Quote: The revolt may have been crushed, but the religion that inspired it wasn’t, and was still a threat to the Pax Romana (Roman peace.) It became obvious that Jews were still dreaming about their messiah, so Atwill thinks Titus transformed himself into the embodiment of their dreams. He had a derivative of Judaism created that worshipped him (as Jesus) without people knowing it. The agenda was to tame Judaism by transforming it into a cooperative, government friendly religion. Titus had the Gospels invented to act as a theological barrier against the spread of messianic Judaism because if he could get Jews to worship “Jesus,” it would mean they accepted Roman authority.
Well, may as well bring everyone up to date on my objections. Yes, in 70 the revolt was crushed with a few miscellaneous mop-up operations like Masada to finish. These were left to Lucius Flavius Silva and the Xth legion. But Atwill acts as if the biggest problem in the Roman world were the fucking jews and this was simply not the case. There were far more pressing issues at the beginning of Vespasian's reign. There were serious revolts in Gaul and Germany. The empire was bankrupt. The capital had been seriously burned in a battle between Vespasian's army and that of Vitellius. Vespasian was a soldier and a practical man. The notion that he would have wasted time worrying about a nation he had just fucked flat instead of the real problems he actually faced is mind-boggling.
Then there is reality to deal with. Outside of bible horseshit there is no indication at all that xtianity spread among the "jews." Quite the contrary. If anyone picked up on it they were largely Greco-Roman and the numbers suggest that there were not very many of them either, and those not until the second century when the Flavians were long since relegated to the dustbin of history. The Jews, lacking a temple for sacrifice, re-formatted themselves into rabbinic judaism and they wanted nothing to do with any "jesus" which means that Titus' big plan was a total flop.
As far as Vespasian's message, it sunk in to the point that when the Kitos War broke out in 115 among other Jews the ones in Palestine said "no thanks, boys. We'll sit this one out."
