Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus:Flavian Signature Edition (7 page)

I will show that the Gospels were created to be understood on two levels. On its surface level they are, of course, a description of the ministry of a miracle-working Messiah who rose from the dead. However, the New Testament was also designed to be understood in another way, which is as a satire of Titus Flavius’ military campaign through Judea. The proof of this is simply that Jesus and Titus share parallel experiences at the same locations and in the same sequence. Those parallels are both too exact and too complex to have occurred by chance. That this fact has been overlooked for two millennia represents a blind spot in scholarship.

The Gospels were designed to become apparent as satire as soon as they were read in conjunction with
Wars of the Jews
. In fact, I will show that the four Gospels and
Wars of the Jews
were created as a unified piece of literature whose characters and stories interact. Their interaction gives many of Jesus’ sayings a darkly comical meaning, and also creates a series of puzzles whose solutions reveal the real identities of the New Testament’s characters. Understanding the New Testament’s black comedy level reveals, for example, that the Apostles Simon and John were cruel lampoons of Simon and John, the leaders of the Jewish rebellion.

Throughout this work I refer to Jesus’ ministry as a satire of Titus’ military campaign. I do so because the ministry was based on the campaign and was intended to be seen as blackly humorous when viewed from that perspective. However, the relationship between these two “ministries” was not simply satirical. I shall show that Jesus’ ministry was designed to prove that he was the Malachi, or messenger, of the “true” Messiah—Titus Flavius.

Malachi means “my messenger” in Hebrew and was used as a cognomen for the prophet Elijah. This is because Judaic prophecy foretold that the Messiah would be preceded by the appearance of Elijah, who would act as the messenger of his imminent coming.

But I shall send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

Malachia 3:23

To show that Jesus’ ministry was a forerunner of Titus’ campaign, the authors of the New Testament and
Wars of the Jews
used typology, a technique that runs throughout Judaic literature. Key incidents in Jesus’ ministry were created to be seen as the “type,” or prophetical basis, for events from Titus’ campaign and thereby “prove” that Jesus had been the Malachi of Titus.

I will also show that Josephus falsified the dates of events in
Wars of the Jews
to create the impression that the prophecies of Daniel came to pass during the war between the Romans and the Jews. This was done to provide “proof” for the New Testament’s claim, on its surface level, that the “son of God” foreseen by Daniel was Jesus.

The histories of Josephus and the New Testament are perhaps the most scrutinized works in literature and I encourage skepticism of my claim to having discovered a new, “true” way of understanding them. Throughout the ages, the New Testament has been an intellectual kaleidoscope, within which fantastic prophecies and codes have often been “discovered.” Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and I would not be presenting this work if I could not meet that criterion.

However, it was the case that the Flavians possessed both the motivation and the capacity to create a version of Judaism aligned with their interests. Any honest seeker of Christianity’s origin must, therefore, at least consider the possibility that the Flavians produced the Gospels. Further, the core of Jesus’ prophecies—the Galilean villages “laid low,” Jerusalem encircled with a wall, the temple left with not a single stone atop another, and the “wicked generation” destroyed—all share one characteristic. Each is a military victory of the Flavian family. Thus, the oft-cited principle that history is written by the victors suggests that that family should be the first group we investigate.

This is why we should attempt to understand the Gospels as they would have been understood by someone familiar with the conquest of Judea by Titus Flavius, emperor of Rome. And with this perspective, a completely different meaning of the Gospels becomes visible.

They proclaim the divinity of Caesar.

CHAPTER 2
 
Fishers of Men:
Men Who Were Caught Like Fish

To begin to explain the relationship between Jesus’ ministry and Titus’ campaign that my analysis indicates is a satire, I point to the following passage in the Gospel of Matthew. In this passage Jesus is described at the onset of his ministry as asking Simon and Andrew and the
“sons of Zeb’edee” to “follow me” and to become “fishers of men.”

From that time Jesus began to preach. “Repent,” He said, “for the Kingdom of the Heavens is now close at hand.”

And walking along the shore of the Lake of Galilee He saw two brothers—Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew—throwing a drag-net into the Lake; for they were fishers. 

And He said to them, “Come and follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

Matt. 4:17–19

The same story  is  represented in the Gospel of Luke  as follows:

While the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennes’aret.

And so also were James and John, sons of Zeb’edee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching men.”

Luke 5:1, 10

In another passage from the New Testament, Jesus foresees that cities on Gennesareth Lake (better known as the Sea of Galilee) will face tribulation for their wickedness.

Woe to you Chorazain! Woe to you Bethsaida!

And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades.

Matt. 11:21, 23

In
Wars of the Jews
, Josephus describes a sea battle where the Romans caught Jews like fish. The battle occurred at Gennesareth, where Titus attacked a band of Jewish rebels led by a leader named Jesus.

This lake is called by the people of the country the Lake of Gennesareth …

… they had a great number of ships … and they were so fitted up, that they might undertake a Sea-fight.

But as the Romans were building a wall about their camp, Jesus and his party … made a sally upon them.

… Sometimes the Romans leaped into their ships, with swords in their hands, and slew them; but when some of them met the vessels, the Romans caught them by the middle, and destroyed at once their ships and themselves who were taken in them.

And for such as were drowning in the sea, if they lifted their heads up above the water, they were either killed by darts, or caught by the vessels; but if, in the desperate case they were in, they attempted to swim to their enemies, the Romans cut off either their heads or their hands …
³⁹

A first-century peasant who heard Jesus’ doomsday prophecy which describes what would become of the inhabitants of the cities on Gennesareth Lake, and also heard the passage above from
Wars of the Jews
which describes their destruction, would have understood the juxtaposition as evidence of Christ’s divinity. What Jesus had prophesied, Josephus recorded as having come to pass.

But an uneducated peasant could not have understood that there was another “prophecy” that came to pass within the passages above. I am referring to Christ’s exhortation to become “fishers” or “catchers” of men, while standing on the spot where Jews would be caught like fish during the coming war with Rome.

However, any patricians who knew the details of the sea battle at Gennesareth would have seen the irony in a Messiah who was named “Savior” inventing the phrase “fishers of men” while standing on the beach where the Jews were caught like fish. The grim comedy is self-evident.

These two “fulfilled” prophecies exemplify the two levels on which the New Testament can be understood. Jesus’ prophecy regarding the destruction of Chorazain and Capernaum is completely straightforward and meant to be understood literally.

The other “fulfilled” prophecy, that of Jesus’ prediction that his followers would become fishers for men, is not so straightforward. It could be understood only by someone who, like the residents of the Flavian court, had knowledge of the details of the sea battle between the Romans and the Jewish fishermen at Gennesareth. Only such individuals could have seen the prophetic irony in Jesus using the expression while standing on the very beach where the Jews would later be caught like fish.

If the authors of the Gospels were referring to the Jewish rebels as fish, they were using a metaphor common in the first century. For example, Rabban (chief Rabbi) Gamaliel spoke of his disciples through a parable in which they were compared to four different kinds of fish—an unclean fish, a clean fish, a fish from the river Jordan, and a fish from the sea. Roman authors also used the metaphor. Juvenal, a contemporary Roman poet, specifically compares fugitive slaves and informers to fish.
⁴⁰

The structure of the black comedy is important. Jesus speaks of “catching men” in a seemingly symbolic sense. Josephus then records that Jesus was indeed a “true” prophet. His vision of “catching men” at Gennesareth did come to pass, the cruel joke being that it came to pass
literally
, and not in the symbolic manner that Jesus seemed to have meant with the phrase. This is the most common structure of the dark humor created by reading the New Testament in conjunction with
Wars of the Jews.

If the New Testament and
Wars of the Jews
engage in a scornful interactive comedy regarding “fishing” for men at Gennesareth, they also work to create another wry “fish” joke. As mentioned above, in Matthew 11:21 Jesus predicted “woe” for “Chorazain.”

Scholars have always presumed that Jesus was referring to a Galilean fishing village. Josephus, however, gave a different definition of the word “Chorazain.”

The country also that lies over against this lake hath the same name of Gennesareth …

… Some have thought it to be a vein of the Nile, because it produces the Coracin fish as well as the lake does which is near to Alexandria.
⁴¹

So, while at the Sea of Galilee, Jesus predicted woe for the Chorazain, and said that henceforth his disciples would follow him and become fishers for men. Titus’ experience was strangely parallel to Jesus’ prophecies in that he literally brought woe for the Chorazainians and his soldiers literally followed him and became “fishers of men.” That is, they fished for the inhabitants of the village named for the Coracin fish. If the irony of juxtaposing the onset of Jesus’ ministry and Titus’ campaign was created deliberately, it apparently stemmed from the fact that Titus saw the sardonic humor in his “fishing” for the Chorazainians – who have the same name as a fish – as they attempt to swim to safety.

The previous examples, in and of themselves, are not convincing evidence that there is a deliberate parallel between Jesus’ ministry and Titus’ campaign. It is, after all, quite possible that it was just an unfortunate coincidence that Jesus chose the beach at Gennesareth
as the spot where he described his future ministry as fishing for men. I present this example of the two levels of interpretation that are possible while reading the New Testament in conjunction with
Wars of the Jews
, because it occurs near the beginning of both Jesus’ and Titus’ narratives. I show below that the sequence of events that take place in the New Testament and
Wars of the Jews
have a meaning not heretofore understood.

However, the parallels that exist between the experiences of Jesus and Titus at Gennesareth are not limited to catching men. The first part of Jesus’ statement is “Follow me” and “Do not be afraid.”
When one reads the passage from Josephus in which the Jews were “caught”, it is also recorded that the soldiers who did the “catching” were told not to be afraid and indeed “followed” someone. As the next excerpts show, the person being followed was Titus, who told his troops not to be afraid.

“For you know very well that I go into danger first, and make the first attack upon the enemy.

“Do not you therefore desert me, but persuade yourselves that God will be assisting to my onset.”
⁴²

And now Titus made his own horse march first against the enemy.
⁴³

As soon as ever Titus had said this he leaped upon his horse and rode apace down to the lake; by which lake he marched and entered the city the first of them all, as did the others soon after him.
⁴⁴

Thus, Josephus pointed out three times that Titus was the first into battle. And again, the Roman soldiers who would do the “fishing” literally followed Titus, creating another conceptual parallel with Jesus.