Scholars: Ancient confession says Romans invented Jesus

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

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Thoughts?  I haven't seen all of Atwill's previous works, so I can't give him a fair criticism, but on the surface many of these arguments sound outdated, and that they were already subject to scholarly review and refuted by various sources.  Then again, I'm not an 'historical Jesus' expert.  However, I figured a "groundbreaking" historical conclusion of this degree was deserving of its own thread.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Interesting.

[afleitch]

There are very sound arguments in favour of Jesus being syncretistic but there are also very bad ones so I'd need to read his claims thoroughly.

[DC Al Fine]

He published a book with the same premise in 2005.

The article Scott posted was quite teasery, and doesn't really lay out his case. At first glance it appears to be speculation at best.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

He published a book with the same premise in 2005.

The article Scott posted was quite teasery, and doesn't really lay out his case. At first glance it appears to be speculation at best.

Yeah, that was my impression.  Apparently he will present the new discovery on October 19th, if anyone (looking at you, afleitch) happens to be in London at the time.

I'm really curious as to how this will stand up to scholarly review.

[DC Al Fine]

He published a book with the same premise in 2005.

The article Scott posted was quite teasery, and doesn't really lay out his case. At first glance it appears to be speculation at best.

Yeah, that was my impression.  Apparently he will present the new discovery on October 19th, if anyone (looking at you, afleitch) happens to be in London at the time.

I'm really curious as to how this will stand up to scholarly review.

Yeah, it's more like "I have PROOF THAT JESUS IS A MYTH that you can learn about by buying tickets to my talk for a mere 25 quid"

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Here's a fairly negative and scathing condemnation of both Atwill and his claims:

http://tomverenna.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/no-joe-atwill-rome-did-not-invent-jesus/

Rather than any alleging any grand Roman conspiracy, I think it far more reasonable to posit that those Jewish sects that did survive (i.e. Christianity and Rabbinical Judaism) were those that could accommodate themselves to Jews being subservient to foreign rule, with Christianity being willing to go beyond having a purely Jewish composition.  There really was no need for Rome to invent such systems.  However, while it may be far more reasonable, it certainly wouldn't sell as many books as arguing that Jesus was Caesar's Messiah.

[afleitch]

Here's a fairly negative and scathing condemnation of both Atwill and his claims:

http://tomverenna.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/no-joe-atwill-rome-did-not-invent-jesus/

Rather than any alleging any grand Roman conspiracy, I think it far more reasonable to posit that those Jewish sects that did survive (i.e. Christianity and Rabbinical Judaism) were those that could accommodate themselves to Jews being subservient to foreign rule, with Christianity being willing to go beyond having a purely Jewish composition.  There really was no need for Rome to invent such systems.  However, while it may be far more reasonable, it certainly wouldn't sell as many books as arguing that Jesus was Caesar's Messiah.

Best not to lift from Thomas Verenna. Do a wee search.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Best not to lift from Thomas Verenna. Do a wee search.

Ah well.  I picked him only because his was the fist of several scathing reviews I came across when I googled. Here's another: http://www.tektonics.org/books/csmessrvw.html, which while probably not that much better is better than Verenna's.  Haven't really come across any defenses of Atwill's thesis, and only those from the other side of the fringe appear to have shown sufficient interest in his speculations to bother with a rebuttal.

[afleitch]

Best not to lift from Thomas Verenna. Do a wee search.

Ah well.  I picked him only because his was the fist of several scathing reviews I came across when I googled. Here's another: http://www.tektonics.org/books/csmessrvw.html, which while probably not that much better is better than Verenna's.  Haven't really come across any defenses of Atwill's thesis, and only those from the other side of the fringe appear to have shown sufficient interest in his speculations to bother with a rebuttal.

From what I've read of Atwill's thesis it seems like he's looking in the right places, but getting the wrong answers (and then trumpeting them) which is generally damaging to syncretism.

EDIT: Ironically of course, Tektonics is also a bad resource for much the same reason (Robert Turkel/J.P.Holding) and is probably an example of the 'other side of the fringe'

[The Mikado]

Titus was the model for Jesus?  That's...a truly absurd position.  Especially since it casts Josephus as John the Baptist and Vespasian as Yahweh.  

Also, I don't recall Titus raising the dead anywhere in The Jewish War, and Josephus credits some impressive things to him (like that one time  he was out for an unescorted stroll around besieged Jerusalem and Jewish zealots almost assassinated him).  

EDIT:  Also, if Titus is Jesus, I don't quite recall Jesus having a paranoid and bats**t insane kid brother who took over and promptly had all of the old inner circle executed and demanded that everyone refer to him as "God and Master" as his official job title.  Unless this person's Bible has a very different twist on James the Just.  

I'll never get why Domitian isn't as famous a bad emperor as Caligula or Nero.