Atheists, has anyone read "Caesar's Messiah by Joseph Atwill?

Question

Apparently, the main thrust of the conspiracy theory is that Flavius Josephus, the Jewish General who led the Revolt of 68-70 AD and was later 'adopted' by the family of his conquerors, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian, may have had a hand in writing the Gospels.

It is well known that he wrote The Wars of the Jews and Antiquities of the Jews, and that these two books, along with the writings of Philo of Alexandria, were practically as influential among early Christians as the Gospels themselves.

I am well aware of several anecdotes and concepts in the writings of Philo that later appear in the New Testament, even in Paul's letters. I was also aware of some loose parallels between Josephus and the Gospels. But the Gospels are a patchwork of several sources, truths, half truths and mythologies, so I generally dismiss any 'conspiracy' that attempts to claim one major source for all of it, and there are several that have been published.

Have you read it? What do you think?

Answer 1

Fine theory but too speculative to be proven, I guess that there aren`t any learned Atheists about at present eh!

Answer 2

I prefer the generally accepted theory, that there was a Q document of unknown origin that inspired the Synoptics (first Mark, then separately Matthew and Luke), and John was much later and did not use the same background framework. We can also tell a bit about each Gospel's purpose and intended audience (e.g. Matthew for converting Jews, Luke for Gentiles).


I don't believe we'll ever know who actually wrote the Gospels, though we can get a pretty good timeframe for most of them.


Now, finding some of the sources of inspiration for some of the content of the Gospels would be interesting. I'm convinced that Greek stoicism had a strong influence, of course alongside a bunch of other ideas.

I don't know how much some of these ideas influence the writing of the Gospels only indirectly (affecting early Christian beliefs and then affecting the Gospels, since the beliefs came first) or directly (influencing the authors). Probably a little of both.

Answer 3

I haven't actually read his book, but I have read and listened to various interviews with him as well as some really juicy debates and, as far as I've been able to tell, the guy has some interesting ideas but there just isn't enough evidence to support it. Among other things, Atwill dates the gospels very strangely and puts a bit too much emphasis on John's gospel, which was most certainly written by gnostics and has nothing to do with Titus.

You should do a google search for Atwill and Richard Carrier. They got into a huge debate. Carrier is a real scholar, whereas Atwill seems to me to be more of a conspiracy theorist, like you intimate above.

Really, if you want to find where the gospels come from, there is the Mark/Q theory which has a lot of evidence, as well as the thought that a lot of Jesus' sayings are "borrowed" from the various Cynic philosophers. And, of course, there's the volumes of information on dying and rising savior gods that were worshipped before Jesus was thought up.

Answer 4

Yes, I've read it.

The book’s argument is that the New Testament was written by the Romans in order to pacify the Jews in the Roman occupied Holy Land. Jesus is a fictional character and his message, “turn the other cheek”, and “render unto caesar. .” was an attempt at social engineering by the Roman authors.

“Caesar’s Messiah” draws parallels between Josephus’ chronicle of the war between the Jews and Romans ending in 70 CE and the travels of Jesus in the New Testament. Both tales follow the same geographic path. Events at a given location are eerily similar in both accounts. In many cases the New Testament appears to satarize the events of the war, making the New Testament a giant inside joke for those Romans in the know.

Read the summary here:

http://www.caesarsmessiah.com/summary.html

Bob

Answer 5

yes, I've read it a couple times along with the Great Roman Jewish War. I also exchanged e-mails with Mr. Atwil and he assured me that I understood his position completely. i believe Titus, Josephus and Tiberias Alexander, the nephew of Philo, were the three main conspirators and that they rearranged Hebrew prophecy under the influences of Greece, Egypt and Rome with the intent of squelching the messianic fervor of the insurgent Jews. I've got that book full of highlight marks.....

Answer 6

Interesting. I've read Josephus' Wars, and a couple of short biographies of him, and he has to be one of the most interesting human beings of that era. If you were to ask "Which 1st century Jew would you most like to meet?" most people would say Jesus, a few would say Paul or John or Peter or Judas. I'd want to hang out with Josephus.

How does the book deal with the name-check of Jesus that Josephus does?

Answer 7

have you ever considered that the church might hate God?

33 B.C. as Birth of Christ and thus 1968 A.D. would be 1967 years after 1 A.D. Thus the year 1968 would be 2000 years after the Birth of Christ. So perhaps As I, Larry show: Christ was used as a benchmark in many parts of the world and backdating parts of the bible shows:

millenium one, the words contain no h, which i previously have shown to be God)

milleniun two, the words contain no h(ie God)

millenium three, the words contain a god(the h in the three)

So using the Birth of Christ as the beginning of the timeline for god's arrival on earth we can suppose God was born in 1968 A.D. approximately 2000 years after the birth of Christ.

we note (false god=6=1+5=15=o) so for the first 2 millenium (after birth of Christ) you might have worshipped false gods (who equal 6 ie don=6) who were abaddons(a bad don)

So Real God=God named within WAR. who eternally shows up in millenium three is the Real God A'b'add'on

And God was born on emperor's earth meaning ' I7 in mill. 3
In times new roman font thats ON emperor’s earth the apostrophy is like a 9 which is symbolic of September. Thus for my memoirs i can honestly say the I.D in my pocket states I was born 1968 A.D. 9. I7

And since my LF(LEFT) is sealed like IVI sealed together the bible verse that states LORD GOD glorifies Himself in HIM then He must also glorify HIMSELF in HIMSELF (meaning ancient prophets saw that God=h)

That is how i discovered that somebody ancient may have saw the future, where I become a God.

So ain’t that amazing?