Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus:Flavian Signature Edition (3 page)

• Christianity did not originate among the lower classes in Judea. It was a creation of a Roman imperial family, the Flavians.

• The Gospels were not written by the followers of a Jewish Messiah but by the intellectual circle surrounding the three Flavian emperors: Vespasian and his two sons, Titus and Domitian.

• The  Gospels  were written following the 66–73 C.E. war between the Romans and the Jews, and many of the events of Jesus’ ministry are satirical depictions of events from that war.

• The  purpose  of  Christianity was supersession.  It was designed to replace the nationalistic and militaristic messianic movement in Judea with a religion that was pacifistic and would accept Roman rule.

After I had developed these findings I waited several years before publishing them. Though I am no longer a Christian, it is clear that many of the philosophical teachings in the Gospels are beneficial, and I did not wish to cause Christians any harm. At the same time I knew that many would find the information valuable. I do not want to contribute to the cynicism of our age – however, I do want to contribute to the creation of a more alert citizenry.  Understanding that Christianity was a government project will help produce a new understanding of government.

Eventually my concern over not disclosing the findings simply overcame my fear of any negative impact. So after 2,000 years of misunderstanding, the real meaning of the Gospels is revealed. By turning this page the reader will enter a new world. Perhaps not a better world, but certainly a truer one.

CHAPTER 1
 
The First Christians and the Flavians
 

This book provides a new interpretive framework for the Gospels. This framework renders every passage in the Gospels coherent, and provides an answer to the question of who composed them. I shall show that intellectuals working for Titus Flavius, the second of the three Flavian Caesars, created Christianity. Their main purpose was to replace the xenophobic Jewish Messianism that waged war against the Roman Empire with a version of Judaism that would be obedient to Rome.

One of the individuals involved with the creation of the Gospels was the first-century historian Flavius Josephus, who, as he related it, led a fabulous life. He was born in 37 C.E. into the royal family of Judea, the Maccabees. Like Jesus, Josephus was a child prodigy who astounded his elders with his knowledge of Judaic law. Josephus also claimed to have been a member of each of the Jewish sects of his era, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Essenes.

When the Jewish rebellion against Rome broke out, in 66 C.E., though he had no described military background and believed the cause hopeless, Josephus was given command of the revolutionary army of Galilee. Taken captive, he was brought before the Roman general Vespasian, to whom he presented himself as a prophet. At this point, God, rather conveniently, spoke to Josephus and informed him that his favor had switched from the Jews to the Romans. Josephus then claimed that Judaism’s messianic prophecies foresaw not a Jewish Messiah, but Vespasian, whom Josephus predicted would become the “lord of all mankind.”

After this came to pass, so to speak, and Vespasian was proclaimed emperor, he rewarded Josephus’ clairvoyance by adopting him. Thus, the Jewish rebel Josephus bar Matthias became Flavius Josephus, the son of Caesar. He became an ardent supporter of Rome’s conquest of Judea, and when Vespasian returned to Rome to be crowned emperor, Josephus stayed behind to assist the new emperor’s son Titus with the siege of Jerusalem.

After Jerusalem had been destroyed, Josephus took up residence within the Flavian court at Rome, where he enjoyed the patronage of Vespasian and the subsequent Flavian emperors, Titus and Domitian. It was while he was living in Rome that Josephus wrote his two major works,
Wars of the Jews
, a description of the 66–73 C.E. war between the Romans and the Jews, and
Jewish Antiquities
, a history of the Jewish people.

Josephus’ histories are of great significance to Christianity. Virtually all that we know regarding the social context of the New Testament is derived from them. Without these works, the very dating of the events of the New Testament would be impossible.

Josephus’ histories provided Jesus with historical documentation, a fact that is widely known. They also provided Jesus with another kind of documentation, a fact largely forgotten. Early Christians believed that the events Josephus described in
Wars of the Jews
proved that Jesus had been able to see into the future. It is difficult to find even one early Christian who taught another position. Church scholars such as Tertullian, Justin Martyr, and Cyprian were unanimous in proclaiming that Josephus’ description of the conquest of Judea by Titus Flavius in
Wars of the Jews
proved that Jesus’ prophecies had come to pass. As Eusebius wrote in 325 C.E.:

If any one compares the words of our Saviour with the other accounts of the historian [Josephus] concerning the whole war, how can one fail to wonder, and to admit that the foreknowledge and the prophecy of our Saviour were truly divine and marvelously Strange.
²

One example of Jesus’ foreknowledge that so impressed Eusebius was his prediction that the foes of Jerusalem would encircle it with a wall, demolish the city and its temple, and level its inhabitants.

And when He was now getting near Jerusalem …

He came into full view of the city, He wept aloud over it, and exclaimed …

“For the time is coming upon thee when thy foes will throw up around thee earthworks and a wall, investing thee and hemming thee in on every side,

“and level you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

Luke 19:37–44

Josephus recorded in
Wars of the Jews
that all the precise details Jesus foresaw for Jerusalem did indeed come to pass. Titus ordered his soldiers
to
“build a wall round about the whole city.”
³
Titus, like Jesus, saw the encircling of the city as an event sanctioned by God, who inspired his soldiers with a “divine fury.”

Josephus also recorded that Titus did not merely burn Jerusalem and defile its temple, but ordered that they should be left exactly as Jesus has foreseen, with “not one stone upon another.”

[Titus] gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and Temple …
⁴

Jesus stated that these calamities would befall Jerusalem’s inhabitants because they did not know the “time of your visitation.” The coming visitation was to be made by someone he called the “Son of Man,” a title used by the prophet Daniel for the Jewish Messiah.
⁵
While it has been universally believed that Jesus was referring to himself when he used the expression the “Son of Man,” he usually spoke of this individual in the third person and not as himself.

Jesus repeatedly warned the Jews that during the Visitation of the Son of Man various disasters, like those he foresaw above, would occur.

“Be on the alert therefore, for you do not know the day on which your Lord is coming.

“Therefore you also must be ready; for it is at a time when you do not expect Him that the Son of Man will come.”

Matt. 24:42–4

“Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.”

Matt. 25:13

Though Jesus did not say exactly when the visitation of the Son of Man would occur, he did state that he would come before the generation alive during his ministry passed away.

“So you also, when you see all these signs, may be sure that He is near—at your very door.

“I tell you in solemn truth that the present generation will certainly not pass away without all these things having first taken place.”

    Matt. 24:33–34

Jews of this era saw a generation as lasting 40 years, so Titus’ destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. fit perfectly into the time frame Jesus gave in his prophecy. However, while Jesus did accurately predict events from the coming war, there was a flaw in his foreknowledge—that is, that the person whose visitation actually brought about the destruction of Jerusalem was not Jesus but Titus Flavius. If his prophecy did envision (as Eusebius and other church scholars have maintained) events from the coming war between the Romans and the Jews, then the “Son of Man” Jesus warned of seems not to have been himself but Titus – a point that has been overlooked by modern scholarship.

There was little written between the fifth and the 15th centuries commenting on the numerous parallels between the events Josephus recorded in
Wars of the Jews
and Jesus’ predictions. This is not surprising, as the church is known to have actively discouraged scriptural analysis during this time. What evidence was left, however, suggests that during the entire Middle Ages, Christians viewed Josephus’ depiction of the war between the Romans and the Jews as
proof of Christ’s divinity. Icons, carvings on caskets, and religious paintings from this era all portrayed the 70 C.E. destruction of Jerusalem as the fulfillment of Jesus’ doomsday prophecy.

The importance of Josephus’ works to Christians during this period can also be gauged by the fact that some of the Eastern Christian churches of Syria and Armenia actually included his books as part of their handwritten Bible. In Europe as well, following the invention of the printing press, Latin editions of the Bible included
Antiquities
and
Wars of the Jews
.

Following the Reformation, scholars were able to record their opinions, and their writings show that they continued to view the relationship between the New Testament and
Wars of the Jews
as proof of Christ’s divinity. On the significance of 70 C.E., for example, Dr. Thomas Newton wrote in his 1754 work,
Dissertations on the Prophecies:

As a general in the wars [Josephus] must have had an exact knowledge of all transactions … His history was approved by Vespasian and Titus [who ordered it to be published]. He designed nothing less, and yet as if he had designed nothing more, his history of the Wars of the Jews may serve as a larger comment on our Saviour’s prophecies of the destruction of Jerusalem.

Newton’s position was the same as Eusebius’. Both scholars believed that Josephus “designed nothing less” than to honestly record the war between the Romans and the Jews. The events that Josephus recorded seemed to be the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy and did not strike them as in any way suspicious. On the contrary, they saw the relationship between the two works as proof of Jesus’ divinity. They were in no way unusual in holding this view; it was held by the majority of Christian scholars until the end of the 19th century.

The belief, that Josephus’ depiction of the destruction of Jerusalem proved that Jesus had seen into the future, was largely forgotten during the 20th century. Only one denomination of Christians, the Preterists, still cites the parallels between
Wars of the Jews
and the New Testament as a proof of Jesus’ divinity. Currently, most Christians either believe that the apocalypse Jesus envisioned has not yet occurred or they ignore these prophecies altogether. As Christianity’s third millennium begins, few of its members are even aware of the parallels that were once of such importance to the religion.

However, I believe that Eusebius was correct in stating that when one compares
Wars of the Jews
to the New Testament, one must admit to a relationship that, if not divine, is at the least strange. The parallels between Jesus’ prophecies and Titus’ campaign do indeed seem too precise to have been the result of chance. If one accepts the traditional understanding, that the New Testament and
Wars of the Jews
were written at different times by different authors, then the only explanation for the parallels would seem to be the one given by Eusebius, that they were caused by something truly divine. Of course, before accepting any phenomenon as miraculous, one should first determine if a non-supernatural explanation for it exists.

All scholars have faced the same difficulty in trying to understand first-century Judea: a lack of source material. Before the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, the important literature describing firsthand the events of first-century Judea were the New Testament and the works of Josephus. For two millennia, only these two works illuminated an era so seminal to Western civilization.

This absence is unusual. In Greece, thousands of pieces of writing from the same era have been discovered. Jesus constantly complained about scribes, who, one must assume, were writing something.

Jesus began to explain to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer much cruelty from the Elders and the High Priests and the Scribes.

Matt. 16:21

Rome’s occupation of Judea spanned the entire first century. Josephus records that during this period a movement of Jewish Zealots called the Sicarii continually staged insurrections against the Empire and its surrogate, the family of Herod. The Sicarii, like the Christians, were messianic and looked forward to the arrival of the son of God, who would lead them against Rome. Josephus dates the origin of this messianic movement to the census of Quirinus, curiously also given in the Gospels as the date of the birth of Christ. This movement existed for over 100 years, but until the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, no document that could possibly have been part of its literature had ever been found.