User:Arne Eickenberg/Caesarian origin of Christianity/Addendum

General scientific reaction
Archaeologist and peer reviewer Erika Simon wrote that Carotta's research ties with preexisting publications on the tight interconnections between Christianity and the Roman world empire, but "goes further and reveals new connections which have never been seen that way." She hoped that Carotta's book would contribute "that we remain open to questions concerning early Christianity". Atheist theologian and H. P. Lovecraft scholar Robert M. Price roughly combined several distinct publications on a Roman origin of Christianity including Carotta's Jesus was Caesar and erroneously alleged that in all theories Christianity originated as "ironic residue of Roman propaganda", and that there was no historical Jesus, although Price failed to prove that Julius Caesar was also a fictitious person. Based on information gathered from Carotta's website Maria Wyke, professor of Latin, considered the parallels between Caesar and Jesus demonstrated by Carotta as "sweeping and often superficial", despite their being "detailed and justified at book length". She summarized that "Caesar is no longer the shadow of Christ, but Christ the shadow of Caesar." Commentating on Wyke's book, classical reviewer Peter Stothard called Carotta's interpretation of Mark's gospel as a corrupt retelling of the Roman civil war "highly notable" in the reception theory form of historical scholarship. Historian and classical philologian Luciano Canfora called Jesus was Caesar an "original book" and added another argument to Carotta's framework by showing that both Caesar and Christ only narrowly escaped the desecration of their bodies. Carotta's conclusions were fully endorsed by classical philologian and peer reviewer Fotis Kavoukopoulos, who also called the theory "a paradigm shift in the history of religion". Classicist Gerard Janssen wrote that "Carotta has developed an extremely interesting and major theory, which will further require profound examination and verification or falsification." Anthropologist Francisco Rodríguez Pascual stated that Carotta's theory is a very important working hypothesis (see below).

Academic reception
In the debate with Francesco Carotta following his lecture at the Complutense University of Madrid (see below) New Testament philologian Antonio Piñero initially commented that a diegetic transposition was "almost impossible" due to the severe cultural differences displayed in the Roman and Biblical sources, and that Carotta's theory would create "uncertainty". He later changed his position and published that the theory of the Gospel as a diegetic transposition was one of the most remarkable and ingenious exercises he had read about the problem of Jesus' historicity, but also noted its complexity as a possible problem.

Ecclesiastical and clerical reaction
Jesuit reverend Stephan Ch. Kessler acknowledged the quality of Carotta's book, lauded the author's respectful style and "religious discretion", and wrote that "even if one cannot or will not follow the author’s conclusions, one learns much about Roman religiousness, which became the basis of the development of the Christian faith in the European cultural environment". Domician priest Jerome Murphy-O'Connor superficially criticized Carotta's abstract and believed that he avoided explanations of his theory. He also expressed unspecified doubt concerning the parallels between Jesus' and Caesar's life. Claretian priest and anthropologist Francisco Rodríguez Pascual stated that Carotta's theory is a very important working hypothesis, which closes a gap that has never been heuristically investigated from this angle. For several years Catholic priest Pedro García González researched into the Caesarian origin of Christianity together with Francesco Carotta, and in 2007 they historically reenacted Julius Caesar's funeral ceremony in Rascafría, Spain. On several occasions García González publicly spoke out for Carotta's theory and has continued to endorse it in his own publications. Catholic priest José Cabral believed that it could be possible that the Nativity originates from the legends and historical accounts about the birth of emperor Augustus, but stated that it could be countered by a strong faith. The Catholic Center for Theological Studies of the Archdiocese of Seville reviewed Carotta's 2008 article on the historical origin of the crucifixion of Christ from the funeral ceremony of Julius Caesar, and published it in their academic journal Isidorianum.

Secondary education
In a magazine for Catholic education Italian agricultural historian Gaetano Forni criticized some of the parallels between Christianity and the cult of Divus Iulius as "forced", disputed the correlations between the Clementia Caesaris and Christ's forgiveness against common scholarly opinion, but nevertheless stated that Carotta's book is a "useful examination, particularly for teachers of history", due to the large amount of historical data and references. For several years Carotta's theory has been taught at a Dutch high school by classicist Gerard Janssen, which also resulted in the students' participation in the documentary film Het Evangelie van Caesar and subsequent debates (see below).

Higher education
Francesco Carotta was repeatedly invited to hold lectures on his theory, for example in the theological seminar on the origin of the Gospel of Mark at the University of Basel, and at a symposium on the historical Jesus at the Complutense University of Madrid.

Reception in the media
Initial press reviews of first German edition of War Jesus Caesar? were infrequent and mixed. Based on Carotta's past as a part-time satirical artist some feuilleton critics and former journalist colleagues assumed that his book was meant as a science parody, while other journalists praised the book and called it "provoking", "astounding" and "meticulous". Reviews only became more frequent following the 2002 Dutch translation of the book, which spawned an often fierce and controversial debate in the Dutch media.

The Dutch controversy
The Dutch debate, which lasted for several years to this day, was for the most time characterized by a strong partisan rift between journalists and between scholars in the Dutch media, with one faction at times resorting to hostile antagonisms, and the other partially indulging in immoderate eulogies. Francesco Carotta did not engage directly in the Dutch debates, but used his web site to publish rebuttals and corrections of the articles and inaccuracies coming from critics and supporters alike.

In early 2003 philosopher and columnist Paul Cliteur initiated the publicized debate by refuting the criticism coming from former academic history lecturer Anton van Hooff, who outright rejected the theory although he had never read the book. Van Hooff reiterated his criticism a year later in a short essay, which editor Henk Procee criticized for its hastiness, lack of rationality, need for revision, and for the fervent "anything goes" emotionality displayed by its author. Cliteur wrote that Carotta presented an "overwhelming amount of material […] to support his thesis", which for him was the "key to unlocking a lot of mysteries on the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire". Sylvain Ephimenco called Carotta's book a "sensation". He wrote that some of the arguments might be "farfetched", some however "compelling" and "more than plausible", and also expressed his worries that recounting simply a summary of Carotta's arguments could rather weaken the theory. In a short classical review for the Dutch Library Service J. Kleisen wrote that Carotta's very popular book demonstrated an "overwhelming quantity […] of striking, almost systematic parallels" between Christ and Caesar. He noted as significant that the cult of Divus Iulius vanished as soon as Christianity surfaced. The reader would be able to determine whether the argument that the worship of Caesar was replaced by that of Christ is stronger than the unprovable historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth. Philosopher Andreas Kinneging stated the "extreme importance" of Was Jezus Caesar?, which "provides [for] a new opening to the research on the accounts of Jesus' life", a view that was shared by many commentators: Political publicist and architectural historian Thomas von der Dunk applauded Carotta's "thoroughly researched and documented study", Willem Dijkhuis emphasized the compelling nature of the resulting perspective on the European heritage, and professor of Future Studies Wim J. de Ridder stated that Carotta "participates in the development of normative future models which the elite of church and state considers undesirable", but which for the "average citizen [will be] experienced as inspirational". Anton van Hooff openly called for a publication ban of Carotta's book, threatening to turn to the Dutch national media commission, for which he drew heavy criticism, for example from historian Thomas von der Dunk, who compared van Hooff's "stalking, abuse and intimidation" with the ideology of the Spanish Inquisition.

The release of Het Evangelie van Caesar, a documentary feature film about Carotta's research (see below), reignited the original controversy, in part because Dutch classicist Gerard Janssen endorsed Carotta's theory in the film. Based on a random and sketchy overview of Carotta's research by theologian Matthijs de Jong, the Dutch Bible Society NBG (Nederlands Bijbelgenootschap) distanced themselves from Carotta in a press release, in which they declared that his book placed itself outside of the scientific discussion and that it was eccentric fiction disguised as science. While most scholars and critics like theologians Rob van Houwelingen and Jacobine Geel, who also featured Carotta's research in her national television show (see below), had meanwhile found a more moderate tone with regard to the theory, van Hooff harshly criticized Janssen and his students for participating in the documentary and for publicly debating Carotta's "superstition". In the most extensive Dutch article on the theory to date, van Hooff attempted to show that Carotta's book contained severe methodological flaws and factual errors, and accused its author of being a pseudoscientist, whereas Peter Veldhuisen had attested scientificity and verifiability a few years earlier. Shirley Haasnoot, the editor-in-chief of the university magazine De Academische Boekengids, eventually lost her neutrality in the controversy by refusing a balanced scientific debate, and only a short and redacted rebuttal of van Hooff's article was permitted. Van Hooff's unscientific methods of criticism were also rejected by Cliteur, who like Thomas von der Dunk compared his actions to fanaticism, stalking and libel.

In a 2003 scientific journal on history and archaeology Thomas von der Dunk summarized the controversy surrounding Carotta's theory: "What truth is and what is not credible can generally not be determined until much later, and an 'absolute' truth will sometimes be accepted only after centuries. Today we can say with confidence how stupid it was that Pope Urban VIII opposite Galileo insisted on retaining the Earth as the center of the universe. […] New theories emerged continuously, which subsequently proved to be foolish, but which at the time were decided to not seem foolish. All these wisps are now forgotten, so only the star of Galileo continues to shine. […]" "The history of human stupidity is largely also the history of science. To speak with Pilate to Jesus of Nazareth: What is truth? If it was spoken to Jesus at all, because the Italian philologist Carotta has recently launched the bold theory that Jesus was actually Julius Caesar. I will not comment for the life of me. That remains to be seen. But it is striking that the established scientific order in this new 'stupidity' reacts like any established order, and therefore just like the Vatican in the case of Galileo. At first ignore it, and then, if ignoring does not work anymore, fight against it with a ferocity as if one is personally being threatened and insulted." "Underlying that fierce reaction are three human impulses. First, the fear of coming forward early, even if one confirms only a mu of the new theory. Second, professional jealousy: It can be hard to swallow for those who have enjoyed decades as a scientific authority when an outsider discovers something that did not occur to them during all this time. And third, if such a theory is true, one's own entire work needs to be thrown into the trash. In short: The fierce reaction is quite understandable, as understandable as that of Urban VIII in his time, but likewise their reaction is not a priori scientifically correct."

Popular reception
From the beginning Carotta's book was frequently mentioned and discussed on the internet, where reactions were mixed and often partisan. In a brief editorial note on his website Dutch historian Jona Lendering proscribed the theory as "alternative history" and Carotta as a "crackpot". The new theory was temporarily embraced by proponents of chronological criticism and also utilized for atheist and even anti-Christian writings, whose authors occasionally engaged in debates with supporters of Carotta's research. Furthermore, e-mail discussions between Carotta, Richard Carrier and Earl Doherty were made public on an internet board. While some authors questioned the seriousness of the new theory altogether, others felt compelled to write short reviews.

André Lichtschlag, editor in chief of the libertarian magazine eigentümlich frei, called Carotta's book historical revisionism and assumed it was a "bad joke", although he noted that there were interesting and curious parallels between Jesus and Caesar. Author of popular history and fringe science Walter-Jörg Langbein noted that even if the hypotheses and thoughts in Carotta's comprehensive book might be peculiar, the author deserved merit for showing a different understanding of many Biblical passages, whose meanings are only reputedly definite. Classicist and author of historical childrens' literature María García Esperón praised Carotta's work on her weblog, and Peter Stothard substantiated the new theory's notability (see above).

A graduation thesis that primarily analyzed the documentary film Het Evangelie van Caesar (see below) also contained a non-representative qualitative survey of selected film audience members who were asked for their opinion on the Caesarian origin of Christianity. The results show that all of them held the theory to be "credible beyond doubt".

Film and television
Several documentaries and reports have been produced about the Caesarian origin of Christianity. Carotta himself has participated in and has been interviewed for several documentary films, most notably The Gospel of Caesar and Death Masks, and most recently Emilio Ruiz Barrachina's Jesus 2.0. An early attempt at documenting Carotta's research was canceled due to budgetary restraints and artistic differences, and the production of a television documentary was thwarted by the religious department of the Austrian broadcaster ORF.

The Gospel of Caesar
In 2007 the documentary feature film Het Evangelie van Caesar premiered in Utrecht, Netherlands. It was directed and produced by political journalist and former Buitenhof editor in chief Jan van Friesland and co-financed by Dutch public television broadcaster VARA. The English version The Gospel of Caesar premiered in 2008 at the Berlin International Film Festival. It was screened at several other European film festivals and as part of academic debates. The film generally documents Carotta's research and the reactions to his theory, but also emphasizes Carotta's collaboration with a Spanish priest in reconstructing and staging the funeral of Julius Caesar according to the historical sources.

The documentary received mainly positive reactions. The reviewers at the Leeds International Film Festival described the film as a "mesmerising", "thrilling" and "utterly intriguing look" at Carotta and his "controversial idea". Gerry van der List called it a "relentlessly original" film. The documentary also revived the scholarly debate on Carotta's theory in the Netherlands (see above). Apart from a 2009 Dutch television broadcast the film has generally been exploited only sparsely and infrequently.

<p style="text-align:justify;">The Gospel of Caesar was also the main subject of a scientific analysis as part of a graduation thesis. XYZ MORE SUMMARY: audience reaction; theoretic presentation.

History: Death Masks
<p style="text-align:justify;">Based on Carotta's research of Julius Caesar's funeral, CGI artists reconstructed some of the funerary props as a three-dimensional model for the History documentary Death Masks, most notably Caesar's wax effigy, which was raised above the bier onto a cruciform tropaeum, and the mechanism used to rotate the victory cross. The reconstruction deviated from the historical accounts by omitting the blood and the imperial toga and did not correspond to previous reconstructions in the technique used to fasten the effigy, in the position of its arms, in its posture as the shepherd/king Endymion and in its general appearance as a Dionysian idol.

Television entertainment
<p style="text-align:justify;"> Apart from the various films and reports documenting the science of Carotta's theory the Caesarian origin of Christianity has also reverberated through television comedy, talk shows and news programs. The award-winning Dutch kabarett artists Arie Koomen and Silvester Zwaneveld gave the theory a funny send-up, while a more in-depth approach was chosen by Belgian comedians Lieven Scheire and Jelle De Beule in De Laatste Show. Carotta's theory was prominently featured and debated in television programs like the political forum Spraakmakers, the talk show Schepper & Co hosted by theologian Jacobine Geel, news and information programs like Buitenhof (see above) and De Wereld Draait Door as well as other news formats.

Theater
<p style="text-align:justify;">In a background paper for the Dark Lady Players anthropologist and dramaturgical theorist John Hudson partially supported Carotta's observations and wrote that passages in the Gospel were "based on events in the history of Julius Caesar", for example the pericopes of Jesus walking over the water and his triumphant entry into the city on horseback, which has also been noted by other scholars. The clearest parallels were to be found in the death, apotheosis and worship of Caesar: Hudson agreed both with Ethelbert Stauffer's conclusion that the Easter liturgy follows Caesar's funeral (see below), and with Carotta's analysis that the passion and crucifixion account is also modeled on this ceremony, where a wax figure of the deceased was shown to the people on a cruciform tropaeum, including the geographical transposition of Capitolium to "Golgotha" (see main article). Hudson also augmented Carotta's research by showing that the sun over the cities darkened after Caesar's and Christ's death in both accounts. Although Hudson acknowledged a direct modeling on Caesarian sources, including the passion and Resurrection, which are pivotal to Christianity, he maintained that these dependencies are merely part of a broad cluster of Roman hypotexts, which were rewritten into the Gospel as a Roman satire, especially by including material from The War of the Jews by Flavius Josephus.

Francesco Carotta
<p style="text-align:justify;">Francesco Carotta is an Italian industrial engineer, linguist and philosopher as well as a former IT entrepreneur, editor and publisher, who now works as an independent classical historian, philologian, archaeologist and Biblical researcher. As author and classical scholar he is best known for his controversial theory that the historical Christ was Julius Caesar, and that Christianity developed from the cult of Divus Iulius.

Biography
<p style="text-align:justify;">Carotta was born in 1946 in Ca'Zen near Lusia (Polesine), Veneto, Italy, to a mother, who was a dressmaker from a family of farmers, and a father, who was an artist painter and the local socialist mayor from a family of entrepreneurs. From early childhood Carotta's paternal grandfather Domenico had been a friend of Italian socialist Giacomo Matteotti, with whom he later sided as a political comrade.

<p style="text-align:justify;">Carotta entered a Redemptorist seminary in Bussolengo, Verona, but was soon discharged "due to critical thinking". He registered with a technical college instead and received an Italian diploma as a chemical-industrial engineer.

<p style="text-align:justify;">After working as a laboratory technician he moved to France to study philosophy at the University of Burgundy, Dijon, where he also worked as a medical technologist. He completed his studies with a Licence ès-Lettres in philosophy. After 1968 he studied polemology in Strasbourg and taught philosophy in Mulhouse. He later moved to Germany to study linguistics, Romance languages, German language and literature at the Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, where he also attained his ancillary degrees as state-certified interpreter and translator.

<p style="text-align:justify;">Carotta stayed in Frankfurt, where he worked as a teacher of languages, interpreter, translator and junior lecturer at the university. In these times he also supervised social initiatives, founding educational programs and centers for gastarbeiters and Italian culture. He became active in left-wing political groups that had formed in the wake of the protest movement of 1968, and he freelanced for an alternative publishing house, a communal cinema and the ID Informationsdienst.

<p style="text-align:justify;">In the 1970s he returned to Italy where he worked as a journalist for several magazines and newspapers. In Bologna he co-founded Radio Alice, the first free radio station in Europe. In Rome he supported one of the initial environmentalist movements in Italy. He remained active in both Italy and Germany, and as a senior member of the 1978 Berlin Tunix Congress he became co-founder of the renowned newspaper die tageszeitung, for which he remained an occasional author over the years under his pseudonyms Cham or Cam.

<p style="text-align:justify;">In 1980 Carotta founded the Frankfurt-based Casa di Culture Populare with philosopher and author Peter Jirak. Carotta then moved to Freiburg im Breisgau, where he founded the IT company Legenda Informationssysteme, which specialized on OCR and EDP for press archives and documentation centers. In Paris he worked for Cora, a company specializing on linguistic technology and artificial intelligence. In Freiburg he also supported Kore, a publishing house for feminist and women's literature.

<p style="text-align:justify;">At the University of Freiburg Carotta then studied ancient history, archaeology and classical philology. His primary focus on Laurentius Valla later shifted to new humanistic research on the cult of Divus Iulius, the deified Julius Caesar, and its influence on early Christianity. In the 1990s he left both of his companies in order to pursue his research full-time, which eventually led to the 1999 publication of his report on the Caesarian origin of Christianity in the book War Jesus Caesar?.

<p style="text-align:justify;">Since then he has continued his research, published several academic articles, produced translations of his book, appeared in various film documentaries, held lectures, and historically reconstructed Julius Caesar's funeral ceremony in Spain. Carotta lives in Kirchzarten near Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.

Publications
<p style="text-align:justify;">Book, articles etc. Summary

Related research
<p style="text-align:justify;">Jesus Christ and Julius Caesar were already associated in the Gospel. In his Divina Commedia Dante Alighieri equated their respective betrayers, and in his play Julius Caesar William Shakespeare created at least one possibly deliberate allusion to the Biblical narrative, when the abstemious Caesar shared wine with the conspirators, which has been regarded as a hint at the Last Supper. Christ's and Caesar's corresponding initials were widely debated in Mediaeval and Renaissance times as late as Victor Hugo.

<p style="text-align:justify;">Today the close ties between early Christianity and the Roman imperial cult have been a recurring theme in scientific publications for more than a century, beginning with books by Alexander del Mar and Gustav Adolf Deissmann. However, only few authors like Bruno Bauer proposed a Roman origin of Christianity, and at first even fewer actually noted direct parallels between Christ and Julius Caesar. Later researchers into the cult of the emperor often stated similarities between the story of Christ and the life of Caesar and Augustus respectively, especially Lily Ross Taylor and Henri Jeanmaire. Graeco-Roman origin and mimesis theories from the mythical school also presented parallels between Christ and the deities, cults and legends of the ancient Mediterranean region, which were also commonly associated with Julius Caesar or the imperial cult, like the Dionysian Mysteries. Others showed more specific accordances, e.g. that core elements of Christian scripture and theology like the Savior as Son of God had been directly copied from the imperial cult, which forced historians and theologians to find suitable explanations for these correlative phenomena, the most common being that early Christians including the evangelists chose to mimic the Roman cults and copy their terminology either as a form of antithetical ideological protest against the worldly empire of Caesar as god or as a means to propagate Christianity in a pagan environment.

The Latin Ur-Gospel
<p style="text-align:justify;">While the Vetus Latina manuscripts of the New Testament and the later Vulgata had always had ecclesiastical priority over the Greek editions, parts of the early Christian Church had furthermore maintained that the original Gospel of Mark had been written at Rome in Latin ten (or alternatively twelve) years after the death of Christ. This corresponds to Carotta's claim that the Latin Ur-Gospel is the Historiae by Asinius Pollio, the Caesarian parts of which would have been published exactly ten to twelve years after Caesar's death and resurrection, since the work's redaction began at the earliest in 35 BC, followed by a consecutive serial publication until approximately 30 BC.

<p style="text-align:justify;">In the 16th century Cardinal Wilhelm Sirlet assumed from ancient codices that the original Gospel of Mark had been written in Latin. His view was supported by Caesar Baronius, who especially emphasized the many Latin words, which had been graecized in the Gospel of Mark. In later times the theory of a Latin origin of the Gospel was occasionally mentioned, e.g. by Max Meinertz, who thought it significant that Greek words in the Gospel were literally explained by Latin terms.

<p style="text-align:justify;">In the 1920s Paul-Louis Couchoud, an adherent of the mythical school of Jesus' historicity, demonstrated in a widely unnoticed philological essay that the original Greek Gospel of Mark was already a translation based on a Latin Ur-Gospel. XYZ MORE SUMMARY

Sermo castrensis
<p style="text-align:justify;">Cancik?

Ethelbert Stauffer
<p style="text-align:justify;">Before Carotta it was the German Protestant theologian Ethelbert Stauffer, who produced the most substantial research into the accordances between Caesar and Christ and their religions respectively. Stauffer focused primarily on Caesar's divine grace and forgiveness (Clementia Caesaris) and on the ritual content of his funeral.

Christ and the Clementia Caesaris
<p style="text-align:justify;">Orosius, Hist. 6.17.1; http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/orosius/orosius6.shtml#17

Improperia
<p style="text-align:justify;">During Caesar's funeral an uncustomary laudatio funebris was delivered by Mark Antony, who was the designated flamen Divi Iulii, highpriest of the deified Caesar. His oration included lamentation over the deceased Roman savior and lord, praise for his divine deeds, but also accusations and reproach against his enemies. He was answered with dirges sung by choirs among the crowd. During the funeral lament the voice of an invisible Caesar—possibly belonging to an archimimus—resounded and uttered a verse of Ajax bemoaning his unfair defeat and the treachery of his companions, quoted from Pacuvius' play The Arms of Achilles—"Oh! Have I saved them that they might murder me?"—, which was meant to mythologize Caesar's undeserved assassination upon his resurrection as god during the funeral. The choirs replied with verses from the Latin version of Electra by Atilius. It has been shown that the general structure of this ritual is mirrored by the Good Friday improperia, which contain lamentation, praise for divine deeds, and probrum ("reproach", "disgrace"), furthermore also a dialog between the priest and a Latin-Greek double choir, as well as similarly structured songs like the Popule meus: "My people! What have I done to you? How have I offended you?".

The Gospel of Mark and Plutarch's Caesar
<p style="text-align:justify;">The interpretation of the Gospel in the context of the ancient Graeco-Roman biography has been a common topos in modern scholarship. In addition, the textual dependency of Mark's gospel on Roman sources was further corroborated by Detlev Dormeyer, who verified that the Markan gospel and Plutarch's Caesar biography are based on a common genre pattern that probably originated with the Historiae by Asinius Pollio, whose work served as the basis for many later historical sources—often verbatim, as in the case of Appian's Roman History. Dormeyer demonstrated striking parallels between Caesar's biography and the Gospel of Mark in terms of the genre of the Roman vita: Their dramatic structures are in full accordance XYZ MORE SUMMARY

Other Roman origin theories
<p style="text-align:justify;">Apart from the Graeco-Roman components instanced by the mimetic and mythical schools (see above), several other theories on a more or less distinctly Roman origin of Christianity have surfaced over the course of the 20th and 21st century, some of them esoteric, pseudohistorical and/or conspiracy theories, whereas the majority negates the historical existence of Christ and maintains a fictional and/or mythological origin of the Gospel narrative. These affiliations to the mythical school often blur the dividing line between designated Roman origin theories and those that simply allege an origin from non-Roman environments within the geographical boundaries of the Roman empire.

<p style="text-align:justify;">Classicist and philosopher Livio C. Stecchini alleged that the Gospel was derived from a hypothetical lost play by ancient dramatist Seneca the Younger. Metaphysician and biosophist Walter Siegmeister, writing under the pseudonym "Raymond W. Bernard", maintained that the original Christian messiah was Apollonius of Tyana, whose identity was replaced by that of the fictitious god-man "Jesus Christ", and whose cult, which was performed by his Manichaean followers, was altered into the new Christian religion at the First Council of Nicaea, while the newly forged Gospel scriptures and the religion's origin were antedated by several centuries. Egyptologist and archaeologist Margaret Morris theorized that the traditions of Apollonius of Tyana were rather the basis for the New Testament depiction of the apostle Paul, while the Gospel narrative itself primarily originated from the writings about emperor Augustus. D. M. Murdock writing under the pen name "Acharya S[urami]" claimed that a conspiracy of various Roman cultists, mysts and members of secret societies forged Christianity to unite the Roman empire under one religion. In a Caesarian variant of the mythological school Gary Courtney hypothesized that Jesus is a fictional character modeled on Julius Caesar, whose assassination was vulgarized through a hypothetical dramatic play that together with the accounts of his life was eventually adapted by Jewish scribes as Jesus' ministry and passion in the Gospel, after combining it with the historical accounts on the Apostles. Like Carotta before him, Ralph Ellis noticed the same accordances between the lives and writings of Flavius Josephus and the apostle Paul, but instead used them to postdate the Gospel narrative to the first Jewish War, which he believed was provoked by a taxation of the family of Jesus, who was an influential Roman client king ruling from Syro-Judaean Gamala and a direct descendant of Cleopatra and Mark Antony, who then fought in the ensuing war with his disciples, was reprieved from crucifixion and exiled to Britannia, where he became known as Atur-tii ("The Egyptian"), and consecutively as King Arthur. Stephan Huller did not question the historicity of Jesus, but argued that he was only a herald of the true Roman messiah Marcus Iulius Agrippa, the last king of the Jews, who is supposed to be the historical figure behind Saint Mark the Evangelist.

Flavian and Pisonian conspiracy theories
<p style="text-align:justify;">Many Christians have regarded the ancient historian Flavius Jospephus and his writings as an important element within the historical framework of the origin of Christianity. While Francesco Carotta's theory postulates that the New Testament writings and especially the gospels may have been redacted in the times of Flavian rule in order to redefine the original Julio-Claudian founding cult as the founding cult of the successive imperial Roman dynasty in the first century CE, various other authors have alleged that the Flavians actually invented Christianity by directly supervising the creation of the New Testament and the Gospel as a fictional and/or typological account, selectively substituted by the Piso family or with the help of Roman authors like Josephus. These theories have proven to be comparatively popular in late 20th and 21st century historical revisionism and secret history.

<p style="text-align:justify;">The original impulse ostensibly came from an author writing in the 1970s under the pseudonym "Abelard Reuchlin", who invented the conspiracy theory that "Flavius Josephus" was simply a pen name for a supposedly historical person called "Arius Calpurnius Piso" or "Arrius Piso", who with the help of authors like Pliny the Younger fabricated the gospels in order to perpetuate the dominion of the Roman aristocracy and deceive the common people. Reuchlin's conspiracy theory has remained popular for many decades and was extended by authors like John Duran. Cliff N. Carrington maintained that the gospels are a work of fiction written mainly by Flavius Josephus under Flavian supervision. In a similar approach the Flavians conspired with Flavius Josephus and other authors like Pliny the Younger to invent the Gospel as war propaganda aimed at the Jews, and as a secret typological satire of Vespasian's and Titus' campaigns in Palestine, intertextually connected to Josephus' The War of the Jews. This Flavian conspiracy theory was later extended in the claim that a single thread of Flavian-Christian typology was deliberately woven through the historical literature from the Flavian-Christian gospels and Josephus' works, later Christian writings like the Pauline epistles and the Book of Revelation, Roman authors like Suetonius, Pliny the Younger and emperor Trajan to eventually form a universal typological framework for William Shakespeare, whose works were allegedly authored by Emilia Lanier.