Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus (2012) User Reviews

omG, do you smell a rat?

[dbhurst · 7/10 · 24 June 2019]

If you hear crosstians telling you what you have to believe or you'll go to eternal punishment in hellfire sanctioned by The One Holy Loving God and you think you smell a rat gnawing at your God-Given Grace, even your Soul, you'll appreciate the gospel-fictions approach joseph atwill uses to deconstruct the rat-reeking stories crosstians have long used to shut the doors to the Kingdom of Heaven before you.

if you think that The One And Only Unborn Unnamed Unknown And Unknowable God Who Lives In Your Heart would never judge you based on that blasphemous idolatrous book because it would so clearly be unjust, you'll appreciate the freedom of thought exhibited in this documentary, necessary to evade the detestable human beast, (who wants to cage your soul by framing you with guilt for crimes you never committed and trumping up false charges against you, then offering you a plea bargain but only if you'll partake in, perpetuate and compound the abomination of a human sacrifice by eating human flesh and drinking human blood) and you'll appreciate the opportunity to shut that vicious old accuser up and down by using the logical arguments you'll find in this documentary.

if not, enjoy your li(v)es in slavery to a brutal dictatorship of propaganda who cares neither for God nor man because you won't like this documentary, but you would rather stay comfortable in your addiction to blasphemy and idolatry, an easy way to a false God.

Total contrived nonsense

[peter-abramenko · 1/10 · 2 October 2018]

This is total contrived and nonsense. Regardless of whether you are an atheist or a Christian and irrespective of whether you believe in his divinity or not, the historical Jesus is so well documented away from any Roman sources in so many different triangulations that to make this statement that Jesus is not a historical figure but rather a creation of the Romans is ridiculous.

Absolute rubbish - fabulation and fantasy

[TheOtherMovieGuy · 1/10 · 18 June 2021]

Some people refer to Atwill's theory as a "Fringe Theory" which is defined as an idea or viewpoint that fundamentally differs from the accepted scholarship of the time within that field. But this theory fails on so many levels, of which perhaps the most important one is that Alwill is no religious scholar at all. This is nothing but a wild fantasy from a deluded man without any historical evidence. Secondly; apart from raising a theory based on historical misrepresentation, he bases his entire theory on a toxic mix of conjecture, hyperbole and vivid imagination. Even 2nd year history students at university are able to pick his reasoning to pieces.

It is certainly a provocative "theory" (if you stretch the definition of the word) but in relation to REAL historic theory and the research that has been done (by real scholars) on both the historic Jesus as well as the religious origin of Christianity, Atwill's theory squarely land in the same category as Big Foot, The Loch Ness Monster and little green aliens from Mars - and to give Atwill or his theory any more credence than that would be ludicrous.

It is far too easy today for anyone to publish a "documentary" on any topic they want; no matter how biased the issue or how unscientific the approach or the analysis is. Some of these pseudo-science documentaries should come with sanity warning labels.

a theory

[Kirpianuscus · 13 June 2020]

A provocative theory. Like many others about The Savior. Seductive, interesting, teribilistic and...superficial. Because it is only another Da Vinci Code. The Christianity, like each religion, is a matter of faith. The faith inspires and gives the truth for each believer. The documentary remains only an embroidery of speculations. Nice, off course, revolutionary, in essence. But nothing more. A provocative fireworks. And nothing more.

Pure hogwash

[take2docs · 3/10 · 7 July 2023]

Have you heard the one about the Roman Caesar who, along with a venal Jewish historian, colluded in inventing a new religion, designed to pull the wool over the eyes of Jews and Gentiles, alike? The name of this new religion? Christianity, and what sounds like the punchline to a really bad joke, it turns out is a theory meant to be taken in all seriousness, if your name is Joseph Atwill and author of the silly scribble, "Caesar's Messiah."

And to think that this easily debunkable film has the intellectual power, enough to cause some Christians to abandon their faith! Remarkably, there exists accounts of Bible-believing Jesus followers who have watched this -- those of whom one can only assume are in possession of zero critical thinking skills -- who have fallen for this heterodoxical propaganda, becoming lapsers as a result of their unquestioning gullibility.

Aside from Atwill, other talking heads appear in CAESAR'S MESSIAH: THE ROMAN CONSPIRACY TO INVENT JESUS, in full support of Joseph's extraordinarily unconvincing and extremely twisted thesis, intellectuals believing themselves to be hierophants, all the while as they clutch at straws and share in a bit of myth-making of their own.

The story goes that Atwill read one or two of the historian Josephus's works and noting alarming 'parallels' between various passages within these texts and the Gospels, created in him a deep suspicion as to who really authored the diatessaron and for what purpose. I use the word 'parallels' loosely, as many a scholar is unable to see in this act of literary analysis what it is Atwill professes to see in these textual comparisons.

Could Josephus have played a part in penning the New Testament? Of all the speculations associated with the 'Caesar Messiah' theory, admittedly, this is one of the more plausible ones. Josephus, being Jewish, would have had sufficient cause to want to participate in the invention of an offshoot of Judaism, one fully in support of the Judaic god and His messianic kingdom (i.e. Zion)...but a Roman Caesar? Well, we all know what happened next, with Rome, in a matter of only a few centuries, eventually converting to 'Christianity,' a fact which in and of itself ought to be enough to discredit Atwill's arguably inverted theory alone.

The sad thing is, this 'delusion' of Atwill's, as some have called it, has been most contagious, infecting the minds of many an oblivious dupe and wrongheaded, incorrigible supporter.

In the end, however, I think the joke is ultimately on Atwill, himself. For here is a fellow, deficient in scholarship, proficient in pseudohistory, who has convinced himself he has it all figured out. And yet, isn't it easy for one to connect the dots when you're the one who imaginatively created those very dots to begin with?