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- Who was Jesus?

Is he a historical character?

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Who wrote the gospels?

Why are they written in Greek?

Why did they have a pro-Romanperspective?

Why was the religion
headquartered in Rome?

Those were the mysteriesthat I saw about the gospels.

- [voiceover] The originof the Christian religion

has been a subject steep inmystery for nearly 2,000 years.

[curious music]

Joseph Atwell is one of
the number of scholars

today from all around the worldwho are

questioning the historic facts

behind these ancient mysteries.

When examining the actualhistory of this era,

many of the answers providedby the church and Christian

scholars do not hold up
to rigorous scrutiny.

- This is reallyimportant for our culture,

to understand where
Christianity came from.

- [voiceover] No doubt,
Christians have done

a lot of good
for the world,

but then there are other
Christians,

often the most dogmatic, whocreate war...

Hatred, and other harm underthe disguise of religion.

In studying how Christianityemerged,

many of our scholars
agreed that it was used

as a political tool tocontrol the masses of the day,

and it is still being used this
way today.

- The problem is thatChristianity has been used

as a tool by government that
uses

the goodness in people againstthem.

For example, support forthe wars in the Middle East

has been preached to
evangelical Christians

as a way to speed up the end ofdays.

This is just one exampleof the way that propaganda

is used to control and
manipulate the populace.

Actually, according to mystudy of the ancient text,

the second coming of theChrist has already occurred.

- [voiceover] Maybe weneed to expand the possible

answers about how Christianity
originated

and deeper questions need to beasked.

Maybe we need to examine
what political motives

were behind the formationof the Christian religion.

- I think it's a requirementof alert citizens

to know how the gospels werewritten,

why they were written, whoproduced them,

what was the purpose and back ofall this?

This is good citizenry.

Everyone should be involved inthis.

- [voiceover] Today, we liveon the brink of an immense

paradigm shift, and this moderntime

is very parallel to the erain which Christianity emerged.

Studying this ancient eracan give us the perspective

needed for coming up withsolutions to today's problems,

and for helping create a betterworld that we envisioned.

[triumphant music]

- And the penny dropped, thepenny dropped

that Jesus as a human beingnever existed.

- The presentation of the Jesuscharacter

it's somewhat of a composite

of many Messianic leaders of thetime.

- Well, it's just that'sback to the drawing board,

and we'll leave aside
all of the assumptions

of Christian history
and let's just look at

the texts afresh andconsider every possibility.

Let's open the whole game up.

- Can you think that
Christianity is really

Paganism by a different name?

Now, it feels completely
obvious.

- Some of us are saying
that this was a sun god

turned into a Jewish man.

- In all of this, we're
dealing with literature.

We're not dealing with history.

So the answer is no, there is nohistory

to this character, Jesus.

It's entirely a literary
creation.

- [voiceover] Some of ourBible scholars are mavericks,

working outside the restrictionsof

mainstream religious
institutions.

This allows them the freedomto provide fresh insights

and draw from startling
conclusions about how

Christianity was born.

- I began reading a numberof books on the subject.

This turned into a decade-longresearch.

- [voiceover] For Joseph
Atwill, the key was in

the Dead Sea Scrolls, theonly Jewish literature

ever discovered from the
first century AD or CE,

the time that Jesus would'vebeen preaching among the Jews.

- The characters in the DeadSea Scrolls were militaristic,

and you could see that
this movement wanted

to push the foreigners out ofIsrael.

They were fundamentalists,whereas the characters

in the gospel are different.

They are pacifistic.

They are turning the othercheek.

They're giving to Caesar what isCaesar's.

How did a movement like
Christianity

come to exist in a
region that was occupied

by Roman soldiers and hadJewish zealots within it

that were going to push theseRomans out?

How was that possible?

I began studying the othertwo major works of the era:

The New Testament and Warsof the Jews by Josephus,

a Roman court historian
who described the war

between the Romans and theJews in the first century.

While reading these works sideby side,

I noticed an amazing
connection between them.

Certain events from the ministryof Jesus

seemed to closely parallelepisodes from

the military campaign ofRoman Caesar Titus Flavius,

a campaign which took place 40
years

after Jesus supposedly lived.

My efforts to understand
these connections led me

to an incredible discovery.

Christianity had beeninvented by a little known

family of Roman Caesars, the
Flavians.

And they left us documents toprove it.

- The Flavians are not a
household name,

and yet it's the Flavians who

completely reshaped the RomanEmpire.

In Rome, of course, there's theColosseum,

which is understood to bethe best known monument

of the Ancient Roman Empire,perhaps.

The Coliseum is, in fact,a Flavian construction

produced during the FlavianPeriod.

It's under the Flaviansthat both Rabbinic Judaism

and Christianity take shape.

- [voiceover] Why would the
Flavians

be interested in creatingreligion?

Much like today, their era wasmarked by

political power struggles,a bankrupt economy,

religious conflicts and endlesswars.

In the midst of this turmoil,the Flavians

seized control of theRoman Empire and ushered in

an immense paradigm shift.

To understand the Flavian's rise
to power,

we need to go back to the reign

of the previous powerful rulers,

the Julio-Claudian Dynasty.

Beginning with JuliusCaesar in the year 49 BCE,

the Julio-Claudians ruled
Rome for over 100 years,

transforming the governmentfrom a Republic into an empire.

This family contained
all the famous Caesars.

Julius, who predated the time ofJesus,

Augustus who was Caesar at thetime of

Jesus's supposed birth,
Tiberius,

who ruled during Jesus's
supposed death,

followed by the infamous
Caligula.

Then Claudius and endingthe Julio-Claudian dynasty

with Nero, whose reign begins in
54 CE.

- The Julio-Claudiansenjoyed a god-like status.

Until the family degenerated

and began to damage the Roman
Empire.

- [voiceover] By the time ofNero,

his famous decadence was
bankrupting the empire,

and the Jews of Judea werestaging a huge rebellion

against their Roman rulers.

- Judea was one of the
many conquered provinces

that made up the Roman Empire.

This region, which was
also known as Palestine,

was controlled by a family thatserved as

Rome's tax collector, TheHerods.

- They were a Greco-Arabfamily, somewhat possibly

judiais, though only judiais

when it was convenient
to please the subjects

they were given who wereput in power in Palestine

and destroyed the previous
Jewish-ruling family,

the Maccabean family, root andstump.

- [voiceover] Besides beingheavily taxed

and ruled by a non-Jewishfamily put in power by Rome,

the Jews were furtherinflamed by the requirement

that a statue of the Caesar
be placed for worship

in every temple throughout theempire.

- In the Roman Empire,you could pretty much have

any god you want, butlegally, you had to submit to

the emperor as a god as well.

You had to at least acknowledge
that

the Roman leader was also adivine figure.

But the Jews would not have anyof it.

- It's fundamental to Jewishbelief that you shall make

no graven images.

It's one of the commandments and

given a sign by God.

So the Jews never made
representations of God.

- The Jews had a verydifferent type of religion.

They had a religion which
was much more focused

on the book, and lessfocused upon cultic statues.

This presented a real
problems for the Romans.

They tried to install statues ofCaesar,

but the Jews weren'tgoing to buy that at all.

In fact, it aggravated them.

It enraged them, and
the Romans really are,

I think, didn't understand this.

It's not statues.

It's books.

- [voiceover] And those bookscontained what are known

as the Jewish Messianic
prophecies.

- The thing that most moved theJews'

revolt against Rome
was an obscure prophecy

from among their writingsthat a world ruler

would come out of Palestine.

- Holy books inspired the Jewsto expect

a redeemer who would redeemIsrael, rescue Israel,

restore Israel to power andleadership in the world.

- The messiah that the
literature described

was a
warrior.

The messiahs would haveclaimed the same attributes

the same attributes that David
did.

David could overcome any armybecause

God gave him the power to do it.

If you had the power of God,

you could easily defeat theRoman army.

The people rebelled against Rome

and were led by a Messianicmovement that

had a series of messiahs
that had come forward

to fight against the RomanEmpire.

- [voiceover] The Hebrew wordMessiah

is translated into Greek
as Kristos, or Christ.

So the title of Christ candescribe any

of the numerous messiahs of thismovement.

- Yes, the word Christ orChristians

can refer to the PalestineMessianic movement,

but it's a later term,it's a later reformulation

of the Messianic movement of
Palestine.

- [joseph] This movement
rebels against Rome

in 66 and is successful.

It actually defeats them
militarily.

So it must've been a hugemovement.

The victorious Jews set up anation state

directly in the Roman Empire.

- And the Romans had to
do something about it.

There was a real dangerthat this Messianic movement

could not only boil
over into Judea itself,

but could spread to
other Jewish communities

in other parts of the RomanEmpire.

- Rome ruled its colonieswith a rod of iron,

and any resistance was goingto be met with brute force.

- [voiceover] At this timeduring Nero's reign, two of the

finest military men in theempire with the Flavians:

Vespasian and son Titus.

- [joseph] Vespasian and
Titus were military men.

They spent a great deal oftheir life outside of Rome.

For over a decade, they hadwaged war

against the druids in Brittanyand Gaul.

Vespasian and Titus were
successful

in essentially destroying thedruids.

They left behind no historicalrecord of their existence.

- [voiceover] And it's
the Flavians who Nero

calls upon when he needs to

suppress the Jew's rebellion inJudea.

- Nero responded byasking his best generals,

Vespasians and his son
Titus to go into Judea

with a huge army, 60, 70,000troops,

and a similar number of
supporting individuals.

So they meant business.

The Romans came down
to crush the rebellion.

- [voiceover] In the
year 66 CE, the Flavians

begin their militarycampaign against the Jews.

They start further north in
Galilee,

where the first of three
key events takes place.

They destroy the Jewish town ofGalilee.

They also captured a Jewishrebel,

who later becomes a criticalfigure

in the formulation of
Christianity.

- This is where theycaptured one of the leaders

of the rebellion, a Jewnamed Josephus Bar Mathias.

Now Josephus presented himselfto the Flavians as a prophet.

- He survived.

He survived apparently
by telling Vespasian

that the prophecies of
the Jews pointed out

that Vespasian would becomeemperor, and of course he did,

so Vespasian quite liked
Josephus.

He used him as a translatorin his entourage.

He used him to appeal to
the rebels to surrender.

- At this point, Josephusbecame a turncoat,

and worked with the Flaviansagainst the rebellion.

- [voiceover] Meanwhile, chaosis increasing back in Rome,

where Nero's rule is beingthreatened.

- In the year 68, the
senate found the courage

to depose Nero and he committedsuicide.

Now in that circumstance,Vespasian was

a prime candidate to becomeemperor.

- [joseph] In the middle of thiswar,

Vespasian returned to Romeand seized the throne.

The Flavians then became
the imperial family.

- [voiceover] WithVespasian becoming the new

Caesar in Rome, Titus staysbehind on the battlefield

and sets his sights on
Jerusalem,

where the other two key eventstake place.

Titus encircles Jerusalemat the wall, and finally,

he razes the temple leavingnot one stone atop another.

- It took a while.

They eventually had to bring onstarvation

by building a wall, a barricadeentirely

enveloped in the city.

- What happens, of course, isthe temple,

in 70, is completely destroyed.

- For the Jews, it was
the ultimate calamity

because, of course, thiswas the house of their god,

and it was destroyed by the
Romans quite thoroughly.

Titus, of course, was thevictor of this great siege.

Titus carried the spoils
of this captured city

back to Rome for his triumph.

He took the treasures of thetemple,

their famous seven branchcandlestick.

You could see it on the
Arch of Titus in Rome.

It celebrates that tremendousvictory

of Rome, again, triumphantand Titus, of course,

is the hero of the day.

[triumphant music]

- All of the artifacts from thetemple

that they seized, they
put on public display

in what to they refer to
as the Palace of Peace,

except for one item, the Jewishscripture.

Josephus records that theFlavians took

and placed in their privatepalace,

where no one was allowed to seeit.

- [voiceover] Although TitusFlavius

successfully ended the rebellionin Judea,

another rebellion soon brokeout in Alexandria, Egypt.

The Flavians were clearthat this was not the end

of the Jewish Messianic
movement.

They also recognized thatit was the Jews' Messianic

literature that was fueling thismovement.

So once they captured
the Jewish scripture,

they had all other copies of itdestroyed.

- [joseph] And that's
why the Dead Sea Scrolls

had to have been buriedin a cave because that was

the only way it could be safefrom the Roman destruction.

There was not a single scrap of
literature

found from the Messianic
movement

until the scrolls were
discovered.

That's why they're such atreasure because

they're the only real voice

of the Messianic movement thatwe have.

- [voiceover] And the realvoice of the Jew's Messianic

movement, according to ourscholars,

was violent and militaristic,

not the pacifistic versiondepicted in the gospels.

- War against Rome was a
Messianic war.

So that's why I say that
the scrolls are not only

the literature of the Messianicmovement in Palestine,

they're also the literatureof the war against Rome.

- [voiceover] The Romans neededto

subdue the Jes' religion.

So they set about influencingit and changing it.

- They realized they can'tdestroy

the Jewish religion altogether.

That's not their objective.

They realized, they'resensible enough to realize

that they can't do that.

So what you have to do is tryto create a type of Judaism

that is benign and it'sexactly coinciding with the

rise of the Flavian dynasty is
the arrival

of two benign forms of Jewishideology.

- [voiceover] It's during thisperiod that a new literature

enters history whichdescribes a peace-loving,

turn the other cheek preaching

Jewish messiah named Jesus
Christ.

But if the Flavians wrote thegospels,

how could a Roman family knowhow to write

Jewish literature thatrefers to Jewish prophecy?

The answer lies in the
Flavian's collaborations

with a number of Jewish
intellectuals,

beginning with their owncourt historian Josephus.

- Josephus arrives back
in Rome with Titus.

He becomes an adopted memberof the Flavian family,

an amazing turn of eventsfor the Jewish turncoat.

He becomes Flavius Josephus.

Josephus, at this time,begins writing the history

of the war, and he records
that Titus gave him

the Jewish scripture.

Josephus's histories has
always been associated

with the origins of
Christianity.

- Time and again you could findparallels

between what Josephus writes

and what turns up in the
Gospels.

It's a powerful evidence
of their true origin.

- [voiceover] In reading
the works of Josephus

side-by-side with thegospels, scholars have noticed

parallels between the two works.

It appears as though
the history of Josephus

records events thatfulfill the prophecies of

the Old and New Testaments.

Early Christiansunderstood this connection.

In fact, when the Biblefirst began to be printed

in the Middle Ages, it included
the history of Josephus.

- He was employed to write

the official history that wehave.

The other histories from thisperiod

have been destroyedruthlessly by the Romans.

Josephus tells us thisin very chilling passages

how the Romans exerted complete
control

of the literature of thisperiod.

There were alternativehistories of the Jewish war

written while the Romans
rounded up the writers

of those histories and executedthem.

They rounded up all the copies

of those histories and destroyedthem.

That is to say they ruthlesslywiped out

any alternative history sothat the only history we have

is written by Josephus, andlet's remember who Josephus was.

- Chief propagandist
of the Flavian dynasty.

He was very, very successful.

He moved back to Rome.

He was given an apartment inthe emperor's own townhouse,

and he was appointed
the Chronicler

of the Roman
Jewish War

using Vespasian's own
diaries of the events.

- [voiceover] Also inthe pages of his history,

Josephus declares that the Jew's
messiah

or Christ is none other than

Flavius Vespasian and hisdynastic family.

- To put it succinctly, Josephussays that

there was a prophecy that aworld ruler

would come out of Palestine.

The Jews thought thisapplied to one of their own.

They were wrong in their
interpretation.

He uses the most cynical
interpretation.

He applied it to the rise

of the Roman Emperor in
Palestine.

- Josephus recorded that
the Messianic prophecies

foresaw not a Jew, butVespasian and his dynasty.

In fact, all of theFlavian historians recorded

that the Flavian Caesar was the
Christ.

- [voiceover] It wasimportant to the Flavians

that they be seen as the Christ,
asdivine

and god-like and this was notmere vanity.

The Julio-Cladians before themhad already

established that presentingthemselves as Gods

was a powerful tool incontrolling their subjects.

When the Flavians took over the
throne,

they inherited an enormousbureaucracy

that was already inplace, the Imperial Cult,

which was dedicated to promoting
the idea

of Caesar as a god.

- Another part of the puzzleis the Roman Imperial Cult.

Why is it important?

Well, because it coincideswith that same period of time

as the emergence of the Christcult.

- You had a whole social
community,

the whole social structure ofthese conquered territories

was governed by the ImperialCult and

if you wanted to succeed,the key social community

to drive was the Imperial Cultbecause

that's where all themovements and shakers were.

- This idea of the emperorbecoming an object of worship

was well-established in the
Roman system

before Vespasian and Titus camealong.

It was prevalent in all majorcenters.

It had its own priesthood.

There was a ceremony,
an annual celebration,

annual games for the ImperialCult.

Now it had many characteristics

which would later color
the Christian cult.

It grew in the same centers.

It made claims that werelater transferred to Christ.

- The Julio-Claudians had
claimed that they were

of divine descent and that theywere, therefore, legitimate.

Their appeal base was the

Roman aristocracy, the Romannobility.

All of that collapsed
into this power vacuum.

Vespesian was declared
emperor by the troops,

by the Roman army.

So effectively, it was a
military coup.

With the change of dynasty,they have to create

a whole mythology to
legitimize that dynasty.

At the same time they're
creating a whole

mythology to counter JewishMessianism.

Somewhere along the line,

those two things get mixedtogether.

- When Vespasian died,
Titus began the process

of having his father deified.

This is a complicated processbecause

only the Roman senate canbestow on an individual

the title of Deus or God.

Titus came to the senate
and presented evidence

that the life of his
father had been divine.

Certainly, this would haveincluded the military campaign

that the Flavians waged throughJudea.

And it's at this time, I think,

that the gospels were written

because the theological
structure

in the gospels of a god, thefather and the son of God

is the same one that Titus wouldhave been

presenting to the Roman Senate.

Well, the Roman senate didaccept Titus's evidence

and Vespaian was deified andbecame a god.

Titus, therefore, became a sonof God.

- [voiceover] The Arch ofTitus that still stands

in modern Rome today is
inscribed

to the dedication to the DivineTitus, son

of the Divine Vespasian or Sonof a God.

This Imperial Cult set upto worship Caesar as God

also provided the basis for thestructure

of the Roman Catholic Church.

- Now the rituals,paraphernalia and symbols

of Paganism were transferred
wholesale

to the Christian church.

The most obvious and clearexample

is where the title of thePagan chief, priest of Rome,

the Pontifex Maximus, became thetitle

of the pope, the Christian pope.

If you look at who held
the original bishop

positions in the Catholicchurch in those early times,

you will see that they are

members of the same Paganaristocracy.

They simply changed theirclothing a little bit.

They wore the same garments,

but they wore slightly
different headdresses.

They had became from beinga priest of a Pagan cult

to being a priest of Rome.

- Where the Vatican now stands,

there was once a Pagan temple,

which celebrated the mysteriesof a dying and resurrecting

God man who wasn't Jesus.

There are many churches in Rome.

I've been to a few whereyou go above into the church

and there's Jesus, and
you go underneath and

there's a little sanctuary ofMithras,

and it's basically the samefigure.

- So the Roman plot to inventChristianity

is just so clever when you thinkabout it.

Through the pope, who isGod's representative on Earth,

they no longer neededexpensive standing armies,

wars and punishment of
disobedient peasants.

They could, through religion,rule their subjects.

- [voiceover] Over
time, Roman Christianity

propagated over the empireby way of the mass media

of the day, the Roman roads.

The Romans must haveapproved of this new religion

because, as some scholars ask,

"If the gospels really
were Jewish literature

"about a Roman sentenced
criminal,

"why wouldn't they have beendestroyed?"

- One of the really
surprising things for me

was to realize the extent ofRoman control

of propaganda and literature.

So that when you suddenlyget all these Christian

literature arising in thisperiod,

one has to ask, "Well,
how did that happen?"

The conclusion that one has toreach

is that that could not havehappened

without some degree of
complicity

on the part of the Romans.

So then one is lead to theconclusion

that the Romans must be involved

in the production of theseliterature.

- [voiceover] To produce anddisseminate this literature

was a huge under-taking and theFlavians

undoubtedly had collaborators.

We know they were funded
by the wealthiest family

in the world at this time, theAlexanders,

a Jewish family who served as

Rome's tax collectors in Egypt.

Like the Herods in Judea, theAlexanders

had strong motivation to keepthe Jew's Messianic movement

from threatening theirposition and their wealth.

One of their family members
was Philo of Alexandria,

a famous Jewish theologian whowas already

writing works that combinedJewish beliefs

with the modern Greek andRoman pagan beliefs of the day.

Many scholars agree that hiswritings

formed the basis for much ofthe philosophy of Christianity.

- In these pages ispractically every concept

that you can find within
Christianity.

He combined Greek philosophy,

and he took that andcombined it with Judaism.

On top of that, he was froman extremely wealthy family,

and this is important because
you have to

follow the money when you'relooking at

major trends, new paradigmsbeing set.

And if you look at his family,then,

you start seeing, "Well,this is interesting because

"now we're starting to comeacross the Flavians again."

His relatives are veryinvolved with the Flavians.

That whole area is where wewant to look very closely

for the Christian origins.

- It's from exactly the
same circle of people

that you get the firstsigns of Christian ideology

and they all lead to therise of the Flavian dynasty.

- [voiceover] Another wealthy
influential character,

Princess Berenice, was fromthe Herod family in Judea.

She's the granddaughter of Herathe Great,

a product of the Herod's
intermarriage

with the conquered Jewishruling Messianic lineage.

- Princess Berenice appearsin the New Testament,

which makes her an interestingcharacter.

She had two or three husbands

and then became the mistress ofTitus.

So you can see this, again,rather-like dynasty here.

You know, powerful
people, mixed marriages.

You know, checking up with theconqueror.

Yeah, and it's really whereJoe Atwill takes his idea

of the conspiracy to
write the New Testament.

But let him say it in his ownwords.

- Berenice was a Herod relatedby marriage

to the Alexanders, and ofcourse, later,

she became the mistress toTitus.

The fact that she was soclosely linked with the Flavians

shows you that the threefamilies were very unified

in financial, romantic andlikely theological issues.

- By the looks of things, this
coalescence

seemed to have brought about adynamic

that led to the synthesisof Judaism and Paganism,

and eventually became
Christianity.

So this is a very key timeperiod.

- I believe that the gospelswere actually

written under the control of theHerods,

the Alexanders and the Flavians.

These families
had the motivation

to create
Christianity

and with the expertise inJudaism that the Alexanders

and the Herods had, they
had the actual technical

ability to come up with thesestories

that were a fulfillment
of Hebraic prophecies.

- [voiceover] So it seems theFlavians had

the motivation, the meansand the collaborations

through which they likelyconstructed

and began disseminating
Christianity.

And if our scholars arecorrect, one of the documents

they left behind are
the gospels themselves.

[curious music]

- I began working on
the study of the Gospels

in the 1970s, and I look attexts in terms

of how were these composed,what does understanding

their structure tell
you about who wrote them

and why they were written.

These texts were notindependent Jewish texts,

but they were created
as literary works using

classical literature models.

- If we expect that this is thetestimony

of witnesses, we've got a majorproblem.

We actually have four anonymousdocuments.

They were not written by thenamed people

on those documents.

This is simply churchtradition that the gospels

are so named according toMark, according to Matthew.

So this idea that the gospels
are reliable testimony

is patent nonsense.

- Why are the gospels calledgospels?

That's a critical question.

The word gospel in Greek isEvangelion,

and it means good news
of military victory.

Whose military victory are wecelebrating

here in these gospels?

Well, seems to me that we arecelebrating,

clearly, the Roman
military victory because

these events, the Battle ofGadara,

the Battle of the later Galilee,

the success at the Battle ofJerusalem,

these are battles that theRomans won.

Why are the gospels celebratingbattles that the Jews lost

if these things were written bythe Jews?

- The fact that the gospelsare known to us in Greek

and not in Aramaic or Hebrew, isI think,

just evidence of their
authorship.

They were not written by
any followers of Jesus,

who would've surely spokenAramaic,

and if they had beenfisherman and simple folk,

they would not have
had the literary skills

to write them anyway.

- [voiceover] If we look
closely,

there actually are clues in thegospels

that point to who the trueauthors were.

- A lot of the Christian
literature advocates

turning away from the Jewishlaw and obeying Roman law.

Well this, this fits perfectly

into Roman propaganda purposes.

And then you have, in general,the portrayal of Jesus

as the peaceful Jew
who is wandering around

in what is depicted assort of a pastor or saint,

talking to fisherman and
farmers and so forth,

when in fact, this is a warzone.

Judea is a war zone, and you askyourself,

"Well, why is it notportrayed as a war zone?"

- I mean, they really had it
down pad

because they had Jesussaying, "Render unto Caesar

"what is Caesar's", which is
basically

in response to talking aboutmoney.

Whose benefit would that be?

It's so blatantly obvious.

- The perception of Romancharacters

in the gospels, they're allinterpreted

in a favorable light.

They are pro-Roman.

They do not depict theRomans as the forces of evil.

They reverse that.

It's the Jews who become
the forces of darkness.

It's very striking that variouspassages

in the gospels refer to the Jews

as some people separate from

the heroes of Jesus and hisdisciples.

The Jews are those who object.

The Jews are those who tryto thwart the divine plan.

Now that gives us a clue,certainly,

to who were the true authors ofthis book.

- They are works of literaturecreated by

people who are trained
in Jewish literature

but whose values are pro-Roman.

- The Romans wanted to
promote Antisemitism,

and so they bring the storyof the beloved man god,

Jesus Christ, to appear as if

the Jews had brought about hisdeath.

Because of this, the Jews wouldhave to

suffer Antisemitism throughouthistory.

- So this was a piece of workthat could not have been done

except by fairlyestablished literary team,

such as the literary team that
was in Rome

actually writing the books ofJosephus.

I mean, that was written
by a literary team,

and it was written as one of theattempts

to give prominence to theFlavian Caesars,

which the gospels obviously do.

So it is extremely likely thatthe gospels

as a form of epic designed tomagnify

allegorically, the Roman
Caesars,

is also written at the courtof the Flavian emperors.

- [voiceover] But the Jesusstory takes place many decades

before the Flavians came topower.

Why would the Flavians create awork about

a Jewish Messiah that wasn'teven from their own era?

- The gospels were veryprecisely backdated 40 years.

Jesus's ministry was started in
30 CE,

exactly 40 years from thedestruction from the temple.

His ministry ends at Passover,33 CE,

which is 40 years before theend of the Jewish-Roman War,

which occurred atPassover in 73 CE with the

famous battle of Masada.

- The gospels are backdated into

the period of Pontius Pilate.

That is to say before
the first Jewish war,

which is to say, in the
Julio-Claudian period.

But this is typical of Flavianliterature.

It's a Flavian technique.

What they do is backdatethe story into the period

of their enemies, namely,
the Julio-Claudians.

And so, generation aftergeneration of Christian scholars

and even secular historians
go hunting in the

Julio-Claudian period forthe origins of the gospels.

They don't really find anyanswers there.

There are allusions in thegospels

to the destruction of thetemple,

the most reasonable answerto that is that these

texts were written after thedestruction of the temple.

That is to say in the Flavianperiod,

after the change of dynasty.

- [voiceover] This backdatingof the story of Jesus Christ

40 years earlier from the timethe gospels

may actually have been writtenexplains

why many of the propheciesof Jesus came true

within exactly 40 years.

- What does this all add up to?

In my view, the thing thatis the most significant

is the research by Joseph Atwill

in his book Caesar's Messiah,

which suggests that the
gospels were actually

created as works of Romanpropaganda

at the end of the Roman-Jewishwar

under the reign of the Flavianemperors,

that is Titus Caesar and
Vespasian Caesar.

And if you end up worshipingJesus,

what you will really end updoing

is worshiping Caesar in
disguise.

- [voiceover] This mayhave been how the Flavians

finally got the Jews to
worship Caesar as a god,

by giving them Jesus Christ,

a Messiah more to the Roman'sliking.

But is there any actualhistory to this character?

Where did he really come from?

- The mystery, to me,begins with his very name.

In Greek, Jesus means saviorand Christ means the messiah.

This didn't strike me as
something

you would call a young child.

- These two words are alreadyimportant

within Judaism before JesusChrist supposedly existed.

Major biblical figures toa Jewish Greek-speaking

populace would already be calledChrist.

Their ears would already beacclimated

to accepting this title.

So it isn't just a unique name

of a single person that
just suddenly popped up.

- What did we actually knowabut Jesus Christ the man?

- I don't think that Jesuscan be historically defended.

I don't think there's
any evidence that we can

extend to that particular Jesus.

- So when you actually
set out to investigate

the historical Jesus asopposed to the Christ of faith,

you very abruptly enter a void.

You find that whereas you might
imagine

the core details of
Jesus are readily known

and accessible, you actuallydiscover there's no such thing.

- Further, there had never beenany archaeological evidence

of Jesus Christ that had
ever been discovered.

- You cannot find anestablished and incontrovertible

biooraphy of Jesus at all.

It doesn't exist.

You enter a strange TwilightZone of early Christian belief.

What we have here is not amovement

that's grown on the accretionof legends on a real

flesh and blood man, but
instead, the development

of a religious movementaround the idea of a man.

- [voiceover] There isn't
even an actual physical

description of what Jesus lookslike anywhere in the gospel.

- The presentation of the Jesuscharacter,

it's somewhat of a composite of

many Messianic leaders of thetime.

Many Messianic leaders of thetime,

most or all of whom came to abad end,

usually by crucifixion becausecrucifixion

was the Roman punishment
for seditious activity.

- And the penny dropped, thepenny dropped

that Jesus, as a human
being, never existed.

- In all of this, we're
dealing with literature.

We're not dealing with history.

So the answer is, no there is nohistory

to this character of Jesus.

It's entirely a literary
creation.

- [joseph] What the Romansdid was they saw the Jews'

reliance and belief in prophecy.

So they said, "Okay, they want aprophet.

"Let's give them one."

- [voiceover] It seems
that in the construction

of the literary character JesusChrist,

the Roman authors borrowedreligions concepts

not only from Judaism,
but also from other gods

and religions that they knew.

Some scholars have
noticed the similarities

between the story of Jesus andthe ancient Pagan mysteries.

- In ancient mythology,we find this whole strain

of thought called Solar
mythology.

Many gods start taking on solarattributes

because as agricultural
communities

become more important, thesun becomes the big focus

for the most obvious reasonof planting and harvesting.

The sun is then personified.

So now we have a male sun god.

Becomes a religion in
many parts of the world.

Christianity usurped a
tremendous amount

of sun worship. Some of usare saying that this was

a sun God turned
into a Jewish man.

This December 25th birthday was,

in fact, the Winter Solstice.

This is really, in fact, the Godof Light.

December 25th actually is theend

of a three-day period ofwhen the sun stands still.

The sun appears to be dyingas the days become shorter,

and the sun is reborn at that
point.

- Across the ancientworld, there was this form

of experiential andphilosophical spirituality

in these mystery cults or
mystery schools.

And at the center of theseschools,

you would find a mythoswhich was an initiatory myth,

so symbolic myth, whichwould help people who were

going through the initiating
process come to the

spiritual awakenings knowledge.

This, they called Gnosis.

And what you see in thesemyths is the elements

that would later become theJesus story.

- Let's ask the question,"Is Jesus developed

"from pre-existing literarycharacters?"

Jesus has certain episodesin this so-called life

and each one of them can betraced

to a prior representation ofthat time.

- If you look at the
elements which we found

in the Pagan mystery schoolmyths,

you find the story of a
dying and resurrecting

son of God whose born of avirgin,

has 12 disciples, turnswater into wine at a wedding.

He brings a new religion of
love,

is accused of heresy orprovocation by the authorities.

He's put to death,sometimes by crucifixion.

And then if you want tocommune with the god man,

you take bread and wine and then

you can come to eternal life.

Well, all of this is,
of course, Christianity.

- Easter itself is a longpre-Christian celebration

of the resurrection of springfrom the death of winter.

- This is an ancient Shamanicrite

you'll find all over theworld, but you go through a

ritual death where you get
reborn,

but you're reborn as an awakebeing.

So you died just to your lowernature,

and you're woken up to a highernature.

[soft flute music]

- You can find them in the OldTestaments

and the Jewish mythology aswell.

It isn't just Pagan parallels.

I mean the New Testament,for example, the Ascension.

We have an ascension withthe Old Testament figure

of Elijah, and it's a
very dramatic ascension.

- Elisha, Elijah cycle.

These are two Jewishprophets, one followed on

from the other which have many
of

the story elements found inJesus.

For example, there is amultiplication of food miracle.

There is a raising of the dead
miracle.

There is a water miracle.

There is an, ultimately, anascension to heaven miracle.

Is this fulfillment or is this

simply copying of a usefultheme?

- You can see where they
just used Old Testament

characters and scriptures as ablueprint

to create this new one.

- A lot of the ethics
of Christianity actually

were around before Christianity.

Do unto others as youwould have them do unto you

is in fact from the Old
Testaments.

So Jesus didn't make that up.

Many of the other aspectsof Christian ethics,

many things which we might liketo applaud

as very good aspects of
Christian ethics

can be found in theStoic philosophy in Rome,

which, by the way, isexactly the philosophical

and ethical schoolpromoted by the Flavians.

- There's little that
is original about Jesus.

If one separates from his words,

advice that was in theinterest of the Roman Imperial

family, all that you have left
are

snippets of widely known
philosophies,

truisms and concepts that camedirectly

from prior Hebraic literature.

- The reason I am nowconvinced there's no historical

Jesus, which seems a real, like,
whoa,

to people that are not
familiar with the idea

is a combination of things.

First of all, there's noevidence for a historical man

which stands up to proper
scrutiny.

Secondly is the story of Jesusis

full of these motifs whichcome from the Pagan mysteries,

and the third reason is becausein the

early Christian movement,there's these two types

of Christians, certainly
by the second century,

which are, I think of asGnostics and Literalists.

What marks out theLiteralists, who will become

the Roman Empire and the
Roman Catholic Church

is that they've got a historicalman.

What marks out theGnostics is that they see

it allegorically and their great
heresy

is that Christ didn't come intoflesh.

Now, the winners write history,

and the history books have beenwritten by the Literalists.

- And all of the tradition aboutthe

Romans trying to torture
and suppress Christians,

these traditions are correct.

They definitely persecuted theMessianic

militaristic Christians and theycertainly

would have frowned on theGnostic independent thinking

Christians, but the Romanpacifistic

giving to Caesar what
is Caesar Christians,

that group would have beenpromoted.

- Which makes it perfect
for the Roman Empire,

and it's a fascist empire.

It's got a very simple message.

"Just believe this.

"You don't have to transform,

"and you have to go
through the authorities,

"through the bishops, throughthe states, ultimately."

It's the perfect thing
for them to pick up,

and that's what they did.

- [voiceover] Our scholarsagree that the gospels

are complex literarycreations, drawing from both

Pagan and Jewish myth,
but Joseph Atwill goes

a step further to say
that the Flavians wrote

passages directly into
the gospels which show

they were the authors.

- One of the most famousprophecies that Jesus makes

is about the coming of someone

he refers to as the son of man.

Now many people believe
that he's talking about

a second coming of
himself, and many people

believe this was going tooccur some point in the future.

Well, the fact is, this coming

of Jesus has already occurred.

Jesus makes very specificprophecies

as to what will happen when

the son of man makes his
visitation.

He refers to three key events:

The Galilean towns will
be crushed, Jerusalem

will be encircled with a wall,and the temple will be razed,

leaving not one stone atopanother.

He also states exactly whenthis individual will come.

He says that the son of
man will appear before

the generation that is alive

and listening to Jesus's
words passes away.

Now to Jews of this era,a generation is 40 years.

And so the only individual
that could possibly be

the son of man that Jesuspredicts is Titus Flavius.

Titus Flavius did destroythe Gallilean towns.

He did encircle Jerusalem with awall,

and he razed the temple andleft not one stone atop another.

And he did this within 40 years.

Josephus recorded that nomatter how Titus tortured

the Jews, they refused
to call him lord or God.

So to circumvent this
stubbornness,

the Flavians wrote thegospels in which a son of man

was predicted to come in the
future.

Titus fulfilled these propheciesand became the son of man.

So you end up worshipingTitus without knowing it.

- [voiceover] To further
support his thesis

that the Flavians originatedChristianity,

Joseph Atwill points tothe Roman Catholic Church's

earliest saints known as
the Christian Flavians.

- The Flavian family is
connected to

early Christianity in a
number of unusual ways.

So many members of the
family were recorded

as having been among thefirst Roman Catholic saints.

These include Flavia
Domitilla, who is either

Titus's sister or his niece,and there is an inscription

honoring Flavia for donatingthe land that became

the first Christian catacomb,and Flavia Domitilla

was the first Christian saint.

Her son, Clement, is
recorded as having been

the first Roman Catholicpope after the apostle Simon.

In addition, there weretwo members of the Flavian

household staff, Nereus and
Achilleus.

Both of them had churches namedafter them

in the very earliestChristian Diocese in Rome.

There was a Christiantheologian whose name was

Titus Flavius Clemens,
Clement of Alexandria,

and he's the one who actuallydescribed

the first christian symbols andhe said

they were the anchor, the boat,the fish,

the olive branch, the star, andoddly,

these are the very symbols

that the Flavian Caesars
used on their coins.

The final connectingpoint between the Flavian

family and Christianity isthat in the fourth century,

Flavius Constantine made
Christianity

the state religion of Rome.

The military achievements ofCaesar's

were important to all Romans.

So certainly, the FlavianChristians, the group

that the Roman CatholicChurch states were the first

saints of the religion, would
have known

the identity of the son ofman that Jesus predicted

who would crush Galilee,encircle Jerusalem with a wall,

and raze the temple was Titus
Flavius.

- [voiceover] So it seemsif a person knows how

to uncover them, there
are actually many clues

pointing to the Flavian
origin of Christianity,

and perhaps the most intriguingone that Joseph Atwill

uncovered is a secret
code the Flavians used

in their documents,which enabled him to make

his startling discovery.

- So the Romans had the Jew'sscripture

locked up inside their imperialcourt and they studied it.

And what they discoveredwas that there was a unique

literary code hidden in the
text.

- [voiceover] This hiddencode, which was common

in Jewish scripture, was usedby the Flavian literary team

to place passages intothe gospels that had to be

deciphered to be understood.

This hidden literary technique
is known as typology.

- Typology is used throughoutthe ancient Hebraic literature

and it's a genre that isreally no longer understood

or used today, but simply
put, typology is using

events from the past to provide

form and context for subsequentones.

- What we're talking aboutis stereotypic, stereotypic.

In other words, there's
an idolized prototype

which shows certain
characteristics

are performed in certain ways.

- For instance, one of thethings they do

is they take an old story andthey retell it in a new form,

and they superimpose
contemporary history

upon old stories, and theycreate these multi-layered text.

- In Hebraic typology, textswere designed

to be read in comparison to oneanother

or inter-textually and in doingso,

a meaning that would not bevisible

in the surface narration wouldbecome

apparent to someone who
understood the typologic

connection between the stories.

Hebraic typology connectsprophets.

Events from the life of oneprophet

are placed into the life
of a subsequent prophet,

and this shows thatthere is a divine pattern

established by God, connectinghis prophets to one another.

- [voiceover] The gospels
actually show how we can

decipher for ourselves thishidden code or typology

that was used to create theJesus story.

[dramatic music]

- [joseph] At the verybeginning of the gospels,

there is a primer of this
typology.

What the author of Matthew hasdone is

take events from the Old
Testament

and place them into the life ofJesus.

These events occur in the samesequence

in the story of Jesus as theyoccur in the Old Testament.

- [voiceover] Numerousbible scholars had already

identified the following
parallels.

- [joseph] Both stories havea patriarch named Joseph

who goes from Israel to Egypt.

A ruler who massacres innocentboys.

A divine character who statesthat,

"All the men are dead
who sought your life."

And then a return from Egypt toIsrael.

This is followed by events whichhave passing through water.

In the Old Testament, theIsraelites

pass through the Red Sea.

In Matthew, Jesus is given abaptism

in which he passes throughwater.

We then travel into the
wilderness.

The Israelites are in thewilderness for 40 years.

Jesus goes into the
wilderness for 40 days.

Finally, we have the threetemptations.

In the Old Testament, wehave the temptation by bread,

the statement, "Do not tempt
God."

And the commandment to worshiponly God.

These appear again in Matthewwhere Jesus

is tempted by bread, tellsthe Devil, "Do not tempt God."

And instructs him to worshiponly God.

Therefore, when youcompare the life of Jesus

with the life of Moses, you see
a linkage

that shows that thecharacter in the gospels was

divinely connected to thecharacter in the Old Testament.

The life of the first
savior of Israel, Moses,

foresaw the life ofJesus, who's now claiming

to be the next savior of Israel.

- [voiceover] To understandthe rest of the Jesus story,

his adult ministry, we simplyneed to know that the same

system of parallel names,
locations, and concepts

occurring in the same sequencewas used

to connect Jesus and the gospelsto

Titus and the works of Josephus.

Our scholars explain this gospeltypology

in the following three examples.

- Jesus comes to the sea ofGallilee

at the beginning of his
ministry.

He gathers his disciples to him

and he says, "Do not be afraid.

"Follow me, and become fishersof men."

In the gospel of Luke, Jesusactually says catchers of men.

Titus comes to the samelocation, to the sea of Galilee.

He gathers his troops,
his disciples together

and he says, "Don't be afraid."

And then he leads them.

They follow him, and theyattack a group of Jewish rebels.

They sink the Jews' boats.

The Jews attempt to swim
to safety and the Romans

use their spears to catch them.

They become fishers of men.

- The match isn't exact,

but we should never expect it tobe exact.

It's simply a type
which is repeated across

the whole of the New Testament.

[foreboding music]

- Jesus is constantly dealingwith devils.

Josephus also deals with
devils, but Josephus

defines who these devils are.

He states that the devilsare those individuals

who have a rebellious spiritand rebel against Rome.

At Gadara, Jesus encountersone man who has a legion

of demons inside his mind.

They, then, are driven out byJesus.

They infect a heard of swine andthis herd

rushes wildly into the water.

This is a parallel to
Titus's battle at Gadara

where one individual
infects an entire legion

of Jews with his demonic spiritand then

that group, in turn, infectsanother group

and this combined group

is driven by the Romans into thesea.

- What's being suggested
here is that this story

that you find in thegospels is, in some ways,

sort of like a grim parallelabout that military event.

It's sort of like a bittongue and cheek, I think.

The Romans has a vicioussense of humor like this,

a very black sense of humor.

In a medieval text that I
studied,

which is called the Gospelof Barnabas, when you read

that story, the way
it's presented is in an

unsophisticated form.

That is to say it's sort of beendecoded

in some ways, and it becomesclear

what we're talking about
here are Jewish rebels

chased into the sea and
they drown into the sea.

In the gospels, these
are presented as pigs.

This is a, once again, a verydark,

black, sort of, Roman sense ofhumor.

Some of this literature really

needs to be understood likethat.

- In Josephus's biography, hedescribes

when he was in theentourage of Titus during

the closing stages of
the siege of Jerusalem,

he chanced upon three ofhis friends who were being

crucified, and he pleaded with
Titus

for their release, andTitus gave that permission

and the three figures were
removed from the cross.

Two of them died, and onerevived.

Now, if you're lookingfor a stereotypic example

of how some idea was floated
into the mind of someone

writing the gospels, thatis a pretty clear example.

It's certainly a strange
occurrence that we find

such an incident that wefind in the work of Josephus

when it shows up in such adramatic form in the gospels.

- [joseph] In the gospels,Joseph of Arimathea asked

the Roman commander to takeJesus down from the cross.

In Josephus's history, Joseph
Bar Mathias

asked the Roman commander to

take someone down from thecross.

Arimathea is a pun on Josephus'slast name, Bar Mathias.

- When you read oursources really carefully,

and you have to do it
really, really carefully

because they didn't spell it outfor us.

It's effectively very
well-hidden.

We have to understand that ourliterature,

a lot of our literatureis essentially propaganda.

The Romans are notwriting objective history,

and all of our literature hasbeen through Roman filters.

Perhaps that's the significance
of the Dead Sea scrolls

that this literature that

hasn't been through the Romanfilters.

- It's important torealize that Josephus wrote

in an era when allegorywas regarded as a science.

Educated readers were expected
to be able

to see another meaning inreligious texts

than the one that appearedin the surface narration.

- We're dealing with Romanliterature on the one hand

and Jewish literature on theother,

and it has to be said that inboth cases,

they're much more sophisticated,much more multi-layered

and allusive and much trickier

than modern readers suspect.

No, it's not a very simpleliterature.

It's very, very complex
allegorical literature

that indulges into the literarygames

that the Romans played.

The more you understand
about Roman literature

in this period and then
you place the gospels

and other Christian literaturein that same mirror,

you can start to see the games

that are being played in thatliterature.

- Now these parallels havebeen seen by other scholars,

but what they failed tonotice is that they occur

in the same sequence, and
thereby,

they create a typologic pattern.

- The Flavian thesis, it'strying to read these texts

in context because in any giventext,

you've got the text in the firstinstance,

and then you've got the
context, the environment

in which it happens, and ofcourse, in all of these texts,

also, you've got a subtext.

So you've got text, context andsubtext,

and you have to be able toread all of those things

and unfortunately, many
religious people

who are coming out ofseminaries, who are coming out

of religious colleges, they're
just not

being trained in thissort of level of reading.

They're, instead, justbeing trained to just read

on one level, which is a literal
level,

and I think that that's veryunfortunate

and that really needs to bechallenged.

- [voiceover] By studyingthe multiple layers

in these ancient texts inthe original Greek language,

Joseph Atwill was able todiscover not just a handfu0l,

but over 40 typological
parallels between

the gospels and the works ofJosephus,

which show that the ministryof Jesus Christ followed

an exact sequence the militarycampaign of Titus Flavius

through parallel names,
locations, and concepts.

- Once I understood the
system that the Flavians

were using to link Jesus andTitus,

I was able to discoverdozens of these parallels

between Jesus and Titus,
and what was amazing

is that they occurred
in the same sequence.

And this simply provesthat this was deliberate,

that these unusualparallels had been created

by the Flavians as a signature.

It is their way of telling
posterity that

they authored the gospels.

These parallels are the Flaviansignature of the gospels.

[triumphant music]

Both Jesus and Titus began their

campaigns at the Sea of Galilee

and then go into the Galileancountryside

followed by a journey to
Jerusalem.

Once they reach the city'soutskirts,

they pause for a period beforethey enter.

Finally, they leave the city

where their campaigns come to anend.

To catalog the manyparallels, I gave each one

a convenient name that
related to the concept

in that particular parallel set.

Starting at Galilee, eachof these are episodes

that occurred both in thegospel stories of Jesus

and in the history ofTitus's military campaign.

[upbeat music]

Both Jesus and Titus
journeyed to Jerusalem,

each sending messengers ahead tomeet him

when he gets to the city.

When the Romans get to
Jerusalem,

they notice that the Jewishfactions are fighting

against themselves.

At this point in the gospels,

Jesus talks about a housedivided

against itself cannot stand.

Then Josephus wrote thatin preparation for battle,

Titus ordered all of the fruit
trees

between the Roman camp

and the walls of Jerusalem cutdown.

At this point in thegospels, Jesus states that

if a fruit tree does notbear fruit tree, cut it down.

Titus goes around the walls of
Jerusalem

looking for the bestplace to construct a tower

from which they can launch their
attack.

At this point in the gospels,Jesus asks,

"Which one of you who is
going to build a tower

"doesn't first sit downand think about the cost?"

At this point in thehistory, Titus sends Josephus

to ask the Jews what termsthey will accept for peace.

In the gospels, Jesusdescribes a king who sends

a delegation to ask for terms of
peace.

Both Jesus and Titus atthis point have triumphant

entrances into Jerusalem,
during which amazingly,

stones are said to cry out.

Each, then, drives a den ofthieves

out from the area from
in front of the temple.

This is followed by Titusencircling Jerusalem

with a wall, and Jesus
predicting that

Jerusalem will be encircled witha wall.

Because of the walls,starvation sets into Jerusalem.

Josephus wrote that a woman
named Mary

who called her son a myth forthe world

slayed him, ate him,
thereby turning him into

a human Passover lamb.

In the gospels, we now
have the Last Supper.

Jesus tells his disciples,"Take, eat.

"This is my body.

"This is my blood."

Therefore, turning himinto a human Passover lamb.

Here, then, is theFlavian signature of their

authorship of the gospels.

- You can see the fingerprints
that

they've left their fingerprintsall over these texts.

You can start to, as it
were, decode these texts

and start to arrive at somereally startling conclusions

about how early Christianityfirst arose.

- [voiceover] Our scholars haveshown

that the gospels were not theproduct of primitive Jewish

fisherman, rather they are asophisticated literary work

combining religious ideas of theday

with Roman political
perspective and power.

Joseph Atwill's research revealsthat

reading the works of Josephusconcurrently

with the New Testament
shows that the events

of Jesus's life were not
historical,

but rather all of them aredependent

on the events of the militarycampaign of Titus Flavius.

Jesus Christ was an allegoryfor the Roman Caesar Titus,

the Messiah of the Roman
Empire, the Roman son

of a god that Christianitywas set up to worship.

- I certainly don't want toundermine

the positive things in
Christianity.

I'm happy to admit thatthere are positive things

in Christianity and in
other religions as well.

What's an issue here are the

historical claims of thesereligions.

- [voiceover] Traditionally,religious dogma

has forbidden the examinationof historical discoveries

or the inclusion ofcertain scientific findings

in their teachings, asking
their followers instead

to blindly believe as they say,

not as the objective facts mayshow.

- Even if a time, perhaps it's anew

intellectual renaissance whichis

getting fed up with many of thestructures

that we live with, which isrecognizing

major frauds at the
hearts of our financial

market and the heart of ourindustry

and the plug is being pulled onthem.

And my view is that we
have yet another fraud,

the biggest of them
all, and it's the fraud

of the heart of Christianity.

And it is a time for thewhistleblowers to come out

and to make this information
available

not just to scholars in academicjournals,

but to have it widely available

to anybody who wants to know.

- [voiceover] It's helpful tohear

a wide diversity ofvoices in order for people

to arrive at their own
conclusions,

and the theories brought
forth by our scholars

are a part of that diversity.

- When they hear that theJesus story is a myth,

people feel like you're
taking something away,

but you're really not.

You push people and you
go, "Why do you believe

"in the historical Jesus?"

Often people will go,

"Well, you know, the Bible orsomething."

But when you go, "Well,
have you studied it

"as a historical document?

"Have you looked at the
evidence?"

They'll go, "Well, no, I
haven't."

So that's not the real reason.

The real reason, when you pushpeople is,

"Well, I have a relationshipwith Jesus.

"I have a personal
relationship with Jesus,

"and that's what I don't want tolose."

And that's a really good reasona Gnostic,

and really bad reason
to be a Literatalist.

- [voiceover] The Gnostics, aswell as

pre-Christian pagan mysteryschools

believed that the myth ofthe dying and resurrecting

god man was an allegory tobe used for personal growth,

to die to their lower nature

and arise to their highernature.

The Literalists took controlof the original myths

and shaped it so it would takethe power

away from the individual

and place it into a centralauthority.

Rediscovering the originalmyths gives people

the freedom to choose thebeliefs that truly served them.

- Okay, some Christians havedeveloped

their personal faith to theextent that

that Christ is this energy orforce of power within them.

This is how they haveinterpreted the story now.

The story has become, again,

what it actually began as, an
allegory.

I have no issue with the Christwithin.

I have an issue with the churchmilitant.

What threatens humanityis organized, regimentized

religion on the march, taken so
seriously

that you will act out its worstpresets.

- [voiceover] If weexamine all the religions

of the world, we find that
there is a common threat

that connects all faiths and allpeople,

and it is from thisconnection that we can make

the choices that have now becomeso critical to our future.

- I like to focus on theorigins of religious ideas

and it turns out that they're
very unifying underneath

all of the divisivenessthat we see on the surface

that would be extremelyhelpful for all of humanity

to realize that there
is this underlying unity

and those origins arebasically nature worship:

the study of the sun, themoon, the stars, the planets.

This is all what humanity
has been looking at,

of course, with great awe andreverence

for thousands of years andit's extremely important,

I think, for us, to get
back to those roots.

The destruction of the
planet is also directly

tied to religious ideas.

This can help to restore
balance to the planet,

in this very, veryprofoundly significant way.

- [voiceover] The very
survival of humanity

depends on the viewinghistory from a new perspective

so that we can be clearer
on the historical facts

and still honor the myths thatoffer us the greatest wisdom.

- It's what the myth, what thepoetry says

that matters, not what actuallyhappened.

So each new generation, whateveryou say,

is going to hear the myth andthat's what is true for them.

And what follows is theactual history and it's much

too complex for the average
person to ever

put their head around.

- [voiceover] Though theactual history is complex,

and we may never know
all of the facts about

what happened 2,000 years ago,

the voices of ourscholars are contributing

to an ever-widening
dialogue and the growing

paradigm shift beingwitnessed all around the world

today that can lead to a more
empowered

and enlightened humanity
tomorrow.

- This is reallyimportant for our culture,

to understand where
Christianity came from,

and this is direct evidence.

You can actually walk this pathand come to this conclusion.

You can know that Christianity

was an invention of the Romans.

It was done to pacify theirsubjects,

and this is important because itgives us

a different way ofunderstanding government,

how government operates, thetools that government uses,

the purpose that government has
for the

various propaganda apparatus.

Evangelical Christians aregetting away

with debunking facts as meretheories.

Even subjects like evolution,

but they provide noevidence for their position

other than to simply cite
religious dogma,

and if you look at the
influence that dogma

is having in the media today,

you can easily see it is
increasing.

I would like to challenge theseextremists

to consider the possibilitythat my findings are correct.

Though their is much good inChristianity,

we have to understand how rulershave used it to control us,

and how they are still usingit to control us today.

I hope citizens will be moreskeptical

when they hear an authorityfigure

using faith to interpret laws ora belief

in Armageddon to create
governmental policies.

The Flavians encoded a secretmessage into the gospels,

which we can nowunderstand in a new light.

"You shall know the truth andthe truth shall set you free."

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