Caesar's Messiah Proven

[Jerry Russell]

http://caesarsmessiahproven.com

This excellent website belongs to Giles Gaffney, who seems to be the same as our Gilius (based on certain literary parallels I've observed).

I hope we haven't scared Gilius away... I'd like to continue the discussion about possibly updating the complete Flavian Signature in full color, and maybe for peer review.

I noticed that Gilius has been debating with unbelievers over at skeptiko, and was having trouble convincing them even of the Lunatic Jesus parallel. Some people just can't be convinced of anything, I suppose, but even Carrier accepts that one. From "On the Historicity of Jesus":

It would appear this story inspired the general outline of Mark’s entire Passover Narrative. There are at least twenty significant parallels (and one reversal):

1 Both are named Jesus.
2 Both come to Jerusalem during a major religious festival. Mk 14.2 = JW 6.301
3 Both entered the temple area to rant against the temple. Mk 11.15-17 = JW 6.301
4 During which both quote the same chapter of Jeremiah. Jer. 7.11 in Mk; Jer. 7.34 in JW
5 Both then preach daily in the temple. Mk 14.49 = JW 6.306
6 Both declared ‘woe’ unto Judea or the Jews. Mk 13.17 = JW 6.304, 306, 309
7 Both predict the temple will be destroyed. Mk 13.2 = JW 6.300, 309
8 Both are for this reason arrested by the Jews. Mk 14.43 = JW 6.302
9 Both are accused of speaking against the temple. Mk 14.58 = JW 6.302
10 Neither makes any defense of himself against the charges. Mk 14.60 = JW 6.302
11 Both are beaten by the Jews. Mk 14.65 = JW 6.302
12 Then both are taken to the Roman governor. Pilate in Mk 15.1 = Albinus in JW 6.302
13 Both are interrogated by the Roman governor. Mk 15.2-4 = JW 6.305
14 During which both are asked to identify themselves. Mk 15.2 = JW 6.305
15 And yet again neither says anything in his defense. Mk 15.3-5 = JW 6.305
16 Both are then beaten by the Romans. Mk 15.15 = JW 6.304
17 In both cases the Roman governor decides he should release him.
18 . . . but doesn’t (Mark); . . . but does (JW). Mk 15.6-15 vs. JW 6.305
19 Both are finally killed by the Romans (in Mark, by execution; in the JW, by artillery). Mk 15.34 = JW 6.308-309
20 Both utter a lament for themselves immediately before they die. Mk 15.34 = JW 6.309
21 Both die with a loud cry. Mk 15.37 = JW 6.309​

Carrier also accepts parallels between Mark and Homer; see:

http://infidels.org/library/modern/rich ... dmark.html

I think Carrier is painting himself into a corner, because the entire Flavian Signature is stronger than any of this (and incorporates the Lunatic Jesus as one of forty-seven). The coup de grace will be if / when we do the math on the verbatim parallels.

 

[Joe Atwill]

Rick

Yeah, it is odd that Carrier is being so silly - hidden agenda maybe? He told Jerry he wrote his crazy hit piece on me because he was asked to do so by a "celeberity atheist". Who was that I wonder?

We need to do the math and end the confusion.

Joe

 

[gilius]

I need to update that site sometime but haven't found the motivation. New Root and Branch drained me - Joe is a genius to spot that.

My techniques of convincing the public have improved greatly since skeptiko (I may revisit there sometime), but unfortunately I've unearthed some fundamental home truths about people's inability to face the evidence, and ultimately, the nature and true extent of evil in this world. Now I know why the Flavians talk so much about "demons" because the majority of people are carrying them around to this day. Therefore, no amount of revision or improvement in techniques is going to convince more than a tiny percentage: it wasn't the oligarchs who killed JFK - it was America!

My best attempt has been here, but even then only 1.5 people out of at least 20 were convinced:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=290896

The rest became hostile.

 

[Jerry Russell]

Hi Gilius,

I read through the discussion at international skeptics (ex-Randi). Among the critics, the most thoughtful ones went straight after the multiple-comparisons problem. I'm still thinking about how to do the math. It will be most convincing if we can do it in Greek, with an ancient Greek corpus for word frequency statistics. Something to get started on after I finish my taxes, sigh...

 

[Jerry Russell]

I'm still thinking about how to do the math.

In case anyone is reading this thread and wondering what ever happened to that project: it was interrupted when Matthew Josephson came along with his book "Revealing the Man of Sin", which showed that there are large numbers of very significant "off-diagonal" (out of sequence) parallels between Josephus and the Gospels. This basically destroyed my scheme to demonstrate statistical significance for the on-sequence parallels. The existence of all these parallels might also be statistically significant. But a lot of the off-sequence ones are purely conceptual, and as such, not so easy to support a mathematical analysis. There might very well be another overarching pattern, but Josephson wasn't sure what it might be. I haven't had time to sort this out yet.