Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus:Flavian Signature Edition
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1. Zacharias the prophet died before Jesus’ birth.
2. Barachiah and Baruch are different words.
3. The “middle of the temple” is not “between the temple and the altar”
Whiston’s first point is irrelevant. His second ignores the many slight changes in spelling between the same words in Josephus and the New Testament. For example, a type of fish from the Sea of Galilee is spelled “Coracin” in Josephus and “Chora’zin” in the New Testament. His third point, regarding the possible differences in the location of the slayings, is contradictory of his acceptance of the other parallels between the same passages in the New Testament and Josephus as evidence of Christ’s divinity.
Further, it is obvious that Jesus’ prophecy regarding “Zechari’ah the son of Barachi’ah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar,”134 would have been understood by an uneducated first-century convert to Christianity as having come to pass by the passage in Josephus that states, “so two of the boldest of them fell upon Zacharias (the son of Baruch) in the middle of the temple, and slew him.”
Josephus and the New Testament consistently avoid verbatim parallels by one degree. In Chapter 13, I will discuss that Jesus speaks of the “abomination of desolation,” while Josephus refers to the “end of the daily sacrifice.” In fact, both expressions refer to the same thing. Someone to whom the two works would be read would then make the connection between the “different” terms and thereby come to the conclusion that Jesus had been able to see into the future. By means of this name-switching technique, the authors of the New Testament and Josephus wittily hide the fact from the uneducated masses for which Christianity was invented, that the same source created both works. As I have shown above, Simon becomes Peter, John becomes “the disciple Jesus loved,” etc.
The two passages above regarding Zacharias use this technique. Jesus uses the expression “between the sanctuary and the altar,” while Josephus uses the expression “middle of the temple.” Jesus speaks of “Zechari’ah the son of Barachi’ah.” Josephus refers to “Zacharias the son of Baruch.” Different words again express the same concept.
Since Jesus’ eschatological prophecies all came to pass in the same chapter from Wars of the Jews, is it not more logical to presume that the Zacharias stories are another example of this set of fulfilled prophecies?
However, pursuing this line of thought was impossible for Whiston.135 To do so, he would have had to accept that both Jesus and Josephus were in error because they each “saw” something that could not have happened in 70 C.E. To Whiston, Jesus could not err, by definition, because he was God. Likewise, to Whiston, as to so many Christian scholars, Josephus could not be mistaken because his history records God’s handiwork.
This is a demonstration of the power of the combination of the two works. The belief that they came from two distinct sources creates the effect that they demonstrate the supernatural, which is to say, Jesus’ power of prophecy. The New Testament reveals the true “Son of God” because Christ’s predictions come true. A “historian” records them. Josephus’ histories must be accurate because they record the works of God. Jesus predicts the events that Josephus witnesses.
Whiston’s intellect is powerless to analyze what is right in front of him because of the divinity that the two works “demonstrate.” If someone had suggested to Whiston that the Zacharias story in Josephus and Christ’s prediction regarding Zacharias in the New Testament combine to form a sardonic joke, he would not and could not have understood such humor.
Of course, the passages would have been wickedly funny to an intellectual at the Flavian court—one who was familiar with the Old Testament and therefore understood the humor between the two passages. Jesus, in the midst of a series of predictions, describes something that has already occurred. Josephus then “records” it coming to pass, a second time, in the future. An absurd spoof, comparable with the woe-saying Jesus being struck dead by a stone. Imagine someone today who, claiming to be able to see the future, gives a list of events that will happen in the coming century. At the end of the list, he predicts that Germany will lose World War II. The comedy is ludicrous.
There are several points. First, the most straightforward, nonsupernatural explanation is that the same source produced both the Zechari’ah, son of Barachi’ah, passage in the New Testament, and the Zacharias, son of Baruch, passage in Josephus. This is because it is unlikely that two distinct authors would have both written such a close parallel by accident.
Further, the passages work together to create a derisively humorous piece, another example of the New Testament and Wars of the Jews producing a satiric effect when read together.
The New Testament passage regarding Zacharias is also notable in that it gives a point in time when “these things shall come upon this generation.” In other words, Jesus is predicting exactly when the tribulation of the “wicked generation” shall occur—that is, directly following their killing of Zacharias. David Brown wrote in 1858:
Does not this tell us plainly as words could do it, that the whole prophecy was meant to apply to the destruction of Jerusalem? There is but one way of setting this aside, but how forced it is, must, I think, appear to every unbiased mind. It is by translating, not “this generation,” … but “this nation shall not pass away”: in other words, the Jewish nation shall survive all the things here predicted! Nothing but some fancied necessity, arising out of their view of the prophecy, could have led so many sensible men to put this gloss upon our Lord’s words. Only try the effect of it upon the perfectly parallel announcement in the previous chapter: “Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers … Wherefore, behold, I send you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city … that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation” … (Matt. xxiii. 32, 34–36). Does not the Lord here mean the then existing generation of the Israelites? Beyond all question he does; and if so, what can be plainer than that this is his meaning in the passage before us?136
Brown is arguing that the context of Jesus’ use of the word “generation” in the Zacharias passage, proves that Jesus is referring to the events of 70 C.E. I could not agree more. When Jesus states that the Jews have been wicked “from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias,” and that this generation will “fill up” on the measure of their fathers, a first-century convert to Christianity would have understood that he was “predicting” the Jews’ destruction in 70 C.E. Indeed, what other interpretation of Jesus’ words is possible?
In addition, by giving “the blood of Zacharias” as the end point of the Jews’ wickedness, Jesus is also clearly stating that it will be an event immediately before the “wicked generation” will “fill up” on their “tribulation.” Jesus is clearly predicting that Zacharias’ blood will be spilled immediately before the Jews’ destruction by the Romans.
This temporal parallel, that both Jesus and Josephus “saw” Zacharias as being killed by the “wicked generation” immediately before the destruction of the temple, is of great importance. By each placing the destruction of Zachariah immediately before the destruction of the temple, the authors of the New Testament and Wars of the Jews create another of their “milestones,” conceptually parallel events that occur in the same sequence.
The final “fulfilled prophecy” I want to analyze from Jesus’ doomsday speech in Matthew, is the one that he makes regarding a “stone” that will crush. In the passage, Jesus also predicts that another nation, obviously Rome, will be given the “Kingdom of God.”
“Have you never read in the Scriptures,” said Jesus, “The Stone which the builders rejected has been made the Cornerstone: this Cornerstone came from the Lord, and is wonderful in our eyes?
That, I tell you, is the reason why the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and given to a nation that will exhibit the power of it.
He who falls on this stone will be severely hurt; but he on whom it falls will be utterly crushed.”
Matt. 21:42-44
In the Whiston translation of Wars of the Jews, published by J. M. Dent in 1915, I found the following extraordinary pun regarding the “stone” that “crushed.”
First is the passage as I originally read it (in a more recent translation). This is the translation given in most modern English versions of Josephus:
… The engines, that all the legions had ready prepared for them, were admirably contrived; but still more extraordinary ones belonged to the tenth legion: those that threw darts and those that threw stones were more forcible and larger than the rest, by which they not only repelled the excursions of the Jews, but drove those away that were upon the walls also.
Now the stones that were cast were of the weight of a talent, and were carried two furlongs and further. The blow they gave was no way to be sustained, not only by those that stood first in the way, but by those that were beyond them for a great space.
As for the Jews, they at first watched the coming of the stone, for it was of a white color, and could therefore not only be perceived by the great noise it made, but could be seen also before it came by its brightness;
accordingly the watchmen that sat upon the towers gave them notice when the engine was let go, and the stone came from it, and cried out aloud, in their own country’s language, THE STONE COMETH, so those that were in its way stood off, and threw themselves down upon the ground; by which means, and by their thus guarding themselves, the stone fell down and did them no harm.
But the Romans contrived how to prevent that by blacking the stone, who then could aim at them with success, when the stone was not discerned beforehand, as it had been till then; and so they destroyed many of them at one blow.
Yet did not the Jews, under all this distress, permit the Romans to raise their banks in quiet; but they shrewdly and boldly exerted themselves, and repelled them both by night and by day.137
In the 1915 Dent translation, this passage reads differently. “THE STONE COMETH” was translated as “THE SON COMETH.” To determine the basis for this discrepancy I looked at the passage in the oldest Greek versions of Wars of the Jews. They all show the phrase as “ho huios erchetai,” “huios” being the Greek word for “son.” Modern translators have arbitrarily substituted the word they believed Josephus intended to use here (stone), refusing to translate the actual Greek word that appears in the oldest extant manuscripts. This is interesting because the word petros, which scholars have chosen to translate “stone,” is in no way linguistically similar to the word huios “son,” which is actually found in the passage.
Whiston was aware that the original word in the phrase is “huios.” In his translation of Josephus he left the footnote below, in which he attempts to explain how it came to pass that all the ancient works he used for his translation had used the Greek word huios for son. His explanation is fascinating in that it is an example of the kind of cognitive dissonance that he and other scholars have used to avoid seeing what is right in front of them. He admits that the only language in which “stone” and “son” might have been mistaken for one another, Hebrew, is not the language in which Josephus wrote Wars of the Jews. He also argues that alternative translations—arrow or dart—are “groundless conjectural alteration.” Therefore, he really has no alternative than to accept the word as it is written—that is, “SON.” However, he does not wish to do this either, leaving him with no explanation.
What should be the meaning of this signal or watchword, when the watchmen saw a stone coming from the engine, “The Stone Cometh,” or what mistake there is in the reading, I cannot tell. The MSS., both Greek and Latin, all agree in this reading; and I cannot approve of any groundless conjectural alteration of the text from “ro” to “lop,” that not the son or a stone, but that the arrow or dart cometh; as hath been made by Dr. Hudson, and not corrected by Havercamp. Had Josephus written even his first edition of these books of the war in pure Hebrew, or had the Jews then used the pure Hebrew at Jerusalem, the Hebrew word for a son is so like that for a stone, ben and eben, that such a correction might have been more easily admitted. But Josephus wrote his former edition for the use of the Jews beyond Euphrates, and so in the Chaldee language, as he did this second edition in the Greek language; and bar was the Chaldee word for son, instead of the Hebrew ben, and was used not only in Chaldea, etc. but in Judea also, as the New Testament informs us. Dio lets us know that the very Romans at Rome pronounced the name of Simon the son of Giora, Bar Poras for Bar Gioras, as we learn from Xiphiline. Reland takes notice, “that many will here look for a mystery, as though the meaning were, that the Son of God came now to take vengeance on the sins of the Jewish nation;” which is indeed the truth of the fact, but hardly what the Jews could now mean; unless possibly by way of derision of Christ’s threatening so often made, that he would come at the head of the Roman army for their destruction. But even this interpretation has but a very small degree of probability.138
Whiston mentions the seventeenth century scholar and theologian Reland’s interpretation of the phrase. It is a most straightforward understanding and based, of course, on the word “SON” being the word Josephus wrote. Reland understood that the phrase relates to the coming of the Son of God described in the New Testament. Further, Whiston’s next comment—“which is indeed the truth of the fact, but hardly what the Jews could now mean; unless possibly by way of derision of Christ’s threatening so often made, that he would come at the head of the Roman army for their destruction”—is so in accord with my thinking as to need almost no clarification. Whiston is specifically taking the position that I am arguing, that Christ’s prophecies relate to the coming war between the Romans and the Jews, and that the “Son of God” would lead the Roman army. It is a small step then to the position that all of Jesus’ warnings regarding the coming of the Son of God, who will bring destruction with him, are predicting the Son of God who actually was at the head of the Roman army, Titus.
It is also fascinating to notice how effective and long-lasting the anti-Semitism created by the New Testament has been. Notice that Whiston sees the destruction of the Jews as being a quite appropriate vengeance for their destruction of the Savior. It is easy to imagine how such a perspective would have affected his everyday dealings with Jews. Hence, if Rome did create Christianity to instill anti-Semitism, their invention certainly stands the test of time. It is still working thousands of years after its creation.
To demonstrate the importance of the statement, the editor of Josephus has capitalized all the letters in the phrase. “THE SON COMETH.” The editor of Josephus has identified the importance of the passage in the same way as he identified the phrase house of hyssop in the “Son of Mary” passage cited earlier, by writing that phrase in italics.
The point at which Josephus inserts the pun helps to make its meaning clear. The passage is at the very beginning of the Roman assault on Jerusalem, the exact moment in time when the son actually did “cometh” to destroy Jerusalem.
Further, it is implausible that someone would sound the alarm for a hurled projectile with such a lengthy phrase. “Incoming” is all a contemporary soldier utters before he hits the deck. “THE STONE COMETH” is too long a phrase to speak when milliseconds matter. This idea becomes even clearer in the original Greek –“ho petros erchetai” is not an expression that would naturally come to mind when a large stone is bearing down on someone.
The substitution of “stone” for “son” actually continues another satiric concept in the New Testament, “stone” being another of the important self-designations Jesus uses. Jesus compares himself to a stone, one that if it strikes will “utterly crush.” In other words, he is saying that the “Son of God” is a “stone” who will crush those who rejec
t him, obviously meaning the Jews. He states this specifically within the context of Rome’s use of power. This is, of course, the same satiric concept presented above, where Josephus records that a “Son,” who is in fact a “stone,” has crushed Jews.
Like Jesus’ other ironic self-designations (fisher of men, living bread, living water), with “stone” the physical location where Jesus uses the expression is part of the send-up. He calls himself a “stone” rejected by the builders (meaning the Jews), which will “utterly crush” those on whom it falls, at the exact spot where Josephus records that stones did actually fall on Jews during the war with Rome.
In the “woe-saying Jesus” passage above, Josephus continues the satiric theme of Jesus calling himself a stone that will “crush.” The woe-saying Jesus is killed just as the Roman siege of Jerusalem begins. Josephus records this slapstick Jesus’ last words:
“Woe, woe to the city again, and to the people, and to the holy house!” And just as he added at the last, “Woe, woe to myself also!” there came a stone out of one of the engines, and smote him, and killed him immediately; and as he was uttering the very same presages he gave up the ghost.139
It is clear that a resident of the Flavian court would have found ironic humor in each of Jesus’ self-designations because of the locations where he pronounced them. Imagine a patrician with a copy of the Gospels in 80 C.E., knowing what the Roman war catapults had done to the Jewish defenders of Jerusalem, reading about a Messiah who, while standing beneath that city’s walls, calls himself a stone and threatens to fall on and utterly crush Jews. For such an individual, the biting humor would have been obvious. Could Jesus, by sheer chance, have given himself so many unique self-designations at the exact locations that would have made them tauntingly humorous to patricians?