Here’s an interesting one for all the Jesus Christ followers. Apparently he never actually existed.
New research has apparently discovered that the Jesus character and all the stories about him, indeed, the entire New Testament, was made up by Roman aristocrats as a form of psychological warfare to try to distract the violent Jews of the day.
Ok so far?
The research, or theory, comes from an American Biblical scholar called Joseph Atwill. He says that that recently uncovered ancient confessions prove that there was no actual Jesus.
Atwill tells us, “Alert citizens need to know the truth about our past so we can understand how and why governments create false histories and false gods. They often do it to obtain a social order that is against the best interests of the common people.”
His theory is that Christianity didn’t really start as a religion but a sophisticated subversive ‘government’ project and propaganda exercise that was needed to try to pacify the subjects of the Roman Empire.
Atwill asserts, “When the Romans had exhausted conventional means of quashing rebellion, they switched to psychological warfare. They surmised that the way to stop the spread of zealous Jewish missionary activity was to create a competing belief system. That’s when the ‘peaceful’ Messiah story was invented. Instead of inspiring warfare, this Messiah urged turn-the-other-cheek pacifism and encouraged Jews to ‘give onto Caesar’ and pay their taxes to Rome.”
Ok. I can see that. Except most of the Jews remained, well, Jews, rather than doing a mass conversion to Christianity. Surely the mental violent Jewish sects of the day wouldn’t have given a toss about this Jesus story? Or maybe I’m not ‘getting it’.
Anyway. Was Jesus an actual person? Apparently, not even slightly.
“He may be the only fictional character in literature whose entire life story can be traced to other sources.” says Atwill, “Once those sources are all laid bare, there’s simply nothing left.”
Bit of a bummer that for the millions of Christians who believe they can talk to Jesus. Who are they actually talking to? That’s the question. When kids talk to Santa, who are they talking to? Or what about when they actually believe they are having conversations with what we define as their imaginary friends?
I guess the difference is that kids grow out of talking to imaginary friends.
Apparently, the biography of Jesus is actually constructed on the biography of a Roman Caesar. Atwill worked this out when studying the book “Wars of the Jews” written by Josephus during first century Judean times and looking at the parallels in the New Testament.
He says the sequence of events and locations of the Jesus ministry are more or less the same as the sequence of events and locations of the military campaign of the Roman Emperor Titus Flavius as described by Josephus. So, the Jesus stories are all made up.
Right, that’s it then. Christianity debunked. All the Christians find something else to believe in. The world becomes a better and more peaceful place.
Or not.
But there’s more from Joseph Atwill at caesarsmessiah.com
And there’s a nice video with dramatic music and a voiceover speaking slowly and deeply here.
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