Some of you may have heard of this, it's a book by a man named Joseph Atwill, I haven't found the book to read it yet, but the gist of it is that the Roman supposedly invented Jesus in order to stop Jews from rioting, the Jews were waiting for a warrior messiah to lead the against the Romans or something to that affect, so the Romans made a peaceful messiah to get them under control, is this book credible? I know that his claims are based on supposed similarities between some of the events of the new testament and battles in which the Romans defeated the Jews, I haven't checked to see the similarities yet, I'mgoing to try and find the book first, but is this book credible?
I haven't read it, because the hard sell was in depth enough for me I could see some of the problems. For me, the problem with Atwill's theory is that if you look at the first gospel written, Mark, you can see the author is not only referencing the Old Testament, he's even making up word games with Hebrew or Aramaic. The idea that the Roman emperors knew Hebrew or Aramaic is a little bit far fetched. You also have the problem about very tentative connections between Josephus and the New Testament. For example, the idea of 'fishers of men' coming from the account by Josephus of Romans killing swimming Jews. There is an even better source for this, Jeremiah 16:16 "Behold, I am going to send for many fishermen," declares the LORD, "and they will fish for them; and afterwards I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain and every hill and from the clefts of the rocks". Another problem is that the gospel according to Mark shows hints that the author is not only aware of the letters or teachings of Paul, but a follower as well. So he is anti Temple, and anti Jewish laws. The author of Matthew plagiarizes Mark, but changes it to reflect his more Jewish stance. Matthew 5:18 is arguing against Paul's stance. Until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law" is saying Christians must follow Jewish laws. This tells us the gospels were written by different people with different theological viewpoints, but with a strong Jewish background behind them. And the final point is, why would the Romans even bother with such a scheme, if they wanted to suppress trouble making Jews, they would do the normal thing and invade with the military. His ideas seems to far fetched, and ignore more plausible alternatives.
