All language subtitles for Creating.Christ.2022.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-LAMA

Terrorists,
religiously motivated terrorists

from the middle east have
just struck a demoralizing blow

to the capital of western civilization,

the capital of western
decadence from their perspective.

The year is 66 ad, the
religious sect are Jews,

and the capital that we're
talking about is Rome.

Although this war
occurred 20 centuries ago,

it still reverberates throughout history

and is affecting your
life to this very day.

Around 2,000
years ago, the western world

went through its greatest
philosophical shift ever,

a complete 180,

and we've been living out
this same worldview till today.

But now, we're standing at the brink

of another huge philosophical shift,

so learning from this
important period of history

can help us make the
critical choices we need today.

The creating Christ book
is really very fascinating,

there's so many
fascinating things about this.

And it's quite a convincing
presentation, I think.

I think what you're bringing to the table

dovetails beautifully with what's going on

in the rest of the
Mediterranean at the time.

Let's begin
by uncovering various clues

history has left us,
like pieces in a mosaic,

which ultimately help us
arrive at the big picture.

When I was reading the work

of the first century Jewish
historian Flavius Josephus,

I was struck by something he said,

that the man he worked for,
the Roman emperor Vespasian,

was in fact the Jewish Messiah of prophecy,

in effect, another
Jesus of the first century.

This went against
everything that I'd been taught.

Flavius Vespasian
and his son Titus flavius

were the Roman generals
who destroyed Jerusalem

and took down its temple,

ending the first Jewish
war with the Romans.

How could a Jewish historian

say that they were the Jewish Messiah?

And this I think made
me take it seriously

more than any of the rest of this stuff,

was that in Mark 13, they depict Jesus

as saying that when
one generation is passed,

which would be about 40 years,

they'll see the sign of
the son of man in heaven

and the temple will be destroyed.

Watch out, it's gonna happen
before this generation is over.

Well, why would anybody
have him make a false prophecy?

Why no second coming of Jesus?

They must have known that hadn't happened,

Jesus didn't come back.

Well, maybe that's not
what they were saying.

Maybe the son of man wasn't Jesus,

maybe a son of man, you know who we mean,

will come back and destroy the temple.

Is that the general
Vespasian and his son Titus?

In the new testament we
find supposed predictions

of things that are supposed
to happen in the future,

and it looks as if they
have been fulfilled,

and that Jesus is a great prophet,

he must have been omniscient.

But in fact they were written
after they'd already occurred.

So it really was
no great feat of prophecy.

Astonishingly, in Josephus'
history of the Jewish war,

he describes the destruction of the temple

in almost identical terms

to those used by Jesus in the gospels.

And the fact that Josephus'
histories and the gospels

were both written during the Flavian era,

was a coincidence that it
was impossible to overlook.

In all three of the first gospels,

Jesus insists that his
glorious second coming

would happen within the lifetimes

of people then listening to him.

This of course would be a confirmation

of the claims of the emperor Vespasian

to being the glorious
coming of the Jewish Messiah.

And it's that conjunction of events

that struck me as most unusual,

as if the gospels themselves
were written to demonstrate

the Flavian claim to being
the true Jewish messiahs.

Well, that starts to look
like something different

was going on than we had expected,

and whoever wrote Mark
13 already believed it,

that it was the destruction
of the temple by the Flavians,

that was the great second coming.

In fact, Vespasian was considered a god

and that made Titus the son of god.

So was that lurking in the background?

I can't say it wasn't,
that is beguilingly cogent.

'Cause otherwise, why would you write this?

"Hey, let's have Jesus
make a false prophecy!"

You never do that!

Though other scholars

have spoken of these
parallels, James and Warren

found some actual physical
archaeological evidence

that links these Flavian emperors

to the very beginning
of the Christian religion.

Very early on, we began looking

for archaeological evidence that the Romans

had some involvement with
the development of Christianity.

We started to look
at architectural details,

and especially focused on coins,

as the Roman empire used them to spread

their governmental
propaganda across the empire.

And we imagined that there would be a coin

that would show the
linkage between Christianity

and the Roman empire, if
indeed our thesis was correct.

Initially I was skeptical
that we would find

some concrete image that
would actually connect the two.

But I was working myself on a
monograph on Roman coinage

and propaganda, and
as I was working on that,

for years my co-author had been looking

for this physical evidence
and happened across

the specific image that
was used thousands of times

by the emperor Titus on his own coinage.

This image
was never used before

by a Roman emperor,

and early Christians began
using different versions of it

in the same era.

Finally while examining the
first archaeological evidence

of Christianity in the world,

which are the catacombs of St. Domitilla,

she being the niece of the emperor Titus

and the granddaughter
of the emperor Vespasian,

the connection finally came into focus.

The symbol that is most famous

from the catacombs of St. Domitilla,

known as one of the earliest
iconographic representations

of Christianity, is of an
anchor flanked by two fish.

As it turns out, Titus'
coinage has a symbol

of an anchor wrapped
around by a dolphin or a fish.

According to
the catholic encyclopedia,

both of these images are
part of a family of symbols

used by early Christians,

which includes a dolphin on an anchor,

an anchor surrounded by fish,

dolphins or fish with a trident,

and other variations.

This provided at last
the first physical evidence

of a link between the Flavians
and the earliest church.

I guess the big discovery
they made was that,

something very odd,

that on Flavian dynasty coins,

there was kind of their house trademark

of an anchor with dolphins around it.

And, what do you know?

Around the same period that image,

which is kind of an odd one,

it becomes a widespread Christian symbol.

Now if the Romans were hated enemies,

why would Christians appropriate this?

It's so strange, it's like

"hey, what do you say our synagogue

adopts the swastika as its symbol?"

It'd never happen.

And so that's kind of their point.

I mean, they do a,

Valliant and Warren Fahy have done

all kinds of complex
work, it's not just that.

But that was a very surprising thing,

almost a smoking gun, so I
have to take that seriously.

Why did Titus
flavius mint thousands of coins

with a fish and anchor image on it?

And why did early Christians use this image

in their earliest catacombs?

What does this symbol mean,

and how could it have
been used at the same time

in two such different contexts?

To answer these questions,

let's look at the first historical mention

of the official visual
symbols of Christianity.

In the second century,
St. clement of Alexandria,

whose full name is Titus Flavius Clemens,

suggested the following symbols
be used by early Christians:

A dove,

a fish,

a ship,

a musical lyre, which Polycrates used,

or a ship's anchor, which Seleucus used.

We know that in the late second century,

St. clement of Alexandria in his inventory

of Christian symbols lists
both the anchor and the dolphin,

but does not list the cross.

And among those symbols
that he offers are symbols

associated with ironically
the pagan god Apollo.

This struck us as odd,
as we've often been told

that Christianity is anti-pagan

... more than that, clement of Alexandria

specifies the pagan origins of this symbol.

He refers to Polycrates,

who was a worshiper
of Apollo, and Seleucus.

Seleucus the first was a general

who worked for Alexander the great.

Alexander the great,
in the fourth century BC,

conquered what we
know of as the middle east

or the near east today,
and brought Greek culture,

platonic philosophy to this entire region.

So the era after Alexander
the great is widely known

by historians as the Hellenistic era,

the era in which Greek philosophy

and Greek ideas spread
throughout the middle east.

And one of
the conquered territories

where Greek ideas were
being spread was Palestine,

which included Galilee, Samaria, and Judea.

The origin of course of
a dolphin wrapped around

an anchor goes all the way back to Apollo,

it was his symbol.

It represents Apollo

who had transformed himself into a dolphin.

I myself visited the island of Delos,

the legendary birthplace of the god Apollo.

You can see many, many examples

that are centuries older than Christ,

of this same dolphin and anchor image.

And it was Seleucus
who first used an anchor

with a dolphin wrapped around it.

And he did so just as a
symbolization, if you will,

of his own claim to being
the son of the god Apollo.

Apollo was the Greek sun god,

the creator god, source
of life and healing,

and arguably the most loved
deity in the pantheon of gods.

So Seleucus used the symbol of Apollo

to claim this divine lineage.

Roman emperors looked
to Alexander the great,

the very first imperialist, as a model,

as a great template for how
to conquer other territories.

So it is natural for the
Romans to use the symbol

of the dolphin and the anchor.

Natural for the Flavians

to associate themselves
with Seleucus and Apollo,

but why would St. clement of Alexandria

recommend it as a Christian symbol?

Perhaps another clue is that the Romans

also looked to the Alexandrian conquerors

for how they integrated Greek culture

with the local cultures they conquered.

And the kings that came

in the wake of Alexander the great,

such as the Ptolemies in Egypt,

were attempting an
integration both of local culture,

the Egyptian culture, with Greek culture.

And in the process of doing that,

the Ptolemies created a new
god, a synthetic god, Serapis.

Ptolemy commissioned
the creation of this god.

Serapis is a hybrid, deliberately created

by the priests in order to unify

the constantly warring
factions within Alexandria,

which would be the Greeks and the Jews,

but overtly it was the
Greeks and the Egyptians.

And the god serapis is
himself an interesting figure,

melded together between
Apollo, Ssclepius, Zeus, and Hades,

the afterlife god, as well
as the Egyptians' Osiris,

the god who had himself
been torn apart and resurrected,

makes it clear that serapis
was a resurrection god.

The healing and the
salvation part of serapis

were clearly glommed onto by Christianity.

And in fact, there was a statue of serapis

with long curly dark hair.

And his Greek counterpart
was the god Ssclepius.

And Ssclepius also was a healing god,

and he had the long curly hair.

And the two of them were kind of a hybrid.

Asclepius did wear the white robes

and pretty much the
same figure, just re-worked,

they took the face and the hair

and the overall impression
of serapis and asclepius

and then turned him
into Jesus Christ basically.

That's not so strange,

because all the middle eastern
empires for hundreds of years

had gone farther than that.

The Persians were big on
this, though others had done it.

And in the Bible itself we read

that the emperor of Persia sent Ezra,

who though Jewish was
a court official in Persia,

"you go back there to
the community of the Jews

in Jerusalem with our authority,"

and he went back with the
torah in some form, the laws,

and they imposed this.

Wow, it's interesting that
from that point on in history,

Judaism looks a whole lot
like Persian Zoroastrianism.

What these guys are suggesting with Rome

in effect creating our Christianity

is not substantially different
than what the Persians did

with Judaism or earlier
middle eastern empires,

it's not fantastic in the least.

This is
another piece of the mosaic

that's important for
seeing the whole picture

that it was quite common
in this era for rulers

to engage in religious experimentation

and improvisation for
ruling their subjects.

The first centuries of the common era

were perhaps the most
religiously dynamic period

in the history of western civilization.

It saw the emergence of so many new

and innovative religious ideas.

There's
unquestionably an effort

to synthesize Judaism and pagan religions.

We have to remember that
before the last two centuries,

there was no separation
between religion and politics.

Every political movement needed

to have a religious justification.

The Roman empire, and
before that the Roman republic,

were all considered by
Romans to be sanctioned

by the gods and religiously significant,

sacred political institutions.

The Jews themselves
saw this era as important,

the fulfillment of their
own messianic prophecies,

the coming of a deliverer
that would lead them

to victory against Rome.

So both sides saw
this era and this conflict

in religious terms,
and that is what created

such a religiously fertile moment

in the first two centuries,

creating entirely new ways
of looking and synthesizing

these religious ideas that came to be known

as Christianity and rabbinic Judaism.

And since
there was no separation

between religion and state in those days,

the Roman state had its
own religious organization,

known as the imperial cult.

One of the most striking syntheses

between politics and
religion in the Roman world

is that they actually deified
their emperors after death,

they turned them into gods!

This of course flew right in the face

of Jewish religion and culture.

It's very common for contemporary minds

to think of the ancient imperial cult

as sort of a political fraud,
or at least very superficial,

or something put over by the
Roman government on its people.

But back in the era of the Roman empire

it was sincere religion to most Romans.

The very first Roman deified Julius Caesar

before any official temple
had been built for him,

the people themselves
constructed a makeshift altar

at the place of his funeral,
themselves worshiping it.

Roman emperors who
were deified were admitted

to the pantheon of all the Roman gods,

they had temples and
priesthoods of their own,

that lasted for centuries.

And the language and the
imagery used in the imperial cult

is strangely echoed in Christianity itself.

The philosophy of the imperial cult

is based upon the greco-Roman
philosophy known as stoicism,

and it had an ideology that
expected a savior to come

and rescue the Roman
world from times of crisis.

And that is why deified emperors

became seen as divine
figures, saviors of the world,

bringers of peace, very
much like Jesus in the Bible.

The very first Roman
emperor himself, Augustus,

in declaring that his adopted father,

his great-uncle Julius was a god,

would proclaim on his own
coins that he was a son of god.

So he was a savior, a son of god,

a bringer of peace, a man-god,

the very innovation that
Christianity brings to Judaism.

But all
this religious innovation

on the part of the Romans did not sit well

with the monotheistic Jewish people.

The Romans were quite
open to accepting culture

and religions from all of
their conquered territories.

In fact, many Romans were open to adopting

the Jewish religion itself.

The Jewish culture however
was far more exclusive

and set up barriers for those wishing

to adopt the Jewish religion.

And this was a source of
conflict in the Roman empire

between the Romans and the Jews.

What's interesting in the
new testament therefore,

is that all of these barriers
seem to be eliminated

in the teachings of Jesus and Paul.

Basically that was one of the problems,

the religions of the Roman
empire were allowed to exist

so long as they paid tribute to the Caesar

as either the leader
or the divine on earth,

but the most devout Jewish factions

would not do that of course.

And so we know that this is a big problem.

One of the astonishing
things that you learn,

and one of the things we
found most remarkable,

is that although we think
of Jews and Christians

as definite believers in god,

to a polytheistic world like
the Romans, they were atheists.

They were so sectarian,

they didn't respect anybody else's gods,

and this created an ugly
antisemitism in the Roman world.

And many Romans came
to resent Jews themselves

and Judaism itself as
hostile to the Roman empire

and its efforts to unify
their empire culturally.

They were always a problem

because they were so distinctive,

and weren't playing the game

that other subject peoples of Rome did.

And this is the context in
which the gospels were written,

in Greek and possibly in Rome.

Not only did the Jewish people

have religious conflict with the Romans,

but also political conflict.

And the more the Romans
attempted to assimilate them

into the greater Roman empire,

the more extremist and
rebellious certain factions became.

Since the successful Jewish revolt

of the second century BC

against their Seleucid Greek rulers,

there had been a dynasty

of genuinely authentic
nationalist Jewish kings,

the Hasmoneans, the
descendants of the Maccabees

who'd led that second century revolt,

that is still celebrated by
Jews in the Hanukkah holiday.

When Rome
took over power in the area,

they removed the authentic
Hasmonean Jewish rulers

and put in place the
Herodians, herod the great,

who were not Jewish
but converted to Judaism

in order to become
legitimate rulers of the region.

However, the Jewish
people never accepted them

as authentic Jewish rulers

and always regarded
them as puppets of Rome.

All other populations had
to worship Roman state gods,

sort of tip their hats
to Roman state deities

to prove their loyalty to the empire.

Jews, being monotheists
and unable to worship idols

or anyone else as divine, couldn't do that.

And so the Romans actually made exceptions,

exempting Jewish people

from the worship of Roman state gods,

but this was not sufficient.

And they were certainly not happy

with the Herodian kings
who'd been placed over them.

And the Jewish rebels themselves thought

that a continuation of the
very militant nationalism

that had been so successful
during the Hanukkah rebellion

would also be successful
in the first century.

So they said that, "we
should have no ruler but god.

And so we're gonna
throw off the yoke of Rome."

The Jewish
rebels were operating

from a long-held Jewish prophecy

that a warrior Messiah would
come to defeat the Romans

and deliver them from occupation.

This messianic prophecy was handed down

from generation to generation
through their scriptures.

The Romans saw the Jewish literature

as being very subversive,

and you know I mean, and it
was, it's extremely xenophobic,

it's very full of global hegemony,

the chosen people are
supposed to take over the world,

they're gonna suck the milk of the nations.

I mean this is all, you
know, in the old testament.

And probably they're thinking,

"what the heck is instigating these people

to behave like this,
what is their motivation?

We gotta find out."

It became obvious, I'm sure, to the Romans

that we don't have a single
mythical figure to point to

or a god-figure to point to,

so we gotta get our
hands on the scriptures,

there must be something
in those scriptures."

So you can see why they
would try to get hold of them.

In the 1940s,
important ancient documents

were accidentally discovered in caves

in the area that would have been Palestine,

and some of these
documents show the literature

of these Jewish messianic prophecies.

They're known as the dead sea scrolls.

In the course of our studies,

I began to pay attention
to the Jewish documents

that were discovered in the
middle of the 20th century,

known as the dead sea scrolls.

The group of scholars who originally

got the dead sea scrolls
we were familiar with,

they mostly were connected to the Vatican.

And they controlled who had access

to the documents that
they were willing to release.

And I thought the only
way that you could have

a serious intellectual
discussion about these things

would be that everyone would have access

to all the materials and
everything that exists,

and no one barred and
no choice of materials.

And therefore I felt it
was absolutely essential

that we got all the scrolls
published, all of them.

Ultimately, after a number

of serious challenges and pitfalls,

professor Eisenman
was successful in getting

all the dead sea scrolls published.

One scroll in particular revealed

a warlike, revolutionary perspective.

And the most important thing,

which is in fairly good shape,
not complete but fairly good,

is a document that has since
been called the war scroll,

the war of the sons of light
against the sons of darkness.

This war involves, you know,

some of the contemporary people,

so we're in a revolutionary movement,

and it's gonna be led by the Messiah,

and the angels of heaven are going

to be the battle carriers.

In other words, they know
that they're too small maybe,

they can't fight the whole
might of the Roman empire,

but with the heavenly host and the Messiah,

the reason they have
to be perfectly righteous,

so this is now a movement of righteousness,

and they're called the sons of Zadok,

which is also a priestly movement,

and the leader is often
the righteous teacher

or the teacher of righteousness,

so righteousness permeates
the whole idea of the movement.

But they really feel if
they're perfectly righteous,

the heavenly angels will join their camps.

Professor Eisenman noticed

that in the new testament,

the book of acts mentions
that the disciple James

is often called the
teacher of righteousness.

Therefore he was able to
make the connection that James,

also called the brother
of Jesus in the gospels,

must have been the leader of
this righteousness movement

described in the dead sea scrolls.

If James was the leader
of this rebellious movement

against Rome, is it
possible his brother Jesus

could also have been a
leader of this movement?

People think, "oh, the scrolls are just

an early version of Christianity."

No they're not, because
they're not peaceful.

They're not the least bit peaceful,

anyone who sees them,

it shows they're just like the Maccabbeans.

No, they're not anti-maccabbean,
they're anti-Herodian,

and that's what people missed

in the early interpretations
because of their bad dating.

They hated the Roman empire,

they hated the priests
appointed by the Roman empire,

they hated herod who was
appointed by the Roman empire,

and they wanted to get rid of these people

and institute their own priesthood,

sons of Zadok, sons of righteousness.

And they went out into the wilderness,

John the baptist was
clearly probably associated

with this group.

They went out into the wilderness

to prepare the way of the lord.

And that's the group we have,

it's always been a revolutionary movement,

the real revolutionary
movement in Palestine.

And whether these documents

were written in the second century BC,

the first century BC,
or the first century ad,

as some scholars are now believing them

to have been written,

it's clear that the same ideology

is infused from the Hanukkah rebellion

all the way up to the Jewish
wars of the first century.

And in these documents,
what we find is an odd reversal

of the language that we
find in the new testament.

The odd reversal being

that in the new testament,

we have a Jewish Messiah preaching peace

and obedience to Rome,

whereas the dead sea scrolls
have the Jewish Messiah

preaching war and revolution against Rome.

The scrolls strikingly
reveal the difference

between the new testament followers

of a peace-loving Messiah

and the actual militant Jews of the era

who were following a warrior Messiah.

This faction of militant
Jews was wreaking havoc

across the Roman empire,

setting fire to various settlements,

including possibly the great fire of Rome

which Nero blamed on Christians.

It is during the rule of Nero

that the earliest Christian texts appear,

in the form of the letters
or epistles of St. Paul,

another piece of our mosaic.

Let's take a closer look at
this highly influential figure,

who was Paul?

The apostle Paul
originated as Saul of tarsus

and was a persecutor
of early Christians, until,

famously on the road to Damascus,

he had a revelation, the
scales fell from his eyes,

and he became a missionary for Christ.

There are 13 books

of the new testament attributed to Paul.

So when were the Pauline
or Paulinist epistles written?

Well, if you go with conservatives,

some of them could have
been written in the 40s.

But nobody really knows, it's hard to tell.

You only have copies
of the Pauline epistles

in the early third century,
shortly after about 200.

And yet even these dates are in dispute,

so could be from the 40s
to a hundred years later.

I was aware that the letters of Paul,

or at least some of the
letters ascribed to Paul

pre-date the Flavian rule

and probably pre-date
the Jewish war itself.

And unlike other scholars
who are interested

in the idea of Roman provenance,

we accept the standard dating

for the documents of the new testament.

The standard
consensus among most scholars

is that the seven letters
considered genuinely written

by Paul were written between 50 and 57 CE,

with the rest being
written around 62 to 64 CE,

all before the Flavian
era and the Jewish war.

This is the dawn of Christianity,

and many scholars believe Paul is the one

who actually founded Christianity.

Christianity didn't exist,

I don't think they had the word Christ,

and Paul starts to use
these words in his letters.

Paul creates this language.

I don't think you'll find
it in any other materials,

you won't find it I think
in the letter of James.

But the point of the
matter is that's become

the popular language
associated with this movement

but it never happened in Palestine.

An argument that Paul
is continuously making

is we no longer need
to adhere to kosher diet,

we no longer need to circumcise ourselves

to distinguish ourselves
as Jews from others,

all those sectarian
requirements of the Jewish law

are being relaxed by St. Paul.

Well in the letter ascribed to James,

we have just the opposite
philosophy being described,

that none of the law
should be gotten rid of.

Well that appears to be flying

directly in the face of Paul's doctrine

of salvation by faith, salvation by grace,

and no longer salvation by obedience

to the torah or the Jewish law.

And in that, we sort of see encapsulated

the differences between
torah-orthodox Jewish Christians

if you will, and the torah-modifying,

torah-critical Pauline Christians

who wrote most of the new testament.

Authors Thijs Voskuilen

and colonel Rose Mary Sheldon,

who is herself an intelligence expert,

explore Paul's connections
to Roman intelligence

in their book "operation Messiah."

Could Paul have been an
undercover intelligence agent

for the emperor Nero,

who was dealing with messianic rebels

trying to burn down Rome?

To me, the gospel
material is mostly all literary,

not necessarily historical.

Now the book of acts
for the first 15 chapters

is ahistorical, but in chapter 16

you get what's called the we document,

which is obviously based on
someone's travel document.

And suddenly you're talking
about, we did this, I did this.

It starts with the so-called
Jerusalem conference

where James gives the instructions.

The key is acts 21:21,

when Paul comes up to
Jerusalem and meets James.

And there you see that James

is over Paul absolutely and completely.

And he's called, James is called the leader

of the Jerusalem community in acts.

And it's quoted then, "but you see, Paul,

we have heard of many
disturbing things about what you're,"

this is in acts!

"About what you're doing in
the overseas in the diaspora,

and the things you're teaching
and telling people, etcetera.

So to show people there's
no truth in these things,"

I.E., that he's teaching against the law,

he's teaching against forbidden foods,

he says all kinds of things like this,

and it's totally UN-so-called Jewish

which is why it's Christianity.

But the point is, these people in Jerusalem

are Jewish still and
they're following the law.

So James says, "to show there's no truth,

go into the temple and
pay for a nazarite oath."

Paul agrees, he's not gonna not agree

because James is the leader.

It's in there, it's in
the Christian literature

but people never look at it,

it's in the we document,
and this is authentic material.

And so he goes in and he's mobbed.

So at that moment when
he's about to be mobbed

in the temple by an angry Jewish crowd,

"this is the person
teaching against the temple,

against our, all over
Asia," they're shouting,

he pulls out his Roman
citizenship or whatever.

And the Roman guards have
come down, seeing this huge,

they're up on the ramparts usually,

seeing this huge disturbance beneath them.

And the Roman guards rescue him

and force the crowd to
listen to a speech by him.

And you see what side he is
on and who is supporting him,

and escort him from the
people who want to kill him.

They escort him down to
Caesarea, the Roman headquarters,

where he has some interesting conversations

with the Roman governor at that time.

So the point is, they protect him

until they can get him overseas.

And even acts admits
that once he gets to Rome,

no one bothers with him at all.

That
certainly seems to indicate

that Paul could have been
an undercover Roman agent.

James seems to be the leader
of the torah-orthodox Jews.

If James were one of the apostles of Jesus,

his followers would not be torah-orthodox,

because both Jesus and Paul were preaching

against the torah, against mosaic law.

We have another letter of Paul's,

his letter to the Galatians,

in which he describes
his heated confrontation

with Jewish Christians, the
apostles that came before him,

naming specifically James

who was at least titled
the brother of Jesus,

and cephas, the Aramaic word for rock,

that must be Peter.

So he's having arguments with the apostles,

the disciples who came before him,

who are apparently torah-orthodox.

Paul does not cite Jesus

from the gospels in doing this either.

The Jesus of the gospels is torah-critical.

And as I began to think
about it, it became clear to me,

as it has become clear to many scholars,

that the gospels must
post-date the letter to Galatians.

Had the gospels existed,

all Paul would have needed
to do would be to cite Jesus.

Jesus point-blank criticizes
kosher diet, for example.

Paul never cites the
words or the deeds of Jesus,

which are critical of sabbath,

or which are accommodating to foreigners.

And Paul's words must pre-date the war,

because after the war the
zealots had been defeated

and all of them had been
executed or enslaved.

So there's no way that kind of argument

could have gone on after the war.

And it's probable that
those kinds of conflicts

and that argument might
even have precipitated that war.

If the gospels were
an accurate reflection

of who Jesus was and what Jesus had said,

there would have been no argument.

Even if the previous apostles

had still been following Jewish practice,

they wouldn't have had an objection

to Paul doing otherwise, would they?

Paul would not have needed to argue

so strenuously with them.

He would have only needed to refer

to Jesus' own words to settle the matter.

We know
Paul was born in tarsus

and had Roman citizenship,

what other clues do we have about Paul?

Oh, the Romans were
certainly somewhat behind him,

since he was a Herodian family member.

Paul isn't a Jew, he's an Herodian.

He says, "give my regards
to my kinsman Herodion,"

at the end of Romans.

Well who's his kinsman Herodion?

It means the littlest herod.

And all the people he
refers to at the end of Romans

in his greetings are
herodian family members.

And the littlest herod
was drowned in Pompeii

for some reason,

I forget how he drowned
there, but he's a known person,

that's his cousin.

Paul is from the herodian family,

the enemies of the Jewish people.

And in his letters,

Paul mentions other Roman
connections that he has.

Fascinatingly, Paul
himself refers to Nero's palace,

and says, "say hello to
my friends at Nero's palace."

This is quite a remarkable thing

for a new testament
protagonist to be bragging

about his relation with Caesar.

Famously,
in his letter to the Romans,

chapter 13, Paul preaches that everyone

must submit to the
government or be punished.

In the epistles in
particular, the Pauline epistles,

you have these authoritarian statements

that are so patently obvious
coming from the authorities.

Paul, in one of the oldest
sections of the new testament,

specifically commands Christians

to obey the state as god's
appointed agents on earth,

specifically naming rebellion to be a sin,

specifically requiring
Christians to pay their taxes,

and elsewhere specifically
to honor the emperor himself.

And all of this struck
me as, in this new light,

as naked Roman propaganda.

You must obey the
emperor, there's a good one,

it's right in there, it
says "obey the emperor".

There's all this,

"slaves, be submissive
for the sake of Christ."

Now if you're the savior
and you're the liberator

and you're god on earth,

you're god coming down from the heavens,

the all-powerful, why not end slavery?

Why do you have your mouthpieces saying,

"slaves, just put up
with your lot for my sake,

you know, just go along,"

it's obvious whose interests
these remarks are in.

So, if you were trying
to create a state religion

that you could control, and
through your controlling it,

control the masses, I mean
they really had it down pat.

Paul appears to be
combining an anti-torah message

with a pro-peace, pro-Roman message,

and those two things are connected.

So in criticizing torah
and arguing for peace,

there can be little doubt
that what Paul is doing

is having a combined political
and theological message

geared and aimed at the
Jewish rebels of the first century.

Paul is changing messianic Judaism.

One of the
objections to the idea

that the Romans created Christianity

is that Christian
tradition tells us Christians

were persecuted by the Romans.

But which of these
groups of Messiah-followers

were the ones being persecuted?

Today we use the word
Christian in a very sectarian sense.

The sense of Christian that we use it in

was unknown in the first
two centuries, of course.

Christianity didn't exist

till the second or third century,

and I don't think they had the word Christ,

it's not a Palestinian
word, it's a Greek word.

And to Romans who
don't make fine distinctions

between different forms
of messianic Judaism,

they were all Christians.

However today the idea
of a Jewish Christianity

is almost entirely unknown.

We exclusively think of Christianity

in terms of the peaceful
new testament Christians

we read about in the Bible.

The objection that we
run across most frequently

is one that comes from Christian tradition,

of being persecuted and
martyred at the hands of Romans.

This is largely a myth.

But it is a myth that's
understandable when you realize

that there was an entirely
different form of Christianity

going on in the first century.

That tradition of martyrdom
is almost certainly rooted

in the true persecution of Jewish rebels,

messianic rebels in
the first two centuries,

who were tortured and crucified

by the thousands by the Roman government.

It's that tradition of persecution

that Christians have picked up on.

And, if you think about it,

why would the Romans actually
persecute peaceful Christians,

our new testament Christians,

who are willing to render
unto Caesar, pay their taxes,

turn the other cheek, and
be blessed peacemakers?

And use the
Flavian symbols for their own?

Curiously enough when we look

at the actual hard evidence of history,

we find Christians
already in the Roman army

by the end of the second century,

Christians who are able to
cooperate with the Roman empire

in a way that militant Jews
had never been able to.

The work of professor candida
moss, the British theologian,

has basically demonstrated
that the Christian tradition

of martyrdom altogether is a legendary one.

Hello, I'm candida moss,

professor of new testament
and early Christianity

at the university of Notre dame.

Today Christians from all denominations

remain deeply invested in the myth

that for the first three
centuries of its existence,

the early church was the
victim of relentless persecution.

But contrary to traditional church teaching

and popular belief,

Christians were not
systematically tortured and killed

by the Romans merely because
they refused to deny Christ.

Rather, these stories were exaggerated,

revised and forged, often centuries later,

and the history of the church was reshaped

in order to combat heresy,

to inspire and educate the
faithful, and to fund churches.

In her book, professor moss,

who is a Christian theologian, states,

"Christians adapted their
ideas about martyrdom

and sometimes even the stories
about the martyrs themselves

from both ancient Jewish and
pagan Greek and Roman writers."

Most of the Christian saints
who were regarded as martyrs

were themselves based
either on pagan sources

or garbled accounts of people at the time.

It's really a legendary
mythology of Christian martyrdom

during the Roman empire.

And yes, Nero persecuted

militant messianic
Jewish Christians if you will,

and it is that very persecution
and those very issues,

for example, his predecessor
the emperor Claudius'' expulsion

of the Jews from Rome
because of militant disturbances,

that the Romans need an
ideological response to.

So as we can see, there
were pro-Roman Jews

who were clients of the Romans,

at the same time that there
were Jews who opposed Rome,

torah-orthodox Jews,

and were very much against integrating

with the Roman empire.

Also we see that there were Christians

or messianic Jews who were
very much opposed to Paul,

and there were Christians
of the Pauline variety

who were pro-Roman
and would come into conflict

with those other Christians.

This is the political
context that would lead

to all-out war between
the Jews and the Romans.

James was killed, the war broke out

three and a half years after his death,

Daniel, a time, two times, and a half,

if you look at the prophet Daniel,

you'll see everything
is contained in prophecy

that they're involved in.

So their righteous
teacher-type person is killed

under suspicious circumstances in 62,

the war breaks out in 66,

and they don't have the holy angels

joining their camps unfortunately.

A large piece
of our mosaic is this war,

which the Jews began to wage

against their Roman occupiers in 66 CE.

It marks the turning point
in all of western history

and the result is still
affecting our society today.

It is in response to this war that Nero

calls upon his best generals, the Flavians,

flavius Vespasian and
his son Titus flavius.

In 66, when the Jewish
war broke out in Judea,

Nero is the one who tapped Vespasian,

ironically in part because
of his humble origins.

He was going to entrust a major section

of the entire Roman army into the hands

of this powerful general,

in order to subdue the Jewish rebellion,

and so he had to be
someone that Nero could trust,

someone who wouldn't necessarily

have his own political ambitions.

If they wanted to remove

the cause of the rebellion,

the Romans would need to seize Jerusalem

and capture the scriptures that were housed

in the Jewish temple.

As far as I know, there was a thrust

that they really wanted to get their hands

on the Hebrew texts that
was egging on the terrorists,

the Jewish terrorists.

You know, they would be considered

to be rabid nationalists and so forth,

but the barbarism of
these particular groups

and factions we're talking about

was almost like the Taliban.

It wasn't just "oh, we don't like your cult

so we're gonna destroy you,"

these guys were like vicious,

Constant raids and
attacks and killing people

and taking hostages
and all manner of things.

And during the last
two years of Nero's reign,

Vespasian successfully prosecuted the war

in Galilee and wider Judea.

And it was only when
they were just getting ready

for the siege of Jerusalem,
that Nero himself was taken out.

It is one of the great moments of history

when the general who was
appointed by the emperor,

himself became emperor,
following the death of Nero.

There was a civil war that followed,

a year of four emperors,

and the Victor there just
happened to be the general

who had defeated the Jews.

He had a major chunk of the Roman army,

and so was in a unique
position to launch his bid

for empire which was successful.

And so when he became emperor,

he left his son Titus in
charge of the final sack

of Jerusalem, which
would fulfill Jesus' prophecy,

as he returned to Rome
to take up world rule,

and to proclaim himself
a new bringer of peace,

a new prince of peace.

This was a
huge sea change in Rome.

Not only was it the death of an emperor,

Nero, but he was the last ruler

in the Julio-claudian dynasty.

The Julio-claudians
created the Roman empire

and ruled it for nearly a hundred years.

With the end of that
long-ruling dynasty, the flavians,

now with the Hebrew
scriptures in their possession,

began an extensive propaganda campaign

to prove their legitimate
right to the throne.

Because of their humble origins,

it was important for the flavians to gather

as many endorsements from
religions around the empire

to justify their claim
to the throne of Rome.

These would include the cult
of serapis, the cult of Venus,

and of course the religion of the Jews.

When you investigate
the historians of the time,

such as Suetonius and Tacitus,

you find that they quite
openly claim that Vespasian

and Titus were the Jewish
messiahs of prophecy.

The claim was
that because the flavians

brought peace to Palestine,

ascending from the east
to become world rulers,

they fulfilled the messianic prophecies

and were the true Messiah
the Jews had been waiting for.

Curiously enough, the Jewish militants

and the rebel leaders had each
in effect proposed themselves

as the true Jewish Messiah,

and the Jewish rebel
leaders had a better claim to it,

for contemporary Jews
expected an earthly, political,

and military leader to come
lead their country, Israel,

to victory over the Romans.

And so both pagan and Jewish historians

in the wake of that war
re-evaluated those claims,

and identified the Roman
emperors who had conquered Judea

as the true bringers of
world rule from Judea.

Even the most prominent
rabbi at the time openly claimed

that Vespasian and Titus
were the Jewish messiahs.

People today don't realize
how widely recognized

the flavians were as Jewish
messiahs in their time.

For other writers such as
the Jewish writer Josephus,

he appears to have been
actively working as a propagandist

for these same Flavian emperors.

It's important to remember
that these Flavian emperors

were not working in isolation,

but appear to be working
with Jewish scholars at the time

in order to establish their claim to being

the true Jewish Messiah.

In other words, they
were convincing the world

that the rebels had got it all wrong.

Or as Josephus himself said,

"the Jewish god has now
gone over to the Roman side."

All of that effort that they made shows

that that was a goal

was to have this Caesar
recognized as a divinity on earth,

as had predecessors been.

In fact, there was a
coin issued by Vespasian,

with Vespasian on one
side and the messianic star

of the Jews on the other side of the coin.

This is the only time
that the messianic star

was used on Roman coins.

It is different from the stars

that you would usually see on a Roman coin,

and it is identical to the messianic star

used on Jewish coins.

In Jewish symbolism the
star was the main image used

to represent the Messiah,

because in Hebrew prophecy it was said

that a star would come
out of the house of Israel,

a reference to the Messiah.

And at about this same time,

the gospels were being written.

Could they also have been a work

commissioned by the flavians?

Well on the Roman side, to
avoid the same kind of ruckus,

the theory is that the Flavian dynasty,

they said, "suppose we
come up with a version

of their messianism,

not only their Judaism,
but their messianism,

like the idea of the Messiah coming.

Let's come up with a way of pacifying them,

saying, "oh yeh, yeh,
you should believe this."

I mean, Rome never really objected

to anybody's religion
unless it created trouble.

In order to avert a religious war,

the Romans would launch
a propaganda campaign

to convert their enemy's
religion into a religion of peace.

Being a new dynasty of emperors,

who came upon the throne
sort of through a civil war,

they had to demonstrate themselves

to be saviors of the entire world,

projected themselves in their propaganda

as bringers of peace.

And they actually built a temple to peace,

the first temple to peace built in Rome,

and saw themselves as bringers of peace.

And even on their coinage,

they advertised the construction
of the temple of peace.

We can find on their coinage such things

as pax or pacis orbis
terrerum, peace on earth,

which is of course the very same language

that is reflected in the beautiful story

of Luke's nativity scene,

when the angels herald Jesus' birth

as bringing peace on earth
and good will toward men.

Even the good will toward men
can be found on Roman coinage,

minted at the same time
Luke was being written.

People often believe that
the Roman values and virtues

were opposite to those
reflected in Christianity.

However we see on Roman
coins that that isn't the case.

Coins that are minted
to concordia for instance,

which equals Harmony;
Or spes which equals hope;

salus or salvation;

and also things like
clementia which is mercy;

equitas which is fairness;

or felicitas which is joy,

all values that we see
throughout the new testament

are actually Roman values
throughout the empire.

In using the symbol
associated with Apollo,

with the salvation if
you will of an anchor,

the flavians were asserting themselves

to be the salvation of mankind.

The anchor became a symbol of the flavians

as saviors of the world.

So the flavians were not

just connecting themselves
with the Hebrew religion

in using the symbol of
the Greek sun god Apollo,

the flavians were connecting themselves

to the religion of the Greeks.

And they were also connecting themselves

to the religion of the Egyptians.

We also know from Suetonius and Tacitus

that Vespasian had gone to Egypt,

and he goes into the temple of serapis.

He comes out with a miraculous capacity

to heal the blind with spit.

And then we hear the same
story in the new testament,

which by all evidence
was not in existence at all,

even you know
conservative biblical scholars

will claim that the new
testament wasn't in existence

when Vespasian was doing this miracle.

There's no record of anyone saying,

"hey, there was a guy 40 years ago in Judea

who did the same miracle."

In fact, it was probably a stock miracle

that had been around
for centuries by that time.

Note what the flavians are doing,

we've already observed that serapis,

an Egyptian god was being
used on Flavian era coins,

and there you can see an Egyptian god

being identified with Roman emperors.

More than that, we have
both pagan and Jewish sources

identifying these flavians
as the true Jewish Messiah.

So again we have Roman
propaganda coordinating

various religious and cultural elements

throughout the empire,
Greek, Egyptian, and Jewish.

You could see the
dynamics of why Christianity

had to be created then.

It wasn't like some divine revelation,

it was purely contrived
by the political forces

that were extremely wealthy,

for a specific purpose of rolling

all these religions into one.

All of these
propaganda efforts after the war

with the Jews resulted
in the rise of Christianity.

We can see the foundation
of Christianity is Judaism.

But it differs by a reversal

of some key components of mosaic law,

the very practices that prevented Jews

from assimilating into the Roman world.

And Christianity also
incorporates new pagan ideas

which Judaism would never have allowed.

Who would be the people
the gospels were written for?

Who would most benefit
from this new form of Judaism?

We were astonished to find

how many important Jewish
leaders and thinkers at the time

were closely associated with the flavians.

The emperor Titus for example it is said

was engaged to the
Jewish Princess Berenice,

who came from both herodian
and Hasmonean background.

Unfortunately, negative
propaganda against the Jews

made that politically
difficult for Titus in Rome.

But he himself was closely associated

not only with Berenice,

but with her brother Herod Agrippa II

Josephus the historian, Epaphroditus,

a leading courtier of
emperors in the late first century

who was likely to be a Jew
himself and a patron of Josephus.

And even nephews and relatives

of the Jewish philosopher
Philo were close associates

of the flavians.

And these particular people,

majorly powerful, incredibly
wealthy group of people

who could quite handily influence history

in any direction they wanted, really.

The people who were working
with Titus and Vespasian,

at least this family, this Alexanders,

these were Jewish people.

They're in charge of Rome,
Alexandria, and Jerusalem.

So, this is not some,
you know, mere footnote.

And anybody who steps in
their way, they just slaughter,

in fact, they destroy an entire city

in order to remove a power base.

And also I think that that destruction

was a clearing of a way,

if they were going to anchor

this mythical archetypal human
sacrifice son of god mythos

into history where better
to put it than some place

that has been destroyed and
there's like no evidence left.

Nobody can attest that it didn't happen!

Many of these
prominent Jewish leaders

were already associated with the flavians

in the court of the emperor Nero,

and they're actually shown
giving assistance to Paul

in the new testament.

Jewish leaders are positively featured

in the book of acts.

Berenice, her brother herod Agrippa ii

are both positively
featured as helping Paul

in the course of his mission.

The Roman governors
that he appears in front of,

one of them, a man by the name of Felix

who is governor of Judea,

he was a brother-in-law of Berenice.

And people don't really
realize all the connections

between well-educated
high-ranking Jewish officials

who were pro-Roman
and their positive efforts

to help the mission of Paul,

which is explained in some
detail in the book of acts.

And after the death of Nero,

these same pro-Roman Jewish
leaders turned their support

to the new emperor, flavius
Vespasian and his son Titus.

And so there was a cadre,

a group of well-educated, wealthy Jews

who surrounded and populated
the court of the flavians.

The new testament wasn't
simply a Roman thing.

The Jews in the court of the flavians

would have every reason to
believe in the new testament.

It gave them full license

to be loyal to the emperor of Rome,

while at the same time
be good practicing Jews.

So the new testament actually relieves them

of their mosaic duties and
allows them to be in the court

of the emperor of Rome
with no problem whatsoever.

It's astonishing
that the new testament

would show actual Jewish leaders

in history in a positive light.

And what about the earliest Christians,

what do we know about them from history,

apart from the new testament?

The characters described
in the new testament

are very difficult to
identify as historical figures

in many cases.

When we come to figures who we can be sure

are actually Christians in history,

they appear to be, and
some of the very earliest,

relatives of the imperial
Flavian family itself.

We mentioned the granddaughter
of Vespasian, Domitilla,

her burial site, the
catacombs of St. Domitilla,

are the oldest physical evidence

of Christianity that exists.

Her husband was actually a cousin of Titus

and a great-nephew of Vespasian,

and Titus flavius Clemens was his name.

Catholic tradition has assigned
him as St. clement of Rome,

who left us perhaps some of the

earliest Christian literature

found outside of the new testament,

the epistle of St. clement of Rome.

Curiously enough, he,
catholic tradition assigns,

as one of the earliest popes.

And this of course forms
another important piece

of that mosaic,

that tile puzzle that's
now coming into focus.

Perhaps this
explains why the fish and anchor,

a symbol used by the flavians,

was also the symbol used by Christians

for the first three centuries.

And artifacts found from
the first three centuries

throughout the Roman
empire would show the dolphin

and anchor and trident
symbols so frequently.

And today it is so common
a reference to Christianity

that archaeologists use those symbols

to identify them as Christian.

Christian tradition has misled us

about the nature of the catacombs.

Under the illusion that Christians

were being systematically
persecuted by the Roman empire,

they're often thought of
as places where Christians

could secretly go and engage
in their forbidden rituals.

But modern archeology has
come to the firm conclusion

that they were in fact burial places

with Christian symbols
openly displayed on them,

with access to the public.

So that they weren't
in fact secrets at all,

nor were they places of hiding.

The cross
that we now associate

with Christianity was almost never used

in the first three centuries.

In terms of relative numbers,

we have at least 70 examples
of the anchor and fish image

in just one of the catacombs,

the catacombs of St. Priscilla,

whereas we have fewer than a dozen examples

in all the catacombs of a cross symbol

during the whole first four centuries.

Catholic scholars explain
the absence of the cross

as a function of their
persecution by the Romans.

The fact that they used
instead, and far more often,

anchor and fish symbols
is said to be a disguise

of their Christian nature.

But as we now know, the
Christians were not hiding the fact

that they were Christians at this time,

it's simply that the anchor

and fish were the common
original symbols of Christianity

that were used for the
first two to three centuries.

And it would take

the exact same inside knowledge by a pagan,

to know whether a cross or an anchor

is a Christian symbol or not.

Especially since the cross
was used far more seldom,

it would be far more common
for people to associate the fish

and anchor symbol with Christianity

than it would be the cross,
so it's hardly a disguise.

And of
course, before Christians

started using these symbols,

they were used by the
flavians and their court.

During the age of the flavians,

we find cameos for the wealthy

of the dolphin and anchor symbol,

we find other intaglios, for instance,

that were used to stamp
wax and seal documents,

that were also, have,
bore the Flavian symbol

of the dolphin and anchor.

The fact that they were
on seals or intaglio indicate

that they might have
been used by very wealthy

and perhaps politically connected Romans,

people perhaps officials
in the Roman state,

who were using them for official purposes

in the late first century.

And different
variations of the fish

and anchor symbol were
also used by early Christians.

Using a dolphin and anchor symbolism

ties into themes we see
in the new testament itself,

Jesus says, "I will make
you fishers of men".

And the anchor is like a hook
that a fisherman might use,

and the fish of course wrapped

around the hook is like the bait.

And this symbol seems to
point to the act of evangelism

far more vividly than the
symbol of the cross itself.

The fish wrapped around an anchor

might be seen as a symbol of Jesus,

whereas fish approaching the anchor

would be seen as the converts,

the fish whom the hook
is catching if you will.

And of course in the Flavian era,

that dolphin was symbolic of
Titus himself on his own coins.

Another discovery that we
were truly astonished to make,

was that the earliest Christian symbols

frequently used a family of other symbols

that could only be seen as pagan symbols,

such as the trident with fish,

which were associated with
no less than the coliseum

in Rome, the Flavian amphitheater.

And you can see fish with a trident

in the architectural detail
of the coliseum itself,

which the flavians built.

And those symbols as well were adopted

in the second century by early Christians.

And it's amazing that
you would see such symbols

in both the coliseum and
in the Christian catacombs

only a few miles away.

Dolphin and anchor
pendants are still sold today,

and you can find them in catholic stores

and are used to symbolize Christianity.

There are also symbols
of Christ on an anchor.

And so these symbols have survived

and are completely related to Christianity,

and their Flavian connection
has been forgotten.

Anchor symbols can be seen

all over Christian
churches all over Europe.

The dolphin wrapped around an anchor

was used as an image by
Titus himself in his deification,

associated with his divinity,

and it was the earliest symbol

used by Christians to
represent Jesus on the cross.

It's
interesting that the dolphin

wrapped around an anchor could represent

both Titus flavius and
Jesus in the same era.

One of the most impressive uses of the fish

or converts swimming towards the anchor,

which represented the hope or salvation

offered by the Flavian emperors,

was found by Warren and
James in a dramatic floor mosaic

that was displayed in Herculaneum.

The most irresistible
archaeological sites

for finding connections
between the flavians

and the Christians, would
be Pompeii and Herculaneum,

which were buried by the
eruption of mt. Vesuvius in 79 ad,

exactly two months after Titus
became the emperor of Rome.

Herculaneum and Pompeii are time capsules

that perfectly capture what was going on

during the Flavian era.

This is where we discovered
the bottom of a pool

that depicts an anchor
surrounded by two dolphins,

and two people swimming towards the anchor.

The symbols that so perfectly
match symbols we would see

in catacombs for the next
three centuries are here.

This connection between fish as a symbol

and humans being the
fish, if you will, being caught,

is distinct to the gospels.

The missionary work of
Christians is being declared

by Jesus himself to be a form of fishing.

Of course, anchors are a symbol of safety,

a symbol of security.

And so people being
compared to fish seeking

the religious salvation of the anchor

would be very commonly understood

in that context as a Christian symbol.

But that Christian symbol came at

or after this moment when
in a purely pagan context

the Flavian emperors themselves
are using the anchor, fish,

fish compared to people
as a religious symbol.

This discovery is so important

because what it does is
establish beyond any doubt

that these symbols pre-date
all uses by the Christians

in their catacombs by decades.

Like a legend of all the symbols
we have been discussing,

this site ties in the
coins with the catacombs,

with the other Flavian
architectural details

that we have seen all in
one original archaeological site.

For all practical purposes,

it might as well have been a
symbol in a Christian catacomb,

they're that identical.

It's hard to know if
that mosaic at the bottom

of that pool is a symbol of Titus,

a symbol of Apollo, a symbol of serapis,

or a Christian symbol.

Or perhaps
a symbol that started

as a pagan symbol and slowly evolved

through different variations

into finally becoming a Christian symbol?

After the death of flavius Vespasian,

his son Titus flavius ruled for two years

until his untimely death,

when his brother Flavius Domitian

took over the imperial throne.

The anchor and dolphin
image on Flavian coinage,

which was minted in the,
literally in the thousands

during the short two-year
reign of the emperor Titus,

was soon discontinued by his brother

who succeeded him on the imperial throne.

It's interesting to note
that Domitian began

what can only be described as a persecution

of the Christian and Jewish elements

within the imperial family.

He himself executed his
cousin, clement of Rome,

and banished his wife St. Domitilla.

He's also responsible for
executing Epaphroditus,

who was a patron of
Josephus' work and appears

to have been an associate
of St. Paul's decades earlier.

The actual reason for Domitian
persecuting his relatives

may have been that
they were a political threat,

having adopted the
mantle of Jewish leadership

at this point.

Domitian could not claim
to be the Jewish Messiah

as both his brother and his father could,

since he had no part to
play in the war with the Jews.

And it's well known by
historians that Domitian returned

to more traditional forms of religion.

It should be remembered of
course that becoming deified

by the Roman senate as
deities, official Roman deities,

both Vespasian and Titus
had a temple, and priesthood,

priests who would continue rituals.

And this must have
occurred for at least a century

or more following their deaths.

And part, as we've heard,
of their official propaganda

is that they were Jewish messiahs.

Part of that may have been indeed

an important aspect of the
imperial cult of the flavians

that existed in the century
or two following the flavians.

The flavians were dearly loved

by the people of the Roman empire,

and it's no surprise that Vespasian

and Titus continued to be worshiped as gods

and Jewish messiahs for centuries

after their deaths
through their imperial cults,

with their own temples,
priests, bishops, and rituals.

Especially since Vespasian was known

as a healer who performed the same miracles

that Jesus did in the gospels.

And what became of Christianity

after the end of the Flavian dynasty?

The very earliest
reference by any pagan writer

at all about Christianity,

is a letter written by Pliny
the younger to the emperor,

who was then trajan, in
the decades just following

the fall of the Flavian dynasty.

Pliny the younger writes to the emperor,

"what is our proper
policy about Christians?"

We hear that Christianity
had apparently enjoyed

a popular vogue a
couple of decades earlier,

precisely during the
height of the Flavian dynasty,

and that somehow in recent
years it had fallen out of favor.

Pliny the younger also
tells us that Christianity

by his time was affecting
all classes of Roman society,

not just Jews, but upper
class pagan Romans.

And perhaps most fascinating

is the response of the emperor trajan,

who specifically tells his
governor not to hunt out,

not to seek out, not
to persecute Christians.

The fact that the emperor
trajan would give such deference

to these new Christians
expresses some kind of

an imperial sympathy for them,

which could of course
suggest their Flavian origin.

The emperor
trajan ruled for almost 20 years

until his natural death,

when his adopted son
Hadrian took over the throne,

only to face another conflict
with the Jewish people.

What's interesting about
the symbol of the dolphin

and anchor being used by the flavians,

is that it wasn't picked up again,

and only used afterwards
by the emperor Hadrian.

Now what was going on in Hadrian's time

was the second Jewish war.

So the fact that he would
resuscitate this symbol

at that time is very significant.

It no longer symbolized
the flavians in Hadrian's time,

at that point it was an openly
used symbol by Christians.

This is a significant
evolution of the symbol,

going from an obviously Flavian symbol,

to then being used as a Christian symbol

in Christian catacombs,

and then being used as
a Roman emperor again,

as he fights the second Jewish war,

this time as a Christian symbol.

It's just curious that those
were the only two emperors

to really use this symbol,

and both of them were associated with each

of the two Jewish wars.

To indicate the importance of those wars,

the first war was the war responsible

for finally destroying the Jewish temple

and reducing it to the
wailing wall that it is today.

Some 60 years later a
second Jewish revolt broke out,

also a messianic revolt
led by a messianic leader,

son of the star bar Kokhba,

and at the end of that war,

all the Jews were expelled from Jerusalem.

And it was in fact the
final nail in the diaspora

that would keep Jews out of the holy land

until the creation of zionism,

the return of so many
Jews to the holy land,

and the creation of Israel
in the twentieth century.

Although it seems Christianity

had fallen out of vogue
after the Flavian dynasty,

with the second Jewish rebellion,

Hadrian had a reason
to bring it back again.

Okay, well, what I
think what happened is,

there's still this unruly
segment of Roman society,

it was basically the Jewish segment,

not only in Judea which
effectively was taken care of

by the destruction of,

first of Jerusalem, that diaspora,

and then there was a
second massive destruction

of more of Judea, you
know, around 135 ad/CE.

And that dispelled many more Jews,

and so now they're all over the place.

The ones who aren't hellenized

are bringing with them this fanaticism,

that is begging for a
new priestly creation.

And this has been done in the past,

they already tried it with serapis.

I'm sure there was a concerted effort

to synthesize paganism and
Judaism in the second century.

Of course Hadrian himself
had reasons to use Christianity,

if not a Flavian Christianity,

perhaps some of the Christian literature

as a means of pacifying
the second Jewish rebellion.

Some have even suggested that Hadrian

ejected the Jews from Jerusalem,

and imported Christians
to take their place.

Eusebius, the early Christian historian

tells us point-blank that
the Jews were expelled

from Jerusalem, and that a Christian bishop

was appointed by Hadrian over Jerusalem.

In the earlier parts
of the second century,

we've got Egyptians, we've got Syrians,

we've got Greek efforts,

we've got Jewish efforts
and so forth going on here,

everybody's jockeying for position.

By the end of the second century,

you've got the Romans that are in charge,

it's the Roman catholic church now.

You know, it becomes the holy Roman empire,

it's no longer the Roman empire,

it eventually becomes
the holy Roman empire.

So it seems that Christianity

began to really take hold,

and that trajan, Hadrian
and other Roman rulers

were in favor of it.

And the dolphin and anchor
symbol no longer needed

to be associated with the flavians,

it now stood for Christianity.

How ironic that a symbol
which began as the symbol

for the sun god Apollo
ended up being the symbol

for the religion centered
around Jesus Christ,

who was perhaps a more universal sun god

to appeal to the diverse Roman empire.

After all, the meaning of
the word catholic is universal.

As time went on, any
connection to the flavians

was unnecessary for the Romans,

even though Christianity still served

important propagandistic
purposes in pacifying

and assimilating rebellious
or messianic Jews.

It certainly changed a whole slew

of what we would call Jews into Christians.

We have really basically
the pharisees surviving,

the samaritans and the
saducees disappear, and where?

I know where they disappeared into,

they became Christians essentially!

So once cut, if you will,

from the anchor of the Flavian origins,

it was still a ship that
served important purposes,

and would be continued to
be promoted by many Romans.

And now set adrift
from that Flavian origin,

Christianity was free to form
different sects and spread out

into a rather unorganized
variation of Christian themes.

One of the fascinating developments

of the second century are
the variety and differences

between the different forms
of Christianity that emerged,

of pagan-influenced, only
semi-Jewish forms of Christianity

that have lost their basic connection

to orthodox Judaism in any way,

and appear to be much more Hellenistic

in their philosophical orientation.

You know, we have
this gnostic effort going on

where they're dealing with
the Syrians and the Jews

and even Indian stuff is
making its way in there.

The gnostics don't
believe that Jesus Christ

appeared in the flesh.

In fact, that was contrary
to their belief system

that the divine could
ever take on earthly flesh

because it was corrupting.

And this has become
all the clearer in light

of the 1945 discovery

of the nag hammadi gnostic manuscripts,

this revealed an amazing
array of types of Christianity!

There were Jewish gnostic
groups like the sethians

who thought that Jesus was
Melchizedek reincarnated.

There were zoroastrian Christians,

and they thought that Jesus
was a new manifestation

of the heavenly light
like zoroaster had been.

And loads of different
types that were eventually

kind of stamped out
or just died on the vine.

Like Jewish Christianity,

and there were several types of that,

that the church fathers tell us about.

Jewish Christians were too
Jewish for gentile converts

and too Christian for other Jews.

So it took a couple of centuries

but that pretty much just died out.

And some of the others
were persecuted to death.

And this radical diversity lasted

for at least a couple more centuries.

What was the original Christianity?

You can't really tell.

You've got a garden of different flowers

and despite attempts
to stamp all but one out,

they thrived for a long time.

Today's denominationalism
is nothing compared

to the different types
of early Christianity,

some of which are being
revived here and there.

Some people are using these
nag hammadi gnostic texts

as their Bible, and I say
let a hundred flowers bloom!

That's easy for me to say,
I don't really have a dog,

or should I say a god, in the race anymore.

A sort of renaissance
in Christian literature

occurred in the second and third centuries.

And by the time we get to Constantine,

when it becomes the official
religion of the Roman empire,

a single orthodox version
of it has to be laid down,

and that was the principal function

of the council of Nicea
in the early fourth century.

They finally converted one of

the Roman military commanders, Constantine,

at some point, but he
wasn't really a Christian.

He never did a Christian thing in his life.

But he felt that he could get some help

in his military struggles.

So he said that fine, okay,
he has a vision or whatever,

he'll take Christ, you know.

But he gets the added troops
that help him secure victory.

And so, then it becomes
the official religion

of the Roman empire under Constantine,

and once that happens,

you're going to get a huge
amount of people coming in.

And that's what happened.

Christianity gained
more and more popularity.

And Roman leaders themselves would vie

over different attempts
at making a dominant cult,

the cult of Sol Invictus would
be at odds with Christianity,

or the cult of Mithras would
be at odds with Christianity.

Well this was resolved
with the military success

of the emperor Constantine
in the fourth century.

It was he who began
to legalize Christianity,

and it was his family
that made Christianity

the official religion of the Roman empire.

And after so many centuries at this point

of using the fish and
dolphin and trident symbols,

it was Constantine who
during a famous battle

saw an image of a cross in the sky,

which then would signal a change

of the tides of fortune in his favor.

And from that point
forward, he would replace

the otherwise common symbols
of Christianity with the cross.

And his own mother
even went to the holy land

to discover the original
cross and bring it back.

Of course the cross that
Constantine saw in his vision

was sort of the chi-rho cross,

but it's still a form of the cross.

From that point forward,

it would not have done Constantine any good

to continue using these Flavian symbols.

He wants to associate
Christianity with his reign,

and he doesn't want
it to be a Flavian cult,

a Flavian imperial cult,
he wants it to be his cult,

finally cutting the tether

between the Christians and the flavians.

However, the
flavians remained widely loved

by Romans and Christians alike,

and many emperors used their name.

In fact, starting with constantius,

the father of Constantine,

a total of 56 out of 70
subsequent Roman emperors,

that's 80%, used the name flavius.

According to the Flavian propaganda,

they had so many virtues,
deeds and other parallels

in common with Jesus,
that the flavians themselves

were respected and venerated

by Christian Romans centuries later.

Even in Christian medieval times,

the flavians were looked
at as positive emperors,

even though they were pagans.

Christian writers during the middle ages

and the renaissance praised the flavians

in the highest terms possible.

After
Constantine made Christianity

the official religion of
the holy Roman empire,

the rulers who came after
him also found it useful

for their purposes.

We've gone over Romans 13

and its command that people obey the state

as god's appointed agent on earth.

After Constantine, subsequent
rulers throughout Europe

would use Romans 13
to justify the divine right

of their rule, known as
the divine right of kings.

This is the textual origin
for the religious authority

given to Christian kings
for the last 2,000 years,

and even dictatorships unto our own time.

The truth is, the new
testament is Roman propaganda

written for a very specific period of time.

It has long since outlived its purpose,

and has been used ever since

by other rulers for their own purposes.

What's fascinating about that

is that this particular passage
also justifies pagan rulers,

who were not Christians
but were still recognized

as god's agents on earth.

Therefore, the subjects of these rulers

were expected to be
Christian but not their rulers.

These pagan rulers could continue

their hedonistic lifestyles,
worshiping pagan gods,

and yet still, their subjects

were expected to be Christians.

Christianity therefore is for the ruled

and not for the rulers.

How could this religion,

which emerged over 2,000 years ago,

still be strong and thriving today?

It's very attractive, it
was made to be attractive.

The scrolls aren't attractive,

we're not trying to convert people,

this is what the people
writing the scripture are doing.

That doesn't mean the character
is a real character as such.

They're trying to live
within the Roman empire

and the power of the state,

and produce this sympathetic
person who the people

are always being bad to,

but he's always accepting
and you know being meek,

this is not what's happening
in Palestine, I'm sorry.

This is not Palestinian.

One of the ways in
which Christianity has thrived

and succeeded is its
ability to adapt and change

to changing circumstances
politically and culturally.

Everything from Mormons

to Episcopalians to Lutherans,

the wide range of
different types of Christianity

for different contexts is one of

its most adaptable and surviving qualities.

Consider the radical
changes made by Hollywood.

Filmmakers such as Cecil
B. Demille for example,

or other filmmakers who tell
"the greatest story ever told"

or "the story of Jesus,"

have turned the Romans into the heavies,

and precisely the opposite
intention of the gospels.

And so in effect the message of the gospels

in the 20th century
became turned on its head

by Hollywood filmmakers.

Post holocaust, of
course, it was very important

for Hollywood to not depict the Jews

in the same way that the
Bible itself shows them.

And so that is where
we start to see the flip

of the Romans becoming
the heavies of the story,

and the Jews as the victims.

And people have been drawn

to the philosophy of Christianity,

which contains the spiritual
wisdom of the Platonists,

the stoics and others,

providing a moral compass
and inspiration to many.

Is the creating Christ theory

saying that Jesus as a person didn't exist?

In creating Christ,
we do not take a stand

on whether or not there
was a historical Jesus.

To many scholars in the area,

it is the most important
and burning question.

But of course, the important Jesus

is the Jesus of the new testament.

That's the Jesus that affected history.

That's the Jesus that
Christians believe in.

We cannot know for
sure if a Jesus ever existed,

but we do know that
everything we know about Jesus

has been borrowed from
historical or pagan or other sources,

stories of other men or other gods,

and there does not need
to be an actual Jesus

to create the Jesus that
we see in the gospels

and in the new testament.

On the other hand, if there
was a Jesus who was crucified

in the early first century,

he is not likely to have been crucified

because he advocated paying
your taxes, or peace with Rome.

He might have been stoned
by the Jewish authorities,

who would have stoned him,

but he certainly wouldn't have
been crucified by the Romans.

So we believe with many
scholars, if there was a Jesus,

a historical Jesus,

he was likely to have
been a torah-orthodox,

militant nationalist Jewish rebel,

crucified for those reasons.

How could there be a Christianity

if there wasn't a Jesus to start it?

Paul Tillich said that it must
have started with somebody.

Maybe not, because
Christianity is heavily indebted

to contemporary religions
like the mystery religions,

which just means the initiation religions,

and there were plenty of them.

The idea was that you could pass

into a higher spiritual condition,

there is a myth of the divine savior,

often including his death and resurrection,

and the ritual baptism,
the Eucharist, lord's supper.

They had various things like that in them,

like the Osiris religion.

There was a sacred meal
where you would eat bread

because it was the body of
Osiris who was the grain god,

and you would drink wine or beer

because that was the
blood of the grain god.

When you look at the
last supper in the gospels,

it's supposed to have something to do

with passover but it doesn't really.

Whereas when Jesus says,

"this bread is my body,
this wine is my blood,"

you think, "this doesn't
sound like Judaism to me."

This is one of the reasons I
say I think the burden of proof

is on the person that would say

there was a historical founder,

could have been, too late to tell now,

but you don't really need
that as a factor in starting it.

This is what is,

something else rationally
we must keep in mind as well,

that we have mythology in other cultures

that is clearly taken as mythology.

The Greek gods,

very few people today
believe that they ever existed,

or they were living on planet earth,

and that they were real people,

and that any of their adventures were real.

But with the Jewish stories,

there's a special pleading that,

well you know,

all these supernatural
events actually occurred,

the red sea was parted, Elijah
was taken up in the chariot,

we have to accept that

or we're gonna be
punished with eternal hell.

We have seen
how Christianity developed

and evolved over the centuries,

and how it was shaped by
rulers to suit their purposes,

which is one reason it has
survived so strongly to this day.

The important 20th century discoveries

of the dead sea scrolls
and the Nag Hamadi texts

may perhaps be the very
reason that Christianity

began to be scrutinized and
looked at more from a historical

rather than a theological perspective

in the past few decades.

These ancient texts have revealed a history

surrounding this religion

that stands at odds
with Christian tradition,

and our scholars feel the true history

is important for people
to understand precisely

because we're still being affected today

by a war that took place
nearly 2,000 years ago.

One can really only understand the theory

of Roman provenance by assembling

all the pieces of the mosaic,

and only when you put each
piece in its appropriate place

can you pan back and then
accurately see the entire picture.

Throughout the course
of the last 30 years

in which we have been
researching and writing this book,

we had hoped to uncover
the truth about the history

of one of the most
important world religions.

At the crossroads of
western history was a conflict

between world views that
were exclusive on one side

and universal on the other.

That they would come
into conflict was inevitable,

and this is when the new
testament was written.

Today, we are
still in conflict with each other

because of seemingly opposing world views.

What can we learn from
this ancient period of history

to come to the best solution
for our modern world?

Is the answer some form of synthesis

or integration of these
seemingly opposite perspectives?

Nothing we have discovered
and demonstrated here

challenges a belief in god

or indeed the important need for morality.

In my teaching,

I am not trying to make disciples of price.

There would be no point to that,

in fact, I don't care if
anybody holds my opinions,

I'm just interested in it

as a fascinating intellectual pursuit.

What am I trying to do in teaching?

I'm just trying to give
people access to information

and perspectives they
may not already know of.

And I assume they're gonna make use

of what they think is worthwhile

in creating their own synthesis.

I mean, that's all I'm doing,

and that's all I want to help people,

more socratically than dogmatically.

If Christianity had not been foisted

upon millions of people,

we quite likely would not be facing

this almost apocalyptic development

of destruction of the planet.

I mean, for one example
before the technological age,

a major example was that in certain parts

in the so-called pagan world,

it was a capital punishment
to cut down forests.

This is one of the
reasons that I am motivated

is because I looked at the destruction

that occurred to my
culture, northern European,

and it was so defamatory and so vile,

it put the fire in my belly.

In the natural religions,

you're connected to the earth, you're free,

you don't have this domineering
monotheistic character

controlling you like a puppet master.

It's not there, it's very empowering,

it's earth-based.

You got your feet planted.

You're drawing wisdom into yourself

from your own observation.

And they had to sever that

in order to get this power
coming from the top down.

All this is concocted by people overseas,

in order to establish
a pro-Roman literature

for these apocalyptic
groups, and they succeeded.

This pro-Roman literature that we have,

which is why the church is in Rome today,

this has survived for almost 2,000 years

and it was extremely successful,

probably one of the most
successful literary efforts

ever undertaken and produced.

Today we're still
governed by moral precepts

from documents that are
almost 2,000 years old,

ideas that were developed in a cultural

and political context not our own.

By the 21st century and
the dawn of the third millenia,

it is time to re-evaluate
these dusty doctrines

that no longer serve our context,

but were devised for a
context long since forgotten.

Over the last few centuries,

beautiful art, beautiful poetry,

beautiful architecture has been constructed

on the imagery and
the ideas of Christianity,

and that in itself gives
Christianity an authority

and a beauty that no one
would want to get rid of.

But it is time for us to
re-evaluate doctrines

that were developed for a political context

that is 2,000 years old

and may no longer be
applicable to our own times.

Our scholars
have certainly provided us

with a variety of interesting perspectives

on the history of Christianity.

And now it's our turn,

in view of all that was presented here,

how will we evolve our philosophical ideas

to best create the
meaning of our own lives?

In the words of the great
transcendentalist writer,

Ralph Waldo Emerson,

"make your own Bible."