Atwill.
Atwill's pathetic premise is that Jesus was actually the Caesar Titus Flavius, who apparently hired Josephus to invent Christianity in order to have a laugh at the Jews.
Huh?
I'm not an expert on the Roman Empire, but I have read many books about the subject, since it's just one of those things I like to read about. I've also read a fair amount on the making of the current Bible.
Apparently, Atwill hasn't read anything published beyond 1900, since people just stopped thinking and learning since then, I guess. He relies on the William Whiston translation of Josephus, which was done in the 1700s. It's the only time I've read the word "furlong" that didn't have to do with horse racing. The idea of a furlong wasn't used in Josephus' day. It was a Whiston mistranslation of some other word for a some length of distance, definitely less than a mile.
Other major problems that Atwill ignores or glosses over:
* Atwill claims that Titus Flavius and the Flavian family created and promoted Christianity. However, the Emperor Domitian was also a Flavian but actively persecuted Christians, even more so than Nero did. So -- somehow Domitian didn't get the memo? Atwill claims he'll write about Domitian in his next book. Next book? Aw, HELL, no!
* Atwill claims something Josephus wrote was extra important because he put it in parenthesis. Well, Josephus didn't use parenthesis, because NO ONE USED PARENTHESIS UNTIL THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. Again, mistranslation by Whiston.
* Atwill claims that the four Gospels were all a satire meant to be read as a whole in order for the upper class twits of the Flavian court to get the joke. Problem -- there were dozens of gospels floating about in the first couple of centuries CE. How would Josephus (the suspected author) know that JUST THESE FOUR would be deemed canonical?
* The earliest version of Mark, considered the oldest of the canonical Gospels, does not have anything about Jesus' resurrection. It stops at the women seeing an empty tomb, and being very troubled. Verses were added centuries later. Apparently, Atwill knows nothing about this, which is not surprising, since he doesn't seem to know much about anything else, either.
* Atwill gives no examples of complex, multi-book satires from the Flavian dynasty. You just have to trust him. Uh-huh.
September 12, 2019
If you have questions about the historical and logical composition of the various books of the New Testament, especially the four Gospels, and an adequate background in the Roman-Jewish history of the first century CE, Joseph Atwill’s Caesar’s Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus will provide valuable food for thought. Note that I did not say it will provide answers, as such. I am well aware that the authenticity of biblical books is a hot button issue in our society. This is a book for those with the proper background to evaluate it; add that it is tedious in places, especially where the author’s proofs require the reader to trek through lengthy and tortuous comparisons between ancients texts, notably the Gospels combined with the works of the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus.
I might not have given Atwill’s proposition a second glance, had I not already noticed in my own research a curious connection at that time between the three most prominent political families in the region: the imperial family in Rome (first the Julio-Claudians followed by the Flavians), the Herods of Palestine, and, least known but perhaps most important, the Alexanders of Alexandria, Egypt. Atwill highlights this same connection early in this work, writing:
“Following the war [the Roman-Jewish War that ended with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple], the Flavians shared control over this region between Egypt and Syria with two families of powerful Hellenized Jews: the Herods and the Alexanders. These three families shared a common financial interest in preventing any future revolts. They also shared a long-standing and intricate personal relationship that can be traced to the household of Antonia, the mother of the Emperor Claudius. Antonia employed Julius Alexander Lysimachus, the Abalarch, or ruler, of the Jews of Alexandria, as her financial steward in around 45 C.E. Julius was the elder brother of the famous Jewish philosopher Philo Judeaus, the leading intellectual figure of Hellenistic Judaism. Philo’s writings attempted to merge Judaism with Platonic philosophy. Scholars believe that his work provided the authors of the Gospels with some of their religious and philosophical perspective.”
It was Atwill’s noticing this historical connection, which I had independently verified, that opened me to the possibility of his improbable thesis: comparing the work of Josephus with the New Testament Gospels, he demonstrates that the Romans, under the Flavian emperors Vespasian and Titus, directed the writing of both. Their purpose was to offer a vision of a peaceful Messiah who would serve as an alternative to the revolutionary leaders who were rocking first-century Israel and threatening Rome.
While, in my opinion, the book is excessive in its textual comparisons and deficient in explaining the earlier sources of the basic literature on which the New Testament is based, it proves to be a readable volume that, remarkable for a work of its nature, avoids sensationalism and illogical conjecture. While certainly not the complete alternate explanation for the genesis and development of the writings that went on to become the foundation for Christianity, it is an element worth considering as a major and long overlooked piece to that mystery.
I might not have given Atwill’s proposition a second glance, had I not already noticed in my own research a curious connection at that time between the three most prominent political families in the region: the imperial family in Rome (first the Julio-Claudians followed by the Flavians), the Herods of Palestine, and, least known but perhaps most important, the Alexanders of Alexandria, Egypt. Atwill highlights this same connection early in this work, writing:
“Following the war [the Roman-Jewish War that ended with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple], the Flavians shared control over this region between Egypt and Syria with two families of powerful Hellenized Jews: the Herods and the Alexanders. These three families shared a common financial interest in preventing any future revolts. They also shared a long-standing and intricate personal relationship that can be traced to the household of Antonia, the mother of the Emperor Claudius. Antonia employed Julius Alexander Lysimachus, the Abalarch, or ruler, of the Jews of Alexandria, as her financial steward in around 45 C.E. Julius was the elder brother of the famous Jewish philosopher Philo Judeaus, the leading intellectual figure of Hellenistic Judaism. Philo’s writings attempted to merge Judaism with Platonic philosophy. Scholars believe that his work provided the authors of the Gospels with some of their religious and philosophical perspective.”
It was Atwill’s noticing this historical connection, which I had independently verified, that opened me to the possibility of his improbable thesis: comparing the work of Josephus with the New Testament Gospels, he demonstrates that the Romans, under the Flavian emperors Vespasian and Titus, directed the writing of both. Their purpose was to offer a vision of a peaceful Messiah who would serve as an alternative to the revolutionary leaders who were rocking first-century Israel and threatening Rome.
While, in my opinion, the book is excessive in its textual comparisons and deficient in explaining the earlier sources of the basic literature on which the New Testament is based, it proves to be a readable volume that, remarkable for a work of its nature, avoids sensationalism and illogical conjecture. While certainly not the complete alternate explanation for the genesis and development of the writings that went on to become the foundation for Christianity, it is an element worth considering as a major and long overlooked piece to that mystery.
April 5, 2017
Hello, I am Roman Piso (author of 'Piso Christ').
What do I think of Joseph Atwill's work? I happen to know Joseph Atwill and have discussed the subject matter with him many times. He has also discussed it with Abelard Reuchlin.
As far as his work in relation to ours, he has told me that he likes my work over that of Reuchlin's. However, that may be because of the fact that I try to a) write clearer for a wider audience, and/or b) that I try to write on events chronologically.
Atwill's work leads people to "Titus" as the main creator of the NT gospels. The main difference is in WHICH "Titus" is being talked about. That is because Arrius Piso was also using the name Titus, as he was nephew of emperor Vespasian via his brother T. Flavius Sabinus II.
This is where understanding items particular to royals of the time is necessary. Ancient authors were exclusively royals. They gave the public the illusion of freedom of speech and made it appear that anyone could write for public consumption. That was not true.
Since only royals were allowed to write (with the approval of a committee of other royals), they needed a ready source of alias or pen names, and particularly, those which would automatically be associated with the authors using them, so that the authors could be easily identified by other royals.
This practice had been in effect for thousands of years before the time of the Flavians and Pisos of first century Rome. The way they were able to create these alias names and identities was to use names of their ancestors. Basically, these were inherited name/titles.
And that is how Arrius Piso could use the alias name of "Titus" and thus, confuse non-royals into thinking that it was Vespasian's son Titus, who was being referred to instead of him. But royals of the time knew it was Arrius Piso, and not the other Titus.
To get at the truth about this as Reuchlin and I have, one must have personal profile information for each of the principal people of the time, and that includes information on all of their relatives. Thus, one must construct their genealogical information from the information that they had scattered about that throughout their writings. A very difficult task, but not impossible.
BTW, Atwill "borrowed" a few things from work done by Reuchlin and myself. But please don't ask me to identify and/or comment upon those here. I'll do that in my own good time. For now, you may find out more about the creation of Christianity by Romans in a few articles that I had written on the subject.
Regarding Joseph Atwill's Titus
http://www.academia.edu/30896788/Rega...
A Few Words About The Royal Language
http://www.academia.edu/30347785/A_Fe...
The New Classical Scholarship: The New Forensic Study Of History
http://www.academia.edu/31990534/The_...
The True Context Of Ancient History & The Gordian Emperors
http://www.academia.edu/s/cc567b0350/...
Ancient Alias Names List (2017)
http://www.academia.edu/s/a339f0df02/...
The Roman Piso Papers
http://independent.academia.edu/Roman...
Roman Piso
What do I think of Joseph Atwill's work? I happen to know Joseph Atwill and have discussed the subject matter with him many times. He has also discussed it with Abelard Reuchlin.
As far as his work in relation to ours, he has told me that he likes my work over that of Reuchlin's. However, that may be because of the fact that I try to a) write clearer for a wider audience, and/or b) that I try to write on events chronologically.
Atwill's work leads people to "Titus" as the main creator of the NT gospels. The main difference is in WHICH "Titus" is being talked about. That is because Arrius Piso was also using the name Titus, as he was nephew of emperor Vespasian via his brother T. Flavius Sabinus II.
This is where understanding items particular to royals of the time is necessary. Ancient authors were exclusively royals. They gave the public the illusion of freedom of speech and made it appear that anyone could write for public consumption. That was not true.
Since only royals were allowed to write (with the approval of a committee of other royals), they needed a ready source of alias or pen names, and particularly, those which would automatically be associated with the authors using them, so that the authors could be easily identified by other royals.
This practice had been in effect for thousands of years before the time of the Flavians and Pisos of first century Rome. The way they were able to create these alias names and identities was to use names of their ancestors. Basically, these were inherited name/titles.
And that is how Arrius Piso could use the alias name of "Titus" and thus, confuse non-royals into thinking that it was Vespasian's son Titus, who was being referred to instead of him. But royals of the time knew it was Arrius Piso, and not the other Titus.
To get at the truth about this as Reuchlin and I have, one must have personal profile information for each of the principal people of the time, and that includes information on all of their relatives. Thus, one must construct their genealogical information from the information that they had scattered about that throughout their writings. A very difficult task, but not impossible.
BTW, Atwill "borrowed" a few things from work done by Reuchlin and myself. But please don't ask me to identify and/or comment upon those here. I'll do that in my own good time. For now, you may find out more about the creation of Christianity by Romans in a few articles that I had written on the subject.
Regarding Joseph Atwill's Titus
http://www.academia.edu/30896788/Rega...
A Few Words About The Royal Language
http://www.academia.edu/30347785/A_Fe...
The New Classical Scholarship: The New Forensic Study Of History
http://www.academia.edu/31990534/The_...
The True Context Of Ancient History & The Gordian Emperors
http://www.academia.edu/s/cc567b0350/...
Ancient Alias Names List (2017)
http://www.academia.edu/s/a339f0df02/...
The Roman Piso Papers
http://independent.academia.edu/Roman...
Roman Piso
January 8, 2014
Pe scurt, scriitorul exploreaza o ipoteza care sustine ca personajul Iisus si religia crestina au fost create de familia imperiala Flavia prin imparatii Vespasian, Titus si Domitian, care incercau sa inabuse revoltele fara sfarsit ale evreilor. Alegerea lor a fost sa "editeze" un pic religia mozaica, oferind un leader (mesia) pasnic in loc de unul razboinic, scopul luptei lor devenind din independenta evreilor si a statului iudaic - o "salvare" pe lumea cealalta. Daca evreii credeau cu sfintenie in unitatea si indivizibilitatea natiei si a religiei lor pentru care luptau de sute de ani, noua directie religioasa ii incuraja sa "intoarca si obrazul celalalt", sa "dea Cezarului ce e al Cezarului", etc.
Mai mult, povestea lui Iisus, traseul urmat de el si chiar multe dintre numele din biblie sunt metafore ale istoriei reale a razboaielor duse de Vespasian si Titus in actualul Israel. Astfel, daca Noul Testament este citit in paralel cu Razboaiele Evreilor de Iosif Flavius (Josephus Flavius, un istoric evreu infiat de familia Flavia), prima carte devine brusc o satira a celei de-a doua Recomand calduros cartea, filmul e foarte superficial in comparatie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4FsAQ...
Mai mult, povestea lui Iisus, traseul urmat de el si chiar multe dintre numele din biblie sunt metafore ale istoriei reale a razboaielor duse de Vespasian si Titus in actualul Israel. Astfel, daca Noul Testament este citit in paralel cu Razboaiele Evreilor de Iosif Flavius (Josephus Flavius, un istoric evreu infiat de familia Flavia), prima carte devine brusc o satira a celei de-a doua Recomand calduros cartea, filmul e foarte superficial in comparatie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4FsAQ...
September 24, 2024
Setting aside the contents the book itself is very badly written and organized.
There is no introduction for one thing (e.g. who is Josephus, what is War of the Jews etc.). The author jumps straight into telling you about his theory and the "secret meanings" behind various biblical passages and parallels with other apparently contemporary texts that nobody has heard of. The assumption is that the reader is a biblical scholar who already knows all the relevant context and merely needs the author to point out some "obvious" connections that everyone else for the last 2000 years has been too stupid to see.
The whole book is tunnel vision from start to end. At no point does the author step back to examine possible counter-arguments or contradictions. We're talking about 2000 year old texts that have been translated and re-translated and scribed and re-scribed and edited and re-edited, it's just absurd to pretend that all the evidence points to a single answer. Not to mention the obvious one which is if christianity was created by rome just to pacify their subjects then why did the roman aristocracy end up drinking their own poison.
I write this with a great deal of disappointment. I was hoping this book would make a convincing case but it really doesn't.
There is no introduction for one thing (e.g. who is Josephus, what is War of the Jews etc.). The author jumps straight into telling you about his theory and the "secret meanings" behind various biblical passages and parallels with other apparently contemporary texts that nobody has heard of. The assumption is that the reader is a biblical scholar who already knows all the relevant context and merely needs the author to point out some "obvious" connections that everyone else for the last 2000 years has been too stupid to see.
The whole book is tunnel vision from start to end. At no point does the author step back to examine possible counter-arguments or contradictions. We're talking about 2000 year old texts that have been translated and re-translated and scribed and re-scribed and edited and re-edited, it's just absurd to pretend that all the evidence points to a single answer. Not to mention the obvious one which is if christianity was created by rome just to pacify their subjects then why did the roman aristocracy end up drinking their own poison.
I write this with a great deal of disappointment. I was hoping this book would make a convincing case but it really doesn't.
July 20, 2023
Probably the best book on the "real-historical Jesus" question, although it is well supplemented by Valiant & Faye's Creating Christ and John Allegro's The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. Here though, Atwill lays out entirely conclusive textual evidence to argue that Josephus basically wrote the New Testament as synchronizing Roman pacification propaganda. The paucity of available sources for the era and region make it difficult to argue against this thesis perhaps- but regardless, there are just too many alignments that- when laid out systematically as Atwill does here, really force one to accept his conclusions that the literary Jesus in the New Testament is a shade of Titus, son of the deified Vespasian. Its just too obvious when read alongside Josephus histories..
Of course, there could also have been other ACTUAL Yeshuan zealot Essene rebel figures, more akin to Kazantzakis' Jesus in his Last Temptation. The gnostic Gospel of Thomas depicts a Jesus of this sort, which is likely a separate historical reality. But the biblical Jesus? Entirely BTFO'd by Atwill.
Of course, there could also have been other ACTUAL Yeshuan zealot Essene rebel figures, more akin to Kazantzakis' Jesus in his Last Temptation. The gnostic Gospel of Thomas depicts a Jesus of this sort, which is likely a separate historical reality. But the biblical Jesus? Entirely BTFO'd by Atwill.
April 1, 2024
It IS a "real life DaVinci Code," just like the blurb says.
Of course, that book is false. And Dan Brown's not a bible scholar.
Amazing how the parallels stack up.
Parallels between Luke and Josephus? Sure, they're there, and many legitimate scholars have known about them for a long, long, time.
In fact, said scholars see this as nothing other than Luke borrowing from Josephus. For said scholars who, like me, date the composition of Luke in the second century, there's nothing surprising.
Forgot I left this truncated an original review.
The howler is Atwill's idea that Rome needed to "invent" Jesus for crowd control. No they didn't. Atwill is not only clueless about biblical criticism, he's also clueless about Roman history and political polity.
Per Wolfgang Pauli, more on the Not.Even.Wrongness of Atwill and other mythicists here.
Of course, that book is false. And Dan Brown's not a bible scholar.
Amazing how the parallels stack up.
Parallels between Luke and Josephus? Sure, they're there, and many legitimate scholars have known about them for a long, long, time.
In fact, said scholars see this as nothing other than Luke borrowing from Josephus. For said scholars who, like me, date the composition of Luke in the second century, there's nothing surprising.
Forgot I left this truncated an original review.
The howler is Atwill's idea that Rome needed to "invent" Jesus for crowd control. No they didn't. Atwill is not only clueless about biblical criticism, he's also clueless about Roman history and political polity.
Per Wolfgang Pauli, more on the Not.Even.Wrongness of Atwill and other mythicists here.
August 19, 2023
A good book, an important book. Even if, after reading through the book, one disagrees with the authors conclusions, there is still a lot of food for thought. For me the idea that the Gospels and Josephus's War of the Jews need to be read together to decode the true story behind them was very intriguing. Furthermore, the fact that these two materials contain our only sources of that time of that area was new to me. Most baffled I was by the chronological order in which to read the four tomb stories in the four gospels. I often wondered about the inconsistencies of the four gospels, or the simple fact, why there were four of them when the tale could have been told in a single one.
September 29, 2022
If you believe that men create their gods, then agreeing with Atwill that the First Century’s Flavian Ceasars created Jesus Christ and Christianity does not seem wholly unreasonable. The Flavians had motive (mitigating if not ending a guerrilla war in Judea), and they had both means and opportunity as they had assimilated the Jewish priesthood, ruling class and intellectuals. The Caesars could thus conceivably replace the old tradition of a Warrior Messiah with a new one about peace-loving and compliant Savior.
December 16, 2014
L'ho dovuto abbandonare. Impossibile leggerlo senza avere una approfondita conoscenza della materia. Cosi tutto potrebbe essere vero come inventato. A me sembra una serie di assurdità. L'idea di base è ridicola. Ma, appunto, non ho conoscenze sufficienti per smentirla.
June 8, 2016
A interesting position on the historical Jesus. Somewhat fanciful at times but certainly unique in its approach. Does not draw on a wide spectrum of scholarship and limits itself to direct interpretation of primary sources rather than to scholarly deconstructions and reconstructions.
October 9, 2013
Interesting and lacking.
March 7, 2014
Very interested theory
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 27, 2016
Fascinating book that sheds a very different light on the Christianity! I can't accept everything he lays forward, but it's really intriguing
January 9, 2019
This book is what can only be described as "weapons grade stupidity," it's a conspiracy theory in the worst sense of the term; it denies the obvious to establish the ludicrous.
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