Diogenes the Cynic

I have to say that I find Kaas' points to be very salient and quite devastating.This Jesus-Caesar thing strikes me as about nine different kinds of silly.

Lucretius

Only 9?
I got up to about 12 before I gave up

Juliana

Hello Sir,

may I direct your attention to the review below.

Juliana

"There is no such a blind man as the one who doesn't want to see."

-----------------------------

Some stories, may they be fictious or real, become successful all around the globe, adaptable to any cultural surroundings on this planet: tales like "Pinocchio", films like "The Godfather", real-life stories like that of Oscar Schindler, scientific revolutions like Einstein's theories of relativity, catastrophes like the 2005 Tsunami, religious narrations like those found in the New Testament. Why? Because they comprise the basic rules for telling a story: they are fascinating, interesting, compelling, unique, understandable and universal. Successful stories have a common and basic aesthetic and social value, because they tell you something about life as a human...and they tend to stay simple and focused in their emotional and intellectual contents. Good stories as well as major turning points in history will make you forget the chaotic complexity of earthly life, because they reduce and transcend existence to a brilliant, airy, clear, majestic and spherical order.

In the course of history, successful stories have always undergone cultural transformations and adaptations, and poignant historical events have always had far reaching consequences. In the 1950s the German theologian Ethelbert Staufer discovered that the Christian Easter liturgy isn't based on genuine Christian sources, but on the funeral ceremony and passion of Caius Iulius Caesar, the founder of modern civilization. This ceremony is one of the most important events in the history of mankind, for it decided not only on the fate of the Roman Empire, but the fate of Christianity, Europe and the whole world. An improvised funeral service, driven by a wide range of deep emotions from sorrow to love, from remorse to fury, turned into uproar and insurrection, shaped Rome for all times and sealed Caesar's apotheosis to the highest God of the state, Divus Iulius. A few generations later Caesar's story was still being told, the God Iulius still being worshipped, especially in the Eastern colonies, where many of his veterans had settled after the Civil War. There, in a different cultural context, the story was altered, adapted, incorrectly translated, misinterpretated, but nonetheless understood: its core and ethics were preserved, and after the Jewish War, Christianity suddenly surfaced and swept into western Rome. Soon afterwards the Julian religion was extinct and forgotten.

In the book "Jesus was Caesar" by linguist and philosopher Francesco Carotta, Ethelbert Staufer's findings are anything but a coincidence, rather a logical result from a historical momentum and from cultural-dynamical phenomena, which Carotta reveals in a scientific tour-de-force rollercoaster ride. "Jesus was Caesar" is a praiseworthy and highly learned work of daring excellency. This is not some borderline esoteric pap, but a gritty and witty report that never loses its scientific seriousness. The reader will embark on a journey into the Roman womb of Christendom, where astounding parallels between the lives of Jesus Christ and Iulius Caesar are revealed. Strange enough, although Carotta finally presents to us the historical Jesus in overwhelming grandezza, orthodox scientists and believers hate (and fear) this work, which has been available in other languages since 1999, because it is not a theory at all, but a huge cluster of historical, archeological, numismatic, cultural, theological and linguistic facts and accords. Moreover, "Jesus was Caesar" is the ever first, truly integral design on the origin of Christianity and the roots of the Christ, far beyond the mere myth that is being preached in our churches. As Jesus/Iulius did, this book will eventually change the world...

...if, yes, IF Francesco Carotta is right. Since this is highly probable, scientists and non-scientists, believers and non-believers are starting to feel comfortable with Carotta's findings. His book was once said to be of the same order of importance as the scientific discoveries of Galileo and Kopernikus...and if this is all just a scientific hoax, it will still go down in history as one of the greatest and most thoroughly conceived pieces of art, comparable only to Beethoven's "Ode to Joy", Shakespeare's "Hamlet", the Mona Lisa...and yes, for some people maybe even "The Naked Gun". Either way, it's a "must read".

Vorkosigan

Carotta is nonsense. I just put two long posts in my blog detailing Carotta's word games and ignorance of the scholarship

http://michaelturton2.blogspot.com/

Aquitaine

Actually, Carotta is NOT "nonsense".

I've been reading and studying his book, and it is remarkable how MISINFORMED people are about Julius Caesar! He was not only a military genius. In fact: his political career was based upon his being Pontifex Maximus of Rome, which meant he was the HIGHEST PRIEST in Rome. In ancient times, politics and religion were not so different, (and as we can plainly see by observing the wacko right-wing American "Christians" and how political they are becoming, religion and politics have never been very far apart...)

Vorkosigan, Anyone can pick apart little points in anything. (Much of what you write on your blog can be used to prove that the gospels are fallible, unreliable, and not 'inspired' as Christians like to believe. ) In the end, there are far too many points of similarity between the two. If there were only a few, then yes, I would agree with you.
But there are far too many.


I would suggest you actually read the book, and not just the excerpts that are online.

Amaleq13

I have to wonder how closely you have read Michael's website since he clearly does consider the Gospels to be fallible, unreliable, and not inspired.

If Carotta's theory is as flawed as the Gospels, there doesn't seem to be much sense in reading the book.

Aquitaine

Hi Amaleq13,
Hmmm.
You're right, I didn't read all that Michael wrote, mainly because he seems so prejudiced against Carotta's book from the get go.
I will read it over again more closely, but still, what I have read already has convinced me that his arguments are based upon his preconceived notions of the material, and not upon the material or the research itself.

Yes, the Gospels are flawed. But Carotta's theory is not.
If anything, Michael's understanding of Carotta's theory is what is flawed.

In my understanding, Carotta's theory is based upon this: The Latin texts that were used to celebrate Divus Iulius' passion (probably written by, or based upon what was written by, Asinius Pollio) were mistranslated into Greek by individuals not well acquainted with Latin, and not well educated in Greek either: sacrae scripturae sermo humilis (‘the language of the Holy Scriptures is a humble one’). They were translated generations after the events had happened, by men who knew very little about what had happened. Theyw ere the descendents of Roman soldiers (who probably were not native Latin speakers either) who had married Aramaic and Greek speaking wives in the eastern part of the empire. These grandchildren of legionaires had a very scanty understanding of Roman political history, and knew it only from the liturgies of religious celebrations. Fertile ground for horrid misunderstandings.

The evidence is there, and Carotta has found it. He has found a huge amount of material to support his claims.
A primary reason why it is so easy for naysayers to think Carotta's theory doesn't make sense is the simple fact that very few people have an adequate knowledge of Julius Caesar and the great RELIGIOUS influence his life had on the people of the empire.
Another primary reason is the accumulation over the centuries of useless and ignorant theological monkey-chatter that diverts our attention from real facts, and leads us down the wrong path, to Jerusalem...

Vorkosigan

In addition to being prejudiced....

This is blatantly impossible as the writers of the Gospel texts constructed their texts by haggidic midrash on the stories in the OT as presented in the Septuagint, and on other Jewish sources. Those descendents of Legionnaires were experts in the Jewish writings, citing them, referring to them, paralleling them, and incorporating their tropes, myths, legends, and understandings of the world.

That is basic to scholarship.

I suppose I am prejudiced. I am SICK AND FUCKING TIRED of mythicists who don't do their homework. You wanna drive a stake through the historical Jesus? You gotta bring a fucking gigantic stake made of the whole Old Testament and associated writings along with the history of the first century CE and then a hammer the size of all scholarship since 1950 to do it. And then you gotta put it through each and every verse in the New Testament. Rise from the dead? The HJ is the world's leading expert in it. You can't kill him with some unsupported transpositions of Greek and Latin and no understanding of the scholarly arguments.

Carotta simply makes all Jesus Mythicism and Jesus-agnostics look bad. Here is a man whom even an amatuer like myself can easily show is uninformed, incompetent, and clueless. Does Carotta realize what would happen if someone who actually knew his shit got hold of his book? But nobody who knows their shit is going to waste their time reading his tripe, let alone reviewing it. And because his book goes into the mythicist pile, everyone who identifies as a mythicist is smeared with its flatpetered, ham-handed, thumb-fingered, cheap-trash, trailor-park-outside-of-Roswell scholarship.

So yes, I am prejudiced. I am prejudiced in favor of engagement with the scholarship. Of putting in the tedious work to master the methodologies. Of using logic and reason to buttress insight and epiphany. Of not offending one's potential supporters by making it impossible for them to support you because you are incompetent.

Swill. Let me show you why. Here Carotta is claiming that the Crucifixion of Jesus is actually a parallel to the burning of Caesar on the funeral pyre. He thinks that the offering of liquids and the tearing of the garments represent funerary gifts to the dead Julius.

• If now the words of the first verse are read from the same viewpoint as in the second, it is conspicuous that MURA—myra—is nearly identical in lettering to PURA—pyra—meaning ‘pyre’, and that MUR—myr—can be confused with PUR—pyr—‘fire’ (think of e.g . ‘pyre’, pile to be burned, ‘pyromaniac’, incendiary, ‘pyrotechnic’, fireworks, or ‘pyrite’, firestone). OXU—oxy—also means ‘sour’, but originally ‘sharp’—and together with verbs of movement or action it takes on the meaning of ‘quickly’. Now, if we combine oxy and elaben, it takes on the sense of: ‘was promptly’, ‘took quickly’, ‘grasped the opportunity’. Both verses of Mark can now produce a coherent meaning: ‘…and while the pyre caught fire, they quickly assembled stakes, posts, slats and palisades, placed them around it, tore up their garments and threw valuable pieces on it…’

Well yes, if you can make one word into any other word you want, without specifying rules for such transpositions, you can certainly change one scene into another scene with no problem at all. In the above scene, what is the rule under which he transposted the P and the M to turn MUR- into PUR-? It reads to me like "whatever Carotta likes."

But if you are going to argue that the Crucifixion in Mark is actually Julius Caesar's pyre, then you damn well better go out and study the scholarship and REFUTE WHAT IT SAYS, because there exists a more robust explanation than Carotta's. Nowhere does Carotta mention the fact that the details in the Crucifixion scene are drawn from Psalm 22[21]. That's BASIC KNOWLEDGE of the Crucifixion. Which Carotta is apparently either ignorant of or afraid to face.

That must be it. If only I knew more about Caesar, I'd forget everything I knew about Mark. Like, for example, that the writer of Mark staged procession to the Crucifixion as a mock Roman Triumph that ended at Golgotha, which he intended to be understood as a sly reference to Capitoline Hill -- but poor Julius was not burnt on the hill, but in the Forum below it, where his Temple was built and where there is still a mound today. T'aint no parallel there -- the processions wound up in different places -- too close to be inverted, too far apart to be parallel.

And to accuse those who disagree with one of being "prejudiced" and "naysayers" is to deny them reason, open-mindedness, and intellectual integrity. If you want to reach people, it is a good idea not to insult them.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

I just got an advance copy of Caesar's Messiah which advocates a superficially similar idea. But the difference is like night and day. The writer put a lot of work into supporting his idea, knows the texts, didn't attack me when I disagreed with him months ago, and instead sought my advice on how to strengthen it. We had a very fruitful exchange.

Naysayer!

Juliana

Well, let's see how "superficially similar" that idea is. For you to talk competently about the epochal work 'Jesus was Caesar' by Francesco Carotta it might be a good idea to read it first.
Did Carotta "attack you when you disagreed with him months ago"? Do you feel offended because he didn't seek your advice when he started researching in the mid 80ies and then writing his outstanding work? Anyone who actually read 'Jesus was Caesar' cannot but laugh about your rant. You know, it reminds one of a joke. Considering that biblical scholarship was unable to detect a historical Jesus, it is possible to find him only abandoning the wrong paths.
Biblical scholarship resembles the drunk who was searching for his front-door key under a street-lamp.
Did you loose it here?—No, he replies, but here it is much brighter.
Biblical scholarship is the street-lamp. But if you really want to find the key, you must seek for it where you have lost it, not where it is brighter. Especially when you have sought it for centuries at the false place. If you cannot find Jesus in Galilee, why don't you try in Gallia?

But, okay, although you are an amateur as you yourself admit you pretend to know a lot about Mark. Well then let's take Mk. 15:24, "surprisingly" it does not say that Jesus was crucified:
"KAI STAURWSANTES AUTON DIAMERIZONTAI TA IMATIA AUTOU, BALLONTES KLHRON EP AUTA [...]."
A Greek of the first century would have translated this thus:
"and when they were putting up posts or slats or a palisade around him, they parted the garments, and cast valuable pieces on it.."
This has been confirmed by Fotis Kavoukopoulus a well-known Greek linguist. Do you know ancient Greek?

You are complaining all the time that Carotta gives no rules. Well, how about studying linguistics. No scholars in that field has come up with a single objection to Carotta's work, but you without reading his book know better, of course...