Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus:Flavian Signature Edition (16 page)

The fact that John was Simon’s father also fulfills another “innocuous” prophecy found within the New Testament:

From now on, five in one household will be divided: three against two, and two against three.

They will be divided, father against son, son against father.
⁸⁷

Josephus records that at the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem Simon and John waged a violent struggle for control of the city, both against one another and against the leader of yet another faction, named Eleazar.
⁸⁸
Wars of the Jews
contains a clear theme regarding the Jews destroying themselves that I shall go into in more depth elsewhere.

I conclude this chapter by pointing out that throughout Christianity’s history, Jesus’ words have been interpreted as the very essence of love. My analysis indicates that this is, at times, a complete misunderstanding, albeit one that was deliberately brought about. The “Jesus” who is speaking to Simon in John 21 did not have love in his heart.

What was in his heart can be known by rereading the passage with the understanding that Jesus was describing what Titus would do to Simon, the captured leader of the Jewish rebellion. When these words are read as an address to a man who would be taken to Rome and tortured to death, what was in Jesus’ heart is truly revealed. As John the Baptist states, Jesus did not come to baptize with water but with fire.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go.”

(This he said to show by what death he was to glorify God.) And after this he said to him, “Follow me.”

John 21:18-19

CHAPTER 5
 
The Flavian Signature

I showed above that a number of parallels from different Gospels had been typologically mapped onto Josephus’ history of the Flavians’ Judean campaign. In this chapter I show that a contiguous block of text from Luke was typologically linked to a contiguous section of Josephus’ history. In fact virtually all of the events of Jesus’ Galilean ministry in that Gospel were typological representations of events of the Flavians’ military campaign. The events in the Gospel were mapped to Titus’ campaign in the same sequence that Josephus recorded them. One conclusion that falls out of this analysis is that the Gospels’ character “Jesus Christ” was completely fictional.

I wish to note that there is much more to the typological symbolism in Luke than I present in this short overview. My goal here is only to provide a clear enough understanding of the Luke/Josephus typology so as to leave no doubt that the sequence was created to be the Flavians’ signature of their authorship of the Gospels. The typological sequences were designed as a “bar code” for posterity, showing that the Flavians wrote the Gospels, thereby ending Christianity and beginning the era of their legacy.

The authors deliberately made the entrance to the Jesus/Titus typology difficult to spot.  In Luke, the first event of Jesus’ ministry is actually his battle at the brow of a hill near “Nazareth” – followed by a puzzle that reveals the real identity of “Mary Magdalene”. However, these parallels will be set aside for now and decoded towards the end of this chapter, after the reader has gotten a better sense of the overall typological pattern.

The Jesus/Titus typological connections I begin with are listed in the table below. Notice that in their “ministries,” Jesus and Titus went to the same places in the same sequence. This is suspicious on its face, but has not caught the attention of New Testament scholarship.

Galilee

1. 
Fishing for men at the Sea of Galilee

2. 
Easier to say “get up and walk” than “your sins are
.
forgiven”

3. 
Keep holy the Sabbath by restoring the “right hand”

4. 
Cast out the supporters of the Son of Man

5. 
John possessed by a demon

6. 
The legion of demons

7. 
Demons infect another group

8. 
The herd ran violently

9. 
The herd drowned

10. 
Identification of the son of the living god

11. 
Binding and loosening

12. 
He who does not follow with us, but casts out demons

On the road to Jerusalem

13. 
On to Jerusalem – the messengers are sent ahead

14. 
Don’t bury your dead or look back

15. 
The good Samaritan

Outside of Jerusalem

16. 
Knocking on the door

17. 
The house of Satan divided against itself

18. 
Man in armor who will be overcome

19. 
The crowds increase

20. 
Lying in wait

21. 
The woe-saying Jesus

22. 
Innocent beaten worse than the guilty

23. 
Divide the group 3 for 2

24. 
Cut down the fruit tree

25. 
The narrow gate and the shut door

26. 
How to build a tower

27. 
Send a delegation

Inside the city

28. 
The triumphal entrance and the stones that cried out

29. 
Jerusalem encircled with a wall

30. 
Drive out the thieves from the temple

31. 
The Abomination of Desolation

This sequence in Luke then continues with the events in the Gospels that were linked to Titus’ campaign, that were already covered.

32.  Son of Mary who was a human Passover lamb

Outside Jerusalem

33. Three crucified one survives, taken down by Joseph of “Arimathea”

34.  Simon condemned – John spared

In the analysis of parallels, I have included the citations of the passages so that the reader may follow along with the precise sequence of the typological mapping.

GALILEE

1) Fishing for men at the Sea of Galilee

Josephus and Luke each record a “catching” of men at the Sea of Galilee.  The typological linkage is obvious and covered in depth in Chapter 2 above.

While at the Sea of Galilee, Jesus predicted that his followers would fish for men.

“From now on you will catch men."

Luke 5:10

Titus’ followers then fish for men on the Sea of Galilee.

And for such as were drowning in the sea, if they lifted their heads up above the water, they were either killed by darts, or caught by the vessels.

Wars of the Jews
, 3, 10, 527

2) Easier to say “get up and walk” than “your sins are forgiven”

Following the “fishing for men” passage in Luke, there is a story in which Jesus asks the question “Which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven you,' or 'Rise up and walk'?” This question is satirically answered by Josephus below.  Notice in Luke’s story that Jesus is established as a judge who can forgive, just as Vespasian is in the linked passage in Josephus. Below is the entire passage in Luke:

Then behold, men brought on a bed a man who was paralyzed, whom they sought to bring in and lay before Him.

And when they could not find how they might bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the housetop and let him down with [his] bed through the tiling into the midst before Jesus.

When He saw their faith, He said to him, "Man, your sins are forgiven you." 

And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, "Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?" 

But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, He answered and said to them, "Why are you reasoning in your hearts?

“Which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven you,' or to say, 'Rise up and walk'? 

“But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins" -- He said to the man who was paralyzed, "I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house."

Immediately he rose up before them, took up what he had been lying on, and departed to his own house, glorifying God.

And they were all amazed, and they glorified God and were filled with fear, saying, "We have seen strange things today!"

Luke 5:18-26

Jesus’ question is answered in a witty manner in Josephus’ version of the story. Vespasian, who has the “power on earth to forgive sins,” was sitting in his tribunal seat wondering what punishment he should give to a group of rebellious Jews. His inclination is to  spare them, but he is talked out of it by his commanders. He then provides an ironical answer to Jesus’ question in Luke 5. In other words, it was easier for Vespasian to say “Rise and walk” than to forgive. The typology between the passages is a good example of both the rich wit and viciousness behind the Gospels’ “Jesus” character. Notice that the townspeople took their “effects” with them as they walked away – just as the paralytic did with his mat in Luke.

After this fight was over, Vespasian sat upon his tribunal at Taricheae, in order to distinguish the foreigners from the old inhabitants; for those foreigners appear to have begun the war. So he deliberated with the other commanders, whether he ought to save those old inhabitants or not … 

Vespasian acknowledged that they did not deserve to be saved, and that if they had leave given them to fly away, they would make use of it against those that gave them that leave. But still he considered with himself after what manner they should be slain;

for if he had them slain there, he suspected the people of the country would thereby become his enemies; for that to be sure they would never bear it, that so many that had been supplicants to him should be killed; and to offer violence to them, after he had given them assurances of their lives, he could not himself bear to do it.

However, his friends were too hard for him …

So he permitted the prisoners to go along no other road than that which led to Tiberias with their effects …

… the Romans seized upon all the road that led to Tiberias, that none of them might go out of it, and shut them up in the city.

Then came Vespasian, and ordered them all to stand in the stadium, and commanded them to kill the old men, together with the others that were useless, which were in number a thousand and two hundred.

Wars of the Jews
, 3, 10, 532-539