Versions of the Christ Story and Accompanying Conspiracy Theories
To my knowledge here have never been any interpretations of the life and career of Jesus Christ such as the ones here, published as commentary about Aslan’s book Zealot.
First the one that situates the “Jesus Story” as entirely a phenomenon of Early and Late Roman Empire politics:
This is an excellent analysis of where Aslan resides. He is a "biblical scholar" who like the rest is a believer, not a scholar who must start with disbelief and then seek truth. All the biblical scholars accept the tales of the Bible as fact rather than a collection of court fables and stories.
Proper scholarship of that period would be Roman scholarship or history as this collection was assembled by during the Roman empire. Since Victorian times "Biblical scholarship" has dominated academic approaches to this period, but that is beginning to be challenged by the new Roman scholarship. But believers still put forth books such as Aslan has just done. Bottom line, religion is not history.
The fact is that there was no such person as Jesus. He is a mythical figure created by one group of Romans (the Piso Frugi) who were fighting another group of Romans (the Octavii) for control of the Empire. The Piso Frugi eventually won and established their rule from Constantinople rather than Rome between 324 and 330 C.E.
There is not one piece of historical evidence that indicates there was such a person as Jesus and now, from Roman scholarship circles, there is ample evidence of the Piso creation of the Jesus character. More will no doubt be forthcoming over the next few decades in this Roman scholarship approach to the history of that period as more scholarship is done in this area especially from the preserved written findings at the Villa of the Papyri situated halfway up the slope of the volcano Vesuvius in the village of Herculaneum which was owned, before being covered by volcanic ash in 79 C.E, by Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, whose relative Gaius Calpurnius Piso actually created the Jesus myth with the publication of his book, in 60 C.E., Ur Marcus, which became the Gospel of Mark, and which was included in what we know as the New Testament at the consolidation of the Bible in 397 C.E. at the third Council of Carthage by the new Piso controlled regime we call the Byzantine Empire which was just the continuation of the Roman Empire.
So the very basis of Azlan's so-called scholarship is bogus as history & scholarship (and as are all forms of Christianity and the derivative religions from Christianity). People who believe in Jesus are entitled to do so, but scholars are not.
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This is not news. Christian "scholars" have been trying to prevent knowledge of the Piso origin of Jesus for centuries. It is only news to those who have been brainwashed by the Christian religion and its dominance over the writings on history. Jews have always known that there was no Messiah in the first century C.E.
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I have not suggested that those who are investigating the Roman origins of the Jesus myth are on a "mission" to disprove Jesus. Rather they seem to me to be on a mission to discover history. Religious missions are the realm of "Biblical scholars." For example, there are many, many history or archaeology departments at academic institutions or with governments that focus almost entirely upon "proving" sections of either the Old or New Testaments and they call their work "scholarship" even though it is obviously synthesis and not analysis. Aslan's work falls into that camp. True scholarship of the period cannot accept the Bible as a source and certainly not as truth. If some archaeology or some historical investigation inadvertently substantiates something written in the Bible that is all well and good, but to purposefully seek to uphold the Bible, well, that is not scholarship, that is religion.
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• There are dozens of sites devoted to the centuries long war between the Pisos and the Octavii as well as scholarship decoding the various passages of the Byzantine created Bible which are written in the codes used by Roman royalty.
• When Julius Ceasar, the first of the line of the imperial Octavii was assassinated by the Piso connected families of the old Republic, his will was called by the Romans the "Testament". The Byzantine/Piso "New Testament" was started as a refutation of the Divine Julius's "Old" Testament which laid the ground work for the Roman Empire of his successors in the Octavii families.
• In Roman royal codes (and in the first language of the Bible, Greek) Jesus Christ was an antonym for Julius Caesar. Caesar was not murdered just because he assumed the title of Dictator but because his last battle, before defeating Pompey and taking over Piso controlled Egypt ruled by the Greek descended Piso related Ptolemy family, was the destruction of the city of Zela in Pontius (now Turkey). It was after this battle that Caesar issued his famous saying in Latin "veni vidi vici" - "I came, I saw, I conquered." Zela was also ruled by family members of the Piso Frugi who worshiped in the Zoroastrian religion and whose main temple was at Zela while Rome itself tolerated many religions from the pagan Greco-Roman pantheon, the Isis cult centered in Egypt and the cult of Mithra connected to the Zoroastrians.
• The Roman writer of the time Seneca (a Piso) wrote of Caesar's assassination that "Caesar went to Pontus, they saw him coming in a cloud of dust, and as a result of this they pierced him to death." This was echoed in Revelation 1:7 "Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him; even they who have pierced him." He comes, they see, and they pierce him. This was in reference to the "Jesus Christ" character with whom the Piso's fought to replace Julius Caesar in the minds of the Roman population. The new religion was built upon many Zoroastrian beliefs regurgitated for the new fight against the Octavii emperors and for control of the Empire.
• Here is a brief timeline of the events leading to the creation of Jesus Christ:
• 66 BCE
• Pompey (with the help of Julius Caesar) takes over as commander from Lucullus after Lucullus botches the campaign against Pontus, the Piso homeland. Pompey conquers Pontus, forces the king to commit suicide, and goes on to conquer Jerusalem!
• 59 BCE
• Pompey marries Julia, Caesar's daughter. Julius Caesar marries Calpurnia Piso, daughter of Lucius. Lucius Piso, Caesar's father-in-law, is a close friend of Crassus, the richest man in Rome. The marriages are intended to cement relationships. Caesar is extremely unfaithful to Calpurnia, although she remains faithful to him.
• 52 BCE
• Crassus is killed after being captured in battle. Caesar has no need of Lucius Piso after the death of Crassus, but he remains married to Calpurnia. He has many extramarital affairs, including one with Cleopatra.
• 47 BCE
• Ptolemy XIII, the Greek king of Egypt is found dead in the Nile at Alexandria under suspicious circumstances. (He was 10 years old.) Caesar's troops (many of whom are Jewish) are suspected. Caesar uses Jewish troops for the Alexandrian conquest, in which the Piso-controlled city of Alexandria is conquered. Cleopatra attempts to distract Caesar from the activities of her relative Pharnaces II, ruler of Pontus, but Caesar gets wind of the uprising in Pontus and takes two Legions there. Julius Caesar defeats Pontus (the Piso homeland) at Zela with his Jewish and Roman troops, destroying the Zoroastrian temple and forcing the king to commit suicide. He writes the words VENI VIDI VICI, "I Came. I Saw. I Conquered."
• 44 BCE
• On March 15 Julius Caesar is assassinated. Lucius Piso reads Caesar's testament (the "old testament"?) the same day, while the body is still warm. Caesar leaves almost everything to the citizens of Rome, to be divided equally. The remainder is left to his adopted son Octavian, with nothing left to his wife Calpurnia (a Piso) other than the amount given to any other Roman citizen.
• 60 CE
• Gaius Calpurnius Piso, writes Ur Marcus, the first version of the Gospel of Mark. Gaius and co-conspirators attempt to assassinate Nero and are caught. In this "Pisonian Conspiracy" Gaius is forced to commit suicide.
• 66 CE
• Rome conquers Jerusalem, renaming the city Jupiter Capitolanum. Piso and Flavian family members write the New Testament, incorporating Ur Marcus as the Book of Mark. The Old Testament was both the Torah and (secretly) the "last will and testament" of Julius Caesar. The Piso family despised Julius Caesar and the Jewish people for reasons that should be obvious given the above history.
• 70 CE
• The member of the Piso family who started the consolidation of the Jesus myth into a new religion was Arrius Calpurnius Piso. He was the Roman general who captured the city of Jerusalem for Rome in 66 CE , and who, collaborating with Titus (a relative) destroyed the Jewish 2nd temple there in 70 CE.
• CLICK HERE FOR A PICTURE OF THE SILVER COIN OF LUCIUS CALPURNIUS PISO FRUGI SHOWING THE SYMBOL OF THE FAMILY - A FRUGI RIDING A WHITE HORSE AND CARRYING A PALM FROND -- A SYMBOLIC IMAGE WHICH THE PISO'S REPEATED IN THE JESUS STORY AS JESUS ENTERING TRIUMPHANTLY INTO JERUSALEM
• CLICK HERE FOR A SCHOLARLY BOOK ON THE PISO VILLA AT HERCULANEUM
• AND HERE IS THE WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE ON THE VILLA AND THE DISCOVERIES ALREADY MADE THERE - FULL RESTORATION OF THE PAPYRUS TEXTS WILL TAKE MANY DECADES
• Most of the papyrus texts translated thus far have concerned Piso family matters and the philosophy of Epicurianism, which might be described as an ancient Greco-Roman precursor to the Playboy Philosophy of Hugh Hefner. The Romans liked to party. Many Christian "scholars" are deathly afraid that writings related to Ur Marcus and the other Piso "Jesus" texts will also be uncovered in years to come and thus pose the greatest threat to Christianity ever made.
• Currently research into the Piso origins of Jesus has focused on deciphering the Roman royal codes in passages of the New Testament. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION This research has been disparaged by Catholic and Protestant officials for decades now, but it holds up better than their faith based "scholarship."
• I am sure that Aslan and Christian commentators here will dismiss this out of hand but it is only a matter of time before history conquers religion, at least among those who believe in fact rather than dogma.
http://www.thenation.com/article/175688/reza-aslan-historian#axzz2c6txGuQO
But let’s change this man’s theory slightly and suppose that, contrary to what he alleges regarding the attitudes of the Piso Faction who struggled for control of the Roman Empire against the Octavii/Julo-Claudian dynasty, and those of the Jewish Sanhedrin of the time, that, instead, they ACTUALLY BELIEVED that Christ was either the “Messiah” of the Jews, or a supernatural phenomenon of some sort. Then see how closely the above theory actually dovetails with the one presented below-both of which MOST CERTAINLY DO REPRESENT THE EXPLOITATION OF A SUPERNATURAL PHENOMENON FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES:
Elizabeth Castelli writes, "And here, there is much to criticize. Aslan argues that Jesus was a Palestinian peasant...Setting himself up in active and public opposition to Roman imperial authority...[running] afoul of the Romans and the Jewish elites who aligned themselves with Roman power. From this reconstruction, Aslan derives the title of his book-Zealot-and his thesis that the crime for which Jesus was executed was treason."
Part I
Yes there is much to criticize here, but there is also much to criticize with the "accepted" (generally speaking) Christian interpretations of the Gospels' narratives.
And what is the problem with Christian interpretations of the Gospels' narratives, you ask? [The “problem” is that ]there are none! The Gospels are read verbatim, without any interpretation for countless inexplicable behaviors that take place by Roman, Judean and Galilean authorities. When the begged for analysis of these inexplicable behaviors is conducted however, we learn not only who Jesus was, but who the Romans, Judean and Galilean authorities knew Jesus to be.
For instance how is it possible for a mob-attracting prophet, who claims to perform miracles, to be allowed for three years to roam the Roman province of Judea? If it were anyone other than Jesus, that "deluded" prophet and his followers would have been immediately executed by Roman mounted infantry. Of course, if it had been anyone other than Jesus, the religious Elders of Jerusalem would have executed Jesus and disciples (for gross blasphemy) on Day Two of Jesus' ministry in Judea. But they didn't. The religious authorities of Jerusalem waited three years to make a move on Jesus, and when they did move on Jesus...get ready for an earthquake here...they didn't also arrest the remaining eleven disciples! It's been two-thousand years, and I'm the first to notice this inexplicable behavior on the part of Jerusalem's religious leaders.
Oh, but the inexplicable behaviors don't stop at Rome and Judea. They also include Galilee, Jesus' home, where Herod Antipas also inexplicably refuses to touch Jesus, that is execute Jesus for gross blasphemy under the Law of Moses!
What we have then is the conceit of Christian theologians, believing they had the Gospels pretty much sown up.
The reason no one wanted to touch Jesus is because, naturally (and here's another earthquake discovery, though it should have been obvious to everyone) all three authorities had their respective networks of agents inside and outside the Jesus Sect, watching Jesus closely, as they had watched "deluded" prophets before (and during) Jesus' time, and after Jesus. The difference between Jesus and the other "prophets" is that the other "prophets" were immediately executed, but not Jesus and disciples, and the only reason why Jesus wouldn't have been immediately executed is because the authorities' networks of agents were reporting back to their respective employers that Jesus was who He claimed, and that Jesus was actually raising from the dead persons they knew to be actually dead!
That's why when Jesus entered Jerusalem with the mob, which was a direct affront against Pilate, who was already in Jerusalem for some days previous to prevent just such acts of Jewish misbehavior during the emotional week preceding Passover, Pilate stood down standard Roman operating procedure for Jesus' transgression (Roman governors of Judea always spent the week before Passover in Jerusalem to maintain the peace, yet again Pilate refuses to slay Jesus as He approaches Jerusalem with the mob!).
Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem with the mob would also have been a shock for the religious Elders of Jerusalem, but they also knew this must be a sign by Jesus that He was to die (remember, Jesus had already said He must die). The proof that the religious leaders were (1) "in" on what Jesus wished; and (2) knew Jesus was the Messiah, is their refusal to also arrest the remaining eleven disciples. However, to make sure that Jesus was indeed expressing His wish to die, the Elders held three night time Q&A sessions with Jesus (not trials, because the proceedings took place at night, therefore there was no possibility of punishment at the hands of the assembly). By remaining silent to the "charges" levied against Him, Jesus proved to the assembly that He was indeed giving the signal that it is time to die.
Now, during the time span of the next nine Roman governors after Pilate (and before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD), the Jesus Sect is growing by leaps and bounds, yet Roman governors refuse to execute the disciples (and their disciples), who are still attracting large crowds and performing what Rome called "rebellious miracles", which means (1) the governors are protecting the Jesus Sect; and (2) since ten Roman governors are following the same counter-indicated policies towards the Jesus Sect, then it is Imperial Roman policy not to harm Jesus Sect members.
What happens when the disciples are arrested twice by the religious Elders of Jerusalem shortly after Jesus' execution (the disciples were causing disturbances in the Temple, pointing fingers at the Elders for killing Jesus)? The Elders tell the disciples to stop talking about Jesus, and free them! Why weren't the disciples executed under the Law of Moses months earlier? No one has asked this question in 2,000 years!
Now you know why Jesus only appeared to Paul, telling Paul to stop persecuting his followers. You see, only Paul was "persecuting" Jesus Sect members (which is why the religious Elders of Jerusalem gave Paul a mission to Damascus...to get him out of Judea!). That's why Jesus never appeared to any Roman governor of Judea, nor to anyone else, telling them to cease persecuting His followers, because they weren't!
The Case of Stephen:
Poor Stephen was at the wrong place at the wrong time. After the second arrest of the disciples, Stephen ran into foreign Jews visiting Jerusalem. Preaching at the Temple, Stephen attracted the attention of those visiting Jews, and they naturally went to the religious Elders asking why Stephen was still alive. Cornered, the religious authorities had no choice but to find Stephen guilty of blasphemy, and executed him under the Law of Moses. If Stephen hadn't been at the Temple when he was, he would never have been arrested in the first place!
The Inexplicable Acceptance of Jesus by Roman Subjects:
Roman subjects knew from personnel experience how Roman governors behaved towards upstarts that attracted large crowds, producing mob scenes, thereby upsetting the Roman Peace and posing a potential threat to Roman rule...immediate arrest and execution. Therefore, unless Roman subjects had already heard of Jesus, and knew His story to be true, they otherwise would have discarded the Gospels' narratives as obvious childish forgeries, where the narratives have (1) Pilate refusing to arrest and execute Jesus for three years; (2) when the Jewish Elders of Jerusalem bring Jesus to Pilate for adjudication, Pilate still refuses to execute Jesus; and (3) Pilate neglects to execute the remaining eleven disciples!
No Roman subject would accept such inane narratives UNLESS those narratives were already known to be true, meaning when Paul, and later Peter, journeyed the Eastern Roman Empire spreading the news about Jesus, the Apostles already had a receptive audience.
It is due to the acceptance of the Gospels' narratives by Roman subjects outside of Judea/Galilee/Perea that we have PROOF that (1) Jesus existed; and (2) that Jesus was who He claimed to be...God made Flesh!
Part II
Reza Aslan argues that Jesus was a Palestinian! Really, and I suspect this is the reason he wrote the book...as a means to give a false historical foundation to the myth of today's "Palestinians".
Firstly, the territories of Judea/Galilee/Perea were joined with Syria in 135 AD to form the new Roman Provence of Syria Palæstina (135 AD - 390 AD), meaning Jesus was a Galilean. Period. Secondly, the reemergence of the Palestinian nationality was created in 1922 when the League of Nations created that nationality for the new proposed JEWISH STATE. As such Arab inhabitants of the proposed new JEWISH STATE eschewed the new nationality, and affirmed to the world that they were Syrian and wanted to merge Palestine with the new state of Syria (during the Ottoman Empire Palestine was the historical name of the southwestern area of the Ottoman province called Syria, not to be confused with today's NATION of Syria, which is much smaller).
When the Jewish State declared independence on May 14, 1948, the name Palestine was changed to Israel (When Emperor Hadrian renamed Judea/Galilee/Perea Palæstina, it was a chastisement for the Second Jewish Revolt...Palæstina is Latin for Philistine, the arch enemies of Old Testament Israel). Then in 1963 Israel was rumored to have tested an atomic bomb. Arab governments quickly scurried to find a new strategy to defeat the Jewish State, so in 1963 they resurrected the defunct "Palestinian" nationality from its May 14, 1948 tomb, and the next year at the first Arab League summit in Cairo, Egypt, Arab governments created the PLO. The "Palestinians" would now be the Arab governments' proxy in the continuation of their goal towards reclaiming Israel back into the Muslim fold. In order to operationalize their "new" "Long-Range Strategy" towards the Jewish State, Arab governments needed Israel to acquire the West Bank and Gaza. Hence what came to be known as the Six-Day War, a war Israel was supposed to win. Now you know why Egyptian military forces moved all the way to Israel's border and STOPPED and WAITED for the inevitable Israeli preemption.
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[In answer to a disputant:]
Yes, the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin had their power suspended in capital offences, even for strictly religious crimes (a smart move by the Romans, since the Sanhedrin could then easily execute Roman agents under pretense of breaking the Law of Moses), except when approved by the Roman governor, hence the execution of Stephen one to two years after Jesus' execution. Of course, there was nothing stopping Herod Antipas from executing Jesus & disciples without the permission of Rome.
And here's another critical observation: The religious Elders of Jerusalem wait three years to bring Jesus to Pilate! What's up with that delay?
Now, as for Pilate's superior in Damascus, he too was cool with the Jesus Sect. In fact, so was the next Roman Legate in Damascus, Lucius Vitellius!
Isn't it interesting that after 2,000 years since Jesus' Resurrection, all these novel observations should be released in just one day? How is that possible?
Here's another novel observation/discovery on this topic: John the Baptist refused to cross the Jordan River and minister in Judea, only ministering in Antipas’ jurisdiction of Perea. We know this because in order to question John, the religious Elders of Jerusalem had to travel to Perea to do so. Why wouldn't John cross the Jordan River into Judea? Because John knew what would happen to him once he crossed the border into Judea with his disciples and followers: Immediate arrest and execution by Roman authorities, yet Jesus and disciples were allowed by Pilate to come and go as they pleased!
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"Don't Ask/Don't Tell":
Because Judea was an occupied territory (and Galilee/Perea nominally independent), Jewish authorities couldn't admit who Jesus was known to be. Likewise, Roman governors (there were ten Roman governors of Judea between the time of Jesus' execution and the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD) kept their silence regarding the Jesus Sect for fear that any acknowledgement of the sect would backfire, necessitating Roman persecution of the sect.
[Might I add “persecution by the Octavii/Julo-Claudian leadership of the Roman Empire, who were still in charge by this point, and hadn’t yielded to the Piso/Flavian element of control”-and thereby make this theory more closely dovetail with the one above-which is ALSO one of Roman manipulation of the “Life and Teachings of Jesus Christ”?]
Due to the fact that ten Roman governors of Judea all had the same policy towards the Jesus Sect, a "Don't ask/Don't tell" policy, we know this policy was not ad hoc, but Imperial Roman policy from the Emperors themselves.
[But, perhaps it wasn’t; perhaps it was the result of a conspiracy by the Senatorial/Piso elements of the Roman aristocracy, to keep the Story of Christ HIDDEDN from the Julo-Claudian/Octavii leadership in Rome!]
This explains the spotty record of Roman "persecution" of Christians, beginning with Emperor Nero. It isn't that Roman Emperors didn't know who Jesus was, they merely viewed Christians (as they evolved in later decades after the Resurrection of Jesus) as a threat to the survival of the Empire.
[No, perhaps Nero was the FIRST of the Octavii/Julo-Claudian leadership to become privy to the evidence of the supernatural phenomena associated with the Christ Story-evidence that the Roman aristocrats in the provinces and the Jewish Sanhedrin had had for decades.]
Other Emperors, however, not wanting to upset Jesus, spared Christians.
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• Jesus' mission was to save us from ourselves, through His death.
• In fact, take a look at what the high priest Caiaphas says about Jesus:
John 11:
-- The Plot to Kill Jesus
• 45 Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.
• “What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.”
• 49 Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”
• 51 He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, 52 and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. 53 So from that day on they plotted to take his life. --
• See where Caiaphas says Jesus would, "... die for the Jewish nation, 52 and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one"? As your question implies, Caiaphas' understanding of who Jesus was was based on the old covenant. He knew Jesus was the Messiah (based on the intelligence reports he was receiving from his network of agents that only a few within the Sanhedrin were made aware of at this time. Such selective release of intelligence is called "compartmentalization".) but he thought Jesus' mission was to die in order to reconstitute Israel. At the time, he didn't realize that Jesus' mission wasn't to liberate the Jews, but to liberate the hearts of all men via His sacrifice on the cross...the New Covenant.
http://www.thenation.com/article/175688/reza-aslan-historian#
These two narratives, put together, certainly would amount to the grandest (and most significant) “conspiracy theory” in the history of man. And, certainly, all of the contradictions in the Biblical Narrative that are mentioned by the second writer, make such fashioning of “conspiracy theories” completely understandable. After all, the great Russian novelist Mikhail Bulgakov constructed one, in order to make his The Master and Margarita work, didn’t he?