Ep. 013: Did Roman Emperors Create Christianity

Andrew Bernstein and Bosch Fawstin will interview James Valliant, co-author of "Creating Christ: How Roman Emperors Invented Christianity." The questions: What is the actual provenance of the world's most popular religion?  Is the conventional view mistaken? Was Christianity actually developed by the Roman state to pacify fanatically rebellious Jews? This will be a fascinating discussion of a boldly original and controversial claim regarding Christianity's genesis.

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hey everybody out there in the freedom of speechland welcome back to truth in politics starring your hosts andrew bernstein and bosh fosten uh i am andrew bernstein bosch how are you doing tonight excellent excellent i'm looking forward to this yeah me too so let's let's just get right into it we have tonight we have an illustrious guest uh james valiant co-author of an extraordinary new book let me let me get this up in front in front of the camera creating christ how roman emperors invented christianity by james valiant and warren faye he strongly recommend this book in fact i reviewed it for the objective standard uh and so james valiant welcome to truth in politics well thank you it's great to be here i mean fantastic beer and thank you for that review it was fantastic and much appreciated sir you are very welcome and everybody everybody out there just so you know this is this is not like a fraternity and everything although jim valiant and i have known each other for many years read the book and you'll see for yourself how boldly original it is and why it's so deserving of a very you know positive review uh but speaking speaking of the fraternity here before we get into the questions and everything i just want to tell everybody uh jim valiant and i go back to 1984 i think you know when i was i was a i was bosh i was at everybody out there in freedom of speech when i was a kid in graduate school you know at the city university in new york graduate school right writing my dissertation on william james and i was teaching objectivism the philosophy of objectivism at the new school for social research uh you know this this real hoity-toity fancy your left-wing college down in greenwich village and jim i was a kid from brooklyn tim you were a kid from california studying philosophy at nyu as i recall is that right yeah i was born and raised in the la area but around the age of 17 i moved to new york so i could do my undergraduate work at nyu got a degree in philosophy and history there at nyu so i was living there in the village for a while in brooklyn for a while but a good friend of mine good friend of ours robert begley recommended uh your course at the new school for social research and it was right there and wow it was a mind blower as i said to you before i still use formulations that you gave me in that in that course wow well thank you thank you very thank you very much i appreciate it and you know teaching the new school i got to tell everybody bots you should have seen this and everybody the the clan the new school is this wacky place it reminds me of your john eric snyde in the fountainhead you know anything goes the goofier the better even objectivism you know and the cost for four hours was a class in warlocks and witchcraft you know wow you had all these witches in the class i'd look in the window as i was terrified well you could hear lectures on just about anything at the new school you really could their curriculum buried and was really kind of wild sometimes yeah it was from witchcraft to objectivism you know in a with a five minute director you know but then you know they probably as you said anything goes so yeah i didn't really care there was some they were so subjective is they took their subjectivism seriously anything the wackier the better but anyhow bash this was 1984 you know so jim we were a little bit younger back then you know yes the energy that we had back then yes yeah i think we still have the energy but you know we're not as young as we used to be but you know to segue into jim's book um creating christ how roman emperors invented christianity i have a copy here of my all-time favorite book the fountainhead uh you know which is the story of howard rock this brilliantly original thinker in the field of architecture and right at the start notice what iron man says about him when they're looking at rock's drawings she says there were sketches of buildings such as had never stood on the face of the earth they were as the first houses built by the first man born who had never heard of others building before him unquote from the fountainhead and i was reminded of that when i read your book because because it's 2 000 years of christianity gazillions of people brilliant philosophers and theologians and writers have written on christianity friend and foe and people who were you know who undecided on it and nobody until you and your co-author you know had come up with this idea that a christianity was created by roman emperors to pacify fanatical jews i mean and then backed it with evidence this is a boldly original thesis it reminded me of howard rock and the fountainhead so that's just i wanted to introduce the topic that way wow you could you really could not have honored me in any way that could have hit me personally more powerfully sir um i am deeply honored um and it is frankly the moral inspiration of iran's art and in particular the independent vision of our heroes like howard roark that gave me the inspiration to and the strength to stand up against everyone in the entire world if i saw the truth and i could in my own mind with reason inductively prove it to myself and know with confidence that i had a point i was going to stand up for my truth even if the entire world opposed me and it was iran that gave me that that inspiration that vision and that emotional fuel to do it frankly a 30-year research project ran herself points out so brilliantly that art has the power to inspire human beings who plan for a lifetime and who must uh have goals that last decades and to do that art serves in a vital psychological function in keeping the emotional reality of what it is you know to keep our abstract values alive art iran's art more than any other did that for me and kept me going for 30 years wow well bashar i'm sure you know you have some questions for our guests when we're knocked out just just one thing also in terms of the work i mean the work itself i i do what i do you know i i go against islam and i write against him but this is a religious hero sir forgive me for it yeah you all want to second that bosh you are very very very of objectivism you put your voice in your mind sir you're very very kind thank you very much thank you thank you guys a big time but i just want to let you know that this your book it's controversial in its own way and it is you know the backlash of if any i know that you know christians in general won't do what what muslims do they might they might they might threaten maybe i want to ask you what has been the backlash if andy from your christian friends from your christian readers from individuals that you that you admired and respected over the years who are christians honestly when the book came out i did not think there would be any reception at all i thought that it was so outside the mainstream that it would be largely ignored and uh i thought that if maybe in a few generation 100 years from now or something someone picked it up off the shelf dusted it off and said man you know this guy had a point that would be the most that i could really accomplish with this book uh i have been blown away by the reaction when we started sending the manuscript out the number of academics and scholars and writers in the field who gave us positive feedback and such positive feedback that it was mind-blowing professor eisenman who we quote on the book professor emeritus uh near eastern religions one of the great scholars of the dead sea scrolls the hero that got the huntington library to release the complete photo static copy of the dead sea scrolls that man had amazing praise for our book uh and it's scholarship and and so forth um since it's come out one of the leading mythicists in the field of biblical scholarship dr robert price has in effect embraced it not in terms of uh agreeing with everything that it says but as in in effect um he was a critic of anything that was similar to this sort of thinking he's now been converted to the idea that it is at least a rational argument and one that may in his terms be probable so to get a skeptic of that and that fame and that of that caliber to get that far has been mind-blowing for us uh covid delayed production but we have a documentary series coming out in about a year maybe 10 months from now or the emmy award-winning documentarians are going to have produced a three-part documentary series based on creating christ they've taken footage in europe and italy and various other places interviewed these scholars and other scholars uh so that there'll be a three-part documentary series on creating christ now if you told me that professor eisenman or dr price were world famous scholars in the area would uh endorse it or that that we'd have a three-part documentary series i would have told you you were crazy but that's great great wow right i'm blown away that is great for here i mean i i wouldn't have expected it myself but uh that's outstanding that's why of course mainline christian apologists are going to ignore it largely or misrepresent it and that's what i expected and that has been what's happening right right um so now for people who are not familiar with with your books theme do you want to uh express succinctly what's what's the essence of the case here what do what do you think the the the uh how roman emperors created christianity on that you know what i guess it just sounds um nuts right um and uh but when you think about it for a minute uh it actually becomes somewhat obvious and the evidence for it has sort of been sitting under everyone's noses for the better part of 2000 years in the first century of uh the common era the century in which jesus is said to have been alive but there was a great political and cultural event which cannot be ignored a cataclysmic apocalyptic war between the jewish people and the roman empire the roman empire had basically followed a policy of religious and cultural tolerance allowing locals to maintain their culture and their religion in fact even adopting the religion gods of the locals and integrating them into their own pantheon with monotheistic jews this was sort of problematic they had to create exceptions for monotheistic jews from the normal um practice of paying ob essence to state roman state gods uh these exceptions did not work out a good bulk of the jewish population for religious reasons rejected rule by the more pluralistic uh western roman empire and they wanted mosaic law very much like muslims today want sharia law to be the law of the land so they wanted the mosaic law of the torah to be the law that governed them and they found any foreign rule offensive a couple of centuries earlier they had thrown off a syrian uh rule during the famous hanukkah revolt of the maccabees and based on that success they believed that they could be success have success again against the roman empire this war lasted from 66 to 73 uh 80 and it may have cost up to a million lives it reduced the famous jewish temple to the wailing wall that it is today tens of thousands of jewish slaves were taken into captivity as a result of this war he in fact in effect enforced the diaspora for the better until israel was created in the middle of the 20th century and so the the impact of that jewish war culturally on both jews and the romans cannot be underestimated um historians of the period are in agreement that it was religion that basically caused it it was a hopeless war very much so it was almost as suicidal as a al qaeda suicide bombers attack they kind of anyone with sense in their head would know that fighting the roman war machine at its peak meant a disaster but for religious reasons and there was religious terrorism associated with it again very much like we would associate with uh contemporary uh jihadists in islam and according to the contemporary historians it was these messianic prophecies prophecies that predicted a deliverer would come and liberate the jews and bring them earthly success politically and militarily here on earth that most inspired this jewish war and both jewish historians and pagan historians of the period say that that was the central motivation for the jews behind this war now if one reads the new testament one reads the earliest christian documents one could not imagine a greater contrast ideologically to the id to the ideas of the jewish rebels christianity is a strange thing it seems to be based on judaism and yet it takes judaism that you know sharp elbow in a very different direction for example it criticizes all the fundamentally distinctive features of judaism that are based in the mosaic law kosher diet circumcision strict sabbath observance all of that thrown out the window and it is in contrast to judaism's militancy in nationalism it is pacifistic it is transnational um it calls for peace on the face of it it looks to be a criticism of the first century jewish rebels in their own terms in their within their own language from the thirty thousand foot elevation anyone can really see the christianity what we call christianity which emerged in the first two centuries it's no accident that it emerged just at this moment of this religious war is itself a critical reaction to the nationalist militant torah orthodox messianic jewish philosophy that was behind the rebellion the jewish rebellion so christianity in effect the new testament in effect represents a critical response a way of being a messianic jew is being offered yet that is accommodative to the roman empire uh at peace with the roman empire once this idea begins to settle once we actually for the first time start to place christianity within its political and cultural context we begin to see clearly what it is and once you look at it from that standpoint the roman fingerprints are all over it jesus praises a roman centurion as having greater faith than any contemporary jew imagine um imagine a muslim shaykh saying that an american gi in afghanistan had more faith than any muslim on earth that would be the equivalent it screams a political message the new testament not just a theological message but a political message buried within its theological and ethical message you know jim let me interrupt you for just a second because you know i i'm not an expert in the bible but i have some familiarity with it and i've read you know the epistles of paul and i read your book it's just guys how did i miss that that that letter in romans when when paul says you know obey the political authority you know anybody who rebel you know god placed them there for a reason anybody who who rebels against them is going against god and you know it's just how did i miss that you know jim jim valian james valian's book and lauren fahey's book yeah of course he's this is roman propaganda it's the roman political propaganda right obey the state that's what you know and this is this is saint paul speaking this is not some minor figure in history christianity it's not a secret either i mean it's been used by christian governments uh for the la again for the better part of the last 2 000 years as the of textual justification for uh christian authoritarian governments of the divine right of kings louis xiv cited romans chapter 13. god the government is god's appointed agents on earth now in roman times it was really clear who paul was talking about he makes it crystal clear it's the roman state not not jewish authorities romans 13 makes clear that rebellion is a sin paying taxes isn't just a good idea it's a religious duty no uh fudging on your taxes uh we obey the state why because they are god's appointed agents on earth now mind you this was written in the age of caligula and nero there was no uh taxation without representation idea or anything we're talking about the roman empire a slave state um and they're saying in the new testament in its number remind you romans is considered by scholars to be one of the earliest documents of the new testament it could be one of the four or five earliest known uh pieces of christian literature that survive and right there obey the roman state as god's appointed agents on earth paul says it in any number of ways and the wider pauline literature some of which wasn't written by paul himself on four separate occasions no less slaves are admonished to obey their masters even harsh ones it's a salvation opportunity don't you know um tax taxes of course render under jesus famously says render unto caesar specifically pay your roman taxes um jesus says go the extra mile what does that mean on roman roads they would have milestones and if you lived within the milestones if the roman army happened to be passing through you had to provide material support the food and shelter to the passing room as the roman army passed through between europe the milestones in which you lived and so jesus was specifically saying go the extra mile you pay give the roman army twice the support that law requires um he befriends tax collectors for gosh sakes the entire concept of messiah in the first century was an earthly political one to jews what happens in the new testament is extraordinary with a little help from platonic dualism the whole concept of messiah becomes a supernatural one jesus says my kingdom is not of this earth i am i may be the king of the jews but i'm perfectly safe to you romans because my kingdom is not here at all and so defanging the politically uh electric notion of messiah would be sort of like defanging the notion of job today for muslims and that's exactly what the new testament is doing so it strikes me as uh you'd have to be kind of blind not to see the political agenda that is consistently running through um the new testament well i've been blind for long this is one point i've been blind for a long time until i read your book because i mean i was raised in judaism and i know the old testament a little bit so so i mean the old testament is such a bloody book i mean where god's exhorting you know he's chosen people to war against pagans i mean in the review i had that quote from exodus where god says i'm gonna send hornets you know to terrorize the pagans they shall not live on your land you know you gotta kill them you know um and so you know it finally occurred to me when i read your book jim jesus if he actually preached what the new testament says he preached in the gospels he could not have acquired any following of jews they were steeped in this old testament literature of war against the pagans and they were doing it like you said and jesus's message went wow you know it's like a this is like a quaker this is like a quaker going into a kkk meeting and saying we gotta we gotta love all people including the including the blacks i mean well the romans were probably given in protective custody and given him a soap box and a microphone um but they would have had to keep him under protective custody uh your general uh jewish population in galilee in the in the first century would have uh taken jesus out they would probably have not even understood him uh you know the one of the interesting things is the new testament is written in greek it's not written in aramaic or hebrew and it's very hard to trans re-translate transliterate back into aramaic or hebrew most of what we find in the gospels even sayings of jesus no in fact critical scholars have come to the point where even looking at it generously 85 percent uh of what jesus has claimed to have said in the new testament is known to have been uh something jesus could not have plausibly be said in his lifetime i mean take for example the famous uh pick up your cross and follow me now imagine jesus before the crucifixion right not only is he talking about his death he's talking about the matter of his execution and in symbolic terms pick up your own cross whatever that is and follow me so that it's obviously been written by a christian community that already thinks of the cross in symbolic terms put those words into the mouth of jesus and that can be said i think of most of um the alleged overtradicta of jesus i mean i'm confident that a good 90 interestingly the stuff that scholars say is the most authentic to jesus get this stuff like run to run to caesar whatever you put in your body is is not unclean it's what comes out of your body is critique kosher diet so his defensive taxes his critique of mosaic law all the things that are the most anti-jewish anti-rebel pro-roman or some of the stuff are the very things that scholar critical scholars says is would be the most authentic to jesus now i find that absolutely implausible these things are would have been said by now this is the thing to bear in mind too there was a variety of jewish opinion in the first two centuries there were many jews who worked very closely with the roman empire there were highly educated jews in the first century there was a jewish philosopher named philo who worked at alexandria in egypt the center of greek learning at the time and he integrated the ideas of plato uh and moses or did his best to if you think about it platonic duel the entire platonic approach is more consistent with jewish monotheism in a way and the neopla blankness really filled that out didn't they platinus with his form of the good very very easy to see uh sort of philosophical monotheism emerging in neoplatonism and that dovetailed very nicely for philo the jewish philosopher who basically integrated the two ideas in the years just before the writing of the new testament and in the new testament that's what we see we see thickly hellenized um plate platonic ideas ideas that really would be alien to um your ordinary jew of galilee or judea in the first century yeah i think i think most jews of the first century you know if this if if this is to be taken historically the gospels have to be taken historically i think they would have looked at him like how do you claim to be a jew when you're when you're preaching you know peace with the pagan surrender to the roman empire live peacefully with the pagans dominating uh the you know the canaan or judea the the promised land of of god's of god's chosen people you know and they and they would hearken back like you said jim to the the maccabees in the war again you know the war against the hellenizing jews what was that the basic story of the gospels jesus having rhetorical jousts arguments with jewish authorities and i mean all kinds of jewish authorities never pagan or roman authorities it's sad you see scribes pharisees those people jesus is constantly and his disciples are found doing physical labor on the sabbath so the pharisees come and say wait what the heck you know your disciples are working on the sabbath and jesus says the sabbath was made for man not man for the sabbath this isn't even an emergency like war time where you get a sabbath exception under traditional judaism they were harvesting crops and jesus is defending manual labor on the sabbath or take jesus's attack on kosher diet nothing you put in your mouth is impure it's kind of a gross image he says only what comes out of your body isn't pure uh it's nothing you put so there's no unkosher foods as far as he's concerned he says of an uncircumcised roman soldier that his faith exceeds any jew jesus is systematically attacking the distinctive features of the jewish uh religion and culture um now get this uh he comes into jerusalem um and what does he do he predicts the fall of jerusalem in the war now most prophecies most scholars realize were written after the fact and this prophecy scholars realized was probably written after the destruction of the temple but coming into jerusalem allegedly in the year around the year 30 33 jesus predicts the destruction of jerusalem the destruction of the temple in such detail mind you that it obviously was written after the actual event including armies being seen in the skies and so forth in any event uh jesus gives a dire warning against rebellion you guys are going to lose the temple is going to be completely destroyed promise he comes in he attacks the temple he has that's the money changers one of the money changers doing you're changing pagan money that has roman emperors and pagan gods faces on them for pure jewish money where you could buy the sacrifices for paso you know the passover lamb and so forth so jesus attacks the purity laws there attacks the temple morally justifies the roman destruction to come you've turned it to a den of thieves jesus says he physically commences the attack on the temple that the romans would complete 40 years later the romans would destroy the temple and jesus sort of starts it so what do they do they try jesus in a midnight sanhedrin court a kangaroo court they convict him of violating mosaic law now at the time they could have had jesus stoned for violating mosaic law it's right there in the new testament jesus interrupts the stoning of a sinning woman when he was without sin you know cast the first stone uh the stoning of saint stephen we even have the edicts from josephus that allowed jews before the jewish war to enforce the jewish law they did not in other words need to send jesus to pilate only after the jewish war would that have been necessary again suggesting the whole gospel story was written after the jewish war and not contemporary to jesus at all right in any event they just go to pilate and say we have no law to put a man to death and pilate in all four gospels the roman governor declares jesus to be innocent he is innocent period it was a jewish crowd artificially three times they were going to rebel we're told it's implied in all four gospels a rebellion was going to break out crucify and crucify in one of the gospels pilate gives the crowd a choice a real rebel do i release a real rebel or do i release jesus release the rebel crucify jesus in the gospel of matthew the jewish crowd even takes collective guilt his blood is on us and on our children say the jews in matthew and only then does pilate finally relent what melodramatic like a cartoon melo dramatically washes his hands and says okay you people you crucified him and it was a roman soldier at the crucifixion who says surely this was the son of god now this is obviously a parable naked roman propaganda on the face of it designed to exonerate the romans of any guilt in the crucifixion and specifically to blame the jews and their mad rebellious attitudes at the time it is a naked propaganda and in the storyline of the structure of all four gospels and through when the passion play was redone during the middle ages uh to christian audiences inevitably and i mean in most cases it would cause mob violence against the local jews because the theme of the passion is quite clear the jews collectively killed jesus our god our messiah and that story is responsible right so much anti-semitism right now i was going to say that you know that and and mel gibson's film not you know in in the 21st century was you know picked up the same the same theme right yeah you're right you're right the the new testament is so filled with pro-roman attitudes and animus towards jews that yeah that's responsible tragically for 2000 years of bitter christian anti-semitism i mean i mean you call it a fundamental anti-semitism within the new testament that's what it is that's where it was made for the new table you're right the purpose of the new testament was anti-semitic now i do believe that the principal scholars behind this roman project were themselves jews there were high-ranking as i say uh very well-educated very wealthy uh high-ranking jews who work closely with the roman empire the nephews of the philosopher philo for example one of them was at a siege of jerusalem next to the roman general titus who took down jerusalem in so in the year 70. um the roman emperor titus omar who was the general who took to out jerusalem he almost married a jewish princess berenicke the heritage and princess he was they were that close uh with jewish thinkers the historian josephus uh a trained jewish priest uh trained uh he was a jewish aristocrat from asmony and royalty uh he went over to the roman side um we have numerous examples of highly educated jews who i think are probably mostly responsible they would have been looking for a way to be a pro roman jew as well and so christianity is serving multiple ends i think one of the primary ends is to pacify the bulk of jews at the time i think who were messianic rebels but i also think that it was a nice way for uh accommodationist jews to be both still faith because this is the way josephus himself explains it i went over to the roman side because the jewish god had gone over to the roman side wow and if you and this was the kicker and this was what really got me if you were to ask me what was turn the light bulb on in my head this was back in 1983. i was at a library a public library i'm just sort of wasting my time at a public library because i was waiting for la traffic to calm down literally so i picked up a copy of josephus and i just started reading the roman emperor vespasian became emperor because he successfully put down the jewish war at the moment of the jewish war nero the last of the julian emperors uh was falling apart and had to commit suicide and so there was a civil war that opened up the imperial throne for the first time and so we'd need a second dynasty of emperors and based on his success and having a huge chunk of the roman army vespasian was able to successfully make a bid for power and become emperor josephus tells us that you know the real motive for this war was the jewish prophecies of the messiah well you know who the real jewish messiah was vespasian the roman general and emperor the uncircumcised non-jewish guy who killed thousands of jews is the real messiah you you all were looking for wow what a mind-blowing proposition in the second century tacitus and suetonius pagan historians roman historians say the same thing the space and they don't say claim to be tacitus and suetonius say yep this basian and titus were in fact this messiah the jewish prophecy pointed to so it occurred to me that an important part of flavian propaganda this propaganda from the second dynasty of roman emperor's vespasian and his son would put down the jewish war and they were the second dynasty of roman emperors and they were themselves declared to be gods after their death what did their cult look like they claimed to be jewish messiahs and they were advocates of peace they were in fact they advocated on their coins where you can see religious and roman propaganda pax orbis terrarium peace on earth the very language you hear in luke what does the birth of jesus herald according to peace on earth good will toward men well on roman coins struck by the flavians pax orbis terrarium concordia harmonia clementia mercy or to be featured hope specs all these christian eternas all these christian ideas are commonly featured on roman coins at the very time the gospels are being written the gospels are thick with roman political and religious propaganda as you can just by comparing the point language to the gospel city jim you know and speaking of coins one of the striking pieces of evidence that you you and and warren faye he cite outside the the new testament is the the original symbol of uh of jesus you know christianity which i didn't i did not know i mean i i always thought the cross was but you point out that that's not the case so then you there's a real link between the roman coinage of titus the emperor who claimed to be you know the messiah the second coming of jesus and and christian symbolism isn't it there sure is it's extraordinary again something that when you see it it's absolutely mind-blowing and there's really no other way to understand it the um image that we're talking about here is an anchor with a dolphin wrapped around it and this image is associated with the god apollo in pagan greek thought homer has a story of how apollo turns himself into a dolphin and so on the island of delos the legendary wonderful place to visit by the way this sun-baked uh greek island of delos all these temples and shrines to apollo and on the top of the hill there you'll see the various image the anchor with the dolphin wrapped around it and you'll see that image in more than one place in the island sacred to apollo the cell you said greek emperors uh the greek kings in the wake of alexander the great um you know alexander conquers the near east and so basically generals take charge of egypt and the last dynasty of uh pharaohs is greek the kings of syria and and iraq are greek and so we call this period the hellenistic period because greek culture is now spreading throughout the near east right the cell cellucids claim to be descendants of apollo and adopt this image uh uh during the hellenistic period and that then it goes out of favor um the next time it's used it's used by the emperor titus and we'll see images of the emperor titus on one side and this dolphin and anchor image on the other it was continued for a short period and i mean in proliferation this was minted there were several it types and issues with that image on it different casts even with the same image so thousands and tens of thousands of these coins were minted during the flavian era and it went into a little bit into dimensions time his brother although he discontinued it for a short time interestingly enough during the second jewish war it was revived by the romans but that was the only two times uh that the image was ever used it would not be so uh interesting if in fact the earliest physical evidence of christianity utilized anchor and fish imagery the earliest imagery we have of christian hope is the anchor and the earliest sign we have for the followers of jesus are fish attending the anchor the earliest image we have for jesus is a fish wrapped around an anchor just like the emperor titus who also claimed to be the jewish messiah it's particularly curious because of course jews could not represent god in any way it would be an idol it would be a graven image in violation of the ten commandments in the mosaic law right and so for christians to so quickly abandon uh this is another instance of christians quickly abandoning the mosaic law in favor of paganism they're representing jesus with and in the catacombs which are the earliest evidence of christianity the burial sites for christians uh roman law did not permit human bodies to be buried within the sacred precincts of rome so just outside the old city of rome you'll find these catacombs where christians and jews didn't burn the dead like romans did they buried the dead and kept the bones and ossuaries these were not secret hiding places for christians who had to hide from roman persecution that has been demonstrated they publicly knew that this were christians met and these images were used on these pagan images of anchors and fish are used on the burial sites of christians to show just what a sincere religious symbol it was for christians it went right on to their sarcophagi they meant that these symbols to be religious and it was meaningful to them and in the days before uh christianity became the official religion far outnumber images of the cross in as a way to symbolize jesus it was only after constantine and his sort of vision of a sort of cross in the sky that sort of got christians to replace the anchor and fish imagery with the cross imagery now crosses were a literary image a symbolic image before we do see them but just in much much view just a handful of instances of the cross in the early catacombs in the pre-constantine physical evidence of christianity the earliest physical evidence of christianity the oldest catacombs in rome are identified as both flavian and christian because they utilize the cross and the a or the anchor and the fish in just this way they're the catacombs of domatilla the granddaughter of vespasian the niece of titus her tomb is the oldest physical evidence of christianity that exists all right well hold on hold on a second i'm getting some feedback here hold on a second let me i'm just a kid from brooklyn let me try and summarize and essentialize this point because this is like mind-blowing so uh the earliest symbol of christianity is the dolphin wrapped around the anchor the cross doesn't become the symbol christianity until the fourth century eighty with with constantine so it's the same symbol uh that there's not not only that this roman emperor minted on you know thousands and thousands and thousands of roman coins but a roman emperor who just happened to be the guy one who fulfilled jesus prophecy in destroying the temple two who claim to be the messiah jewish messiah and three who claim to be the second coming of jesus he's the guy that minted the coins with the symbol that became the symbol of christianity that is that right exactly so sir that is just extraordinary i mean that is just get this titus enters jerusalem at the age of 30 just as jesus enters jerusalem triumphantly at the age of 30 predicting exactly what titus would do as he enters jesus said commences the destruction of the temple that's exactly what titus is famous for doing destroying the temple well one thing james this is a radical idea you have here but you and your co-author how did you meet and how did you basically agree on on this theory on this uh idea that this is what happened my co-author and i have known each other since i was 10 and he was 11. wow knew each other in grade school he was my older brother's best friend when we were kids growing up as teenagers you were going camping trips with our family and i had a wonderful family that encouraged discussion about anything philosophy when i discovered ayn rand they just had we never ended having philosophical discussions when there was something historical or political that would interest us we'd talk it all out and my parents encouraged that and so i had developed a sort of an intellectual rapport with uh him i knew he would be the guy who would understand there i was in the library reading josephus it suddenly went on in my head the new testament's basically roman propaganda maybe helped with these educate with the help of educated jews but basically it was designed uh it's the roman version if you will of messianic judaism designed to pacify the rebels and to give pro-roman jews a way of being roman um it hit me and so i just i had to think certain things through and compare it to certain new testament texts because suddenly all the whole message of peace clear to me in the new testament and so forth and uh all the platonic hellenistic elements suddenly began to make sense and click into place so i think it was about one in the morning before i was finally convinced in my head i'm onto something dr pikoff would say in the field of induction there was too much horizontal integration you see i knew i was onto something i had a valid hypothesis at least because of the all the horizontal integration that i could do with the data so at one in the morning i go to my old friend's apartment and talk about hutzpah i don't believe that what i am so i'm banging hysterically on his window wake up wake up wake up you gotta wake up dude you gotta wake up dude literally you gotta wake up dude it takes me about 20 minutes to get him out of the sack and he comes to the door needs a shave he's in his boxers okay jimmy this better better the hell be good okay this is the step so no no do really dude you're gonna so i download um the idea that the new testament is uh political propaganda you know what iran said ellsworth tui to the virtue of selfishness it stands to figure that where there's sacrifices being demanded collecting sacrifices and yes they always give mystical justifications for it there is no earthly reason as iran points out for altruism so what is the motive the real motive for altruism power power here on earth it's ellsworth tui knew it and iran would normally use hitler and stalin as her examples but guess what she she was smarter than she knew even the roman empire used altruism an extreme form of altruism as a political means of the authoritarian rule and suddenly it all became clear i download to my buddy it's all making sense to us now and you see i think it really took a post ein rand to penetrate the moral idealism of christianity put it that way people take for granted that it's morally good morally no no this turn the other cheek business is evil absolutely right through that nonsense and i said what's behind such inhuman evil and like ein rand i figured really and truly it is the political context of the time it's people seeking power here on earth that are promoting altruism for their own ends so that's what turned it on for me and after hours of discussion i mean we were up from i don't know what it was two in the morning till two in the afternoon the next day we had both committed that day that we were one day going to write a book and explain how the new testament was in effect roman propaganda well i'm glad he was able to forgive you for dragging him out of bed one o'clock in the morning i think everyone should have a friend like that yeah sorry did the roma did the romans think that they could flip the jews into christianity did they anticipate that did they want that did they i i think that there were a lot of jews that must have been and because look at it they were politics and religion weren't separate in people's minds or psychologies at the time the people who believed that a messiah would come and liberate them from roman rule really did believe it they risked their life for it in the famous siege of masada for example in 73 the population committed mass suicide rather than be taken captive by the romans these religiously committed people they killed their own children rather than have their children be taken in to roman custody yeah like like contemporary jihadists yeah wow right that's commitment so uh i think at one level they knew the romans knew they had to have an ideological response right and on another level i think that there were jews who were sincerely religiously shell-shocked by the event religiously show what did what wait if there's only one god and he's the all-powerful almighty creator god how come we jews lost could he be rewarding those pagans those pagan island worshipers no we must have sinned we killed jesus we killed the messiah and what the new testament is doing is providing them with a sort of psychological justification for why god turned on them in effect like a psyops like a yeah operation of a very sophisticated order yeah yeah it really is i mean they were military power they understood that kind of uh so you're pacifying slaves newly captured slaves who were formerly nationalist militants right um now i don't know how successful that was with the ones who are still hardcore um and i think that there we have the seeds of islam there were hardcore anti-total monotheistic total kosher diet total heart you don't symbolize god at all militant nationalist hardcores and they went into the desert outside of roman rule and in time they emerged as islam if the message of christianity is submit submit submit the message of the quran surely is kill kill kill absolutely wow um yeah jim obviously the well not obviously but the flavian propaganda was unsuccessful because 60 years later the fanatical jews rose up again against the uh against the romans but certainly you got certainly got to give the romans your a for effort it was a good it wasn't it was a good attempt i think i think that we have to also put it in context today for example in the united states the jewish population is what two percent that's very small only 15 million jews in the whole world right so we're talking single-digit percentage in the united states which is considered a relatively jewish country african-americans are what 12 13 of the population 15 of the population the entire population from rome to greece to egypt 15 of the population of the roman empire was jewish and so while there was a second rebellion that was also unsuccessful it's hard to know the success and not success so surely it was not successful in the sense there were still a bunch we rebelling and there would be now mind you it seems to me that there we see a stratification of jewish monotheism into three main groups at this time and right at this time the great grandfathers as i say of the uh muslims ebbia knights nazarenes the great grandfathers let's say of islam were coming into being right at this moment but also christianity and rabbinic judaism the school at yavna under johann and ben zakai begins rabbinic judaism which de-emphasizes uh uh both the idea of messiah putting him off into the abstractist and future and sort of turns judaism into a debating society more than a political message so that it could so that jews could co-exist in christian and muslim majority cultures uh without being a political threat and so you have rabbinic judaism you have the great grandfather the militant judaism bran breaking off being the great grandfathers of islam and then you have a fully romanized pro-peace neoplatonic in effect uh roman propaganda version of what we call christianity you know jim einrand taught us amongst other things in epistemology to integrate to go as wide as we can to see if we could you know you take a certain conclusion can you tie it to reality is it supported by evidence and then integrate how wide can we go how how successfully can we synthesize this with what else we know and so you pointed out in your book that this this was this was der aguer for the romans they were droid political geniuses they they attempted to co-opt in in many cases successfully the culture and religion of any number of conquered tribes and if there wasn't uh a roman attempted judaism it would be a lacuna right there'd be a gap there so you wanna you wanna explain that for the audience well the most famous example surely is the greek culture and greek religion uh when the romans started moving east and taking over a greek uh speaking places greek dominated places they didn't resist the religion at all they were deeply impressed by greek culture in many ways they would bring uh greek tutors to wealthy romans would pay good money to get greeks from alexandria and from greece itself to come tutor their kids greek was the educated person's language in rome and uh the romans in effect were cultural sponges absorbing every idea around them that they possibly could that they thought was worthwhile um they adopted the greek pantheon of gods almost one for one with their gods giving uh roman names names of their existing gods identities of their existing gods the identities of greek gods so their jupiter became zeus identified cross-identified if they couldn't cross identify them they'd keep the roman god and add the unique greek god so they in effect absorbed greek religion for cultural reasons and political reasons they went so far as to use greek religion in their own political propaganda the famous example i would use is virgil zined perhaps the outstanding work of latin literature of all time it's obviously imitative of homer homer it's like the odyssey in that it tells the story of a this time not a greek but a trojans uh flight from the trojan war and how he would come to the shores of italy and found the latin people who would be the ancestors of the romans so it's political propaganda but using greek religion and in fact the first dynasty of roman emperors claimed to be descendants of enes this trojan hero from homer from greek mythology so we can see political propaganda being a greek religion being used as political propaganda by the first dynasty of roman emperors and virgil was correct me if i'm wrong virgil was a supporter and an apologist for augustus what's he not he was on augustus's payroll yeah there you go there you go yes you know augustus is one of augustus's right-hand man mycenaes was the primary patron for both the poet's horus and virgil and uh virgil if when you read the anad it's naked propaganda he openly praises caesar as the descendant of the goddess venus and the descent and the hero aeneas the father of us latin people so uh naked political propaganda comes from greek religion in latin literature of the first century now think about that luke they we we see roman emperors identifying themselves with the egyptian god serapis a form of osiris we see them doing that with mithras the persian god we see that we in fact all over the roman empire you see uh inscriptions to local deities whether it's in germany or in syria or in morocco you see inscriptions by wealthy and political romans side by side with inscriptions to the local deities it was the practice of rome to co-opt and utilize local religion for their own political ends it would have been bizarre had the romans not uh considered an ideological response to the very ideologically caused jewish war it caused called for an empire-wide ideological response and the romans were precisely up to it romans you're sorry james it also at least has some implications like the uh crusades uh the muslims they sacked jerusalem uh the response from the pope at a time and the other christians were we have to fight them but there is the ethic of uh taneolochi who love that enemy but instead they go for 200 years they they go after the muslims and not only that they go after the uh the last christians the jews it gets really bloody and could that also in terms of what what what the idea of your book it's far more roman than it is you know christian in terms of taking up the sword and going to war with muslims it is a sin to uh to act in self-defense if you take jesus literally isn't it you can't run away if violently attacked you can't block the punch you sure can't fight back right you gotta say okay hit me on the other side you've got to offer yourself up for more violence you've got to take an extreme pacifist view jesus says this in many forms and repeatedly submit to the evildoer turn the other cheek blessed are the peacemakers let he use without sin as the you can't even judge other people so christians always deny that to me though they all say oh no no no no no that's not the case it goes like this augustine augustine of hippo the greatest of the early christian philosophers really systematically integrated plato and christian ideas he said self-defense is a sin he says it's natural being the ant sinning animal that you are with anger and lust in your heart as you are as a corrupt mortal you'll fight back but you know something it's a sin it's love and so when you do that you're sinning augustine said self-defense was a sin point blank self-love it wasn't until the 13th century with thomas aquinas who turned christianity into something livable using aristotle and natural law arguments he said no no no no no no for the christian laity self-defense is not a sin jesus was talking to the clergy he was talking to his apostles so he was just talking to the apostles and he's just talking to clergy therefore only the clergy under uh tomism have to turn the other cheek strictly speaking christian can act in reasonable self defense but until the twelve hundreds christians so how do you do it how did they do the crusades which began in the 11th century the pope had to give them special dispensation right and unless they got and guess what even when they got special dispensation they had to be dependents you've still sinned and shed blood so now you go pray and do this x y and z penance uh contribute to monasteries and so forth and now you've made up for the justifiable violence of clearing the pilgrim way because there's of course the in this death throat in the slow death rows of the christian byzantine empire as the islamic world was rapidly expanding in power when jerusalem was taken pilgrim christian pilgrims who would frequently come from europe on pilgrimage to the holy land found the pilgrims way uh affected and that was the nominal excuse for the crusades uh starting in 1099. right right right and just to get back get back to your main point jim uh jesus's pacifism and this turn the other cheek and resist ye not evil could not be more anti-old testament i mean it's not it's not possible yes especially regarding the pagans who god commands you know his chosen people to kill they shall not live on your land you know you know guys it's a few years ago i'm teaching comparative religion i won't mention the college i had this guy in class you know he's 50 something years old he's very smart he's you know he was he was a practicing episcopalian and he says he said in class one day i'll never forget he's he's i don't remember the passage in the old testament he says but god god tells the jews you know to kill everything and and and he goes on he says kill the men the women the children the dogs the cats the squirrels he said the squirrels you know i don't know you know god command that literally but i don't think the squirrels were in there but there's a famous scene in uh the samuel where uh the prophet samuel tells the first king of israel saul to go wipe out i mean genocide the amalekites to a man woman child slave animal do not spare the goats or the sheep or the cattle the slaves the children the women literally total genocide right i said no no first century a.d jew could possibly come up with the pacifistic ideas of jesus and if he did expect expect a jewish audience to be receptive to it it's because everything against the old testament that first century jews are steeped in and that's animating this war against the romans you i mean it's so strongly you know your point is so strongly supported by that this is not a jewish idea this is a western you know uh roman idea influenced by western philosophy it christianity far owes far more in some fundamental ways to platonism neoplatonism and stoicism than it does to judaism or moses really it's just a fact christianity and that's one of the reasons why i think classical ideas and aristotelian ideas took hold in the christian renaissance more deeply than they took hold in the golden age of islam aristotle was the hero of that period too uh but i think classical ideas found a more fertile ground in christian culture because it already had uh more helen hellenized basis as i said it is more moldable it is more willing to change more so than islam let's say yes one of the things about christianity i mean christianity a mere 300 years ago was burning witches of the snake right they were burning and torturing heretics out of christian love so the differences between uh you know a hardcore islam today and christians three four hundred years ago isn't that great christianity has changed right it's what christian you know in the wake of the enlightenment both christianity and judaism judaism under moses maimonides christianity under some very important christian philosophers um the serious secular ones you know those guys changed the way most christians even look at their own religion kant literally was coming along to salvage what he could of the christian sensibility it was under assault as far as he could see it even from liberal christian thinkers right well i mean not an accident const dates 17 24 to 1804 he was right through the heart of the enlightenment and the enlightenment of course defangs christianity uh culturally and and politically uh you know and but anyhow to get back to to to your main thesis again there's there's a good you provide you and warren feige provide a great deal of evidence from outside the there's a lot a lot you provide from within the new testament a lot you provide from outside the new testament one one is the coins you know that's where the symbolism is the roman symbolism is becomes the first symbol of of jesus but also uh pope uh saint clement right is a one of the early popes of the church uh he's a saint he's been canonized and yet i mean he's like a member of the emperor's family and he's a high-ranking official in the in the emperor's government is that azari yeah since the christian historian of the 4th century eusebius tries to confuse us he's just a relative and doesn't want him to be so close because even christians that early recognized that uh that's uh awfully close for comfort for a first century pope to be the you know uh cousin and uh for vespasian clement would be the great nephew he married his second cousin vespasian's granddaughter and their children were actually the designated heirs to the emperor domitian that's how close uh saint domitila whose tomb is the oldest catacomb the oldest physical evidence of any kind the christian for christianity is her tomb and uh strange enough she's the niece of titus the granddaughter of espacium her husband titus flavius clemens is catholic tradition had said that he was a first century pope saint clement of rome a first century pope now there was no such thing as a pope in the first century it's just later mythology in effect but it was strangely enough when they uncovered the church dedicated to saint clement of rome they found an earlier pre-constantine shrine dedicated to a titus flavius clemens and we have what many scholars regard as one of the oldest christian documents a first century document by this clement of rome which has all kinds of pagan illusions allusions to the roman army to the organization of church structure and yet he's aware of paul paul's hero appalling christianity is his message this is extraordinary stuff so again let me let me see if i got this right so an early cat early pope of the church and and canonized as a catholic saint was a very close relative of and a consul a high-ranking government official in the reigns of the station and titus who were the guys who just who destroyed the the jewish temple in fulfilling jesus's prophecy and claimed to be the jewish yeah just happened to be the guys who claimed to be there this guy clement would be a priest of their cults any close member of the imperial family such as titus flavius clemens would be a pontiff to date well the pope is of course his official title is pontifex maximus it's the same title as the high priest of the roman religion that the roman emperors held since the time of augustus wow that's maximus clement would have been in fact in history a pontifex to the messiah vespasian and the messiah titus yeah told by we're told by ancient historians that he was executed for adopting jewish ways not for being a jew but for being jew-like that has confirmed in my mind that we are actually talking about and there it's no doubt it's the member of the imperial family that saint clement of rome and titus flavius clemens are in fact the same one in the same person you know from the conventional view of christianity's uh uh provenance this just doesn't pass the smell test you know the this guy this guy was his uh early pope of the church and somebody was later canonized is as close to these roman emperors who are proclaiming themselves the second coming of jesus and the jewish messiah as anybody could could possibly be arguing for obviously a great deal of roman political influence on the development of catholic teachings and catholic faith i mean again it's a it's a strong historical piece of evidence in support of your thesis jim we have to use every we intentionally took an interdisciplinary approach again using the dr pickoff's term horizontal integration here is absolutely critical ancient history we're dealing with fragmentary evidence and it really has to have the strongest sort of horizontal integrations to be valid and we were astonished we were absolutely blown away by the uh various kinds of integration horizontal integration you can do here and whether it's the earliest church father's references material in the gospels themselves or the epistles one of paul's original letters uh written from rome says greetings from everyone in caesar's household our message is doing so well that no one in the imperial car the praetorian guard has not heard of our message and this is written in the first person in a letter so if this is a genuine first person letter from the first century by a major if not the original uh christian apostle we're talking about the highest level connections with the very origin of christianity right right and you know you point out very nicely in the book uh in acts you know one of the major uh books of the of the new testament that again as in the gospels you know with jesus with paul the same thing there's the roman authorities constantly i don't know how many times in in acts depicted as intervening uh to to protect paul from angry jewish mobs who are going to kill him yeah so the the message is just relentless the jews are bad guys in the romans you know other epistles paul is saying obey rome rebellion oh and foreigners can be converted in without being circumcised they can be full jews and members of israel previously and even to this day if you really want to be converted into judaism a male has to be circumcised if he's to become a member of the house yeah and no matter how old he is right yeah yeah yeah no no thanks she thought it's quite a different religion obviously they should obviously pose a challenge to conversion into jews yeah for adult males yeah for sure and so paul is saying no no you could be a full-on jew and belong without circumcision or kosher diet or straight you know and so paul's message was anti-torah pro-roman pro-peace and uh was re that is the essence of his message when you read in the book of acts the story of how it was the jews are constantly causing violent disturbances because they don't like what paul is saying paul's enemy are the orthodox jews and you can see why when you read those letters right yeah he's hacking torah um head on and so in acts who is it to roman officials roman clerks roman governors an entire cohort of the roman army comes out to rescue paul it's as if paul has the official support and sanction of the roman state in the book of acts yeah it's just it's amazing like you know like i said it took 2 000 years you know it's it's just it's just you know greatly to your credit you you know you and warren feye that that you conceived of this boldly original idea that has so much evidence to support it you know you you made you made your case i mean you convinced me i think i was trying to be as objective as i can obviously i have an honor you know an axe to grind against religion generally but but i'm trying to be as objective as i can your book makes sense it's too much evidence to support it i so resisted it myself i said really couldn't really be the truth i set out for myself challenge after challenge i made sure that i would read the pagan evidence that we would do the physical evidence including archaeology paleography numismology i made sure that we would consult experts on contemporary judaism experts on contemporary paganism uh we read every thing that we could find from genuine church fathers um we really exhausted the evidence as best as we could um and looked at it from every angle that we possibly could but at this point i'm fully convinced i i see there's little doubt in my mind the new testament is obviously a critical reaction to the jewish rebels of the first two centuries engineered by the roman state how did the uh documentary come about the uh i mean how did that did they contact you did uh i'm just curious out of the blue these documentarians contacted us and said we're blown away by your thesis we think it's correct um what do you think we started working my co-author and i started working with them on the sort of then they had all these marvelous ideas and then they come back from italy with all of this amazing stuff you know jesus dressed as a roman emperor you know christians in this early roman you know soldiers and stuff all this then when they came to california we came we went to the local catholic cathedral and my co-author and i we were blown away by all the roman political symbolism that we could simply point out to the documentarians right at that point the documentarian said we have a document a three-part at that point that we have too much material for just one documentary it's going to be a three-parter awesome i mean congratulations congratulations that's uh that's that's understanding and well well deserved well thank you very much we were very much looking forward to it excellent premier will be either in london or hollywood we'll let you know oh great great well i mean um basha i'm about run out of questions for august i haven't even i just have questions for him if you want to go no please if you want to just say anything else about it just any last words about it james because this is this is interesting as hell it is radical it is really incredible my co-author and i are working on a new edition of the book which will contain more material more evidence more citations of supporting material because since the book has come out uh many of our readers supporters fans have said have you heard of this have you heard of that and of course now it's going out in every possible direction things that are even rather obscure to mainstream scholars are now coming to light i'm working with other authors on their books too and in general i'm working on um a more general critique of christianity from our philosophical perspective well that's that's outstanding jim one of the highest compliments i could pay you i think is to say that prior to the enlightenment of the last you know 300 years or so the christians would have burned you up the stake you know this you you the thesis is so boldly original and critical of the of christianity's genesis that i think uh i think you would have been burned as a heretic have you gotten and you just saw the curiosity james have you gotten any death threats seriously i mean have you um there are people who are very unhappy and i certainly have sort of stalker i would say mentally ill sort of stalker followers who uh i think need help mentally and i i think that it sort of struck a chord with them psychologically i have a i have a couple of stalkers who followed me from the iron rad book which is really curious because they didn't like iran and so they thought i was doing a horrible thing there and then suddenly they became experts on the origin of christianity right western religion uh uh just to be critical of me i think which again wow well this book let me the you you have it in in the background here let me let me hold it up also in front of the camera creating christ how roman emperors created christianity james valiant uh warren fahey i strongly recommend this to anybody who is a truth seeker and and they could be devoutly christian too or any other religion as long as they're willing to be objective and honest and take you know and and consider carefully uh the evidence that you offer in support of your thesis uh reading this this is uh important because christianity undeniably has had an enormously important uh historic influence it's the most popular and influential religion of the modern world and so learning the truth about its provenance is a is a major history you know as a major uh piece of understanding uh western history and not just western universities christianity's influence all over the world so anybody who's interested in history you know i think should you know how the roman state created uh created the the most uh influential religion in the world i think you know could get a lot out of this book and i strongly recommend you know in no uncertain terms everybody should read buy in and read uh jim vallian's book it's outstanding it's fascinating it absolutely is thank you both very much thank you thank you for being on uh james truly thank you yeah yeah jim thank you for coming on the show this is this is great and this this is fascinating and when your documentary comes out your new book comes out let's let's reprise this you know and and and bring you back on the show to discuss to discuss those words thank you very much you're welcome everybody say hi to your beautiful wife and uh everybody out there in freedom of speech land have a have a great night we'll be back the the courageous bosh foster and i will be back next week to discuss some important topic in contemporary politics and culture and we'll see you next week everybody have a have a good week more bonsoir