Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus:Flavian Signature Edition

by Atwill, Joseph

  Then He said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

  "And there will be great earthquakes in various places, and famines and pestilences; and there will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven.

  "But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and persecute [you,] delivering [you] up to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and rulers for My name's sake.

  "But it will turn out for you as an occasion for testimony.

  "Therefore settle [it]in your hearts not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer;

  "for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist.

  "You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends; and they will put [some] of you to death.

  "And you will be hated by all for My name's sake.

  "But not a hair of your head shall be lost.

  "By your patience possess your souls.

  "But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near.”

  Luke 21: 10-20

  "For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.

  "All these [are] the beginning of sorrows.

  "Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake.

  "And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.

  "Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.

  "And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.

  "But he who endures to the end shall be saved.

  "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.

  “Therefore when you see the 'abomination of desolation,' spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (whoever reads, let him understand) …”

  Matt 24:7-15

  And now Titus gave orders to his soldiers that were with him to dig up the foundations of the tower of Antonia, and make him a ready passage for his army to come up;

  while he himself had Josephus brought to him, (for he had been informed that on that very day, which was the seventeenth day of Panemus, [Tamuz,] the sacrifice called "the Daily Sacrifice" had failed, and had not been offered to God, for want of men to offer it, and that the people were grievously troubled at it) …

  “… And who is there that does not know what the writings of the ancient prophets contain in them, - and particularly that oracle which is just now going to be fulfilled upon this miserable city? For they foretold that this city should be then taken when somebody shall begin the slaughter of his own countrymen.

  “And are not both the city and the entire temple now full of the dead bodies of your countrymen? It is God, therefore, it is God himself who is bringing on this fire, to purge that city and temple by means of the Romans, and is going to pluck up this city, which is full of your pollutions."

  Wars of the Jews, 6, 2, 93-94, 109-110

  Whiston recorded the “miraculous” date of the Abomination of Desolation in a footnote: “This was a remarkable day indeed, the seventeenth of Panemus, [Tamuz,] A.D. 70, when, according to Daniel's prediction, six hundred and six years before, the Romans ‘in half a week caused the sacrifice and oblation to cease,’ Daniel 9:27. For from the month of February, A.D. 66, about which time Vespasian entered on this war, to this very time, was just three years and a half.” Daniel, it must be remembered, predicted that the “Abomination of desolation” would occur in the middle of a week – seven years.

  From the time that the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination that causes desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days.

  Daniel 12:11

  † † † † †

  The dual storylines now describe parallels covered elsewhere:

  32) The son of Mary who was a human Passover Lamb

  OUTSIDE JERUSALEM

  33) Three crucified and one survives

  34) Simon condemned and John spared

  THE ENTRANCE TO THE TYPOLOGICAL SYSTEM

  Having established the Jesus/Titus typological mapping, it is now possible to show the complex entry to the system. The entry point is really only visible if read with the extreme bias of an understanding of the typological mapping. I shall also cover in this section a few of the more esoteric parallels passed over in the section above, where my purpose was simply to establish the scope of the overall mapping in Luke.

  Perhaps of most interest in the collection is the puzzle that shows the true identity of Mary Magdalene - #3 below.

  1) The battle of Nazareth/Japha

  The Jesus/Titus typology begins with the linkage between the first event of Jesus’ adult ministry and Titus’ first battle. It is difficult to recognize that Jesus’ battle at “Nazareth” symbolizes Titus’ at Japha. This was intended by the authors, who wished to make the beginning point of their pattern hard to detect.

  To see the connection, some background information is useful. The existence of a town called “Nazareth” was not known in the first century. In the fourth century, Flavius Constantine built a church next to the ancient Judean town of Japha, at a site proclaimed by his mother Helena as having been shown to her in a vision as being the “Nazareth” described in the Gospels. Scholars have found no conclusive evidence of a first century village at the site however, and the basis for Helena’s selecting the site has been a mystery. Understanding the Jesus/Titus typology shows the reason. Helena knew that the site was “Nazareth” because she understood the Jesus/Titus typology and knew it was the location of Titus’ first battle.

  To begin, Jesus stated in Luke 4 that the Jews of Nazareth would one day “say the proverb” – “Physician heal thyself” (Luke 4:23). Jesus’ prophecy “comes to pass”, so to speak, in Josephus’ passage below concerning the battle of Japha, when the role of the Jewish defenders became reversed. In other words, the rebels who refused entry to the Romans on the first wall, were then refused entrance by the townspeople at the city’s second wall – those keeping people out had become those trying to get in – the physician had become the patient.

  … and as they fled to their first wall, the Romans followed them so closely, that they fell in together with them;

  but when the Jews were endeavoring to get again within their second wall, their fellow citizens shut them out, as being afraid that the Romans would force themselves in with them.

  It was certainly God, therefore, who brought the Romans to punish the Galileans …

  Wars of the Jews, 3, 7, 291-293

  Josephus’ passage records that the Jews “healed themselves” of their “demonic fever” by killing one another after they had been sealed outside of the city:

  … many were run through by the swords of their own men, and many by their own swords …

  Wars of the Jews, 3, 7, 296

  Luke and Josephus then each go on to depict a struggle on a hill near Japha. The story of the townspeople in Luke 4 who attempt to throw Jesus from the “brow” of the hill at Nazareth, is a symbolic representation—a typological “foreseeing”—of the Galileans’ attempt to repulse Titus’ troops from the wall of Japha.

  … and they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down over the cliff.

  Luke 4:29

  The event in Luke “foresees” the attempt by the townspeople to repel the Flavian army from a wall at Japha forty years later:

  … and when the soldiers brought ladders to be laid against the wall on every side, the Galileans opposed them from above for a while; but soon afterward they left the walls.

  Then did Titus' men leap into the city.

  Wars of the Jews, 3, 7, 301-302

  Next Titus – represented by the Roman army – and Jesus both “passed throug
h” the Jews that could not “throw them over the cliff” and go on their way to “heal” those possessed by the spirit of demons in Galilee.

  Then passing through the midst of them, He went His way.

  Luke 4:30

  So when the fighting men were spent the rest of the multitude had their throats cut (by Titus’ soldiers).

  Wars of the Jews, 3, 7, 304

  2) The demoniac at Capernaum who was the first to name the Christ

  In Luke 4, Jesus then moves on to Capernaum where he encounters a man who has a “demon”. The “demoniac of Capernaum” was the first person in Luke to declare Jesus was the Christ, saying that he knows that Jesus is the “holy one of God”.

  Then He went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee.

  Now in the synagogue there was a man who had a spirit of an unclean demon (daimonion), and he cried out with a loud voice,

  "Let us alone! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God."

  Luke 4:31, 33-34

  There was another individual who was possessed by a demon while he was at Capernaum —Flavius Josephus. These attributes were recorded in Josephus’ Autobiography.

  And I would have performed great things that day, if a demon (daimonion) had not been my hindrance;

  for the horse … threw me on the ground, and I was … carried into … Capernaum.

  Life of Flavius Josephus, 72, 402-403

  A technique that was often used by the authors of the Jesus/Titus typology, was placing details in other parts of the text to create parallels which would be too obvious if they were given in the same passage. For example in the passage below, where Josephus declares Vespasian as “lord”, if he had both identified himself as having been possessed by a demon while he was at Capernaum, while also naming Vespasian as the Christ foreseen by Jewish Scripture, the parallels between the historian and the demon-possessed character in Luke 4: 33 would have been transparent. To keep their typology hidden, the authors placed these details into other passages, and required that the reader have the memory needed to understand the intertextual connection.

  The following passage is Josephus’ declaration that the Flavian Caesars were the individuals the Jewish prophecies foresaw to hold the mantle of the Christ. Notice that Josephus’ reference to the “dynasty” of Vespasian is the basis for the Christian concept of the trinity – that is, a “godhead” of three individuals (father, son, and a “terrible spirit” – Vespasian’s other son, Domitian) which contains the Christ foreseen by Jewish Scripture.

  What did the most to induce the Jews to start this war, was an ambiguous oracle that was also found in their sacred writings, how, about that time, one from their country should become governor of the habitable earth.

  The Jews took this prediction to belong to themselves in particular, and many of the wise men were thereby deceived in their determination. Now this oracle certainly denoted the dynasty of Vespasian, who was appointed emperor in Judea.

  Wars of the Jews, 6, 6, 312-313

  However what is most important for understanding this typology is simply that in both Josephus and the Gospels a “demoniac from Capernaum” was the first to recognize the “Christ”, and that this occurs following a battle at Japha/Nazareth.

  “Thou, O Vespasian, art Caesar and emperor, thou, and this thy son.

  “Bind me now still faster, and keep me for thyself, for thou, O Caesar, are not only lord over me, but over the land and the sea, and all mankind …”

  Wars of the Jews, 3, 8, 401-402

  It needs to be noted that though the Gospels were designed to specifically show that Titus was the “son of Man” whose visitation Jesus predicted, they also represent the divinity of Vespasian, who the Flavian court historians also claimed to be a “Christ” and was represented as “God the father” in the Gospels.

  3) Fever at the fishing town of Migdal/Taricheae – the true identity of Mary Magdalene

  After his battle on the hill outside Japha, and the demoniac of Capernaum’s proclamation of him as the Christ, Jesus went on to “cure” Simon’s mother-in-law of a “high” fever.

  Now He arose from the synagogue and entered Simon's house. But Simon's wife's mother was sick with a “high” (megale) “fever” (puretos), and they made request of Him concerning her.

  So He stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. And immediately she arose and served them.

  Luke 4:38-39

  To recognize the Luke/Josephus connection at this point, it is necessary to solve a puzzle revealing the name of Simon’s mother-in-law. Solving the puzzle shows that Simon’s mother-in-law’s “high” fever was a pun on her real name – “Mary Magdalene”. In other words, the reason that Luke described Simon’s mother-in-law’s fever as “high” was because – since she was Mary Magdalene – she had not one, but seven demons inside her, per the quote from Luke below.

  To digress, it is of interest that Mary’s “seven demons” that were inside her, may be conjectured to be referring to her “daughters”. They were perhaps the six “Marys” mentioned in the Gospels, and the sole Mary in Josephus. The character with the high fever in the Gospels was placed in the generation prior to Simon’s, so she could allegorically be the “mother” to the seven Marys (rebellious females) who are mentioned in the Gospels and Josephus. It should be noted that the characters are fictional.

  As is well known, the word “Magdalene” is based upon the Greek word “Migdal”, meaning “tower,” and is thought to indicate a woman who comes from the town on the Sea of Galilee named “Migdal”. The town was known by the Jews as “Migdal” or “tower”, because of the high tower in the town (discovered during an excavation of the site) used to smoke fish to preserve them. The pun between Simon’s mother-in-law’s fever and “Magdalene” was created from the fact that the Greek word used to describe Simon’s mother-in-law’s fever as high – “megale” meaning “high” or “towering” – is very close in its Greek spelling to “Migdal”. The pun is akin to the one used to connect Joseph of “Arimathea” to Joseph “bar Matthias”.

  The connection between Mary Magdalene and Simon’s mother-in-law is straightforward, in that one does not need to understand that the authors of the Gospels engaged in puns like “Arimathea”/“bar Matthias” to see it. The author of Luke left a clear path of logic to the identity of Simon’s mother-in-law as Mary Magdalene, by their shared attributes of an exorcism, being ill, and the serving of Jesus, and the conceptual parallel between a “high” fever and a town named “tower”. Notice below that Luke states that Mary Magdalene had been healed of both demonic possession and infirmities, which would have given her a fever. Moreover, since so many of the other women that are associated with Jesus’ ministry were named “Mary” (or “Martha” - Aramaic for Mary), it is consistent to assume that Simon’s mother-in-law was also a “Mary”.

  … and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities - Mary called Magdalene, out of whom had come seven demons,

  and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others who provided for Him from their substance.

  Luke 8:2-3

  Luke also indicated that Simon’s mother-in-law’s “illness” was “demonic possession”, by stating that Jesus “rebuked” the fever, just as he did earlier in the same passage when confronting a demoniac:

  But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!" When the demon had thrown him down before them, he came out of him without having done him any harm.

  Luke 4:35

  The Roman wordsmiths had a clear objective with their pun on “Migdal”. As noted above, the word “Magdalene” is based upon “Migdal” or tower, which was the name of a fishing town on the Sea of Galilee. According to the Babylonian Talmud (b. Pesah 46b), the Hebrew name for the town was Migdal Nunaiya, which means “tower of fish”.

  Josephus called the city of Migdal by its Greek – “Tarichea
e”, which comes from the Greek word “taricheuein”, meaning to smoke or preserve fish. In fact, the smoked fish of Galilee were famous throughout the Roman Empire, and was likely the inspiration for the “fishing for men” metaphor in the Gospels.

  To understand the authors’ point, one must recognize that the rebels who were “fished” by Titus came from the Galilean village called both Migdal and Taricheae (Josephus, Wars of the Jews, 3, 9, 457). So the point of Luke’s pun on “Migdal” is that that the fishing town of Taricheae/Migdal – like “Mary Magdalene” – had individuals with a “high” rebellious fever who were “cured” by Jesus.