Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus:Flavian Signature Edition (29 page)

Though I did not understand the reasons for the numerous parallels between the “son of Mary whose flesh was eaten” in
Wars of the Jews,
and the Passover lamb of the New Testament when I first encountered them, their point is now clear. Read intertextually, the passages indicate that the “good portion” that was not taken away from Mary in the New Testament was the same “good portion” that was not taken away from the Mary in the passage from Josephus. Therefore, the “good portion” that was being served at the feast of Lazarus was human flesh. But whose flesh? What was the name of the “son of Mary”?

The parallels simply work in reverse to provide the answer. The Lazarus described in the New Testament shares parallel attributes with Mary’s unnamed son in
Wars of the Jews
. Both have relatives named “Mary” who have a “good portion” that was not taken away. The author thus “informs” the alert reader that, again, since they share parallel attributes, Mary’s unnamed son in
Wars of the Jews
had the same name as his counterpart in the parallel tale in the New Testament—that is, “Lazarus.” The black comedic point is that the “good portion” Mary and Jesus enjoy is the flesh of Lazarus. Notice the grim wordplay in the passage, “They made him a supper.”

The economy that the author used in creating the puzzle deserves note. The passage within
Wars of the Jews
identifies the nature of the “good portion” in its parallel passage within the New Testament, while the same passage in the New Testament identifies Mary’s unnamed son in
Wars of the Jews
. The two passages are also an example of a theme regarding prophecy that runs all the way through the New Testament. It is not just Jesus’ overt prophecies that come to pass in
Wars of the Jews
, but everything that the New Testament states “shall” occur.

Notice that, like the prophecy regarding Mary being “pierced through” above, the two passages are temporally logical. Jesus “prophesies” that Mary’s fine portion
shall
not be taken away and, indeed, Josephus records that this “prophecy”
came
to pass.

Of course, such “miraculous fulfillments” are to be expected. Jesus specifically stated that every letter and grammatical “dot” of the “law” would be fulfilled.

Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them.

For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is fulfilled.

Matt. 5:17–18

It is not just his obvious prophecies, such as that the temple would be razed, which came to pass during Titus’ campaign—virtually all of Jesus’ ministry is a prophetical forerunner of some event from that campaign. Examples of this technique include a son of Mary whose flesh is eaten; Mary being told she will be “pierced through”; Jesus telling his disciples they will become “fishers of men”; the demoniacs of Gadara asking Jesus, “Have you come here to torment us before the time?”; Simon being called the “rock” upon which the new church will be built; Mary’s fine portion that shall not be taken away from her; a naked young man who escapes his pursuers in the garden of Gethsemane; the list of signs Jesus states will occur before the temple is razed; as well as a Simon who is condemned and a John who is spared.

The fact that so many seemingly innocuous but unusual New Testament statements regarding the future “come to pass” within
Wars of the Jews
is perhaps the simplest proof that the two works were designed to be read interactively. Josephus’ recording of the fulfillment of so many of these “hidden” New Testament prophecies could not have occurred by chance.

What is the probability that the satirical “fulfillment” of not one but
two
unique New Testament prophecies—Mary being “pierced through the heart” and her “fine portion not being taken away”—would exist within a passage that also contains an accidental satire of the New Testament’s Passover lamb?

A skillfully designed, interactive relationship between the two works is also shown by the fact that the prophetic statements in the New Testament occur in the same order as their “fulfillment” does in
Wars of the Jews
. Clearly, the purpose of this parodic theme is to confirm that since his “ministry” has fulfilled every prophecy predicted by the Gospels, Titus is the Son of Man foreseen by Jesus.

Returning to the analysis of the Eleazar puzzles, the question arises of how the flesh consumed at the feast of Lazarus could have been Lazarus’ own, since he is described in the New Testament as having been raised from the dead by Jesus and as having been “with” him during the meal? To answer this question requires a careful reading of the passage in which Jesus “raises” Lazarus, which occurs immediately before the feast of Lazarus in the Gospel of John. I present the passage below.

Now a certain man, named Lazarus, of Bethany, was lying ill—Bethany being the village of Mary and her sister Martha.

(It was the Mary who poured the perfume over the Lord and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill.)

So the sisters sent to Him to say, “Master, he whom you hold dear is ill.”

Jesus received the message and said, “This illness is not to end in death, but is to promote the glory of God, in order that the Son of God may be glorified by it.”

Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.

When, however, He heard that Lazarus was ill, He still remained two days in that same place.

Then, after that, He said to the disciples, “Let us return to Judea.”

“Rabbi,” exclaimed the disciples, “the Jews have just been trying to stone you, and do you think of going back there again?”

Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any one walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world.

But if any one walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.”

Thus he spoke, and then he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awake him out of sleep.”

The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.”

Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep.

Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead;

and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”

Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.

Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off,

and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother.

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary sat in the house.

Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

And even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,

and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God, he who is coming into the world.”

When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying quietly, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”

And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him.

Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him.

When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there.

Then Mary, when she came where Jesus was and saw him, fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled;

and he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.”

Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb; it was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.

Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.”

Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?”

So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.

“I knew that thou hearest me always, but I have said this on account of the people standing by, that they may believe that thou didst send me.”

When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.”

The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with bandages, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him;

but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council, and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs.

If we let him go on thus, every one will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.”

John 11:1–48

Notice that in the passage Jesus deliberately waits two days before he starts out to visit Lazarus, thereby allowing a total of
four
days to pass before he comes to the tomb, a point that Martha specifically mentions. This is different, of course, from the timing of Jesus’ resurrection, which occurs
three
days after his death. The difference between Jesus’ and Lazarus’ resurrections is significant. During this era, Jews believed that the spirit was irrevocably gone on the fourth day following a person’s death.
¹⁰⁷
This is why Jesus’ resurrection occurs on the
third
day after his death and makes the meaning of the parallel “good portion” passages clear. Lazarus’ resurrection is a cruel joke. Jesus merely raises Lazarus’ body from his tomb. Someone who has been dead for
four
days cannot be restored to life. This also explains why Lazarus never speaks after he is “raised” from his tomb. The dead cannot speak. Notice also the mention of the stench of Lazarus’ flesh, which parallels the stench of human flesh in the passage where Josephus describes Mary’s “fine portion.” Jesus’ prophecy concerning the flesh of the “Son of Man” has, as always, come to pass and his flesh is literally, not symbolically, eaten.

The darkly comic point behind creating the Christian tradition of symbolically eating the flesh of the Messiah is clear in the lampoons that involve “Lazarus” and “Mary.” The Romans created this Christian tradition to create the impression that Eleazar’s body had been cannibalized by his family and followers. Understanding this bleak inside joke also enables the reader to understand the satiric point in the resurrection of Jesus, which I will analyze in the next chapter – that being, that the tomb thought to be the Messiah’s was empty because the corpse had been eaten.

Even if this interpretation is not correct, it is possible that the assertion that his followers ate the Messiah was simply a fiction created by the Romans to denigrate the Jewish messianic movement. I must note, however, that the Talmud records that cannibalism was prevalent during Roman sieges and that both Suetonius and Josephus confirm that it took place during the siege of Jerusalem. The messianic family and their inner circle, which Josephus describes as the final holdouts, may well have engaged in the practice. If this in fact occurred and was discovered by the Romans, the event provided the grim inspiration for the creation of a Christian Messiah who offers his flesh to his followers. In any event, the satiric system created by the New Testament and
Wars of the Jews
does make it clear that the cannibalism engaged in by the besieged messianic Jews was the basis of the Christian concept of a Messiah who offers up his flesh.