Biblical scholars will be appearing at the 'Covert Messiah' Conference at Conway Hall in London on the 19th of October to present this controversial discovery to the British public.

Jesus Christ: completely constructed from other stories for an ancient Roman propaganda campaign?

Jesus Christ may be the only fictional character in literature whose entire life story can be traced to other sources.

American Biblical scholar Joseph Atwill will be appearing before the British public for the first time in London on the 19th of October to present a controversial new discovery: ancient confessions recently uncovered now prove, according to Atwill, that the New Testament was written by first-century Roman aristocrats and that they fabricated the entire story of Jesus Christ. His presentation will be part of a one-day symposium entitled "Covert Messiah" at Conway Hall in Holborn.

Although to many scholars his theory seems outlandish, and is sure to upset some believers, Atwill regards his evidence as conclusive and is confident its acceptance is only a matter of time. "I present my work with some ambivalence, as I do not want to directly cause Christians any harm," he acknowledges, "but this is important for our culture. Alert citizens need to know the truth about our past so we can understand how and why governments create false histories and false gods. They often do it to obtain a social order that is against the best interests of the common people."

Atwill asserts that Christianity did not really begin as a religion, but a sophisticated government project, a kind of propaganda exercise used to pacify the subjects of the Roman Empire. "Jewish sects in Palestine at the time, who were waiting for a prophesied warrior Messiah, were a constant source of violent insurrection during the first century," he explains. "When the Romans had exhausted conventional means of quashing rebellion, they switched to psychological warfare. They surmised that the way to stop the spread of zealous Jewish missionary activity was to create a competing belief system. That's when the 'peaceful' Messiah story was invented. Instead of inspiring warfare, this Messiah urged turn-the-other-cheek pacifism and encouraged Jews to 'give onto Caesar' and pay their taxes to Rome."

Was Jesus based on a real person from history? "The short answer is no," Atwill insists, "in fact he may be the only fictional character in literature whose entire life story can be traced to other sources. Once those sources are all laid bare, there's simply nothing left."

Atwill's most intriguing discovery came to him while he was studying "Wars of the Jews" by Josephus [the only surviving first-person historical account of first-century Judea] alongside the New Testament. "I started to notice a sequence of parallels between the two texts," he recounts. "Although it's been recognised by Christian scholars for centuries that the prophesies of Jesus appear to be fulfilled by what Josephus wrote about in the First Jewish-Roman war, I was seeing dozens more. What seems to have eluded many scholars is that the sequence of events and locations of Jesus ministry are more or less the same as the sequence of events and locations of the military campaign of [Emperor] Titus Flavius as described by Josephus. This is clear evidence of a deliberately constructed pattern. The biography of Jesus is actually constructed, tip to stern, on prior stories, but especially on the biography of a Roman Caesar."

How could this go unnoticed in the most scrutinised books of all time? "Many of the parallels are conceptual or poetic, so they aren't all immediately obvious. After all, the authors did not want the average believer to see what they were doing, but they did want the alert reader to see it. An educated Roman in the ruling class would probably have recognised the literary game being played." Atwill maintains he can demonstrate that "the Roman Caesars left us a kind of puzzle literature that was meant to be solved by future generations, and the solution to that puzzle is 'We invented Jesus Christ, and we're proud of it.'"

Is this the beginning of the end of Christianity? "Probably not," grants Atwill, "but what my work has done is give permission to many of those ready to leave the religion to make a clean break. We've got the evidence now to show exactly where the story of Jesus came from. Although Christianity can be a comfort to some, it can also be very damaging and repressive, an insidious form of mind control that has led to blind acceptance of serfdom, poverty, and war throughout history. To this day, especially in the United States, it is used to create support for war in the Middle East."

Atwill encourages skeptics to challenge him at Conway Hall, where after the presentations there is likely to be a lively Q&A session. Joining Mr.Atwill will be fellow scholar Kenneth Humphreys, author of the book "Jesus Never Existed."

Further information can be found at http://www.covertmessiah.com.

Atwill's "theory" is interesting, but far from "proven."

Wish I could go to the presentation, though :)

Of course you're right.

A theory that is utterly unprovable without the Wayback machine.

What struck me is the notion of a movement that didn't start out as a religion like unto the genesis of Horny Joe's gold bible project.

I hope he's got more arrows in his quiver than just the above noted Josepus jive.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2015 07:01PM by Shummy.

All religions are invented.
Often we don't know by whom.
In Mormonism's case, we do :)

ificouldhietokolob Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> All religions are invented.
> Often we don't know by whom.
> In Mormonism's case, we do :)


Most world religions evolved well after the founder's death, especially those of the so called axial age.

Shummy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Most world religions evolved well after the
> founder's death, especially those of the so called
> axial age.

Sure, but they were still invented by somebody...

While I tend to think there was no historical Jesus, The gospels and epistles show too many different authors and opinions to be the product of some Roman conspiracy.

Nope-homey-don't-play-dat-game-ly yrs,

S

It seems that all we have left to truly believe in is Lord Xenu.

Some people simply dismiss the possibility that there is nefarious design to Jade Helm 15 because this Administration is perfectly benign. Then they accept the "Covert Messiah" hypothesis.

Now, where did I put my tinfoil hat?

Atwill is a crackpot.

Shummy, I went to the website and it says: Saturday, 19 October >>2013<<

I think this happened two years ago.

Well there ya go.

Guess that makes it ancient for sure.

LOL! Well, I found the video on YouTube and I started watching it, but it's past my bedtime so I'll finish later. So far, pretty interesting. I personally have come to think, from things I've read and watched, that either the Biblical Jesus never existed or that he was a teacher or rabbi of some kind who gained godhood because of his followers, not because of anything he actually did. This goes right up my alley.

Jesus was twins, Joshua and Glenn. One of them (the survivor never confirmed which one he was, but most of us in the know think it was Glenn) was nailed to the cross (Joshua having drawn the short straw) and then the other, Glenn, waited out the three days with a couple of hours of mourning for his twin, but spent the rest of the time 'exercising' with Mary Magdalene.

Then on the 'third day', he (Glenn) put on a nice robe, dabbed strawberry jam on his palms and feet, and smeared a bit on his side, and then leaped onto the world stage with his best Jimmy Cagney impression and said, "Ta da!!" He played to standing room only crowds for two weeks, while the apostles scurried around scheduling baptisms.

What was weird was that he never, ever asked what had been done with Joshua's body. People would try to tell him how they'd cared for the body, but he'd interrupt and go off on tangents.

After the two weeks of killing at the box office, Glenn left Jerusalem and journeyed to Cartagena, Columbia, where he lived out the rest of his life coaching little league soccer and chewing cocoa leaves.

And that's the truth!