(July 28, 2019 at 5:35 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: 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.
