Atwill vs Carotta

[ghost]

The point, MF was about Atwill's Book and that the Thesis has a SUBTLE TEXTURE to it. See, two of the Great Themes in Logical Thought in Western Civilization are "From the General to the Particular" and "From the Particular to the General". Given a "Jesus" in the 30s, what would he have said to look at and see in the coming years. He wasn't giving a Future History Lesson on "Jerusalem will be surrounded by armies uncountable times". Any point of the globe will ALWAYS be surrounded by armies. He was stating that "When YOU SEE...".

When you see:

1A.: Jerusalem surrounded by armies
1B.: If (1A) then ( Jerusalem's desolation is not far away), assuming "Her" => "Jerusalem"

2A.: If (1A and 1B) then (shall be seen the Son of man)
2B,: If (2A) then (also seen will be the Son of man) <=> {Attribute => (with power and glory)}

3.: If (1A and 1B AND 2A and 2B) then (Reign of God is at hand) <=> {Attribute => (Certainty)}

4. If {Attribute => (YOU)} => (You Watch) then (Stand before Son of man)

See? No mention of thousands of armies at all time surrounding Jerusalem.

Going Beyond the Data: "The only person who ever met that description was TITUS."

Here it's still not clear to me why only Titus meets the description.

[Roger Pearse]

Sometimes even a Rant will lead you to some good stuff

Very much so. The main thing in using such material as a basis for departure is to try to avoid feeling superior to someone who has - in truth - done one a favour, just because one has more advantages than the author. We have quite enough pompous gits online.

[Metacrock]

Seriously - it would be useful to have a potted summary of each. I think Atwill has more media presence than Carotta.

Whatever happened to "Roman Piso" and "Abelard Reuchlin", who used to peddle some idea of this sort. "Roman" was a courteous guy, which was something.

Let's see,they are both stupid. they are both lousy historians. perhps one is more stupid than the other?

[Charles Wilson]

Here it's still not clear to me why only Titus meets the description.

Michael Turton has commentary on Mark and I advise everyone to Bookmark his site.

He states:

"Another sign of the hand of the writer of Mark is the signal of a later date. [[Mark, Chapter 4]] Verses 9-20 appear to refer to a much later time "when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away." There were no persecutions during Jesus' lifetime..."

If you accept this as true then Jesus is either telling you what has passed or what is to come. If his words are telling you what is to come then "When you see these things..." means that these Wars are bringing Big Time Hurt to those who oppose the Son of man, whoever he might be. Atwill posits that all of this is a rewrite of Titus' Campaigns. If True, that would mean that you should be able to find the Flavians in the Symbolism (or, to use Atwill's Term, "Typology".) of the Stories.

You might say that Jesus' First Miracle shows that Typology: Titus, at his "Onset", chases the inhabitants of a city into a lake, and the Romans then spear, cut and hack the inhabitants so that the water is red with blood. They are literally "Fishers of Men". Further, it is Titus who blasts his way - LEADS the way - through the carnage. Daddy Vespasian is there. In the First Sign of Jesus in GJohn, Vespasian would be the Wine Steward. There are 6 ceremonial jars and there are 6 bodies of water described by Josephus. And so on. If Jesus is PREdicting what will happen, he is PREdicting War where none was seen in the 30s.

Now, if you believe that Jesus was in fact Predicting - Prophesying - what was to come, then there is nothing that can be argued. If you believe that "Predicting" means "Postdiction by the real authors of the NT", then ask, as Atwill has, "Who held the pen last?". Did they create the NT out of whole cloth or did they re-manufacture what was already there?

Atwill takes a series of events seen in Josephus and chains them together to show that the Romans did it. They had Motive. Opportunity. Method. Atwill looks at the material and sees not only the Raw Stories but SEQUENCE. Sequence is extremely important to Atwill [[as he compares events in Josephus to events in the Gospels and vice versa (Edit)]] and he bases his Statistical Analysis on it. This is both a strength and a weakness.

##From an infinity of predicates, you may not conclude that you have an object.## Hence, Statistics. 'N this is why Atwill is disliked by so many. There is ALWAYS another explanation that will satisfy the NT being the way it is. Atwill counters, "THIS Series of Stories could not have been by chance. You may proffer your own versions of things but THIS is what we have and it could not have been by chance."

So, ##IF## the Romans did it, they did it for what reason? " god Titus". The Flavians. The Parable of the Fig Tree "May Be Seen" as a Symbolism about the End of the Julio-Claudians and the Ascension of the Flavians.
This leads then to the conclusion: Jesus will "Prophesy" a time in the future where there is a war where none exists at Jesus' time. "When you SEE THESE THINGS, know that the Messiah is nigh".

These things happen, they occur. Who is the divine one who is there when these things happen? ONLY TITUS.

QED.

CW

[Charles Wilson]

Ghost-

Let me give you one more idea to think about. The Roman Historians chronicle the Stories of the Empire and the Caesars. Often times, a Ruler took power and the Historians who followed had to show that the gods favored the changes that brought about the "New Caesar":

Suetonius, 12 Caesars, "Galba":

"He [[Galba]] was encouraged too, in addition to most favourable auspices and omens, by the prediction of a young girl of high birth, and the more so because the priest of Jupiter at Clunia, directed by a dream, had found in the inner shrine of his temple the very same prediction, likewise spoken by an inspired girl two hundred years before. And the purport of the verses was that one day there would come forth from Spain the ruler and lord of the world..."

I believe that a lot of the Flavian material comes from the writing of satisfaction of godly prophecy concerning them. Atwill looks at the Star Prophecy. Josephus quotes this prophecy and applies it to Vespasian. There was to be a World Ruler who came from Judea. Josephus sez to Vespasian that the prophecy was correct, it just applied to Vespasian and not the Jews, as was thought. "If a girl of high birth can duplicate a prediction of a Priest of Jupiter at Clunia that is 200 years old that will prophesy Galba, then a Star Prophecy from the Jews is good enough for us. After all we just murdered about a million of 'em..."

Therefore, Titus.

CW

[ghost]

Here is a very short comparison.

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/scholars.html

Francesco Carotta, 2005, Jesus Was Caesar: On the Julian Origin of Christianity. Exhaustive inventory of parallels. Alarmingly, asserts Caesar was Jesus.

Joseph Atwill, 2005, Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus. Another take on the Josephus-Gospel similarities. Atwill argues that the 1st century conquerors of Judaea, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian, used Hellenized Jews to manufacture the "Christian" texts in order to establish a peaceful alternative to militant Judaism. Jesus was Titus Flavius? I don't think so.