Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus:Flavian Signature Edition (22 page)

Then the Romans mounted the breach … and all the Jews left the guarding that wall, and retreated to the second wall; so those that had gotten over that wall opened the gates, and received all the army within it.

And thus did the Romans get possession of this first wall on the fifteenth day of the siege …

Wars of the Jews
, 5, 7, 301-302

Keeping in sequence, Luke recorded that Jesus had an event “foreseeing” Titus’ victory over the “robbers” in the area in front of the Temple.  Notice the typological concept of the Jews seeking to “destroy” Jesus.

Then He went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in it,

saying to them, "It is written, 'My house is a house of prayer,' but you have made it a 'den of thieves.' "

And He was teaching daily in the temple. But the chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people sought to destroy Him …

Luke 19:45-47

31) The Abomination of Desolation

The “Abomination of Desolation” that Josephus records was predicted by Jesus, and though Daniel’s prophecy is described, it is not technically referred to as such in Luke. This parallel sheds light on why different Gospels were written, as it enables the authors to make the relationship between Jesus and Titus more difficult to see. The reference to the Abomination of Desolation was placed into Matthew, and the authors required that a reader remember that fact to “understand” that the passage in Luke is placed in the correct spot in the sequence.

Notice the witticism whereby the author of Matthew notes that the “reader” needs to “understand” something about the “Abomination of Desolation”. What he needs to understand is that if it had been included in the same passage in Luke – with its numerous typological parallels occurring in the same sequence – the Jesus/Titus typology would be too obvious.

Then He said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.  

"And there will be great earthquakes in various places, and famines and pestilences; and there will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven.  

"But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and persecute [you,] delivering [you] up to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and rulers for My name's sake.

"But it will turn out for you as an occasion for testimony.

"Therefore settle [it]in your hearts not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer;  

"for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist.  

"You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends; and they will put [some] of you to death.  

"And you will be hated by all for My name's sake.

"But not a hair of your head shall be lost.  

"By your patience possess your souls.  

"But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near.”  

Luke 21: 10-20

"For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.  

"All these [are] the beginning of sorrows.  

"Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake.  

"And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.  

"Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.

"And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.  

"But he who endures to the end shall be saved.  

"And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.  

“Therefore when you see the 'abomination of desolation,' spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (whoever reads, let him understand) …”

Matt 24:7-15

And now Titus gave orders to his soldiers that were with him to dig up the foundations of the tower of Antonia, and make him a ready passage for his army to come up;

while he himself had Josephus brought to him, (for he had been informed that on that very day, which was the seventeenth day of Panemus, [Tamuz,] the sacrifice called "the Daily Sacrifice" had failed, and had not been offered to God, for want of men to offer it, and that the people were grievously troubled at it) …

“… And who is there that does not know what the writings of the ancient prophets contain in them, - and particularly that oracle which is just now going to be fulfilled upon this miserable city? For they foretold that this city should be then taken when somebody shall begin the slaughter of his own countrymen.

“And are not both the city and the entire temple now full of the dead bodies of your countrymen? It is God, therefore, it is God himself who is bringing on this fire, to purge that city and temple by means of the Romans, and is going to pluck up this city, which is full of your pollutions."

Wars of the Jews, 6, 2, 93-94, 109-110

Whiston recorded the “miraculous” date of the Abomination of Desolation in a footnote: “This was a remarkable day indeed, the seventeenth of Panemus, [Tamuz,] A.D. 70, when, according to Daniel's prediction, six hundred and six years before, the Romans ‘in half a week caused the sacrifice and oblation to cease,’ Daniel 9:27. For from the month of February, A.D. 66, about which time Vespasian entered on this war, to this very time, was just three years and a half.”  Daniel, it must be remembered, predicted that the “Abomination of desolation” would occur in the middle of a week – seven years.

From the time that the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination that causes desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days. 

Daniel 12:11

†   †   †   †   †

The dual storylines now describe parallels covered elsewhere:

32) The son of Mary who was a human Passover Lamb

OUTSIDE JERUSALEM

33) Three crucified and one survives

34) Simon condemned and John spared

THE ENTRANCE TO THE TYPOLOGICAL SYSTEM

Having established the Jesus/Titus typological mapping, it is now possible to show the complex entry to the system. The entry point is really only visible if read with the extreme bias of an understanding of the typological mapping. I shall also cover in this section a few of the more esoteric parallels passed over in the section above, where my purpose was simply to establish the scope of the overall mapping in Luke.

Perhaps of most interest in the collection is the puzzle that shows the true identity of Mary Magdalene - #3 below.

1) The battle of Nazareth/Japha

The Jesus/Titus typology begins with the linkage between the first event of Jesus’ adult ministry and Titus’ first battle.  It is difficult to recognize that Jesus’ battle at “Nazareth” symbolizes Titus’ at Japha. This was intended by the authors, who wished to make the beginning point of their pattern hard to detect.

To see the connection, some background information is useful. The existence of a town called “Nazareth” was not known in the first century. In the fourth century, Flavius Constantine built a church next to the ancient Judean town of Japha, at a site proclaimed by his mother Helena as having been shown to her in a vision as being the “Nazareth” described in the Gospels. Scholars have found no conclusive evidence of a first century village at the site however, and the basis for Helena’s selecting the site has been a mystery.  Understanding the Jesus/Titus typology shows the reason.  Helena knew that the site was “Nazareth” because she understood the Jesus/Titus typology and knew it was the location of Titus’ first battle.

To begin, Jesus stated in Luke 4 that the Jews of Nazareth would one day “say the proverb” – “Physician heal thyself” (Luke 4:23).
 
Jesus’ prophecy “comes to pass”, so to speak, in Josephus’ passage below concerning the battle of Japha, when the role of the Jewish defenders became reversed.  In other words, the rebels who refused entry to the Romans on the first wall, were then refused entrance by the townspeople at the city’s second wall – those keeping people out had become those trying to get in – the physician had become the patient.

… and as they fled to their first wall, the Romans followed them so closely, that they fell in together with them;

but when the Jews were endeavoring to get again within their second wall, their fellow citizens shut them out, as being afraid that the Romans would force themselves in with them.

It was certainly God, therefore, who brought the Romans to punish the Galileans …

Wars of the Jews,
3, 7, 291-293

Josephus’ passage records that the Jews “healed themselves” of their “demonic fever” by killing one another after they had been sealed outside of the city:

… many were run through by the swords of their own men, and many by their own swords …

Wars of the Jews,
3, 7, 296

Luke and Josephus then each go on to depict a struggle on a hill near Japha. The story of the townspeople in Luke 4 who attempt to throw Jesus from the “brow” of the hill at Nazareth, is a symbolic representation—a typological “foreseeing”—of the Galileans’ attempt to repulse Titus’ troops from the wall of Japha.

… and they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down over the cliff.  

Luke 4:29

The event in Luke “foresees” the attempt by the townspeople to repel the Flavian army from a wall at Japha forty years later:

… and when the soldiers brought ladders to be laid against the wall on every side, the Galileans opposed them from above for a while; but soon afterward they left the walls.

Then did Titus' men leap into the city.

Wars of the Jews,
3, 7, 301-302

Next Titus – represented by the Roman army – and Jesus both “passed through” the Jews that could not “throw them over the cliff” and go on their way to “heal” those possessed by the spirit of demons in Galilee.

Then passing through the midst of them, He went His way.

Luke 4:30

So when the fighting men were spent the rest of the multitude had their throats cut (by Titus’ soldiers).

Wars of the Jews,
3, 7, 304

2) The demoniac at Capernaum who was the first to name the Christ

In Luke 4, Jesus then moves on to Capernaum where he encounters a man who has a “demon”.  The “demoniac of Capernaum” was the first person in Luke to declare Jesus was the Christ, saying that he knows that Jesus is the “holy one of God”.

Then He went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee.

Now in the synagogue there was a man who had a spirit of an unclean demon (daimonion), and he cried out with a loud voice,

"Let us alone! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God."

Luke 4:31, 33-34

There was another individual who was possessed by a demon while he was at Capernaum —Flavius Josephus. These attributes were recorded in Josephus’ Autobiography.

And I would have performed great things that day, if a demon (daimonion) had not been my hindrance;

for the horse … threw me on the ground, and I was … carried into … Capernaum.

Life of Flavius Josephus,
72, 402-403

A technique that was often used by the authors of the Jesus/Titus typology, was placing details in other parts of the text to create parallels which would be too obvious if they were given in the same passage. For example in the passage below, where Josephus declares Vespasian as “lord”, if he had both identified himself as having been possessed by a demon while he was at Capernaum, while also naming Vespasian as the Christ foreseen by Jewish Scripture, the parallels between the historian and the demon-possessed character in Luke 4: 33 would have been transparent. To keep their typology hidden, the authors placed these details into other passages, and required that the reader have the memory needed to understand the intertextual connection.