Capstone
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- Feb 14, 2012
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[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUPoLMW6dNM]Caesar's Messiah Documentary Trailer - YouTube[/ame]
So, Atwills chief premise is that Christianity was a Roman invention designed to squash the post-Jewish War uprisings and create a pacified version of messianic Judaism. To support his premise, Atwill demonstrates a strange relationship between certain events in the four Gospels and events recorded in Josephus's historical account, Wars of the Jews. When read inter-textually, the Gospels appear to be a satire of the Jewish uprisings and Roman victories of the first century. It seems the Flavians were getting their jollies from the esoteric joke, as well as reaping the benefits of the newly-formed religion!
The most compelling aspect of Atwills argument rests not so much on the parallels themselveswhich are subject to interpretationbut on the fact that at least 12 instances of these peculiar similarities also happen to coincide chronologically between the texts. It's difficult to imagine how remote the odds are that this inter-textual phenomenon could have occurred independently.
An excellent summary can be found here.
So, Atwills chief premise is that Christianity was a Roman invention designed to squash the post-Jewish War uprisings and create a pacified version of messianic Judaism. To support his premise, Atwill demonstrates a strange relationship between certain events in the four Gospels and events recorded in Josephus's historical account, Wars of the Jews. When read inter-textually, the Gospels appear to be a satire of the Jewish uprisings and Roman victories of the first century. It seems the Flavians were getting their jollies from the esoteric joke, as well as reaping the benefits of the newly-formed religion!
The most compelling aspect of Atwills argument rests not so much on the parallels themselveswhich are subject to interpretationbut on the fact that at least 12 instances of these peculiar similarities also happen to coincide chronologically between the texts. It's difficult to imagine how remote the odds are that this inter-textual phenomenon could have occurred independently.
An excellent summary can be found here.