Juliana

I said I want to read the whole book first and then I will provide examples of his logical fallacies. Be patient.

As to your in depth analyses, well yes, we have seen some, I recall.

Juliana

spin

Don't be shonky. I said "we are used to more in depth analyses here". Your insinuation in the above doesn't augur well for your ability to express yourself honestly.

Let me re-propose the matter:

When asked to make an exacting comment on Atwill's thesis, the best you could muster was that it "is ridiculous." I responded that that was as fair as saying the Carotta thesis was ridiculous without supplying anything more. It seems that the honest choices available to you are 1) justify your comment about the ridiculousness of Atwill's thesis or 2) retract the comment until you are better informed.


spin

Vorkosigan

Thanks, Richard, for your comments.

Yes, of course, that's why Atwill wrote that book. To make money. Because, as we know, there's so much money in writing Jesus-as-fiction books, as opposed to Jesus-as-fact. Joe emailed me constantly with estimates of cash, and the reason I offered him advice and references is because I expected a cut. In fact. right now, Joe and I are looking for two houses next to each other on the French Riviera -- do you happen to know of some, Roger?

It's good to have this smear available -- it does save reading. I mean -- let's face it -- nobody has any personal integrity unless they adhere to mainstream views.

Vorkosigan

John Deere

My response to Carrier:

Dear Mr. Carrier:

A friend passed along to me your posts concerning my work, Caesars' Messiah. Your criticism suggests that I have not, evidentially,explained my thesis clearly enough. Please allow me to correct this.


I maintain that the Gospels were designed by Flavian intellectuals to be read inter-textually with the histories of Josephus to create a ‘Raz’, or ‘secret’ that indicates that Titus Flavius was the ‘son of Man’ that Jesus predicted would bring ‘woe’ to Judea. The Romans did this to mock the messianic Peshers that circulated in Judea during this era and likely inspired the Jews to revolt against the empire.



The form of typology the Flavians used to create this overall 'Raz' concerning Titus in the Gospels is the same one used on a micro level by the author of Matthew to produce his 'secret' - that Moses’ life had ‘foreseen’ Jesus’ (Caesar’s Messiah, page 9). The author of Matthew combined three elements - just enough shared information for an alert reader to recognize that events from Jesus' life were linked to events from Moses' life, parallel locations for these linked events, and, most importantly, by a parallel sequence of the related events proving that they were not accidental.




As I am sure you are aware, many of the parallels between Jesus's ministry and Titus's campaign I show have been noticed by other scholars. What has not been recognized heretofore is that these related events occur in the same order and at the same locations and can therefore be seen as part of the same typological system established in Matthew.



One critical but obvious parallel has, amazingly, been missed however; the fact that Jesus' prophecy concerning the coming fates of Simon and John given at the conclusion to his ministry (John 21), is clearly 'foreseeing' the fates of Simon and John, the leaders of the Jewish rebellion handed out at the conclusion of the war. You have asked for a single piece of evidence that can be scrutinized. Though this is not the correct methodology for analyzing literary systems that are created incrementally (for example no single parallel would allow someone to deduce the 'secret' the author of Matthew revealed), nevertheless, I am certain if you spend a just few minutes comparing the fates of the 'two sets of leaders of messianic movements in Judea in the second half of the first century engaged in missionary activity' I am sure you will come to same conclusion I did. Jesus's prophecy foresees the rebel leaders' fate.



Once this parallel conclusion for the two 'sons of God' is established the overall typological pattern in the Gospels becomes clear and their 'Raz' is revealed - Jesus' ministry 'foresaw' Titus' campaign. The life of the second 'savior of Israel' foresaw the campaign of the final 'savior of Israel'. A few examples of the linked events of the 'ministries' of the two 'son of god' that occur in the same sequence are as follows - 'fishing for men at the Sea of Galilee, an individual at Gadara from whose 'one head'. a wicked group emanated that infects another group who - all together - rush into the water and drown, a son of Mary who is eaten as a Passover Lamb at Jerusalem, three crucified but one survives after being taken down from the cross by a counselor named Joseph of Arimathea (bar Matthias), followed by the twin fates of the leaders Simon and John.



To come to a clearer understanding of the Roman wit I maintain exists in the Gospels, you may wish to view the Peshers among the DSS. For example, 1QpHab, in which the interpreter looks into his Scriptures for parallels of the travails that his ‘Righteous Teacher’ is suffering at the hands of the Romans. The Romans, evidentially, were amused by such superstition and decided to create a ‘Righteous Teacher’ whose life had ‘truly’ foreseen the visitation of the real ‘son of God’ – Titus Flavius, son of the deified Vespasian. The Flavians, who were perhaps not "geniuses" but seemed to at least possess a wry sense of humor, simply copied the Jewish ‘secret’ style of writing to ‘prophesize’ the truth – that Titus would destroy the messianic movement of Palestine – in contrast to the Peshers of the ‘false prophets’ who saw in their Scriptures a Jewish victory over Rome.



As I see it, the Gospels were indeed written by many different scholars, and subjected to redaction. These facts do not intersect my thesis which only maintains that, however they came into their final form, the editing was done with an awareness of the typology between Jesus and Titus.



I always find it strange that unusual parallels between purportedly Jewish literature such as the Gospels and the works of Josephus, are not even attempted to be read inter-textually, but rather are only subjected to ‘Gentile’ modes of analysis. Typology runs throughout Judaic literature and, therefore, whenever one encounters unusual parallels in such literature this should be the first, not the last, framework in which to attempt to understand them. The most glaring example of this lack of perspective has been regarding the Testimonium – see my analysis in Caesar’s Messiah.



Hope this is clarifying.


Joe Atwill

Juliana

I retract the comment about the logical fallacies for the time being.
I will present evidence for that and for the ridiculousness of his thesis later.

But I repeat and intensify my comments about my first overall impression of the book.
As to the "quick buck" that was mentioned earlier in this thread, it certainly is one if not the main motive of the author or how should one interpret this?

But it was not the only reason he wrote this opus magnum. After hemmig and hawing in the Introduction about why he "delayed publishing these findings" in the Conclusion on page 337 he, a former Christian, informs us that:

"This work was in no way created as a criticism of the faith of contemporary Christians. I felt required to present my findings because of the light they shed on the origin and purpose of both anti-Semitism and the moral structure of Western societies."

Aha, he felt required. I must admit that I have not yet completely understood what the above is supposed to mean, the term 'anti-Semitism' denoting nothing in the time the gospels came into being (I don't think it makes more sense today either), but hopefully further scrutiny of his work will reveal the true meaning.

Juliana

spin

BINGO!!!! Here's why you've been flirting with C14. You've taken on Eisenman's errors about the DSS!

And despite the fact that the status quo sees the scrolls dealing with the Romans, there is not one substantive piece of evidence to justify the connection. H.H.Rowley in the late 1950s showed how baseless the Roman connection was. He wasn't however in with the in crowd of the international team, whereas Andre Dupont-Sommer was.

This use of "evidently" is quite strange, as it is not in any sense based on evidence. (See below.)

The Romans were noted for their shallowness of superstition. That's why so many religions were in vogue in Rome. The colosseum gets it's name from a temple to Isis on a nearby hill the "colle iseum". Don't think that the Romans were particularly sophisticated religiously.

One needs to be able to date the usage of a text like pHab to be able to use it as you'd like to, though we have no idea of how widespread the sort of thought was within the limits of Judean culture. Current C14 places pHab in the 1st c. BCE and the lack of other exemplars of the genre in other Jewish sources, while texts such as Jubilees and Enoch reached us, suggest that the genre itself had an extremely limited circulation. Therre is nothing to suggest that Josephus for example knew anything about it. Many scholars argue that he didn't know Hebrew himself and there is no evidence to suggest that any pesharim ever got out of Hebrew. The form came as a total surprise to scholars.

You therefore need to show the relationship of the content of pesharim to the context you are creating, rather than assume it. That "[t]he Romans, evidentially, were amused by such superstition and decided to create a ‘Righteous Teacher’", has no historical justification, has no Roman tradition to back it up, and shows an approach to Romans and their religious understandings which doesn't find any accord in the remains of Roman culture left to us.


spin

spin

I'll look forward to your analysis, Joseph.


spin

John Deere

To the moderator:

While I am willing to respond to any rational question concerning my thesis, I will not post on threads where individuals are permitted to make charges such as I wrote the book simply to male a "quick buck".

As the father of three teenagers, if I want crazy I can just go into the kitchen, I don't need to seek it out on the Web.


Joe Atwill

John Deere

Spin,

If you are polite I will engage with you.

You stated:

You therefore need to show the relationship of the content of pesharim to the context you are creating, rather than assume it.

Why?

Joe

Juliana

Sir, if you happen to be referring to me as one of those "individuals" who charge you for having written 'the book simply to make a "quick buck"', please note that I didn't say that.
And please, leave your children out of this.

Juliana