Is Titus Flavius the real Jesus Christ

I find this topic fascinating. It is easy to dismiss Caesar's Messiah with the wave of hand. But if you have an open mind, it's like seeing animals in the clouds. There just seems to be too much collaborating information where one could think "maybe". Consider the following extremely well-written synopsis on the work:

"Let's just go back to the drawing board, leave aside all of the assumptions of Christian history, look at the texts afresh, consider every possibility, and open the whole game up. By doing that we'll see that Christianity is really paganism by a different name.

Some of the Bible scholars are mavericks working outside the restrictions of mainstream religious institutions. This allows them the freedom to provide fresh insights and draw some startling conclusions about how Christianity was formed.

And for Joseph Atwill the key lies in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the only Jewish literature ever discovered from the first century AD or CE... the time Jesus would have been preaching among the Jews. The characters in the Dead Sea Scrolls were militaristic and you can see that this movement wanted to push the foreigners out of Israel; they were fundamentalists, whereas the characters of the Gospels are different.

They're pacifistic, they're turning the other cheek, they're giving the Caesar what is Caesar's. How did a movement like Christianity come to exist in a region that was occupied by Roman soldiers and had Jewish zealots within it that were going to push these Romans out? How was that possible?

Joseph began studying the other two major works of that era, The 'New testament' and the 'Wars of the Jews' by Josephus, a Roman court historian who described the war between the Romans and the Jews in the first century. While reading these works side by side he noticed an amazing connection between them.

Certain events from the ministry of Jesus seem to closely parallel episodes from the military campaign of Titus Flavius. A campaign which took place forty years after Jesus supposedly lived. Joseph's efforts to understand these connections led him to an incredible discovery. Christianity had been invented by a little known family of Roman Caesars, the Flavians, and they left us documents to prove it."

It's very hard to argue with Atwill's argument in regards to 40 typological associations all in the same sequence between the two literally works compared in his study.

Top Documentary Films Caesars Messiah

Here's the documentary:



"Josephus recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the first century CE and the First Jewish–Roman War (66-70 CE)[7], including the Siege of Masada. His most important works were The Jewish War (c. 75) and Antiquities of the Jews (c. 94).[8] The Jewish War recounts the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation. Antiquities of the Jews recounts the history of the world from a Jewish perspective for an ostensibly Greek and Roman audience. These works provide valuable insight into first century Judaism and the background of Early Christianity.[8]"

Josephus

"Caesar’s Messiah is a 2005 book by Joseph Atwill, which argues that the New Testament Gospels were written as wartime propaganda by scholars connected to the Roman imperial court of the Flavian emperors: Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. According to Atwill, their primary purpose in creating the religion was to control the spread of Judaism and moderate its political virulence. The Jewish nationalist Zealots had been defeated in the First Jewish–Roman War of 70 AD, but Judaism remained an influential movement throughout the Mediterranean region. Atwill argues that the biblical character Jesus Christ is a typological representation of the Roman Emperor Titus."

Caesar's Messiah

I think this is the paragraph I find most interesting in all the commentary on this work:

"And for Joseph Atwill the key lies in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the only Jewish literature ever discovered from the first century AD or CE... the time Jesus would have been preaching among the Jews. The characters in the Dead Sea Scrolls were militaristic and you can see that this movement wanted to push the foreigners out of Israel; they were fundamentalists, whereas the characters of the Gospels are different.

They're pacifistic, they're turning the other cheek, they're giving the Caesar what is Caesar's. How did a movement like Christianity come to exist in a region that was occupied by Roman soldiers and had Jewish zealots within it that were going to push these Romans out? How was that possible?"

The Middle East is not known for pacifism! It just seems to me religion would be the vehicle to deliver propaganda to a people at the time. If the people have a culture of rebellion then replace it with a culture of "turn the other cheek" and "give Caesar what is Caesar's". It just seems to me the Gospels really could be war-time occupational propaganda invented by the Romans. It's just seems possible to me.

Personally, the only thing about this that I find fascinating is the fact that anyone actually believes it.

Atwill’s hypothesis is 100% FDA certified bunk.



Even Robert Price AKA 'Mr. Jesus Seminar' isn't even buying it, why so gullible?

Robert Price (who doesn’t think Jesus existed) debunks the book (This review alone, coming as it does from someone sympathetic to at least the idea that Jesus never existed, should tell you how poor Atwill’s work is).

Update on Joseph Atwill's Josephus Code - Dr. Michael Heiser

The claim made by the book discussed below is one of the most absolute, demonstrably false, completely ignorant pieces of dribble I’ve ever come across. So to sum up, Atwill completely ignores or flat out misrepresents the historical evidence and then wants us to believe that the Roman empire got bored and created the most incredibly elaborate hoax in human history because they thought the Jewish people were itching for someone to flip upside down and essentially put an end to the religious establishment they held dear.

If you can find one recognized/credible New Testament/early church theologian/historian (meaning someone I've actually heard of working at a respected academic institution) who will agree that Atiwll's thesis (and I'm using that term generously) is correct, then I'll read the book

Caesar's Messiah: Rome Invented Jesus?

Nope. Jesus is actually a professor of history named John Oldman, who also happens to be a cave man. He was returning from the far East, where he studied with Buddha, when he made a stop in the Middle East, returning home to Europe. He thought he could share those teachings with the locals, and yes, one day he did make a speech on a hill.

The Man from Earth

Can you sum up your argument a bit? Why do you suspect that Titus Flavius is "the real Jesus Christ?" The OPis all over the place.

Seriously have you just listened to this wild assumption and accepted it without any serious clarification of the evidence

This is as ludicrous as zeitgeist was and it will suck in more dummies

This is just ludicrous and historically retarded, only the most ignorant of fools will buy into this and only because they want to believe it, it is just simply historically devoid of a drop of evidence, pure fantasy

Not a drop of evidence from the beginning to the end is offered or is valid

I can not believe how stupid and gullible this is
The Dead Sea scrolls were written before the Roman invasion and you are saying they were written after

Jesus at around the time of the bible was a real person, supposedly who he was supposed to be. The name Jesus is not right, I think it was Yashua or something like that. Supposedly a Messiah of some sort. The religion was formed and spread. Not all of the centuries of Christianity were good, it got to be a pretty violent religion for a while as they spread.

I do not think the author of those articles has much right, I am sure he believes he thinks he is right though. I went through the doubt if Jesus even existed so did a lot of research years ago and the evidence showed he did exist, but there is possibly a discrepency as to when 0-AD actually is.

a reply to: Murgatroid

Do you honestly think "Graceful Watchman" spent as much time on debunking as Atwill did on coming up with the 40 parallels making up his argument?

Graceful Watchman's video is nothing but fluffy cheerleading with no real debunking.

a reply to: KansasGirl

Not everything can be put into tweet form! But here is the argument in nutshell for the impatient and simple minded:

"Certain events from the ministry of Jesus seem to closely parallel episodes from the military campaign of Titus Flavius. A campaign which took place forty years after Jesus supposedly lived. Joseph's efforts to understand these connections led him to an incredible discovery. Christianity had been invented by a little known family of Roman Caesars, the Flavians, and they left us documents to prove it."

There are over 40 parallels ALL in the same sequence between the life of Jesus and the life of Titus. At the 1:07 mark in the video all 40 parallels are listed (I hope you know how to use YouTube's video position to start the video at a certain spot)

originally posted by: Raggedyman
Seriously have you just listened to this wild assumption and accepted it without any serious clarification of the evidence

No, I've actually listened to his argument and watched and read a lot of debunking material. I think he makes a valid argument. I'm not sure I believe it because anyone can see some animal in a cloud. It's the nature of superstition.

originally posted by: dfnj2015

originally posted by: Raggedyman
Seriously have you just listened to this wild assumption and accepted it without any serious clarification of the evidence

No, I've actually listened to his argument and watched and read a lot of debunking material. I think he makes a valid argument. I'm not sure I believe it because anyone can see some animal in a cloud. It's the nature of superstition.

No you haven’t, you have done no research what so ever
Maybe listened, nodded and then posted the video as fast as possible to garner a few stars and flags but never passed a critical eye over what you have posted here.

There isn’t one decent valid scholar that I can find that would even attempt to justify or support this argument in any way at all, not a single person with an education has agreed with your assertion

I just read a report from hardened atheists belittling and making light of other atheists promoting this concept, because even they think it a joke.

You have taken no notice of any debunking material at all, that much is evident

a reply to: Murgatroid

Did you read what you posted?
The bloke your quoting admits he hasn’t even read the book so why you would consider his opinion worthwhile is beyond me.
Extra chuckle points when he says he won’t read it until a verified academic has given it some credence.
Considering his line of study he should be the last person looking for academia’s approval.

To the OP, interesting find, I’ll check out the doco tonight and get back with my thoughts

a reply to: dfnj2015

Jesus ben Stada
Ben Pandira

were the other names of the original "Jesus" as well.

Apparently the offspring of Cleopatra & Caesar, it would make sense that the new Religion was modelled on the Old Roman gods/etc.

a reply to: IkNOwSTuff

Most of us with even a LITTLE common sense know that one does not not need to taste bull # in order to KNOW that it actually IS bull #.

Your argument stinks almost as bad as Mr. Atwill's, no pun intended...

Nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed.

'It is quite difficult to know where to start, because actually the evidence for Jesus is so massive that, as a historian, I want to say we have got almost as much good evidence for Jesus as for anyone in the ancient world....the evidence fits so well with what we know of the Judaism of the period....that I think there are hardly any historians today, in fact I don't know of any historians today [aside from G.A. Wells, etc], who doubt the existence of Jesus....

No Jewish, Christian, atheist, or agnostic scholars have ever taken that [proposition] seriously since. It is quite clear that in fact Jesus is a very, very well documented character of real history. So I think that question can be put to rest.' ("The Self-Revelation of God in Human History" from There Is A God by Antony Flew and Roy Abraham Varghese [HarperOne, 2007])

The 'mythicists' are wrong, sadly and tragically wrong, and they are in denial of the facts and historical evidence. Jesus of Nazareth did exist, and we can know a lot about him. (Bishop N.T. Wright)

Evidence for the Historical Jesus

originally posted by: KansasGirl
Can you sum up your argument a bit? Why do you suspect that Titus Flavius is "the real Jesus Christ?" The OPis all over the place.

Maybe i can help you with that :

According to Atwill, Christianity was invented by Emperor Titus sometime after the Jewish revolt that took place between A.D. 66 and 73. Jesus was invented in order to promote a “pro-Roman,” peaceful messiah who would suppress further revolts against Rome. In order to accomplish this goal, the Romans had Flavius Josephus, a former Jewish freedom fighter who defected and became an advisor to Titus, create what we now know as the New Testament.

That argument is bogus. Suffice to say that even

D. M. Murdock (a.k.a. Acharya S.), who believes that Jesus was just a rip-off of the Egyptian God Horus, writes, [T]here is no scientific evidence that the canonical gospels were written by any Flavians, whether Josephus or otherwise.”

Richard Carrier who is an American atheist activist, author, public speaker and blogger said :

I gave him a fair shot. But Atwill never has any defensible examples, rarely knows what he is talking about, gets a lot wrong, makes stuff up, never admits an error, and is generally in my experience a frustrating delusional fanatic. He also has no relevant academic degrees that I am aware of. 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). Yet he claims to be an expert. When will audiences get a clue?

Source used : No, the Romans Did Not Invent Jesus

Peace

originally posted by: Murgatroid
a reply to: IkNOwSTuff

Most of us with even a LITTLE common sense know that one does not not need to taste bull # in order to KNOW that it actually IS bull #.

Your argument stinks almost as bad as Mr. Atwill's, no pun intended...

Nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed.

'It is quite difficult to know where to start, because actually the evidence for Jesus is so massive that, as a historian, I want to say we have got almost as much good evidence for Jesus as for anyone in the ancient world....the evidence fits so well with what we know of the Judaism of the period....that I think there are hardly any historians today, in fact I don't know of any historians today [aside from G.A. Wells, etc], who doubt the existence of Jesus....

No Jewish, Christian, atheist, or agnostic scholars have ever taken that [proposition] seriously since. It is quite clear that in fact Jesus is a very, very well documented character of real history. So I think that question can be put to rest.' ("The Self-Revelation of God in Human History" from There Is A God by Antony Flew and Roy Abraham Varghese [HarperOne, 2007])

The 'mythicists' are wrong, sadly and tragically wrong, and they are in denial of the facts and historical evidence. Jesus of Nazareth did exist, and we can know a lot about him. (Bishop N.T. Wright)

Evidence for the Historical Jesus

I read what you posted and saying something is true and that everyone knows it is not even close to proof.
Other than the New Testament there is not 1 piece of written evidence for a historical Jesus and even the New Testament was written decades or potentially centuries after the fact.

Instead of posting opinion pieces as your rebuttal please show an academic paper that offers proof of a historical Jesus and the evidence they used to support this theory.

What people have is faith he existed, not proof

a reply to: dfnj2015
I haven't read the book, but I have perused the theory. It has some interesting points concerning the conspiracy between the Romans(Flavians) and certain Jews, but at this point in time it only matters to those who already know all religions are just that, religions.

If a guy believes his best friend is an invisible 6 foot bunny that is with him everywhere he goes, you aren't going to convince him otherwise. He will fight you to his last breath to protect his best friend. It's a shame we still believe in gods, goddesses, angels and demons in the 21rst century, but it is what it is.

We are a species that hasn't matured as fast as our sciences have.

The gospels are just simply that, gossip...he said, she said accounts. Never heard of the Flavians but I've come across an interesting character that in the Bible that is mentioned, but may have had huge impact on the church and who quite possibly was the actual AntiChrist in the eyes of the church, Simon Magus.

He is mentioned in the N.T and is the example of the term called "Simony". However I keep running into a lot theories about from him parroting Jesus to a tee almost word for word, but actually claims to be God in most instances and may have been the reason as to why Greece destroyed Jerusalem.

The other being that Simon Magus was an alias that the said Jesus may have used.

One thing that is agreed on though, he is said to be the father of Gnostics, which is odd, because Jesus is accepted as an actual figure in their doctrine, even their stories differ from what considered canon, all the while no mention of him an his ego.

a reply to: Klassified

Religions are absolutely NOT just religions, they are counterfeits masquarading as truth.

Anything of real value will ALWAYS attract counterfeits.

There are counterfeit $20 bills ONLY because there are real $20 bills, only reality gets counterfeited.

The stealth agenda is to discredit and keep you away from the genuine, once you understand this, the big picture begins to come into focus.

originally posted by: DumbTopSecretWriters
The Illuminati have an agenda to make people intolerant to religion, and it is constantly being mocked in the media. People are being conditioned using clever psychological techniques into believing that religion is nothing more than fables of the ancients. Destroying the belief in God is their top priority. They want to make religion irrelevant by discouraging people to study it because the deeper someone looks into religions, the more they see the truth behind them which ultimately reveals more about the Illuminati’s purpose and goals. Do not fall prey to such conditioning. If you already have, then you need your bhoota slapped with a chappal to sort you out.

But this is exactly the agenda: To destroy Christianity, just as they have destroyed empires, nations, heterosexual identities and nuclear families. The agenda is to strip people of power and identity leaving us defenceless in the face of one-world tyranny.

www.propagandamatrix.com...

Just something to think about as you hop down that invisible bunny trail...

There is an Amazon documentary that says Jesus was fashioned after someone else just prior. ...or something like that. Saw the link to the video last night while browsing through Youtube.


Don't let yourself fall down that hole. That's a really deep hole you may never come out of.

...and I'm just talking about YouTube.



--------

Found something on it:

Low-budget Amazon Prime documentary prompts explosion of interest in theory Jesus was a Greek man called Apollonius

It has often been said that to know Jesus is to know God.

But what if the Jesus the world knows was actually an ancient Greek man named Apollonius, born in what is now Turkey before his deeds were adopted by Christians to create a mythical figure of Christ?

That is the somewhat spurious claim made in a documentary called Bible Conspiracies, a 67-minute, low-budget affair available on Amazon Prime.

The film is peppered with dated computer animations and stock images in the place of interviews with experts or original footage, all accompanied by a monotone voiceover.

“What about this person, Jesus?” the narrator asks during the course of the documentary. “Was he real? Was he created? Was he an alien?”

The fact the film was released in 2016 and has been available on Amazon’s streaming service since at least November 2017 has done little to prevent its contents being widely publicised this week.

Media outlets in the UK and across the world picked up on the theory after it apparently first appeared on the Kremlin-backed Sputnik News website, filed under the headline: “Jesus wasn’t a Jew, bombshell documentary claims”.

The film states Jesus did not exist as a historical person and that the New Testament actually details the exploits of Apollonius.

In an attempt to provide evidence for this, the documentary suggests Apollonius had a number of monuments dedicated to him, while “no statues or temples were erected to Jesus.”

Apolyon came to mind. (Revelations anyone?)


Still, it looks like multiple people are jumping on this bandwagon.

originally posted by: Raggedyman
Seriously have you just listened to this wild assumption and accepted it without any serious clarification of the evidence

This is as ludicrous as zeitgeist was and it will suck in more dummies

This is just ludicrous and historically retarded, only the most ignorant of fools will buy into this and only because they want to believe it, it is just simply historically devoid of a drop of evidence, pure fantasy

Not a drop of evidence from the beginning to the end is offered or is valid

I can not believe how stupid and gullible this is
The Dead Sea scrolls were written before the Roman invasion and you are saying they were written after

I hear what you are saying. But it is equally ludicrous to believe in the stories told to you by our laughing "parents".

The Dead Sea Scrolls..even if they are as we are told they are..who really cares about books that were copied from other much older books.

Getting involved in religions is one of the best ways to insure NEVER getting anywhere near the truth of anything really.

No religious people are going to be apart of new things..only the forever broken record of delusion is what they worship..and that goes for all ways of thinking on this planet.

I see it the same way a parent allows silly beliefs till it is time to tell them those stories are all fake.

These tales of all different sorts that we all hear and believe were supposed to be over long ago, but our parents are not there..other scum has taken their place and ensured we will NEVER know.

No awakening...no reality...only everlasting searching is what they want...

NOPE, none of it is true enough..so it shall all be destroyed...the cleaning crews have come for the scum AND all beings who continue the charade.

The mercy of God was deleted so long ago