This absence is unusual. In Greece, thousands of pieces of writing from the same era have been discovered. Jesus constantly complained about scribes, who, one must assume, were writing something.
Jesus began to explain to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer much cruelty from the Elders and the High Priests and the Scribes.
Matt. 16:21
Rome’s occupation of Judea spanned the entire first century. Josephus records that during this period a movement of Jewish Zealots called the Sicarii continually staged insurrections against the Empire and its surrogate, the family of Herod. The Sicarii, like the Christians, were messianic and looked forward to the arrival of the son of God, who would lead them against Rome. Josephus dates the origin of this messianic movement to the census of Quirinus, curiously also given in the Gospels as the date of the birth of Christ. This movement existed for over 100 years, but until the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, no document that could possibly have been part of its literature had ever been found.
The literature of the Sicarii movement is most likely missing because the Romans destroyed it. A number of the Dead Sea Scrolls (found hidden in caves) describe an uncompromising sect that awaited a Messiah who would be a military leader. Messianic literature of this sort was surely a catalyst for the Sicarii’s rebellion and would have been targeted for destruction by the Romans, who are known to have destroyed Judaic literature. The Talmud, for example, records the Roman practice of wrapping Jews in their religious scrolls and lighting them afire. Josephus notes that following their war with the Jews, the Romans took the Torah scrolls and other religious literature and locked them up inside the Flavian palace in Rome.
The only works to have survived this century of religious warfare, the Gospels and the histories of Josephus, had a pro-Roman perspective. In the case of Josephus’ histories this is hardly surprising, as he was an adopted member of the imperial family. It is notable, however, that the New Testament also has a point of view positive to the Romans. The first century was not a time when one would expect that a Judaic cult with a viewpoint favorable to the Empire would have emerged. Yet the New Testament texts never portray Roman soldiers in a negative light, and actually describe them as “devout” and God-fearing.
There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band,
a devout man, and one that feared God with his entire house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God always.
Acts 10:1–2
The New Testament also presents tax collectors, who would have been working for the Romans, in a favorable light. The Apostle Matthew, for example, is actually described as a publican, or tax collector.
The citizenship espoused in the works of Josephus and the New Testament would have been seen favorably by Rome. Each work proclaims the holiness of subservience. And each takes the position that, as it is God who has given the Romans their power, it is therefore against God’s will to resist them. For example, the Apostle Paul teaches that Roman judges and magistrates were a threat only to evil-doers.
Therefore the man who rebels against his ruler is resisting God’s will; and those who thus resist will bring punishment upon themselves.
For judges and magistrates are to be feared not by right-doers but by wrong-doers. You desire—do you not?—to have no reason to fear your ruler. Well, do the thing that is right, and then he will commend you.
For he is God’s servant for your benefit. But if you do what is wrong, be afraid. He does not wear the sword to no purpose: he is God’s servant—an administrator to inflict punishment upon evil-doers.
We must obey therefore, not only in order to escape punishment, but also for conscience’s sake.
Why, this is really the reason you pay taxes; for tax-gatherers are ministers of God, devoting their energies to this very work.
Rom. 13:2–6
Josephus shared Paul’s belief that the Romans were God’s servants and only inflicted punishment upon evil-doers.
Indeed what can it be that hath stirred up an army of the Romans against our nation? Is it not the impiety of the inhabitants? Whence did our servitude commence?
Was it not derived from the seditions that were among our forefathers, when the madness of Aristobulus and Hyrcanus, and our mutual quarrels, brought Pompey upon this city, and when God reduced those under subjection to the Romans who were unworthy of the liberty they had enjoyed?6
Thus, the only works that describe first-century Judea share a positive viewpoint toward Rome. Why is it that only they have survived?
I believe that the New Testament and the works of Josephus survived because they were both created and promulgated by Rome. This work presents evidence indicating that the Gospels were created by Titus Flavius, the second of the three Flavian emperors. Titus created the religion for two reasons, the most obvious being to act as a theological barrier against the spread of the militant messianic Judaism of Judea to other provinces.
Josephus mentions this threat in Wars of the Jews:
… the Jews hoped that all of their nation, which were beyond Euphrates, would have raised an insurrection with them.7
Titus had another, more personal, reason for creating the Gospels—this being that the Jewish Zealots refused to worship him as a god. Though he was able to crush their rebellion, Titus could not force the Zealots, even through torture or death, to call him Lord.
Josephus noted the staunchness with which the Zealots adhered to their monotheistic faith, stating that the Sicarii “do not value dying and any kind of death, nor indeed do they heed the dying of their relations, nor can any fear make them call any man Lord.”8
As I noted in the Introduction, to circumvent the Jews’ stubbornness, Titus designed a hidden message within the Gospels. This message reveals that the “Jesus” who interacted with the disciples following the crucifixion was not a Jewish Messiah, but himself. Unable to torture the Jews into foregoing their religion and worshiping him, Titus and his intellectuals created a version of Judaism that worshiped Titus without its followers knowing it. When his clever literary device was finally discovered, Titus would be able to show posterity that he had not failed in his efforts to make the Jews call him “Lord.” Though always seen as a religious document, the New Testament is actually a political document – a monument to the vanity of a Caesar, one that has finally been discovered.
Titus backdated Jesus’ ministry to 30 C.E., thereby enabling him to foresee events in the future. In other words, Jesus was able to accurately prophesy events from the coming war with the Romans because they had already occurred. As part of this scheme, the fictitious histories of Josephus were created so as to document the fact that Jesus had lived and that his prophecies had come to pass.
While the above claims will, and should, trigger skepticism, one needs to remember that as Christianity describes its origins, it was not only supernatural but also historically illogical. Christianity, a movement that encouraged pacifism and obedience to Rome, claims to have emerged from a nation engaged in a century-long struggle with Rome. An analogy to Christianity’s purported origins might be a cult established by Polish Jews during World War II that set up its headquarters in Berlin and encouraged its members to pay taxes to the Third Reich.
When one looks at the form of early Christianity, one sees not Judea, but Rome. The church’s structures of authority, its sacraments, its college of bishops, the title of the head of the religion - the supreme pontiff - were all based on Roman, not Judaic, traditions. Somehow, Judea left little trace on the form of a religion that purportedly originated inside of it.
Early Christianity was also Roman in its worldview. That is, like the Roman Empire, the movement saw itself as ordained by God to spread throughout the world. Before Christianity, no religion is known to have seen itself quite so destined to conquer, to become the religion of all mankind. The type of Judaism described in the Dead Sea Scrolls, for example, was very selective as to who wa
s allowed to join its community, as the following passage from the Damascus Document shows:
No madman, or lunatic, or simpleton, or fool, or blind man, or maimed, or lame, or deaf man, and no minor shall enter into the community for the Angels of Holiness are with them … 9
This exclusionary approach was the mirror opposite of Christianity. In comparing the text below to its mirror above, notice that the Gospels’ author seems to have made a comical editorial decision. He chose to render the “madmen, lunatics, simpletons, and fools” who came to Jesus simply as “many others”.
And great multitudes came unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus’ feet; and he healed them.10
To try to understand how Christianity established itself within the Roman Empire is to sift through mysteries piled atop the unknown. For example, how did a religion that began as verbal traditions in Hebrew or Aramaic change into one whose surviving scripture is written almost entirely in Greek? According to Albert Schweitzer:
The great and still undischarged task, which confronts those engaged in the historical study of primitive Christianity, is to explain how the teaching of Jesus developed into the early Greek theology.
The most historically illogical aspect of Christianity’s origin, however, was its Messiah. Jesus had a political perspective that was precisely the opposite of the son of David, who was awaited by the Jews of this era. Josephus records that what most inspired the Jewish rebels was their belief in the Judaic prophecies that foresaw a world ruler, or Messiah, emerging from Judea—the same prophecies that the New Testament claims predicted a pacifist.
But now, what did the most to elevate them in undertaking 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 … 11
The Dead Sea Scrolls confirmed that Jews of this era indeed “took this prediction to belong to themselves” and awaited a Messiah who would be the son of God.
Son of God he will be called and Son of the Most High they will name him … His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom … he will judge the earth in truth … The Great God … will give people into his hand and all of them will be cast down before him. His sovereignty is everlasting sovereignty.12
In the following passage from the Damascus Document, notice that the Messiah envisioned by the author was, like Jesus, a shepherd, though not one who would bring peace.
“Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered;
“but I will turn my hand upon the little ones”.
Zechariah 13:7
Now those who hear him are the flock’s afflicted,
these will escape in the period of [God’s] visitation. But those who remain will be offered up to the sword, when the Messiah
of Aaron and Israel comes, as it was in the period of the first visitation,
as he reported by the hand of Ezekiel:
“A mark shall be put on the forehead of those who sigh and groan”.
Ezek 9:4
But those who remained were given up to the sword of vengeance, the avenger of the Covenant … 13
The following passage from the Targum (the Aramaic versions of the Old Testament) also describes a warrior Messiah. Clearly, this would have been the nature of the “king Messiah” of the Jews who would, in Josephus’ words, “most elevate them in undertaking this war.”
How lovely is the king Messiah, who is to rise from the house of Judah.
He girds his loins and goes out to wage war on those who hate him, killing kings and rulers …
and reddening the mountains with the blood of their slain.
With his garments dipped in blood,
he is like one who treads grapes in the wine press. 14
However, the New Testament and the histories of Josephus each imply that the Messiah was not this nationalist leader who had been foreseen, but rather a pacifist who encouraged cooperation with Rome. For example, consider Jesus’ instruction in Matthew 5:41: “when anyone conscripts you for one mile, go along two.”
Roman military law permitted its soldiers to conscript, which is to demand that civilians carry their 65-pound packs for a length of one mile. Roman roads had mile markers (milestones), so that there would be no dispute over whether or not this requirement had been met. Why would the Messiah foreseen by Judaism’s xenophobic world-ruler prophecies urge Jews to “go the extra mile” for the Roman army?
When one compares the militaristic Messiah described in the Dead Sea Scrolls and other early Judaic literature with the pacifistic Messiah described in the New Testament and Josephus’ Testimonium, one aspect of the lost history of Judea seems visible. An intellectual battle was waged over the nature of the Messiah. The New Testament and Josephus stood together on one side of this struggle, claiming that a pacifistic Messiah had appeared who advocated cooperation with Rome. On the other side of this theological divide stood the Jewish Zealots who awaited a militaristic Messiah to lead them against Rome.
Among Christianity’s oldest surviving records is the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, dated to 96 C.E. The letter was purportedly written by (Pope) Clement I to a congregation of Christians who had apparently rebelled against the church’s authority. It shows that even at the onset of the religion the bishop of Rome was able to give orders to the church of Corinth, and that the church of Rome used the Roman army as an example of the kind of discipline and obedience that it expected from other churches and their members.
The Church of God which sojourneth in Rome to the Church of God which sojourneth in Corinth,15
Let us mark the soldiers that are enlisted under our rulers, how exactly, how readily, how submissively, they execute the orders given them.
All are not prefects, nor rulers of thousands, nor rulers of hundreds, nor rulers of fifties, and so forth; but each man in his own rank executeth the orders given by the king and the governors.
1Clem 37:2-3
But how did the church’s authority structure come into existence resembling the Roman military? Who established it and who gave the bishops such absolute control? Cyprian wrote:
… “The bishop is in the Church and the Church is in the bishop … and if anyone is not with the bishop, that person is not in the Church.”16
And why was Rome, supposedly the center of Christian persecution, chosen as the church’s headquarters?
A Roman origin would explain why the bishop of Rome was later made the supreme pontiff of the church. And why Rome became its headquarters. It would explain how a Judean cult eventually became the state religion of the Roman Empire. A Roman origin would also explain why so many members of a Roman imperial family, the Flavians, were recorded as being among the first Christians. The Flavians would have been among the first Christians because, having invented the religion, they were, in fact, the first Christians.
When considering a Flavian invention of Christianity, one should bear in mind that the Flavian emperors were considered to be divine and often created religions. The oath that they swore when being ordained emperor began with the instruction that they would do “all things divine … in the interests of the empire.” The Arch of Titus, which commemorates Titus’ destruction of Jerusalem, is inscribed with the following statement:
SENATUS POPULUS QUE ROMANUS DIVO TITO DIVI VESPASIANI. F VESPASIANO AUGUST
[The Senate and People of Rome, to the divine Titus, son of the divine Vespasian]
Fragments of the written pronouncement, given in 69 C.E. by the prefect of Egypt Tiberius Alexander, in which he recognized Vespasian as the new emperor, are still in existence. Vespasian is referred to in them as “the divine Caesar” and “Lord.”
Josephus also believed that Vespasian was a divine person. He claimed that Judaism’s messianic prophecies foretold that Vespasian would become the lord of all
mankind. This indicates that in the eyes of Josephus, Vespasian was not only the “Jesus,” or savior of Judea, but that he was also the “Christ,” the Greek word for the Messiah that was foreseen in the prophecies of a Judaic world-leader.
Thou, O Vespasian, thinkest no more than that thou hast taken Josephus himself captive; but I come to thee as a messenger of greater tidings; for had not I been sent by God to thee …
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.17
Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus:Flavian Signature Edition Page 3