The root of the Christian religion has retained a subject steeped in mystery for nearly 2,000 years. Who was Jesus Christ? Is he a historical character? Who wrote the Gospels? Why are they written in Greek? Why did they have a pro-Roman and anti-Semitic perspective? Why was the religion headquartered in Rome?
Well, according to The Independent, a controversial American biblical scholar appeared firstly a few years ago in London to present a discovery he claims proves someone conceived the narrative of Jesus Christ as a scheme of mind control to subjugate the poor. His name is Joseph Atwill and his book is entitled ‘Caesar’s Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus.’
Atwill suggests that Christianity was not originally formulated as a religion, but purely a propaganda campaign waged by the Roman authority in a bid to regulate their citizens.
His theory insists that it was designed as a system of mind control to turn the populace into obedient sheep who would believe God dictated that they be slaves.
Mr Atwill presented evidence that the Roman nobles who effectively made up the story of Jesus Christ actually penned the New Testament.
From The Independent:
“Mr Atwill says that acts of insurrection by Jewish sects, who were awaiting the arrival of a so-called ‘warrior Messiah’ in Palestine, were a perpetual problem for the Roman Empire and that after the Empire had exhausted all traditional means of dealing with the problem they resorted 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.”
Mr Atwill continues:
“To this day, especially in the United States, it is used to create support for war in the Middle East.”
Mr Atwill made his discovery when comparing the only known first-person historical record from that period with the New Testament.
He quickly found a highly constructed pattern of events and concluded that:
“The biography of Jesus is actually constructed, tip to stern, on prior stories, but especially on the biography of a Roman Caesar.”
Here’s a cursory explanation of his hypothesis:
Resources:
The Independent: Story of Jesus Christ was ‘fabricated to pacify the poor’, claims controversial Biblical scholar
