User:Arne Eickenberg/Caesarian origin of Christianity

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Francesco Carotta (b. 1946 in Veneto, Italy) is an Italian engineer, linguist and philosopher, and a former IT entrepreneur and publisher, who now works as a historian, archaeologist and Biblical researcher. Carotta is a co-founder of the German newspaper die tageszeitung. As author he is best known for his theory that the historical Jesus was Julius Caesar. After a few preliminary releases Carotta published his theory in the German book War Jesus Caesar? (1999), which was later translated into Dutch and English.

Theory
Carotta came to the conclusion that Jesus is Divus Iulius, the deified Julius Caesar, as he has been transmitted through history, after a detailed comparison of the accounts on Julius Caesar and the Roman civil war in Suetonius, Appian, Cassius Dio and Plutarch with the Greek Gospel of Mark. Using the tools of linguistics, philology and textual criticism as well as numismatical, iconographic, and archaeological evidence, Carotta argues that the Gospel of Mark is a corrupted retelling of the Roman civil war—from Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon to his assassination, funeral and apotheosis, paralleled by Jesus' ministry from the Jordan to his capture, crucifixion and resurrection. Following Gérard Genette Carotta maintains that the textual mutation and delocalization came about by diegetic transposition, an error-prone process of copying mistakes, mistranslations, misinterpretations, adaptations and redactions in different cultural contexts for distinct political purposes, which produced the vast amount of divergent early Christian literature. He further argues that the final metamorphosis of the new religion, which was to reinterpret the Julian cult according to Flavian imperial policies with special regard to ancient Palestine, was induced under Vespasian and his historian Flavius Josephus, whose vita provided the groundwork for the hagiography of the Apostle Paul in Acts II. According to Carotta Jesus is therefore the Divus Iulius of the Flavians.

Reception
Initial reactions to the first German edition were mixed. Based on Carotta's past as a part-time satirical artist some feuilleton critics assumed that War Jesus Caesar? was meant as a science parody, while other journalists praised the book, calling it "provoking", "astounding" and "meticulous". Except for few statements scholars and clerics remained silent, which only changed with the English and Dutch translation that created much controversy in academic and journalistic circles in the Netherlands.

Jerome Murphy-O'Connor criticized Carotta for avoiding explanations of his theory and also expressed doubt concerning the parallels between Jesus' and Caesar's life. 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."

Peter Stothard called Carotta's theory of Mark's gospel as a corrupt retelling of the Roman civil war "highly notable" in the reception theory form of scholarship. The 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 a desecration of their body. Carotta's theory was endorsed by classical philologian Fotis Kavoukopoulos, who called it "a paradigm shift in the history of religion". Erika Simon wrote that Carotta's book ties with previous 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 will contribute "that we remain open to questions concerning early Christianity". 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. The Spanish theologian Antonio Piñero wrote that Carotta's theory on 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 the complexity of his theory as a possible problem.

Publications

 * F. Carotta, "Verkündigung: Caesars Kreuzigung — Das Evangelium nach Kleopatra", in: Cam (ed.), Memoria 2090 — Kalenden und Iden, Freiburg 1989
 * F. Carotta, War Jesus Caesar? 2000 Jahre Anbetung einer Kopie, Munich 1999 (= Was Jezus Caesar? Over de Romeinse oorsprong van het christendom, Soesterberg 2002)
 * F. Carotta, "Christus ein Mythos?", review of G. Courtney (1992), Et tu, Judas? Then fall Jesus, Kirchzarten 2002 (English translation)
 * F. Carotta, "Il Cesare incognito — Da Divo Giulio a Gesù", in: L. Canfora (ed.), Quaderni di Storia 57, Milan 2003
 * F. Carotta, Jesus was Caesar. On the Julian Origins of Christianity, Soesterberg 2005 (extended English edition)
 * F. Carotta, "Los evangelios como transposición diegética: una posible solución a la aporía ¿Existió Jesús?", in: A. Piñero (ed.), ¿Existió Jesús realmente?, Madrid 2008 (English translation)
 * F. Carotta, "Orfeo Báquico: La Cruz Desaparecida", Écija/Madrid/Kirchzarten/Berlin 2009 (English translation).
 * F. Carotta, "Orfeo Báquico: La Cruz Desaparecida", Écija/Madrid/Kirchzarten/Berlin 2009 (English translation).