Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus:Flavian Signature Edition (61 page)

Jesus answered and said to them, “Indeed, Elijah is coming first …”

Matt. 17:10-11

Like Elijah, John is said to have worn a leather girdle and a “cloak of hair.”
²⁴⁵
Like Elijah, John also traveled along the banks of the Jordan near Jericho.
²⁴⁶
The last of the Books of the Prophets is the Book of Malachi. As scholars have long recognized, the authors of the Gospels used that book, with its apocalyptic sayings of a messianic forerunner, as the basis for John the Baptist’s descriptions of a Day of Judgment.

In the Book of Malachi it states:

Behold the day cometh, burning like a furnace and all the proud and they that do wickedly are stubble and the day shall cometh that shall set them aflame, saith the Lord of Hosts, and shall not leave them root and branch.
²⁴⁷

The author of the Gospel of Matthew makes John the Baptist paraphrase Malachi:

The axe is already laid to the root of the tree and every tree that bringeth not forth fruit is hewn and cast into the midst of the fire.

… and his fan is in his hand and he shall winnow his threshing-floor and gather wheat into his garner and the chaff he shall burn with unquenchable fire.
²⁴⁸

However, John adds his own political perspective to Malachi, warning those who believe they have nothing to fear from the Day of Judgment because they are the “children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”—that is, the Jews—should be aware that their “Jewishness” does not make them safe. John states (with a play on words) “God is able from these stones
(abanim)
to raise up children
(banim)
unto Abraham.” John the Baptist thus shares with Jesus a “vision” of a coming apocalypse for the Jews. From my perspective, however, the more important point is that John is saying that “God” can create “Jews” at will, the same idea that Josephus is relating with the story of the battle of the temple, during which
“the positions of the  men  were  undistinguished  on  both  sides,  and  they  fought  at  random,  the men being intermixed one with another.”
Abanim
and
banim
continues the wordplay regarding “son” and “stone”—that is,
ben
and
eben—
that exists in the New Testament and
Wars of the Jews
.

John the Baptist also paraphrases the Book of Malachi when he states that though he (John) baptizes with water there is one “coming” who is mightier and will baptize with fire.

And who may abide the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner’s fire.
²⁴⁹

This prophecy, once again, when taken literally, came to pass in a manner that would be scornfully humorous to the residents of the Flavian court. That is, Titus did indeed “baptize” with fire.

They … set fire to the houses whither the Jews had fled and burnt every soul in them …
²⁵⁰

Malachias (My Messenger) in Josephus’ list of “signalized” Jews must be understood, like Elijah or John the Baptist, as the forerunner of a Messiah. Since a “Jesus” is also a character in the passage, the identity of the Messiah he is coming before seems obvious. The logic of the lampoon suggests that the “Jesus” on the Roman list switches himself with his “forerunner” at the same time that his “Apostles” switch themselves with their Jewish namesakes.

My analysis suggests that the Maccabees were inserted into Christianity in the first century C.E. They were also somehow extracted from Judaism at the same time. One needs to look into the Book of the Maccabees to read of its origin.

Since the Romans inserted the Maccabees into Christianity, it is at least logical to wonder if they also removed them from Judaism, which was being reestablished at about the same time. As Eisenman points out in
James the Brother of Jesus
, Rabbi Yohanan ben Zacchai is described in the Talmud as having worked to reestablish a form of Judaism after the 70 C.E. holocaust. He worked at an academy at Yavneh, established with the authorization of Rome. He is also claimed to have applied the Star prophecy, the Messiah or world-ruler prophecy, to Vespasian exactly as Josephus had done. These facts provide a basis for speculation about the extent to which Rome was also involved in the creation of Rabbinical Judaism.

CHAPTER 16
 
The Samaritan Woman and Other Parallels

The Gospel of John records an episode that does not appear in the other Gospels, the meeting with a Samaritan woman by a well. This account is a satire of yet another Roman battle recorded in
Wars of the Jews.
Though this battle took place before Titus began his campaign at the Sea of Galilee, the authors of the Gospels wished to make a comment about it. They therefore needed—in order to keep Jesus’ ministry and Titus’ campaign sequential—to identify it as having occurred before Jesus’ ministry began. They achieved this by having Jesus note that “my hour has not yet come” (John 7:6). In other words, that the event took place before Jesus had officially started his ministry in Judea.

At Mount Gerizzim, the Gospel of John provides an account in which Jesus describes himself as “living water.” As I have stated, Jesus’ self-designations are all darkly comic when juxtaposed with events from the war with Rome that occurred at the same location.

Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”

For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; where do you get that living water?

“Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?’”

Jesus said to her, “Every one who drinks of this water will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst;

“the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”

“I have no husband,” she replied. “You rightly say that you have no husband,” said Jesus;

“for you have had five husbands, and the man you have at present is not your husband. You have spoken the truth in saying that.”

“Sir,” replied the woman, “I see that you are a Prophet.

“Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.”

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.”
²⁵¹

The New Testament symbolism that established Jesus as “living bread” was based on the famine that resulted from the siege of Jerusalem. The following passage from Josephus is the basis for the irony inherent in Jesus referring to himself as “living water,” which is based on the lack of water at Gerizzim during the Roman siege.

Nor did the Samaritans escape their share of misfortunes at this time; for they assembled themselves together upon the mountain called Gerizzim, which is with them a holy mountain, and there they remained;

… Vespasian therefore thought it best to prevent their motions, and to cut off the foundation of their attempts …

Now it happened that the Samaritans, who were now destitute of water, were inflamed with a violent heat (for it was summer time, and the multitude had not provided themselves with necessaries)

insomuch that some of them died that very day with heat.
²⁵²

The passage above from Josephus contains the only mention of Mount Gerizzim
in
Wars of the Jews.
The only mention of Mount Gerizzim in the New Testament is in the passage I quoted where Jesus meets the Samaritan woman. It is also the only time Jesus refers to himself as “living water.” Because in the same passage Jesus foresees the dual destruction of Jerusalem and Gerizzim, a singular event in history, we can be sure of the linkage between this prophecy and the coming war with Rome. In other words, when Jesus says “the time is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the father …” he is clearly referring to the “time” of their mutual destruction. The only time when both cities were simultaneously destroyed was during the war with Rome. Therefore, we are logically on solid ground to understand that Jesus’ vision on Mount Gerizzim is related to the coming war with Rome.

If we accept the premise that Jesus’ prophecies regarding Gerizzim and Jerusalem are related to their coming destruction in the war with Rome, his claim to be “living water” for the inhabitants of Gerizzim can be understood as foreseeing their lack of water during the Roman siege. Such a self-designation by Jesus, in this context, may seem innocent enough. However, if we accept that Jesus’ description of himself as “living water” is related to the Samaritans dying of thirst on Mount Gerizzim, this verifies my premise regarding Jesus’ claim to be “living bread”—that is, that it relates to the practice of cannibalism during the siege of Jerusalem.

Consider how someone living in the Flavian court in 80 C.E. would have reacted to Jesus choosing Mount Gerizzim as the place to describe himself as “living water.” Clearly, such an individual, knowing that the Jewish rebels died of thirst on Mount Gerizzim, would have found Jesus’ self-designation “living water” on Gerizzim scornfully humorous.

In fact, it is self-evident that members of the Flavian court would have seen all of Christ’s self-designations—“fisher of men,” “living bread,” “living water,” “the stone,” and “the temple” as ironic because of the locations where he used them. It is unlikely that such a particular brand of humor would occur constantly by chance—and the fact that it does occur consistently supports the contention that the gospels were created to be understood, on one level, as a mockery of the Jews that specifically relates to Roman military victories in Judea.

I now want to broaden my analysis here and present a number of other parallels that I am not going to analyze in any detail. Some of these are as telling about the true relationship between Josephus and the New Testament as any shown in this work. Others are simply informational in nature. What these New Testament individuals and events share, is that their only other historical documentation comes from Josephus.

When one reads about early Christianity or first-century C.E. Judea, both the social background and the dating of events are derived solely from Josephus. Since the New Testament and the works of Josephus cover the same areas and time frames, there is nothing unusual in the fact that events and characters appear in both works.

However, if it can be shown that Josephus had a keen awareness of Christianity, this has implications. Much of the dark comedy the two works create is virtually self-evident. To demonstrate that Josephus was lampooning Christianity in the passage regarding the son of Mary whose flesh was eaten, for example, it is only necessary to prove that Josephus was aware of Christianity as he wrote the story.

During the time that Josephus was writing
Wars of the Jews
and
Jewish Antiquities
, the Flavian family was clearly involved with Christianity. This suggests that Josephus, both a historian and a theologian, would have been familiar with the religion and its symbols. In fact, the total overlap of individuals and events in the New Testament and the works of Josephus indicates that he must have known a great deal about Christianity.

The following is a list of individuals, groups, and events mentioned by both Josephus, and the Gospels or Book of Acts:

Simon the magician

The Egyptian false prophet

Ananias the high priest

Felix the procurator, and his wife Drusilla

Festus the procurator

Agrippa II and Berenice

The Widow’s sacrifice of a mite

King Herod

The slaughter of the innocents