Caesar's Messiah is a 2005 book by Joseph Atwill that argues that the New Testament Gospels were written by a group of individuals connected to the Flavian family of Roman emperors: Vespasian, Titus and Domitian.
[2] Although Vespasian and Titus had defeated Jewish nationalist Zealots in the First Jewish–Roman War of 70 AD, the emperors wanted to control the spread of Judaism and moderate its political virulence and continuing militancy against Rome.
[17][18] According to the legendary sixth-century Acts of Saints Nereus and Achilleus, Pope Clement I—whose name clearly references the Flavian family—was the son of Titus Flavius Sabinus.
In addition, the sacraments of the early Christian church, its College of Bishops, and the title of its leader (the Pontiff) were all based in Rome, and on Roman, rather than Judaic traditions.
[27][28][29] Atwill notes that according to the Preterist school of biblical interpretation, the prophecies of Jesus and Daniel were fulfilled by the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
According to Atwill, this indicates that the Gospel authors wanted to signal that the character Jesus Christ, as the fulfillment of the messianic prophecies of the Hebrew scriptures, was a representation of Titus Flavius.
[30] Also, Atwill says that Josephus's narrative in The Jewish War is built around the idea that Daniel's prophecy was fulfilled by Titus's conquest of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Second Temple.
Atwill sees this as an ironic juxtaposition of events, as Titus Flavius destroyed the Temple and conquered Jerusalem, and turned it over to the Romans.
Atwill argues that in addition to those brief passages, Josephus wrote several vicious satires of the Gospel narrative and Christian faith, indicating that he was highly familiar with its tenets, but also disdainful.
The passage contains dense verbal parallels to the Gospel description of Jesus meeting the demoniac at the land of Gadarenes, who contains a legion of unclean spirits that enter into herd of swine and then drown themselves in the sea.
Atwill sees this as a macabre cannibalistic double entendre, and a parallel to Wars 6.3, in which Josephus describes a woman named Mary who is pierced by famine.
"[38] The mythicist Richard Carrier analyzed all of these alleged parallels, and stated that they can be explained as either coincidences, mistranslations, or references to Old Testament sources or tropes.
Immediately following the Testimonium Flavianum is the story of Decius Mundus, who pretends to be the god Anubis, to trick a woman named Paulina into having sex.
Atwill explains, "The New Testament is designed as a sort of intelligence test, whose true meaning can be understood only by those possessing sufficient memory, logic, and irreverent humor.
In a review of Atwill's thesis at The Village Voice, Eisenman explained to reporter Edmund Newton that he has long believed that the Gospel texts were "over-written" to give them a pro-Roman slant.
[49][50][51] In 2012, the book was used as a basis for a film by director Fritz Heede and producer Nijole Sparkis, with interviews with Atwill, Eisenman, Kenneth Humphreys, Timothy Freke and Dorothy Murdock.
[58] Atwill's 2014 book Shakespeare's Secret Messiah[45] expanded the thesis of Roman authorship of the New Testament, to suggest that the Pauline epistles and Revelation were written during or after the reign of Domitian.
"[32] The mythicist Richard Carrier has stated that all of Atwill's alleged parallels can be explained as either coincidences, mistranslations, or references to Old Testament sources or tropes.
According to Carrier, "Christianity was probably constructed to 'divert Jewish hostility and aggressiveness into a pacifist religion, supportive of—and subservient to—Roman rule,' but not by Romans, but exasperated Jews like Paul.