I've been intrigued by Caesar's Messiah ever since it came out and can see increasingly how the New Testament was perhaps the original "Fake News" or more accurately "Fake History" used by the government as propaganda to subdue the people.

It's chilling to see some of the same strategies employed in our current political arena. I wish more Christians would consider the possibility of this scholarly question regarding the origins of the New Testament as relevant.

the link is interesting. I have always found it interesting that the Roman Emperor Constantine would decide to convert to the religion of non-romans and slaves, The Romans went from feeding christians to lions to being christian. I suspect the emperor found only having one god superior to having many to maintain power. These are just my thoughts on how religion and politics might have interacted

there may have been a roman conspiracy to FURTHER deify the newly invented jesus, but if the apostle paul existed (never mind if jesus existed), he and the greeks started that up. (of course the romans copied everything greek!) jesus is even a greek name. thing is, there is an old (i mean OLD!) jewish expression that translates as "he's a real son of god!" it was said of someone who was pious and wasn't meant to be taken literally. when paul went to greece to get everyone there on board, he told them about judaism (they were really not interested in getting circumcized as adults, and they were loath to abandon their only real industries: raising pigs and fishing, including for shellfish. however, the idea of a "real son of god" was just the kind of thing they already believed. zeus was always coming down to earth and raping/impregnating human women. this concept they could dig. so paul had a choice to make: convert the greeks to judaism, which not only were they not going along with at all but which just isn't done (jews don't proselytize!) or get them to worship jesus (not, as i've mentioned, his real name, if he even existed, but that's a whole OTHER ball of wax). he chose the latter. christianity is born! anything the romans did after that is reinvention, not invention.

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I have this documentary and it's quite watchable. I posted it to my Google drive and will leave it there for a couple of days if you want to grab it and watch it. Either download or install VLC Player to stream it.

[drive.google.com]

You mean God didn't impregnate a woman with himself to have himself born so he could sacrifice himself to himself in order that we might be saved from the sins that he himself invented since God created everything in Heaven and earth? Dang!

Actually, would the Romans have gone to that trouble, I mean to create a fake news Messiah? They were more your 'send in the legions and kill enough people til the occupied people were bent to Rome's Will' kind of dudes.

I think the 'God Man' meme took off in the first century and evolved over the new few centuries until it took a life of its own, as mythologies do, only in the 4th century a group decided he was real and killed anyone who challenged that. The rest, as they say, is history. A history of blood and death cult.

Interesting hypothesis

This is a version I never heard of.

It was Nero who propelled xianity into the spotlight. Someone needed to be blamed for Rome burning. The xians were a handy lot. The only issue was that they were a little too spectacular when fed to the lions. When given the chance to live and renounce their faith or to be eaten... They held strong and would rather die than renounce their faith.

But Nero ended up with the Domus Aurea... Which is what he wanted all along.

Similar to our orange headed buffoon in the WH... Nero had no idea of the ill and lasting effects his diseased brain would cause. Let us pray the story ends exactly the same!