Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus:Flavian Signature Edition Read Online Free PDF

Schweitzer:
     
The great and still undischarged task, which confronts those engaged in the historical study of primitive Christianity, is to explain how the teaching of Jesus developed into the early Greek theology. 
     
    The most historically illogical aspect of Christianity’s origin, however, was its Messiah. Jesus had a political perspective that was precisely the opposite of the son of David, who was awaited by the Jews of this era. Josephus records that what most inspired the Jewish rebels was their belief in the Judaic prophecies that foresaw a world ruler, or Messiah, emerging from Judea—the same prophecies that the New Testament claims predicted a pacifist.
     
But now, what did the most to elevate them in undertaking this war was an ambiguous oracle that was also found in their sacred writings, how, “about that time, one from their country should become governor of the habitable earth.”
The Jews took this prediction to belong to themselves in particular … 11
     
    The Dead Sea Scrolls confirmed that Jews of this era indeed “took this prediction to belong to themselves” and awaited a Messiah who would be the son of God.
     
Son of God he will be called and Son of the Most High they will name him … His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom … he will judge the earth in truth … The Great God … will give people into his hand and all of them will be cast down before him. His sovereignty is everlasting sovereignty. 12
     
    In the following passage from the Damascus Document, notice that the Messiah envisioned by the author was, like Jesus, a shepherd, though not one who would bring peace.
     
“Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered;
“but I will turn my hand upon the little ones”.
Zechariah 13:7

Now those who hear him are the flock’s afflicted,
these will escape in the period of [God’s] visitation. But those who remain will be offered up to the sword, when the Messiah
of Aaron and Israel comes, as it was in the period of the first visitation,
as he reported by the hand of Ezekiel:
“A mark shall be put on the forehead of those who sigh and groan”.
Ezek 9:4

But those who remained were given up to the sword of vengeance, the avenger of the Covenant … 13
 
    The following passage from the Targum (the Aramaic versions of the Old Testament) also describes a warrior Messiah. Clearly, this would have been the nature of the “king Messiah” of the Jews who would, in Josephus’ words, “most elevate them in undertaking this war .”
     
How lovely is the king Messiah, who is to rise from the house of Judah.
He girds his loins and goes out to wage war on those who hate him, killing kings and rulers …
and reddening the mountains with the blood of their slain.
With his garments dipped in blood,
he is like one who treads grapes in the wine press. 14
     
    However, the New Testament and the histories of Josephus each imply that the Messiah was not this nationalist leader who had been foreseen, but rather a pacifist who encouraged cooperation with Rome. For example, consider Jesus’ instruction in Matthew 5:41: “when anyone conscripts you for one mile, go along two.”
    Roman military law permitted its soldiers to conscript, which is to demand that civilians carry their 65-pound packs for a length of one mile. Roman roads had mile markers (milestones), so that there would be no dispute over whether or not this requirement had been met. Why would the Messiah foreseen by Judaism’s xenophobic world-ruler prophecies urge Jews to “go the extra mile” for the Roman army?
    When one compares the militaristic Messiah described in the Dead Sea Scrolls and other early Judaic literature with the pacifistic Messiah described in the New Testament and Josephus’ Testimonium , one aspect of the lost history of Judea seems visible. An intellectual battle was waged over the nature of the Messiah. The New Testament and Josephus stood together on one side of this struggle, claiming that a