Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus:Flavian Signature Edition (58 page)

As Josephus relates it, most of the leaders of this philosophy had “Maccabean” names, and in many instances were related to one another. For example, in addition to Judas the Galilean, who is credited with creating the “fourth philosophy,” Josephus lists someone named Eleazar as the person who actually starts the war. John and Simon were the names of the “Jewish tyrants” who  controlled  the  rebels  during  the  siege  of  Jerusalem.  The  movement  ends at Masada when the Sicarii destroy themselves under the leadership of someone also named Eleazar, who was also identified as a descendant of Judas the Galilean.

Josephus records the names of the leaders of the Jewish rebellion at its onset in 66 C.E. Josephus’ list continues the pattern of “overusing” Maccabean names and includes a John, a Matthias, an Eleazar (Lazarus), a Simon, and a Joseph (himself). Notably, there is also a Jesus.

They also chose other generals for Idumea; Jesus, the son of Sapphias, one of the high priests; and Eleazar, the son of Ananias, the high priest; they also enjoined Niger, the then governor of Idumea, who was of a family that belonged to Perea, beyond Jordan, and was thence called the Peraite, that he should be obedient to those fore-named commanders.

Nor did they neglect the care of other parts of the country; but Joseph the son of Simon was sent as general to Jericho, as was Manasseh to Perea, and John, the Esscue, to the toparchy of Thamna; Lydda was also added to his portion, and Joppa, and Emmaus.

But John, the son of Matthias, was made governor of the toparchies of Gophnitica and Acrabattene; as was Josephus, the son of Matthias, of both the Galilees. Gamala also, which was the strongest city in those parts, was put under his command.
²¹⁸

Because the Maccabees were the royal family Herod defeated, and were religious zealots, it is logical that they would have been a focus of those zealous Jews who rebelled against Herod’s rule. Herod is also recorded as systematically killing members of the Maccabean family.

It seemed to me, based on their persistent use of Maccabean names, that the family of Judas the Galilean was descended from the Maccabees, though this is not recorded by Josephus or in any other extant history. I have yet another reason for reaching this conclusion. The discovery of the true identity of the Apostles John and Simon, as well as the original Messiah, Eleazar, had shown me that Josephus could deliberately have obfuscated their true identities to create the historical confusion in which Christianity was grafted onto the Sicarii movement. Therefore, if Josephus had omitted recording the fact that the family of Judas the Galilean was descended from the Maccabees, he would simply have been continuing this intentional obfuscation.

Josephus and the authors of the New Testament turned the Maccabean family, members of which had led the first-century revolt against Rome, into the Apostles and the family of Jesus, the Messiah of peace, whom Rome had invented to replace the warrior Messiah of Maccabean Judaism.

I suspect that within first-century Judea, the Maccabean family was regarded as messianic, and was similar to what is called a Caliphate throughout the Islamic world today—Caliph meaning “successor” in Arabic. Such a family needed to have a way of identifying its members, particularly its successors. The purpose of and the overuse of Maccabean names,
ad absurdum,
in Josephus and the New Testament was to interfere with this process and, in the confusion, to graft Christianity onto the movement that centered on that family. The fact that there were messianic families in first-century Judea is borne out by a quote from Eusebius citing an earlier work by Hegesippus.

Vespasian, after the capture of Jerusalem, issued an order to ensure that no one who was of the royal stock should be left among the Jews, that all the descendants of David should be ferreted out and for this reason a further widespread persecution was again inflicted upon the Jews.
²¹⁹

The previous quote shows that the Romans were indeed trying to eradicate at least one messianic family. Notice that the Messiah who was a problem for the Romans was identified as
Jewish
. Destroying the family from which this Messiah was spawned is described as a continuation of the persecutions of the Jews. This shows that Rome oppressed a
Jewish,
not a Christian, messianic movement in the first century C.E.

Supporting the contention that Rome saw the family of Judas the Galilean as part of this messianic problem, is that Josephus records that the anticipation of the “world ruler,” or Messianic prophecies, were what most stirred the masses to revolt, and that the only family specifically targeted for destruction by the Romans was the family of Judas the Galilean. Notice in the following passage that Judas’ sons are named James and Simon, just as two of the Apostles.

And besides this, the sons of Judas of Galilee were now slain; I mean of that Judas who caused the people to revolt, when Cyrenius came to take an account of the estates of the Jews, as we have showed in a foregoing book. The names of those sons were James and Simon, whom Alexander commanded to be crucified.
²²⁰

Josephus also records that Judas’ descendant “Eleazar” was in charge of the Sicarii at Masada in 70 C.E. when the “fourth philosophy” was finally destroyed. It seems clear that a family that had led messianic revolutionaries
generation after generation
would have been the family from whom a Messiah would be expected.

The passage above suggests that the Zealots saw the family of Judas the Galilean as a messianic family. However, the Maccabees were of the seed of Aaron and not of the family of David. If the family of Judas the Galilean were descendants of the Maccabees, and therefore of Aaron, how could they have been seen as messianic by the Jewish rebels?

Though the son of David has come to be the Messiah’s epithet in both the Talmud and the New Testament, in the first and second centuries C.E. many Jews looked to a Messiah other than the one “coming” from the family of David. Rabbi Akiba, for example, believed that Bar Kokhbah, the revolutionary Jewish leader of the second century C.E., was the true Messiah, though nowhere was it claimed that he was of the house of David.

More important is the fact that found among the Dead Sea Scrolls were two works, the
Damascus Document
and
Community Rule,
both of which describe a sect that looked forward to the appearance of a Messiah. In both works, this coming Messiah is described as a member of the family of
Aaron.

This is the exact statement of the statutes in which (they shall walk until the coming of the Messiah) of Aaron and Israel who will pardon their iniquity.
²²¹

They shall depart from none of the counsels of the Law … until there shall come the Prophet and the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel …
²²²

Each work also refers to the family of Aaron in a way that shows it to be in a position of leadership.

But God remembered the Covenant with the forefathers and raised from Aaron men of discernment …
²²³

The Sons of Aaron alone shall command in matters of justice and property …
²²⁴

The authors of the New Testament were well aware that the Messiah did not need be of the family of David. Jesus is quoted as stating exactly that:

“How is it that the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David?

“For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool.’

“David therefore himself calleth him [
the Messiah
] Lord; how then can he be his son?”

Mark 12:35–37

That Jesus stated that the Messiah need not be of the family of David should not be surprising, because Jesus himself was not of that family. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke trace completely different versions of Jesus’ “family of David” genealogy through his father Joseph, who, of course, was not his father at all – a fact well known to the authors of the Gospels because, according to them, he was born of the Holy Spirit and a virgin.

Given the fact that the family of Aaron was considered messianic by many Jews of this era, and that the Maccabean dynasty was the royal Jewish family of this era and was of the house of Aaron, it is probable that Zealots would have seen the Maccabees as the family from which the “Messiah of Aaron” would appear. If this theory is correct, then the messianic movement of first-century Judea developed as a reaction against Rome, which had ousted the Maccabees and replaced them with their puppets, the family of Herod. The struggle of first-century Judea was akin to many in Medieval Europe, in that it involved an ousted royal family seeking to return to power, a foreign government propping up an unpopular king, and a dispute over religion.

Jewish Zealots, hoping to restore the Maccabean family, focused on those parts of their scripture that they believed prophesied God’s sending a Messiah who would restore Israel to a sovereign Jewish state. The Book of Daniel, which does not specify which earthly family the Messiah was to come from, would have seemed especially apt because it foresees a “son of God” who helps to restore Israel after a series of tribulations. The Zealots applied these prophecies to the Maccabees.

The Roman authors of
Wars of the Jews,
in order to transform the Maccabees from the messianic family of the Jews into the founding family of Christianity, created an “official” history, the
Wars of the Jews
, that contains an undifferentiated clump of individuals with Maccabean names. These individuals are described variously as robbers and false prophets. One of the purposes of
Wars of the Jews
, therefore, was to obscure the real history of the “five sons of Matthias.”

Then, the Gospels graft Jesus and his four brothers, named Judas, Simon, Joseph and James, his father, named Joseph, and his mother, named Mary, as well as his followers, named Simon, Judas, John, Eleazar, and Matthew onto the history of the Maccabean family. By creating so many characters with Maccabean names, the authors of the New Testament and
Wars of the Jews
sought to fool the uneducated into believing that Christianity had originated from within the Maccabean family.

This symbolic grafting of Christianity onto the messianic tradition of the Maccabees was mirrored by an effort to physically graft the Herodian family onto the Maccabees.
²²⁵
Herod married Mariamme, a direct descendant of Matthias, the founder of the Maccabean dynasty. After she bore him four children, Herod executed her and her brother, thereby ensuring that only his Maccabean children would remain.

Throughout his works Josephus is very careful to avoid making any mention of the Messiah. He uses the word only twice, both times in conjunction with Jesus, and never explains exactly what the term means. Josephus mentions numerous messianic figures without ever referring to them as a Messiah or a Christ, calling them instead false prophets, robbers, or charlatans. For example, Josephus uses these pejorative secular terms with a character named Theudas (c. 45 C.E.), no doubt the same Theudas mentioned in the New Testament, who promised to lead his followers over
dryshod like Joshua before Jericho
. In other words, he claimed to be able to “part” the water like Moses. Clearly he was an individual operating within a religious framework and not simply, as Josephus describes him, a robber.

Josephus is reworking history again, this time excluding from it the messianic aspirants who had led revolts against Rome during the first century C.E. He uses the name-switching trick to transform Messiahs into robbers. He is again making it difficult to trace the lineage of the real messianic family. The only messianic lineage remaining after 70 C.E., according to the New Testament and Josephus, is that of Jesus, who, after endorsing Rome, left the planet.

Even when Josephus applies a messianic prophecy to Vespasian he does not refer to the prophet directly, but rather to the vision of some “ambiguous oracle.” I would argue that Josephus’ avoidance of the specific prophecies that predict the Messiah, as well as of the term itself, is an example of how he deliberately blurs the history of Judaism so that Christianity can, in the confusion, claim the history as its own. In this case he has blurred the identity and intent of the Maccabean messianic aspirants of this era, leaving only the Messiah of Christianity visible.

With his description of the death of Eleazar, a descendant of Judas the Galilean, at Masada in 73 C.E., Josephus hoped not only to wipe from history the truth of the family that had stirred such opposition to Rome, but actually to use its individuals and history as the “rock” upon which the new religion would be built. The transformation of Simon and John above is just part of a deception on a huge scale, encompassing not just the history of a family,
but also of an entire religion,
for more than a century.

Christianity is the Sicarii movement of Judas the Galilean deliberately blurred and transformed. The Romans transformed the history of the cult of the militant Maccabean Messiah into the history of Christianity.

Robert Eisenman has pointed out a number of overlaps between the Sicarii movement and Christianity during the second half of the first century C.E. Both were messianic movements, both were in Judea during the same period, and both have engaged in missionary activities. More important is Eisenman’s claim that the word “Sicarios” itself may be a “quasi-anagram and a possible pejorative in Greek for the word “Christian.”
²²⁶
If true, this wordplay creating “Christian” from “Sicarii” would fit perfectly into the pattern of creating Christianity out of the Sicarii movement.