The reader may find it interesting to see how Christianity’s forty-year cycle of “wandering” was achieved. The Gospel of John was created, among other reasons, to provide the necessary point of orientation to begin the forty-year cycle. The date was determined by calculating backward.
Josephus records that the destruction of Masada occurred on the fifteenth of Xanthicus.
This calamitous slaughter was made on the fifteenth day of the month Xanthicus …197
Xanthicus is the Syrian word for Nisan. A typical sleight of hand by Josephus, not to be too obvious. Josephus also records that the Jewish Passover was celebrated on the fourteenth of Xanthicus/Nisan.
When God revealed that with one more plague he would compel the Egyptians to let the Hebrews go, he commanded Moses to tell the people they should have a sacrifice ready and should prepare themselves on the tenth day of the month Xanthicus in readiness for the fourteenth (this is the month that is called Pharmuthi by the Egyptians, and Nisan by the Hebrews, but the Macedonians call it Xanthicus), and he should then lead away the Hebrews with all they had. 198
The Gospel of John differs from the Synoptics in its dating because John describes three Passovers and thus gives Jesus’ ministry a three-year span. The Synoptics describe only one Passover and thus do not reveal the year in which Jesus was crucified.
The Gospel of John is also different from the Synoptics in that it describes Jesus’ crucifixion as occurring on the day before Passover, whereas in the Synoptics Jesus is crucified on Passover itself. Jesus was to be the Passover lamb of the new Judaism; therefore, this central image of Christianity was promoted in all the Gospels—in contrast to Rabbinical Judaism, which merely edited out or replaced all the features of Second Temple Judaism that could not be performed without the temple. However, the Synoptics make an “error” in that they record Jesus’ crucifixion as being on the day of Passover. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is “slaughtered” on the day before Passover, which is when the paschal lambs were actually killed. John’s date is more symbolically correct because it makes Jesus the true “lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world.”199
The differences between the dates of Jesus’ crucifixion have always been attributed to the fact that each Gospel has a separate tradition. I, of course, would disagree and reiterate that while the four Gospels may have been produced by different individual scholars, they were under the control of a single editor who edited them where he saw fit. This is demonstrated by my analysis of the puzzle of the empty tomb (Chapter 7).
Therefore, the differences in the dates of Jesus’ crucifixion are by design. That is, they show that there was more than one “Jesus,” because no one can be crucified twice.
In any event, the chronology in John has Jesus being crucified on the thirteenth of Nisan, the day before Passover. Therefore he would have “arisen” on the fifteenth of Nisan—the third day. Josephus must therefore date the mass suicide at Masada, the “calamitous slaughter” that ended the Jewish rebellion, to the fifteenth of Nisan. Only with this date can he align Christianity “correctly.”
Eusebius, who quotes Josephus more often than any of his contemporaries, was aware of the forty-year cycle of penance that Josephus recorded between Christ’s crucifixion and the destruction at Masada.
Concerning those calamities, then, that befell the whole Jewish nation after the Saviour’s passion and after the words which the multitude of the Jews uttered, when they begged the release of the robber and murderer, but besought that the Prince of Life should be taken from their midst, it is not necessary to add anything to the account of the historian (Josephus).
But it may be proper to mention also those events which exhibited the graciousness of that all-good Providence which held back their destruction full forty years after their crime against Christ—during which time many of the Apostles and disciples, and James himself the first bishop there, the one who is called the brother of the Lord, were still alive, and dwelling in Jerusalem itself, remained the surest bulwark of the place. Divine Providence thus still proved itself long-suffering toward them in order to see whether by repentance for what they had done they might obtain pardon and salvation; and in addition to such long-suffering, Providence also furnished wonderful signs of the things which were about to happen to them if they did not repent.200
As I have shown, numerous events in Josephus are dated in a way that gives the reader the impression that they were foreseen by Daniel. The most important is the end of the “daily sacrifice” and the “abomination of desolation” described above. One might argue that Josephus did this for a reason other than providing a historical context for Jesus. Perhaps he simply wished to make the Jews believe God had been responsible for their destruction. He therefore overlaid Daniel’s prophecies onto the events of 70 C.E. to create this effect. He was unaware of the similar claims found in the New Testament. It was just chance that the parallel came to exist. While I would regard this argument as improbable, it should at least be considered.
However, such an argument cannot be made for Josephus’ establishing dates that align with Christianity’s mimicry of the forty-year cycle of Exodus. If the New Testament and Wars of the Jews were written independently, it would have been improbable that their authors each recorded events demonstrating that the prophecies of Daniel were coming to pass in the first century. However, for both authors to have accidentally recorded events that link the precise time sequences of the prophecies of Daniel with the precise time sequences of Exodus borders on the impossible.
Either the New Testament and the works of Josephus both recorded a supernatural phenomenon (the unique blend of Moses and Daniel) or they both deliberately falsified history to provide support for Christianity’s replacement of Judaism.
I have suggested above that the outline of Jesus’ childhood was fictitious, copied from the life of Moses. There is another example of Jesus’ fictitious childhood. In Luke’s version of Jesus’ childhood, Joseph takes his family out of Galilee to Bethlehem to register for the census.
And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.
This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria.
So all went to be registered everyone to his own city.
Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David.201
The census of Quirinius was imposed on the area around Jerusalem, which was under Roman rule, and not on Galilee, which was part of the tetrarchy of Herod Antipas. At no time during the life of Jesus did the Romans raise tribute in Galilee. Why then would Joseph voluntarily travel to Bethlehem with a pregnant wife to register for a tax he was not required to pay?
The passage also claims that Joseph went to Bethlehem because this was where the house of David registered. Scholars have long understood that this claim is untrue, both because the genealogy is unknowable and because Augustus’ decree would have been logistically impossible to implement. As E. P. Sanders wrote:
According to Luke’s own genealogy David had lived 42 generations before Joseph. Why should Joseph have had to register in the town of one of his ancestors 42 generations earlier? What was Augustus—the most rational of the Caesars—thinking of? The entirety of the Roman Empire would have been uprooted by such a decree. Besides, how would any given man know where to go? No one could trace his genealogy for 42 generations, but if he could, he would find that he had millions of ancestors (one million is passed at the twentieth generation). Further, David doubtless had tens of thousands of descendants who were alive at the time. Could they all identify themselves? If so, how would they all register in a little village?
We can be certain that the pragmatic Augustus would not have given a decree that would both uproot the entire Roman Empire and be impossible to implement. Why then did the author of this Gospel include these false details? The reason is subtl
e and easy to miss. By traveling to Bethlehem, Joseph is agreeing to pay Roman taxes. I suggest that this detail occurs in the New Testament to ensure that the reader understands that the Messiah came from a family of loyal taxpayers. This also establishes Jesus the Galilean as a mirror opposite of Judas the Galilean, the inventor of the mysterious “fourth philosophy of the Jews,” the sect that rebelled against Rome. Of course, to understand this point the reader must turn to Josephus.
In response to the question of how many times a man should forgive his brother, Jesus responded by saying, “until seventy times seven.” This is, of course, a reference to the amount of time that would pass before the destruction of Jerusalem and the “abominations of desolation” that both Jesus and Daniel predicted. Jesus’ response has often been mistakenly cited as an example of his patience. Jesus would have known that this generation would be destroyed. Jesus is saying that God’s patience with the “wicked generation” is over. The end is nigh.
This comment by Jesus also shows that he is claiming to be the Messiah that Daniel had envisioned, the “son of God.” It is easy to imagine how such dialogue was created. Once it was determined that the prophecies of Daniel were to be used as the basis for the Messiah, it was simple enough to have Jesus recite quotes from Scripture that indicated his ability to see the future. In spite of Jesus’ reputation for original thought, there is very little among his sayings that does not paraphrase earlier prophets and philosophers.
Jesus placed great stress on the negative effects of wealth and luxury. The theme is firmly embedded in the narrative of Jesus’ birth,202 in John the Baptist’s advice about how to live,203 in Jesus’ keynote address in Luke’s version of the beatitudes (6:20–26),204 in much of the Lukan material,205 and in the claim in Acts that the church practiced a “community of goods.” 206
Throughout the New Testament, Jesus is portrayed as struggling against a privileged establishment, whose representatives are both “lovers of money”207 and highly trained in intellectual matters – like the syllogists and rhetoricians denounced by the Stoic philosophers Seneca and Epictetus. Jesus’ attacks on wealth and hypocrisy are generally reminiscent of the Stoic philosophy that was popular in Rome at this time.
The Stoic philosopher Seneca (though immensely wealthy himself) summarized his teaching as follows:
We talk much about despising money, and we give advice on this subject in the lengthiest of speeches, that mankind may believe true riches to exist in the mind and not in one’s bank account, and that the man who adapts himself to his slender means and makes himself wealthy on a little sum, is the truly rich man …
Persius’ description of the “benefits” of Stoic philosophy make it clear who really benefitted from the underclass’ acceptance of it—the ruling class. Persius wrote:
O poor wretches, learn, and come to know the causes of things, what we are, for what life we are born, what the assigned order is, where the turning point of the course is to be rounded gently, what limit to set on money, for what it is right to pray, what is the use of hard cash, how much you ought to spend on your country and on those near and dear to you, what kind of man God ordered you to be and where as a man you are placed.
In the following passage John the Baptist advocates a position close to Stoicism. Of particular interest is Luke 3:14, where John advises soldiers to be content with their wages. This is not a subject that comes to mind as essential for a wandering prophet, but is obviously something always in the minds of the imperial family.
And the people asked him, saying, “What shall we do then?”
He answereth and saith unto them, “He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.”
Then came also publicans to be baptized, and said unto him, “Master, what shall we do?”
And he said unto them, “Exact no more than that which is appointed you.”
And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, “And what shall we do?” And he said unto them, “Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.”
Luke 3:10–14
The relationship between Stoicism and slavery is interesting. For a master of slaves, Stoicism seems the ideal philosophy because it advocates acceptance of “what kind of man God ordered you to be and where as a man you are placed.” Jesus’ advocacy of principles similar to those of the Stoics led Bruno Bauer in the nineteenth century to conclude that Christianity was simply an attempt by the imperial family to implement Stoicism on a large scale.
Bauer’s suspicion regarding Christianity seems especially logical when one considers the degree to which the Roman Empire relied upon slavery in the first century C.E., where perhaps 40 percent of the population were slaves.
Slavery was also prevalent in Judea throughout the first century. No records survive to enable us to know exactly what percentage of the Judean population were slaves, but judging from the number of references to slavery within Hebraic literature from the period, it was clearly quite common.208 Klausner wrote that slaves were:
… an important factor in the political and spiritual upheavals in the time of Jesus. Without them we cannot account for the frequent rebellions and the many religious movements from the time of Pompey till after the time of Pilate …209
There were two types of slaves in Judea during the time of Jesus, Hebrew and “Canaanitish slaves.” The Hebrew slave had the better lot. Though a true slave, who did not have right to change his master or choose his work, the Hebrew was only retained as a slave for six years and his or her body was not to be used sexually.
The Canaanitish, or non-Hebrew, slaves were treated like cattle. They were branded, so that they could be recognized in case they escaped, or a bell was hung on them with a chain. They were inexpensive to buy, costing as little as a single gold dinar.210 The Niddad211 records that “masters performed the most private actions in front of them.” The masters and their sons used these slaves for sexual pleasure.212 A slave’s master was permitted to beat his slaves to the point of death without consequence. It needs to be noted, however, that if the slave died from his wounds, then the master would be put to death.
Klausner wrote: “Canaanitish slavery was then a horrible plague affecting the national body of Israel as it was also the case of other nations in those early days.”213
Someone addressing the common people in Judea during the first century C.E., as Jesus did, would have been speaking to groups that contained slaves. Josephus specifically states that the Jewish rebels, who were inspired by the hope of a militaristic Messiah, were “slaves” and “scum.” This was the historical context, according to the New Testament, within which Jesus was able to make numerous converts by preaching acceptance of one’s master.
In any event, Jesus’ advocacy of accepting one’s plight and of pacifism, were certainly principles that the Flavians would wish to have taught within rebellious Judea. If one separates from the words of Jesus the advice that was in the interest of the imperial family, all that remains are truisms, widely known philosophies, and snippets from previous Judaic writing.
My analysis suggests that what has been seen as most original about Jesus—his instruction to love one’s enemy—was the aspect of his ministry that was most evil. In particular, volumes have been written about the possible meaning of Jesus’ instruction to “give to Caesar what is Caesar's and give to God what is God’s”, but since the authors of the New Testament considered God and Caesar one and the same, Jesus is, in effect, saying give everything to Caesar.
Among the Dead Sea Scrolls were found fragments of a work entitled The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs—a work that had been previously known to scholars only in Greek, Latin, or Ethiopic translations, and had been assumed to be an apocryphal early Christian text. Its discovery among the Scrolls poses problems for Christianity, especially in light of the fact that whoever wrote the Pauline Epistles had clearly used it as a source. There are over seventy word
s common to the Testaments and the Pauline Epistles that are not found in the rest of the New Testament, a fact discovered by Dr. R. H. Charles and noted in his edition of the Testaments. The implication is, of course, that the authors of the Pauline Epistles were using earlier Jewish source material to create their work.
The most important parallel is between Matthew 25:35–36 and the passage from the Testament of Joseph 1:8-14. It appears that either the former is a copy of the latter or that both were derived from a common source. In the Testaments, the order of the common words is hunger, alone, sick, prison and in Matthew hunger, a stranger, sick, prison.
I was sold into slavery, and the Lord of all made me free:
I was taken into captivity and His strong hand succored me.
Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus:Flavian Signature Edition Page 40
