Question:

How should I respond to the false allegation that Jesus and Christianity were invented by the Roman imperial family, the Flavians (or by Titus Flavius) as claimed in a book Caesar Messiah by the scholar Joseph Atwill?  He also claims that the religion (Christian religion) was headquartered in Rome. Can you explain this to me briefly?   Thank you

Answer:

Anyone making such a claim must think that their audience is rather gullible because this is so obviously not true that only someone with virtually no knowledge about the history of the Mediterranean in the first century could be fooled by such an outrageous claim.

Christianity was begun by Jesus of Nazareth and a fairly small band of his closest followers in the time frame of about AD 30, beginning in Galilee, Judea and Jerusalem..  We know this to be true for many reasons, and no scholar with integrity would deny this obvious fact.  There is a great record of the activities of the Christian church all the way back to the first century.  For example, there are at least eight references to the Christian church made by Romans who were not believers or Jews who were not Christians in the first century of the very early  second century.  Some of these references were made before the Flavians even came into power.  A few of them are listed below.   I will make several more comments below this list of non-Christian sources on the Christian church:

First, consider this list of Extra-Biblical references to Jesus: (then skip below for more)

1. Tacitus, Roman historian  (AD 56-118)(about AD 115 concerning Nero in AD 64);

Not all the relief that could come from the man, not all the bounties that the prince could bestow, nor all the atonements which could be presented to the gods, availed to relieve Nero from the infamy of bbeing believed to have ordered the conflagration, the fire of Rome.  Therefore, to squelch the rumor, Nero created scapegoats and subjected to the most refined tortures those whom the common people called ‘Christians,’ [a group] hated for their abominable crimes.  Their name comes from Christ, who, during the reign of Tiberius, had been executed by the procurator Pontius Pilate.  Suppressed for the moment, the deadly superstition broke out again, not only in Judea, the land which originated this evil, but also in the city of Rome, where all sorts of horrendous and shameful practices, from every part of the world converge and are fervently cultivated.

Annals 15.44        (note:  Tacitus has it wrong.  He was prefect, not a procurator acc to the Pilate inscription from Caesarea Maritima.  Also note:  The Annals have lost the years 29-32 which most likely also mention Jesus as this passage seems to look back to his earlier mention of Jesus)

Tacitus probably reports from second hand information regarding Christians in Rome and in Asia Minor where he served AD.

2.  Flavius Josephus (AD 38-100) Writing about AD 94 under Domitian.  Concerning events he had both direct and indirect knowledge of.  Josephus was a Pharisee and a Jewish historian who was a turncoat, switching from the Jewish rebel side to Rome to serve under Nero and Vespasian.  Josephus is a relatively reliable historian.

The “Testimonium Flavium” (Antiquities 18:3.3)

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man.  For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly.  He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks.  He was the Messiah.  When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him.  On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvelous things about him.  And the tribe of Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.

Agapius, an Arab Christian in 9^th century probably quotes the original, leaving out the parts in parenthesis.  Note the passage reads grammatically well without the parts in parenthesis.

There is little doubt that Josephus wrote the passage as it presents Jesus in a light Christians would never accept.

Note:  Josephus also reports the martyrdom of “James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ”   (Antiquities 20:20)

3.  Babylonian Talmud  (late first or second century AD)  Babylonian Sanhedrin43a-b

On the eve of the Passover they hanged Yeshu and the herald went before him for forty days saying [Yeshu] is going forth to be stoned in that he hate practiced sorcery and beguiled and led astray Israel

It is taught: On the eve of Passover they hung Yeshu and the crier went forth for forty days beforehand declaring that “[Yeshu] is going to be stoned for practicing witchcraft, for enticing and leading Israel astray. Anyone who knows something to clear him should come forth and exonerate him.” But no one had anything exonerating for him and they hung him on the eve of Passover. Ulla said: Would one think that we should look for exonerating evidence for him? He was an enticer and G-d said (Deuteronomy 13:9) “Show him no pity or compassion, and do not shield him.” Yeshu was different because he was close to the government

Here Jesus is accused of sorcery, in obvious parallel with the charge leveled in Matthew 12:22-23.

    Babylonian Sanhedrin107b  Jesus practiced magic.   tHul2:22-23  Healings done in the name of Jesus.

So we have confirmation of the crucifixion of Jesus and indirect confirmation of his working of public miracles—only charging that the miracles were worked by Satan, not God.

4. Seutonius about AD 120  Very reliable historian wrote concerning the times of Claudius about AD 50

“As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he Claudius) expelled them from Rome”

5.  Lucian of Samosata  Social commentator and critic of Christianity

The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day—the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account…  You see, these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains the contempt of death and voluntary self-devotion which are so common among them; and then it was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and life after his laws.        (Lucian The Death of Peregrine 11-13)

 6.  Pliny the Younger  AD 112  Writing to Emperor Trajan.

Those who denied that they were or had been Christians, when they invoked the gods in words dictated by me, offered prayer with incense and wine to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for this purpose together with statues of the gods, and moreover cursed Christ — none of which those who are really Christians, it is said, can be forced to do — these I thought should be discharged. Others named by the informer declared that they were Christians, but then denied it, asserting that they had been but had ceased to be, some three years before, others many years, some as much as twenty-five years. They all worshiped your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ

7.  Celsus  (mentioned in Origen Contra Celsus 1:38 and 2:48).   A Greek philosopher and bitter critic of Christianity.  He accepted that Jesus worked miracles, but contended that he did so by the power of Satan.

8.  Mara bar Sarapion

The pagan philosopher Mara bar Sarapion wrote a letter to his son in which he mentions Jesus as the wise king of the Jews. Mara was a Syrian Stoic.  In the late first century he describes the fall of Jerusalem as the gods’ punishment for the Jews having killed Jesus. Mara includes Jesus as one of three wise men, along with Socrates and Pythagoras, who were killed and whose deaths were met with divine retaliation. Jesus is not named in the letter but referred to as the Jews’ “wise king.” Mara refers to Jesus as primarily a lawgiver, with no mention of his resurrection.

9.  Thallus  We know of Thallus only from a third century Christian historian named Julius Africanus.  Thallus wrote a three-volume treatise of world history in the 50s AD.  In discussing the darkness at the time of the resurrection of Jesus, Julius Africanus mentions that in the 3^rd book of Thallus’ history, he mentions the darkness and calls it an eclipse of the sun.  Africanus believes that Thallus is wrong—that there was no eclipse at that time.  Whether or not this source proves the darkness at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion is debatable, but it does support the idea that even non-Christians were aware of the resurrection as early as the 50s AD—at about the time the first book of the NT was written.  It also supports the claim, not necessarily of the darkness having occurred, but of the darkness having been claimed and believed by the Christians. 

The number of Pagan sources for Jesus Christ among contemporaries or within 100 years:  9

The number of Pagan sources for Tiberius among contemporaries or within 100 years:  9 (or 10 if you count Luke)

From these sources I conclude that there is no reasonable doubt that the Christian church was begun by the disciples of Jesus who were with him in his ministry.

Christian sources:  (33 before AD 150)

Clement of Rome (about AD 100)

Ignatius (about AD 110)

Papias  (Ecc History, Eusebius)   Collected his information in the early 90s.  Met eye-witnesses, almost certainly including John.

…if by chance anyone who had been in attendance on the elders should come my way, I inquired about the words of the elders — that is, what according to the elders Andrew or Peter said, or Philip, or Thomas or James, or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples, and whatever Aristion and the elder John, the Lord’s disciples, were saying.

Quadratus  Wrote an apology to Hadrian about  AD 117-124

…if by chance anyone who had been in attendance on the elders should come my way, I inquired about the words of the elders — that is, what according to the elders Andrew or Peter said, or Philip, or Thomas or James, or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples, and whatever Aristion and the elder John, the Lord’s disciples, were saying.

Is it reasonable to claim that these people were either totally deceived about Jesus or part of some sort of conspiracy to give false testimony in order to create a religion of their own making?   This is NOT reasonable.

There are several other reasons to believe that the Christian Church was founded by Jesus of Nazareth.  We know the place where Jesus was born, where he was raised, where, when and how he was killed.  We know the names of his mother and his father, his aunt and uncle, dozens of his closest friends and even several of his enemies.  We know about several of these from extra-biblical sources.  For example, Josephus reported the murder of James, the brother of Jesus.  This occurred before the Flavians even took power.  The Jewish and Romans sources are unanimous that this movement began in Jerusalem, not Rome.  We know that Nero persecuted the Christians in Rome in AD 63 or 64.  Again, this was before the Flavians even came to power.  As far as I know, no serious historian denies that Paul was a real person who spread Christianity across the Mediterranean, planting churches in Ephesus, Corinth, Philippi and other cities and finally being executed in Rome around AD 65 or 66.  The evidence for these is so strong that we can, for all practical purposes call this “fact.”.

Honestly, it borders on absurd to claim that the Flavians began this religion or that the Christian Church began in Rome.  No honest scholar would make such an outrageous claim. This claim does not even deserve a moment’s attention, as it is coming from someone who clearly does not even believe what they are saying.

John Oakes