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

[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.