Caesar's Messiah by Joseph Atwill - what do people think

[Rev. Rye]

I’m not really a Jesus mythicist (Bart Ehrman’s closer to what I think about the historicity of Jesus) but when even several prominent Jesus mythicists (like Robert M. Price and Richard Carrier) think you’re full of shit, (and you can’t get anyone but Createspace to publish your earth-shattering findings), I really don’t see a point in even bothering with it.

[GrandizerII]

OP, you've read one thesis on the origin of Christianity. How much reading have you done on alternate views, and especially the mainstream ones? Open-mindedness is fine, but you want to rely more on the principles of parsimony and such, and apply proper Bayesian thinking. Given what we do know for a fact, which explanation makes the most sense? Which explanation adequately accounts for all observations with the least number of assumptions (especially extraordinary ones)?

[Rev. Rye]

Yeah, as interesting as Atwell's hypothesis is, it might do some good to look into some of the more mainstream schools of thought on this subject before latching onto a hypothesis that holds up as well as the idea that St. Peter was actually a rabbit:





Honestly, of all things, the thesis as I've heard it reminds me of Sweeney Todd: The Real Story of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. In it, Peter Haining went into great detail talking about how Todd was a real serial killer who killed dozens of people and ended up getting hanged for his crimes in January 1802 in Newgate Prison. Haining gives it the level of graphic detail I expect in a true crime book. But it turns out that, as fascinating as it is to read, it's absolute bollocks. The sources he gave don't support his claims, there's no confirmation of any barber named Sweeney working in London, nor of any barbershop on Fleet Street at all, and there's actually extensive records STILL EXTANT at both the Newgate Prison and the Old Bailey (where he was supposedly tried and convicted.) The name Sweeney Todd (nor Benjamin Barker, a name that doesn't appear in the Sweeney Todd mythos until the 1973 Christopher Bond play, but is still treated by Haining as his real name) does not appear in any of those records. Nor does a Mrs. Lovett. Literally everything recognisable about Sweeney Todd, Haining claims to be able to prove existed. Every aspect he claims to verify has been debunked. And, honestly, when even other Jesus mythicists are telling him



It doesn't seem like this is a theory that's going to hold up to much scrutiny.

Maybe you should look into the more mainstream theories, assess them in the light of the available evidence, and then see whether the Romansmadeitallup hypothesis holds up. Hell, that's how I became an atheist!

[The Grand Nudger]

The creation of the character was almost certainly the product of disaffection, but the explicit romanization of canon happened centuries later as a selection effect. Had they gone with any of the mountains of apocrypha, a different narrative would have emerged...and there were political, cultural, and religious considerations involved in what became “the gospels”.

There’s something very silly in positing that the romans intentionally created a religion to pacify any mass, but took centuries to do so and wouldn’t get around to sealing the deal until they, too, had become christianized.

It was taken advantage of, without a doubt. A dynasty was toppled by the clever manipulation of the growing Christian pop. Bit like fire, in that regard. No man invented it, but those who discovered it quickly found its use.

Early bishops, for example, did use the religion to control their own mobs, consolidating political influence while building something very much like a mob empire, complete with mob land conflict between them.

That said, conflating it’s use centuries after the fact with its origin is a pointless endeavor. One would have to ignore the many proto christianities that popped up organically and remained in conflict with each other until such time as the apparatus of the state was seized by a particular blend and used to eradicate the others. Even if the romans had explicitly invented a Christianity it would be just one voice in that cacaphony and no single voice prevailed in the centuries of revision that followed until such a time as a single recognizable “Christianity” presented itself.

[Send4Seneca]

If I recall correctly, Atwill's central thesis was that Rome invented Jesus to pacify the Jews.  The chief objection to this is that it is tremendously out of character for Rome to do anything of the sort.  Why didn't Rome invent godmen to pacify the Carthaginians or the Galls or the Germanic tribes or the Parthians or...well, any of the dozens of peoples who irritated Rome?  Because that simply wasn't in the Roman character.  Rome would absorb foreign gods into its own pantheon (by way of identifying native gods with Roman ones), but this wasn't done for pacification.  Furthermore, Atwill builds his entire case on little more than coincidence and wishful thinking.  It isn't good history, and it's barely passable as fiction.

I agree that the Jesus of the Gospels is largely an invention, but it was an invention of disaffected Jews, not Romans.

Boru

That's a good question. I came to Joseph as a total Newb/Rube. In fact I'd been Agnost/atheist for several years prior but he's what launched this latest wave of study and discovery- most of which is spent studying things that are more firmly established, but he started it. In fact I came to his book and it intrigued me and held my credibility long enough to make it through and I still don't know what to think. So, if false, it's still more sane to believe than Judee-Christianislam (Abe's faith) but that still doesn't mean it's true. To assess the truth of it requires so much background knowledge that I was not an expert on, and I don't want to take anything on faith so I held it as a hypothesis. Your question touches on one aspect of the background- the Romans. I am not an expert but this thesis allows me to study things in relation to it, much like the bible, even though false, helps me study related true ancient histories and cultures, like the Assyrians or Hittites or Egyptians or whatever, even though the scriptures, pages, codeces, in question are false. Therefore it is useful. That's my latest thinking. It still could be true, but I'm just not as immediately excited about it, (maybe just on back burner). I guess it would be easy to falsify, otherwise requires knowledge of a lot of broad subjects.

So you refer to Roman motivation to invent religion to pacify Jews. I am not an expert but I can repeat his support in a poorer form, which I think I understand. First though, when I read this, I had the same thought, the same skepticism. I feared he had a theory and invented a lot of ad hoc support on the fly essentially, to buttress his case. My skepticism radar got high, but I read his support. 

I don't know if what follows is true in its entirety, but it's what's asserted. I know it's true in part. The Romans not only worshiped multiple gods and goddesses, but they incorporated the gods of their conquered countries, even before the fact. They'd sacrifice a soldier beforehand to their gods and the enemies gods to mollify them to achieve victory. There's a name for a famous guy that did this in Rome, which everyone apparently would have known about. The name escapes me, but a play on this name appeared in Josephus in an unusual place. Sorry this is vague but it's not core. The main point is the Romans were pan theist, real "Catholics." I guess they've created/managed religions to achieve their earthly aims. There were something like four college of religion to oversee religion in the republic/empire and apparently the pope was head of them all or some of them. I was never raised Catholic but I heard the term Pontifex Maximus in the LaHey end times books and that word struck me, mystified me. Well it was just a carry over from the "pagan" roman empire/republic. Pontifex just kinda means bridge. Nothing mystic, but basically religious leader.

So why the Jews? I have learned that they were about 1/3 of Alexandria Egypt population. Why the Jews? Their rebellion. I mean it was just on the heels of it.

Robert Price asked a million dollar question I didn't even think of asking, in a youtube cast: "Was Josephus even real, or was it a pen name?" Let's say he's real but how would we know? Let's just say I'm interested in Earthly powers- terrestrial powers- that is governments and kingdoms and moguls and what they might be willing to do while not being conspiratorial. According to Atwill, a part of his theory is that this was meant to be discovered, at least by the elite or educated, so that means he is not cracking some case that was supposed to be suppressed, but anyway the jews rebelled and rebelled and rebelled again, according to Josephus and many others, culminating in the Titus war, and further wars and revolts. A lot of people were apparently murdered in the Bar Kochba revolt decades later because of monotheism.

As an aside I used to think monotheism was more rational and logical, and it is- only one creator of the universe- but in practice it's also the less tolerant and more oppressive- from Moses and Aaron to Maccabeas to Mohammed to Cromwell and Calvin. That probably wouldn't have happened in polytheism but whatever. The ancient jews did revolt, hardcore, against Rome, disrupting their empire managing so there is a motive. Also they were the only religion with so many written scriptures, as I understand, going way back (Antiquity of the jews by Josephus, "Antiquity" to the Romans was a sign of prestige, if something was ancient, it was more esteemed). There were probably other extant scriptures at the time, of other religions, that got subsequently destroyed or neglected but not like the Jewish scriptures. It was probably not necessary for the Roman Caesars to graft other religions onto these as they didn't pose a threat. They also didn't probably have a "messiah figure" of an earthly person that would come, and also if any such similar cases existed in other religions as Atwill hypothesized, they would have been possibly destroyed by Constantine and so on over time, but it probably didn't happen. So in sum, the jews rebelled a lot due to monotheism, they had the most and most ancient religious scriptures or traditions, at least according to their claims, they had a messiah figure expected to come, so it would have made sense. Atwill also claims Titus had a vanity. The Caesars were already head of religious colleges.

I don't know what's true, but I now give ancient people's more credit for intelligence, irony, wit than I used to. We moderns think we are so special, and we are. We have scientific equations. That is probably our biggest breakthrough, the humble variable. Equations for gravity, friction, energy, heat, you name it, and this powers engineering. If engineers of yore would have had them, I can't even imagine. I am interested in the evolution of the equation but this is heavy lifting. I believe if you get to the source of a thing it can give you greater power to understand that body of knowledge, so it applies to Christianity and to science.

The Messiah definitely became Caesar's at some point- just a question of whether it was Titus'. I get academics have to be conservative but it strikes me they take so much at face value- what I am thinking of now is Josephus. I agree with Napoleon- what is history but an agreed upon fable. But I am interested now in hos the church became taken over by the Romans, the roman powers or how the office of the pope and the other cardinals was instituted and grown. If the Flavians created Christianity, then it was closely linked from the beginning and the story is different than if it wasn't, and the church slowly emerged and was boarded by the Romans like a boat boarded by pirates, or a baton handed off, but in any case, at some time, Pontifex Maximus was a title that was inherited by the pope.

It's funny though near about the time when I stopped believing, I was following Dr Craig and he was like the last person I believed in, then stopped thinking about it, believing normally without questioning for a year maybe and it just started fading and cracking naturally, without outside influence, but I thought Ehrman was the more questionable one, but still his academic credentials and methods kind of troubled me subconsciously like I was afraid to go there. I was young hey. Anyway now listening to him more, mostly not even in relation to Atwill, but in general, he seems like the more conservative mainstream guy, less risk taking. Granted there's a ton to learn from him and I could read him but there are tons of other interesting people too like Price and Carrier and many others, even other mainstream Israel Finkelstein. I'm not trying to be hard on Bart, it's just a sign of how my views have shifted so much over the years unconsciously. This is the most I've been interested in digging down. Watching great funny youtube challenges like DarkMatter and NonStampCollector, reading Israel Finkelstein Bible Unearthed, which was both for it's own sake and as preparation for other more radical books like Acharya S, but I guess a lot of people don't think Moses existed.

Why do I do all this, when I have so little free time, want to advance a career and gain skills at my hobbies and start a family and enjoy life and meet girls and try be more hedonist and when it potentially puts me at odds with others? I kind of can't help it. It just draws me, but what's the payoff? Freedom of mind? More awareness of how earthly powers work? How myths work? Christianity is a living myth- that's how I regard it now- not as a binary true or false thing, although ideas in it can be tested as true or false- did Jesus arise from the dead? Did he even exist? Those have t/f answers even if we'll never know them, but as a whole, it's a myth, which is interesting and represents an evolution in my thinking and a way to relate to other believers. They chose to accept the myth. I do not oppose or fight myths because you can't, or I don't want to at least, but I do fight for or against certain life principles, principles of government, etc. E.g. I hate circumcision. Hate is not strong enough of a word. I digress so much.

Caesar's Messiah? For me it's still pending, and it's interesting but it's on the back burner. There's too much to know and consider, but I did get through book one of Josephus, audio book on a long drive I had. That just touched on the time from the Maccabees to Herod's death. Oh Gosh why does everyone have to have the same name in antiquity? It makes it so much harder to follow - but Josephus's Bellum Judaicum, even only understood vaguely, but directly start to finish, will help me have a context to be able to assess. I want to get to the point ultimately, not just on this but on all topics, where acceptance or rejection of a theory is just natural and obvious based on all I know. Of course it's probably true, or of course it's probably false, and here's why. Now off to the next thing.

[The Grand Nudger]

Christianity became the property of the Roman state, truly, following the death of Julián apostate in his campaign against the sassanid.

One of his generals, Jovian, was swiftly declared emperor In 363. He brokered a shameful peace with the Persians and reestablished Christianity as a state church. Julián had unsuccessfully attempted to revive pan hellenism in a bid to restore high classical culture against a rising tide of ignorance and superstition.

He was dead within a year, succeeded by Valentinian (the great), who, along with his general Count Theodosius, spent the next nine years putting down a revolt in Africa, as well as pacifying and subjugating Romain Britain after a combined assault by Picts, Scots and Saxons.

He was replaced by his sons in the west and brother in the east. They, in turn, were replaced by Theodosius I, son of Count Theodosius above, in 379. It was Theodosius I who declared Nicene Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.

This ended the struggle between different proto-Christian sects that had built flavor, rose, and fell with succesive emperors since Constantine I in 306. Throughout the 380’s Theodosius would institute sweeping policies banning pagan religions and removing heterodox believers and officials from the new state Christendom of Rome. During his reign he allowed attacks on pagan temples to proceed without punishment, as well as lynchings if prominent religious adversaries. The pretext of religious purity was immensely useful in pursuing internal enemies when civil war broke out in 383. After consolidating his position by purging the church, and reforming the state cult to be loyal to him and his authorized view of Christian belief; in 393 he banned all public “non-Christian” culture, practices, and customs. Right down to holidays and the Olympic Games. He would be dead by 395.

It is from this point, and only this point, that contemporary western christianity began to take form. At the cusp of 400ad. If we wished to make the case that the romans invented a Jesus ( and they did, the romanized Jesus) we could place that construct, or at least the culmination of that work, no earlier than this. When the myth had been powerfully shaped by the new political realities of a declining empire over the course of a century.

By 476, the western empire would be ruled by a germanic conqueror, Odaicar(sp?), having overthrown Romulus.

[The Grand Nudger]

Odoacer, lol- had to wiki his ass. As it so happens, when Odoacer was appointed, Rome was left in the hands of its bishop, who....in the absence of s Roman emperor, became the de facto seat of cultural authority and Roman continuity. His name was Simplicius. He would become pope, and further issue decrees denouncing this or that heresy, refining Jesus even further.

[Jehanne]

The core theory is this: The Roman Caesars, particularly the Flavians, in conjunction with the Herodians perhaps, and random others, invented Christianity, i.e. subverted the troublesome Jewish messianic movement to be one of pacifistic slave obey your master render unto Caesar religion, to lampoon these rebels that caused Rome trouble, as well as to "prophecize" and foreshadow Titus's future conquest of Galilee and destruction of Jerusalem as the "son of man" to thus be unconsciously worshipped by those who otherwise would refuse. 

I think that the idea is absurd.  Jesus existed and was a first-century Jewish apocalyptic prophet who foretold the End of the World, the liberation of Palestine from Roman control via the Son of Man, an angelic being who would descend from Heaven (Jesus, as with all of his contemporaries, save the Hellenistic intelligentsia, believed in a flat Earth) and liberate the Jewish People.  When Jesus, who began life in northern Galilee, took his message to Jerusalem at the behest of his followers, he was noticed by the Roman authorities; prior to that, they ignored him, as just another crank, a religious loon, one of many from Galilee and the surrounding regions.

The rest is history -- shortly after Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, he was arrested by the Romans after an altercation at the Temple.  He was examined, and after consulting with the local Jewish authorities, Pilate signed the order for Jesus' execution.

[Anomalocaris]

The core theory is this: The Roman Caesars, particularly the Flavians, in conjunction with the Herodians perhaps, and random others, invented Christianity, i.e. subverted the troublesome Jewish messianic movement to be one of pacifistic slave obey your master render unto Caesar religion, to lampoon these rebels that caused Rome trouble, as well as to "prophecize" and foreshadow Titus's future conquest of Galilee and destruction of Jerusalem as the "son of man" to thus be unconsciously worshipped by those who otherwise would refuse. 

I think that the idea is absurd.  Jesus existed and was a first-century Jewish apocalyptic prophet who foretold the End of the World, the liberation of Palestine from Roman control via the Son of Man, an angelic being who would descend from Heaven (Jesus, as with all of his contemporaries, save the Hellenistic intelligentsia, believed in a flat Earth) and liberate the Jewish People.  When Jesus, who began life in northern Galilee, took his message to Jerusalem at the behest of his followers, he was noticed by the Roman authorities; prior to that, they ignored him, as just another crank, a religious loon, one of many from Galilee and the surrounding regions.

The rest is history -- shortly after Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, he was arrested by the Romans after an altercation at the Temple.  He was examined, and after consulting with the local Jewish authorities, Pilate signed the order for Jesus' execution.

How much of that was history, as oppose to merely historically plausible, is not entirely settled, at least amongst those more inclined to call it for what it was as oppose to merely seeing how little one could avoid offending religious sensibility without outright lying.

[The Grand Nudger]

There isn’t any history whatsoever in the story of Jesus, even if there was Some Guy™.

There are lumberjacks named Paul, too.

The stories we have were selected for their theological content, exclusively. It’s not a biography of a man.