Read Online Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus:Flavian Signature Edition by Joseph Atwill - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Joseph Atwill
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yourselves according to your families, and kill the Passover lamb.
“And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin …” 49
The phrase House of Hyssop , therefore, brings to mind the first Passover sacrifice. Another statement in this passage can also be seen as relating to the Passover sacrifice. After slaying her son, the woman roasts the body. In God’s instructions to Moses as to how to prepare the Passover sacrifice, God ordered the following:
“Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted in fire—its head with its legs and its entrails.” 50
Josephus’ use of the word “ splanchon ” also builds on this theme—“ splanchon ” being the Greek word that was used to describe those parts of a sacrificed animal reserved to be eaten by sacrificers at the beginning of their feast. Yet another detail recorded by Josephus also links this passage to the New Testament. Josephus gives the name of Mary’s father as Eleazar, which in Greek is Lazarus, the name of the individual whom Jesus raised from the dead.
Thus, in the passage from Wars of the Jews we are analyzing, Mary’s son can be seen as a symbolic Passover lamb. The “human Passover lamb” is established using the same method used by the author of the Gospel of John, who also denoted the symbolic Passover lamb by combining a reference to hyssop with an instruction to Moses about preparing the Passover lamb—that not one of its bones is to be broken in preparing it.
Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop and put it to his mouth.
So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing his head, He gave up his spirit …
Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with him.
But when they came to Jesus and saw him already dead, they did not break His legs.
John 19:29-30, 32-33
Identifying Jesus with the symbolic Passover lamb at his crucifixion continued a theme begun at the Passover supper where Jesus asked the disciples to eat of his flesh.
Also during the meal He took a Passover biscuit, blessed it, and broke it. He then gave it to them, saying, “Take this, it is my body.”
Mark 14:22
There is then a clear parallel between the New Testament’s son of Mary who asks that his body be eaten, and the “son of Mary” Josephus described who actually has his flesh eaten.
Josephus connects the Mary described in his passage to the Mary in the New Testament with another of the details he records. He describes the famine—as Whiston translates it above—as having “pierced through Mary’s very bowels.” In the New Testament, being pierced through is predicted for only one person, Jesus’ mother Mary:
Then Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His mother, “Behold this child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against
(yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also; that the reasoning in many hearts may be revealed.)”
Luke 2:34-35
The fact that the New Testament’s Mary and the Mary in Wars of the Jews both had their heart pierced has, to my knowledge, never been noticed by another scholar. The reason for the oversight is important. Scholars have not noticed the parallel between the two Marys because it is more conceptual than linguistic. In the New Testament, the Greek words making up the phrase are dierchomai psuche while in Wars of the Jews they are dia splanchon. Though the words that indicate the piercing through, dia 51 and dierchomai , 52 are linguistically related (the verb dierchomai having the preposition dia as part of its stem), the words used to describe the part of Mary that was to be pierced through— psuche and splanchon —are different.
Psuche , 53 the word
“And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin …” 49
The phrase House of Hyssop , therefore, brings to mind the first Passover sacrifice. Another statement in this passage can also be seen as relating to the Passover sacrifice. After slaying her son, the woman roasts the body. In God’s instructions to Moses as to how to prepare the Passover sacrifice, God ordered the following:
“Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted in fire—its head with its legs and its entrails.” 50
Josephus’ use of the word “ splanchon ” also builds on this theme—“ splanchon ” being the Greek word that was used to describe those parts of a sacrificed animal reserved to be eaten by sacrificers at the beginning of their feast. Yet another detail recorded by Josephus also links this passage to the New Testament. Josephus gives the name of Mary’s father as Eleazar, which in Greek is Lazarus, the name of the individual whom Jesus raised from the dead.
Thus, in the passage from Wars of the Jews we are analyzing, Mary’s son can be seen as a symbolic Passover lamb. The “human Passover lamb” is established using the same method used by the author of the Gospel of John, who also denoted the symbolic Passover lamb by combining a reference to hyssop with an instruction to Moses about preparing the Passover lamb—that not one of its bones is to be broken in preparing it.
Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop and put it to his mouth.
So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing his head, He gave up his spirit …
Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with him.
But when they came to Jesus and saw him already dead, they did not break His legs.
John 19:29-30, 32-33
Identifying Jesus with the symbolic Passover lamb at his crucifixion continued a theme begun at the Passover supper where Jesus asked the disciples to eat of his flesh.
Also during the meal He took a Passover biscuit, blessed it, and broke it. He then gave it to them, saying, “Take this, it is my body.”
Mark 14:22
There is then a clear parallel between the New Testament’s son of Mary who asks that his body be eaten, and the “son of Mary” Josephus described who actually has his flesh eaten.
Josephus connects the Mary described in his passage to the Mary in the New Testament with another of the details he records. He describes the famine—as Whiston translates it above—as having “pierced through Mary’s very bowels.” In the New Testament, being pierced through is predicted for only one person, Jesus’ mother Mary:
Then Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His mother, “Behold this child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against
(yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also; that the reasoning in many hearts may be revealed.)”
Luke 2:34-35
The fact that the New Testament’s Mary and the Mary in Wars of the Jews both had their heart pierced has, to my knowledge, never been noticed by another scholar. The reason for the oversight is important. Scholars have not noticed the parallel between the two Marys because it is more conceptual than linguistic. In the New Testament, the Greek words making up the phrase are dierchomai psuche while in Wars of the Jews they are dia splanchon. Though the words that indicate the piercing through, dia 51 and dierchomai , 52 are linguistically related (the verb dierchomai having the preposition dia as part of its stem), the words used to describe the part of Mary that was to be pierced through— psuche and splanchon —are different.
Psuche , 53 the word
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