Customer Reviews

Jesus Was Caesar: On the Julian Origin of Christianity: An Investigative Report

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I have read this book several times, and must recommend it. The author has discovered a definite link between historical accounts of Julius Caesar and the Gospel of Mark. Yes, it sounds incredible, but there are simply too many parallels to be found to attribute them to mere chance or coincidence...

It might be easy to misunderstand some instances of 'parallels' and think they are a 'bit of a stretch', perhaps. But the way I read it, the author wants to list as many possibilities and variations as he can, and he must list several guesses or theories to explain how some mutations of the text occurred. In spite of this, the astounding number and nature of what he has convincingly found is truly impressive. Also, the author openly admits that this book only begins the investigation into what I strongly believe will become a very exciting new area of study.

There was obviously a lot of research done for this book, and those who scoff at it so quickly, or who nitpick at some of the details, will prove to be wrong, wrong, wrong. The 'big picture' that Carotta paints is undeniable.

I strongly recommend this book, and think that it has a monumental importance.

There may be hard times ahead for tele-evangelists.

A centuries old mystery has been solved, the real identity of Jesus Christ has been revealed. Euhemeros of Messene got it right when he wrote about 300 BC that the gods were once famous kings and queens who began to be worshipped after their deaths because they had been benefactors. In his outstanding work "Jesus was Caesar" Francesco Carotta proves that the historical Jesus was none other than Gaius Julius Caesar, the Roman commander and high-priest who was famous for his clemency (the proverbial Clementia Caesaris) and after his assassination was elevated to the gods becoming the highest God of the Empire: Divus Iulius.

This book is a feast of scholarship presented with Latin clarity and a wit reminiscent of Voltaire though always respectful towards its subject matter. The reader witnesses, in detail, the most amazing metamorphosis ever heard of. In a multigenerational process Divus Iulius, the descendant of Venus and himself God of the entire Roman Empire, mutated into the supposed Jesus of Nazareth presented in the Gospels. This mutation and delocalization came about by a long process of copying, mistranslation and misinterpretation resulting in an enormously corrupted text, the Gospels. The original one had been Asinius Pollio's "Historiae", his report about the civil wars. When finally Vespasianus' reason of the state sanctioned this "conversion" Jesus, the Christ, was born.

"Jesus was Caesar" is an epoch-making work. This long overdue decipherment of the Gospels will eventually be ranked among the most important books ever written, on par with works like Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" and Copernicus' "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium".

Once Christians have overcome the initial shock, caused by this fresh wind which blows away the mist of myth enshrouding the biblical Jesus and reveals the real, historical one, they have reason to rejoice since the original Easter, (one of) the most important event(s) in human history, has been discovered.

Carotta believes that Flavius Josephus created the cult of Jesus based on the cult of Julius Caesar. Josephus took on the pseudonym Paul and wrote the Pauline epistles of the New Testament, and his disciples wrote the gospels. The source for their literary creations was primarily the now-lost Historiae of Asinius Pollio. Carotta's book points out some interesting parallels between the gospels and various Roman histories about Caesar. Some of them may well suggest literary dependence of some sort, but the reader is forced to wade through an incredible amount of bombast and just plain silliness to find isolated nuggets of information worthy of serious consideration.

Throughout, the author displays the quasi-religious fervor of a true-believer who has absolute knowledge of absolute truth and despises anyone else who cannot see it. For example:

"The results of this investigation are not a matter of debate anyway, and being objective facts cannot be argued away. Just as the earth does not stop rotating on its axis simply because the Church had such trouble getting along with Galileo or because we continue to speak romantically of sunsets, Jesus does not stop being Divus Iulius simply because obscurantists today, once again, do not want it to be true ... " (p.14)

I know of no reputable historian who would make statements like this. History is always a matter of interpretation and probabilities, and the minute one assumes absolute knowledge of "the truth" one becomes blind to evidence that might point in other directions. One finds only what one wants and expects to find.

Carotta assumes that if the early Christian authors did any copying of Roman literature they must have exclusively copied and transformed Roman literature. Once again, reality is not quite that black and white. If some of the parallels seem convincing, that only indicates the likelihood that Christian writers used some Roman literature as models. They also used other literary models, such as the Hebrew Bible. Crafting a fictional story about someone's life does not mean the person himself must be fictional, any more than the fictional story about chopping down a cherry tree means George Washington himself was fictional or a literary mirror image of, say, King George.

While some of the parallels Carotta points out are striking, most of them are contrived at best. A fairly typical example of his methodology:

"Since _metanoias_, `of repentance,' looks very similar to _Metellus_ [the name of Pompei's father-in-law], and _baptisma_ is near _postulatio_, `demand,' as well as _kerysson_, `preaching,' is not far from _Caesar_, then _kai kerysson baptisma metanoias eis aphesin (h)amartion_ would stand for _a Caesare postulabat Metellus dimissionem armorum._ In English, `and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins' would simply stand for `Metellus demanded from Caesar the dismissal of his army.'" (p.178)

Using this kind of methodology I could probably prove that Paul cribbed most of Dr. Seuss's book _Green Eggs and Ham_ while writing his epistle to the Romans.

The author has read little of modern historical and scriptural scholarship. For example, I know of no current biblical scholars who would date Mark to "40-60 AD" or who would argue that it was translated from Latin. He cites no source for the former and cites works from 1893 and 1926 for the latter. He does not know Hebrew (see p.53) and so misses many obvious cases where words came from Hebrew rather than by means of some torturous transformation and metathesis from Latin.

Nevertheless, there are a few insightful needles hidden in this haystack of a book. For example, Carotta proposes that Joseph of Arimathea is a stand-in for Josephus himself, pointing out that Josephus' original name (before he took the Roman name Flavius) was "bar Matthias" (son of Matthias). No place named Arimathea is attested anywhere else in ancient literature, and there is indeed a remarkable resemblance to "bar Matthias." Even without citing this similarity in names, another biblical scholar already proposed a similar interpretation: see Paul Tarazi, New Testament: An Introduction: Luke and Acts (New Testament Introduction), p.178-179. For Tarazi, however, Joseph of Arimathea is a negative figure in the gospel story, in effect a put-down of Josephus; while for Carotta, Joseph of Arimathea and Josephus are supremely positive figures because Josephus is ultimately the very author of the story.

Some stories, may they be fictious or real, become successful all around the globe, adaptable to any cultural surroundings: tales like "Pinocchio", films like "The Godfather", real-life stories like that of Oscar Schindler, scientific revolutions like Einstein's theories of relativity, catastrophes like the 2004 Tsunami, religious narrations like those found in the New Testament. Why? Because they comprise the basic rules for telling a story: they are fascinating, interesting, compelling, unique, understandable and universal. Successful stories have a common and basic aesthetic and social value, because they tell you something about life as a human...and they tend to stay simple and focused in their emotional and intellectual contents. Good stories as well as major turning points in history will make you forget the chaotic complexity of earthly life, because they reduce and transcend existence to a brilliant, airy, clear, majestic and spherical order.

In the course of history, successful stories have always undergone cultural transformations and adaptations, and poignant historical events have always had far reaching consequences. In the 1950s the German theologian Ethelbert Staufer discovered that the Christian Easter liturgy isn't based on genuine Christian sources, but on the funeral ceremony and passion of Caius Iulius Caesar, the founder of modern civilization. This ceremony is one of the most important events in the history of mankind, for it decided not only on the fate of the Roman Empire, but the fate of Christianity, Europe and the whole world. An improvised funeral service, driven by a wide range of deep emotions from sorrow to love, from remorse to fury, turned into uproar and insurrection, shaped Rome for all times and sealed Caesar's apotheosis to the highest god of the state, Divus Iulius. A few generations later Caesar's stories, among them Asinius Pollio's "Historiae", were still being told, the god Iulius still being worshipped, especially in the Eastern colonies, where many of his veterans had settled after the Civil War. There, in a different cultural context, the story was altered, adapted, incorrectly translated, misinterpretated, supplemented with appropriate passages from the Biblia Iudaica, but nonetheless understood: its core and ethics were preserved, and after the Jewish War Christianity suddenly surfaced and swept into western Rome. Soon afterwards the Julian religion was extinct and forgotten.

In the book "Jesus was Caesar" by linguist and philosopher Francesco Carotta, Ethelbert Staufer's findings are anything but a coincidence, rather a logical result from a historical momentum and from cultural-dynamical phenomena, which Carotta reveals in a scientific tour-de-force rollercoaster ride. "Jesus was Caesar" is a praiseworthy and highly learned work of daring excellence. This is not some borderline esoteric pap, but a gritty and witty report that never loses its scientific seriousness. The reader will embark on a journey into the Roman womb of Christendom, where astounding parallels between the lives of Jesus Christ and Iulius Caesar are revealed. Strange enough, although Carotta finally presents to us the historical Jesus in overwhelming grandezza, orthodox scientists, believers and even atheists hate (and fear) this work, which has been available in other languages since 1999, because it is not a theory at all, but a huge cluster of historical, archeological, numismatic, cultural, theological and linguistic facts and accords. Moreover, "Jesus was Caesar" is the ever first, truly integral design on the origin of Christianity and the roots of the Christ, far beyond the mere myth that is being preached in our churches. As Jesus/Iulius did, this book will eventually change the world...if, yes, IF Francesco Carotta is right. Since this is highly probable, scientists and non-scientists, believers and non-believers are starting to feel comfortable with Carotta's findings. His book was once said to be of the same order of importance as the scientific discoveries of Galileo and Copernicus...and if this is all just a scientific hoax, it will still go down in history as one of the greatest and most thoroughly conceived pieces of art. Either way, it's a "must read".

The author was on the right track: there are a lot of similarities between Jesus and Caesar, and it is no coincidence. However, the reason is not that Jesus IS Caesar. The reason is that the character of Jesus was MODELED after Caesar to show that the freedom fighting Jews of the time had their very own leader, just as powerful and popular as Caesar, just as divine as Julius, but instead of the empire of Rome he was fighting for the kingdom of god.

Amazing things have been written about Jesus Christ but Fransesco Carotta's attempt to link him with the Roman civilization is much more sensible than Richard Dawkins' idea that Jesus never existed. Carotta has certainly rendered a signal service by taking Jesus out of the dank surroundings of Galilee and Judea were no trace of him has en found by the archaeologists and which has emboldened writers such as Richard Dawkins.

I cannot subscribe to the idea that the gospel accounts originated from the history of Julius Caesar but in my opinion the latter belonged to the Christian party which was strongly opposed the Senatorial gang led by Cicero. The author talks about `Julian Origin of Christianity', but I have pointed to the Julian links of Christianity. In my view it was the brutal dictator Augustus, Julius Caesar's adopted son who destroyed Jesus whose true name was Amen (Rev. iii. 14), or Amyntas. As Strabo stresses, Augustus fraudulently annexed the territory of Amyntas of Galatia who was his client king. Augustus strongly cherished the title `son of god' and destroyed both Cleopatra's son by Julius Caesar who was a legitimate but rival `son of god' and also Amyntas who was the son of Adobogiona the holy priestess of the Pessinus shrine. As she was attached to this site, which was associated with Attis, it is natural that she was seen as a Virgin.

The gospel of Mark is widely considered to be one of the earliest, and Carotta is certainly right in maintaining that it has stronger affinities with Greco-Roman lore than the Hebrew tradition. Mark's target audience was the gentile Greek-speaking residents of the Roman Empire and he explains the Jewish traditions clearly for the non-Jews. According to many scholars, the gospel was written in Greek around AD 64, possibly in Syria, and at least two Roman governors of Syria, Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus and Marcus Lollius had Mark-like names.

Carotta's book Jesus Was Caesar provides a major valuable contribution to recovering the history of formation of the Jesus figure by providing a thorough inventory of the parallels between the divinized Julius Caesar figure and the gospel Jesus Christ figure. His contributions abruptly halt there. His theory of parallels, his interpretation of the ramifications of the parallels, and his underlying model of the motivations for the parallels are completely incorrect, off-base, and purely misleading -- he's on the wrong track there.

This, by an author who has been a software developer, is one of those works that is like the memorable quip about the Apple Newton PDA (personal digital assistant): "It seems to have been made by a team consisting of a genius and an idiot." Because Carotta's work amounts to a useful inventory of parallels combined with a completely unsound interpretation of the ramifications of the parallels, because the book is completely distorted in such manner, the critiques of the book are typically distorted and off-base as well: they too are based on an entirely off-base model, theory, and interpretation of the ramifications of the parallels.

His useful inventory of parallels amounts to a set of data to be explained and fit into an explanatory framework. His explanatory framework for the data-set he discovered is completely incorrect. The following fallacies constitute his explanatory framework for the data in question:

o The Jesus figure was formed by repeated accidental miscopying.

Actually, the Jesus figure was a masterful deliberate creation. This point aligns with Atwill's book Caesar's Messiah, showing why one must read multiple books, views, and perspectives -- each one a mixture of insight and misleading distortion -- to piece together a viable explanatory framework.

o Jesus did exist historically. He was Caesar.

Actually, the Jesus figure was skillfully and deliberately crafted as a strategic modification of the divinized Caesar figure. It is arbitrary and meaningless, misleading and a poor description of the situation, to say that since the Jesus figure derives from the Caesar figure, this amounts to the historicity of Jesus.

o Jesus simply derives from a single figure, Julius Caesar.

Actually, the Jesus figure derives from around 100 figures -- combinations of real historical individuals, legends, mythic savior figures, mythic heroic figures, and so on.

o The Julius Caesar life-story as written-up basically constitutes historical fact.

Actually, the Julius Caesar life-story as written-up constitutes a blend of elements in standard ancient and Hellenistic mode, in which themes from the political domain were deliberately intermixed with themes from the mythic and religious domain.

The essential weakness of the book has nothing to do with the soundness of each parallel Carotta lists. Critics who attempt to disvalue the book on the basis of calling into question these claimed parallels are on the essentially wrong trail. The real substantial and significant weakness of the book is Carotta's interpretive and explanatory framework that he presents along with the set of parallels he has discovered and inventoried.

A sound explanatory framework for the data Carotta discovered -- the parallels between the figures of Jesus and Caesar -- is that the Jesus figure was deliberately and strategically crafted as a figurative and allegorical response, understood and recognized as a figurative response, to how the divinized Julius figure was used for the Roman imperial sociopolitical system.

The Jesus figure was created as a figurative response to how the divinized Julius figure was used for the Roman imperial sociopolitical system. It is entirely off-base to couch the data in the explanatory framework summarized in the title "Jesus Was Caesar".

Jesus Was Caesar? No -- not at all in the way Carotta describes. Jesus was a figurative response to how the Roman Empire used the figure of Julius as justification for its sociopolitical system.

Another reviewer finished his review with "Why not a Jesus from space"? These investigations demonstrate that very point: there WAS NO Jesus from space and the Biblical Jesus is not the person organized religion portrays. Are ALL of these parallels coincidence? Of course not!

Read both Carlotta and Atwill with an open mind. My opinion is that the truth about Christianity is peeping out after thousands of years of church cover-up and miscopied texts. It's about time. Arguing that the earth is less than ten millennia old is like calling nipples on men an example of intelligent design.

Ultimately, Carotta's fanfare and hyperbole only amounts to a comparison of a few dozen abstract similarities between the lives of Caesar and Jesus.

While that it is interesting, and may indeed have some genuine bearing on the history of writing in the first century, Carotta reaches too far when he jumps to his conclusion that Caesar and Jesus were the same person.

The laundry list of similarities may remind many readers of that list of similarities surrounding the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and JFK. Remember? Both had Vice Presidents named Johnson; the assassin of Lincoln shot from a theater and ran to a warehouse, while the assassin of JFK shot from a warehouse and ran to a theater; and so on for pages.

There were indeed similarities between the lives of Caesar and Jesus. Galilee and Gallia were similar names. There were indeed rivers near both towns, and capitol cities nearby. Both men had a friend named Nicodemus. They both had traitors. Both were 'assassinated'. And somewhat more.

Yet, Carotta and his many followers evade any deep discussion of coincidence. They wax emotional about their claims that the 'secret' has been found, or that the 'code' has been broken.

Perhaps most NT scholars today agree that the Gospel writer Mark was a Roman. Some say he was a Roman soldier. So it makes sense that Mark would have been more than a little influenced by Caesar's biography. Nevertheless, there is ample historical evidence outside the Bible for the existence of Jesus (see, for example, Morton Smith).

No, Carotta reaches too far and too fast. He grabs and holds. Whatever the historical interest in his findings, this emotion is noticable in his text, and it colors his material from beginning to end.

Jesus wasn`t exactly Caesar, but maybe very close to it: he has astonishing similarities with Caesarion, Caesar`s and Cleopatras son. Cleopatra tried to save her son from being killed by Octavian, Caesar`s adopted son, by sending him to Israel, accompanied by Maria and Joseph. In all, Cleopatra had four children, one by Caesar (Caesarion) and three by Antony (Cleopatra Selene II, Alexander Helios, Ptolemy Philadelphus). Selene could have been Maria Magdalena. Jesus Caesarion travelled to India, when he was 12, and returned 17 years later, visiting Greece and Egypt (Alexandria), where he was born, befor starting his mission in Jerusalem. Jesus married his half sister, Maria Magdalena, in the wedding of Kana (the names of the wedding couple were removed from the Bible, in order to hide the truth that Jesus was a married rabbi and had children). This and much more information can be found in the anonymous video documentation "Ring of Power" by Amenstop Productions (youtube).

Another interesting research field is the identity of Melchisedek and Krishna. The Old Testament describes a "battle of kings", where Abraham took part, and which has exact parallels in the Mahabaratha. And last not least Moses - was he Tut Ench Amun? Both have a lot of similarities, too many to be ignored.