Juliana

Ok, Evil One, if it's horseshit I wouldn't read it either.

There are other opinions though, e.g. here:
http://www.smallkidtime.com/was_jesus_caesar.htm

The Evil One

That page is a favourable review of the book. So what? There is no theory so insane that some people won't believe it. I don't care how many webpages you can point to that praise it, I care whether the arguments are any good - and the sample of them you've presented are not good. They're very, very bad.

Furthermore the review is by someone who says of Caesar,
I'm no expert on Roman history, but from the little I know that sounds suspiciously not true to me.

The review does give us another sample of the level of carotta's argument - and I quote:

The blind equation of "book" with "codex" in opposition to "scroll" is mind-bogglingly simplistic and wrongheaded. And who on earth refers to Christians as "People of the Book"? The only time *I've* ever heard that phrase is as an Islamic expression covering Christians, Jews and Muslims.

To repeat - the arguments presented in favour of the theory so far are astoundingly bad. If there are better arguments, let's see them.

Lucretius

Using the same sort of "evidence " as Carrotta I could probably come up with a theory that Gaius Julius Germanicus Caesar a.k.a Caligula was "Jesus"
After all Caligula did "walk on water" by arranging for ships to be placed across a bay in response to a bet he made.
He did declare himself to be a god and ordered a statue of him to be placed in the Temple in Jerusalem. (God of the Jews ?)
He was the THIRD Emperor (part of a Trinity?)
There were family connections with the Longinus family as well.
Caligula died at an early age as did Jesus
I could go on and make more paralells if I really wanted to and had the time
All equally nonsense of course as is Carrota's premise
(Actually now I think about it if there are people about who will buy books about this nonsense I may put it on my To-Do list )

Juliana

There's only one little problem with your "theory" (well, actually there are many).
Caligula suffered the 'damnatio memoriae' so he certainly was not worshipped as the God of the Empire.

Lucretius

There are many problems I agree just as there are with the theory of Julius Caesar being the basis for Jesus
That was precisley the point I was trying to make
By taking selected episodes form anyones life you can make these sort of paralells

Juliana

Caesar is not just anyone, he was the God of the Empire as Divus Iulius, whereas the assumed wandering preacher from Nazareth was a nobody.
What happened to Divus Iulius, what became of his cult? Did it simply dissolve and fall into oblivion? Or did it persist in a mutated form as Christianity?
These are rhetorical questions since the answer has been established. If you're interested to learn how this happened read the material on this website: www.carotta.de

Lucretius

Juliana the cult of Divus Iulius died out as did the belief in all the deified Emperors , Julius was NOT the only one diefied,as did the belief in the Roman/Greek pantheon
I have read all of Carotta's site you quote and its a mixture of some classical scholarship mixed in with some unusual linguistic ideas(the changes in the names of Gaeus Iulius to Jesus) and some, in my opinion ,completely unfounded assumptions.

Juliana

You're begging the question here. The cult of Divus Iulius did not die out rather it changed in the course of time and became Christianity and it very much looks like that those who did not want to pay hommage to the respective current emperor resorted to the cult of Divus Iulius resp. Christianity.

From 'Jesus was Caesar' http://www.carotta.de/subseite/texte...7.html#history

"History
p. 351–357 (original German Edition), = p. 325-329 (English Edition)

How did the sacred story of Caesar become the Gospel? The answer to this question has not only a technical or historical dimension concerning the handing down of a tradition, but a theopolitical one, as well.

We must be clear on this point first: there was actually no hagiography of Caesar, but rather a vita Divi Iulii. Divus Iulius was not the deified Caesar, but a god in his own right: not a deceased god but rather a living god. Because Julius Caesar was the first of the deified Caesars it is easy to be misled by the idea that his cult must have been the prototype for the cult of the Caesars. This is not true, or at least not completely true, although the notion could indeed be construed from the ancient writers. We have already seen how Appianus wrote that, on the model of the deification of Caesar, the later emperors had been afforded the same respect, provided they did not rule tyrannically or bring any great reproach upon themselves. However, the same respect does not mean the same status. This is best recognized when a dynasty comes to an end. We remember the old adage of how Octavianus, when he looked upon the sarcophagus of Alexander and not wanting to see the grave of the Ptolemaeans at all, exclaimed: ‘I wanted to see a King, not a row of corpses!’ That is the difference between the founder of an empire and its resultant dynasty. The same distinction exists between Caesar and the Roman emperors. And just as Alexander was still a king to Octavianus when the Ptolemaeans had lost the throne of Egypt on the death of Cleopatra, so Divus Iulius was still a god for Vespasianus when the Julio-Claudian line died out with Nero—and it appears that he has survived the demise of the Roman Empire, incognito, as Jesus.

And thus we have to restrict the assertion of the title of this book: ‘Jesus was Caesar’. He was—as a man. As a God he is not: Jesus is Divus Iulius."

See also 'Was Divus Iulius a true God?'
http://www.carotta.de/subseite/texte....html#true_god

TerryDucDaul

Hello Juliana,

You seem to know the most about this book. Please do continue to tell us more. If this is really all that you have been saying it is, then you must know many of the key points in which to outline for us.

Remember, this should be a discussion about the book and the author, and not a place to make book sales. People should know as much about it first, and then decide whether or not they want to get the book.

You said that Mr. Carotta was the "first," what other books are there about this? Thank you.

Terry

Juliana

Hi Terry,

yes I know much about it because I have read it in German and now the new enhanced English version. I could outline the key points but I don't see why those who are interested don't go to Carotta's website and read them there online (more than half of the book and other material is online here: www.carotta.de) so that we can discuss it. The author has a forum too, btw:
http://www.carotta.de/forum.html
And frankly, yes, I believe this is a book worth buying.

There are no other books about this specific discovery (Jesus is Divus Iulius). There is expert literature on some pertinent topics however, i.a.:

Weinstock, Stephan (1971). Divus Julius, Oxford.
Stauffer, E. (1952). Christus und die Caesaren, Hamburg.
Stauffer, E. (1955), Christ and the Caesars. Historical sketches. Translated by Kaethe Gregor Smith and Ronald Gregor Smith. London: SCM-Press.
Stauffer, E. (1957). Jerusalem und Rom im Zeitalter Jesu Christi, Bern.

The German theologian Ethelbert Stauffer noted that the Easter liturgy did not follow the Gospel narrative, but the funeral ritual of Caesar.

The Italian scholar Francesco Carotta discovered that the Gospel (of Mark) is a mutated story of the vita Divi Iulii, from the Rubicon to Caesar's assassination and apotheosis (Jesus: from the Jordan to his 'crucifixion' and resurrection).
Jesus, the man, was Gaius Julius Caesar. Jesus, the (son of) God is Divus Iulius.

Juliana