http://uk.prweb.com/releases/2013/10/prweb11201273.htm London (PRWEB UK) 8 October 2013 American Biblical scholar Joseph Atwill will be appearing before the British public for the first time in London on the 19th of October to present a controversial new discovery: ancient confessions recently uncovered now prove, according to Atwill, that the New Testament was written by first-century Roman aristocrats and that they fabricated the entire story of Jesus Christ. His presentation will be part of a one-day symposium entitled "Covert Messiah" at Conway Hall in Holborn (full details can be found at http://www.covertmessiah.com). Although to many scholars his theory seems outlandish, and is sure to upset some believers, Atwill regards his evidence as conclusive and is confident its acceptance is only a matter of time. "I present my work with some ambivalence, as I do not want to directly cause Christians any harm," he acknowledges, "but this is important for our culture. Alert citizens need to know the truth about our past so we can understand how and why governments create false histories and false gods. They often do it to obtain a social order that is against the best interests of the common people." Atwill asserts that Christianity did not really begin as a religion, but a sophisticated government project, a kind of propaganda exercise used to pacify the subjects of the Roman Empire. "Jewish sects in Palestine at the time, who were waiting for a prophesied warrior Messiah, were a constant source of violent insurrection during the first century," he explains. "When the Romans had exhausted conventional means of quashing rebellion, they switched to psychological warfare. They surmised that the way to stop the spread of zealous Jewish missionary activity was to create a competing belief system. That's when the 'peaceful' Messiah story was invented. Instead of inspiring warfare, this Messiah urged turn-the-other-cheek pacifism and encouraged Jews to 'give onto Caesar' and pay their taxes to Rome." Was Jesus based on a real person from history? "The short answer is no," Atwill insists, "in fact he may be the only fictional character in literature whose entire life story can be traced to other sources. Once those sources are all laid bare, there's simply nothing left." Atwill's most intriguing discovery came to him while he was studying "Wars of the Jews" by Josephus [the only surviving first-person historical account of first-century Judea] alongside the New Testament. "I started to notice a sequence of parallels between the two texts," he recounts. "Although it's been recognised by Christian scholars for centuries that the prophesies of Jesus appear to be fulfilled by what Josephus wrote about in the First Jewish-Roman war, I was seeing dozens more. What seems to have eluded many scholars is that the sequence of events and locations of Jesus ministry are more or less the same as the sequence of events and locations of the military campaign of [Emperor] Titus Flavius as described by Josephus. This is clear evidence of a deliberately constructed pattern. The biography of Jesus is actually constructed, tip to stern, on prior stories, but especially on the biography of a Roman Caesar." How could this go unnoticed in the most scrutinised books of all time? "Many of the parallels are conceptual or poetic, so they aren't all immediately obvious. After all, the authors did not want the average believer to see what they were doing, but they did want the alert reader to see it. An educated Roman in the ruling class would probably have recognised the literary game being played." Atwill maintains he can demonstrate that "the Roman Caesars left us a kind of puzzle literature that was meant to be solved by future generations, and the solution to that puzzle is 'We invented Jesus Christ, and we're proud of it.'" Is this the beginning of the end of Christianity? "Probably not," grants Atwill, "but what my work has done is give permission to many of those ready to leave the religion to make a clean break. We've got the evidence now to show exactly where the story of Jesus came from. Although Christianity can be a comfort to some, it can also be very damaging and repressive, an insidious form of mind control that has led to blind acceptance of serfdom, poverty, and war throughout history. To this day, especially in the United States, it is used to create support for war in the Middle East." Atwill encourages skeptics to challenge him at Conway Hall, where after the presentations there is likely to be a lively Q&A session. Joining Mr.Atwill will be fellow scholar Kenneth Humphreys, author of the book "Jesus Never Existed." Further information can be found at http://www.covertmessiah.com. About Joseph Atwill: Joseph Atwill is the author of the best-selling book "Caesar's Messiah" and its upcoming sequel "The Single Strand."
It would make a lot of sense to me, but I had heard before that the premier Roman historian at the time of Jesus made no mention whatsoever about him, so why wouldn't the Roman historian talk at length about Jesus if he was a creation of the Roman empire?
It was so long ago that I heard that, I honestly don't remember, but I don't think it was Josephus. I could be wrong though.
In case anyone else is curious, here is a link to the texts of Josephus he is referring to. It is the second collection of "Books" down the page. http://www.ccel.org/j/josephus/works/JOSEPHUS.HTM
I wouldn't be surprised in the least. Religion has been used to pacify the masses for thousands of years. I remember when I was reading Western Civ books, I found it interesting that Alexander the Great decided to make himself a god after conquering Egypt. From what I remember, the Egyptian holy men convinced him to go through all the rituals to become a Pharaoh, and therefore a god to the Egyptian people. He realized how awesome this was and sent word back to Greece that from now on, he was a god to the Greeks as well. People would be less likely to revolt if they think you're a god. Pure genius.
There's a slight problem with his theory. Christians (documented at least 100 a.d.) were around long before the Roman Empire adopted it (306 a.d.). So as they may have some evidence the "New Testament" was fabricated; they didn't fabricate Christianity.
Which Jesus is this: And now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus... Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.[23] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus#The_three_passages
interesting, sure. unfortunately, the guy is fairly discredited as an actual academic so I wouldn't get too excited.
Interesting. This has been a fairly widely accepted idea for some time now - but the more evidence in support of it the better. I don't think that this will be the end of Christianity - and especially not within our lifetime. But hopefully it'll be one small step forward, leaving behind us the falsehoods that we should be smart enough to recognize as being false. However, we've clearly shown that we are willing to set aside reason and intellect even in the modern age as evidenced by Mormonism and Scientology - two modern religions that never should have gained any traction given how much we had learned about the world by the time they came into existence.
He isn't saying it was adopted by the Romans. He was saying the Romans fabricated Jesus/Christianity to help pacify the masses. They wanted to create an alternative to Judaism during the Roman/Jewish war. That's his hypothesis anyway.
My take is he existed, but was pretty much a regular guy. Nothing particularly special about him, other than his life and death turned out to be the first global marketing exercise.
I've read and own a couple books questioning the existence of Jesus Christ. Even for me, they were never compelling enough to make me believe Jesus was entirely made up, but it does cast incredible doubt on his existence and the stories, and proves that faith is the only thing driving belief in Christ, not evidence of any kind. Sent from my banana using Tapatalk 4
Interesting, I gave up before that. I saw a high priest named Jesus, and was interested, but he was referred to as the son of Ananus
