Joe Atwill has a deep state, pro-Roman view of the Bible.

photo by: Skeptiko

On this episode of Skeptiko…

Alex Tsakiris: There’s a famous quote about truth passing through three stages: first it’s ridiculed, second it’s violently opposed, and third, it’s accepted as being self-evident. And I’m reading your critics, these scathing criticisms of your work, and I’m thinking, “This is exactly what’s happening here.”

… they’re all saying the same thing, “Atwill’s full of crap; but he’s right about the bible being pro-Roman.” I just want to scream… what the heck do you mean, “The bible is pro-Roman!?” That is the whole story! If the bible is pro-Roman, then Christianity as we know it is not what we think it is.

Joe Atwill: Once you accept the fact that [the Bible is] pro-Roman, then you need to take step back and say, “Well then, the Romans probably had an influence in producing it.” Now, you have these events which are oddly parallel between the Roman military campaign and Jesus’ ministry.  At that point, how do you even deny that one is related to the other?

Stay with us for Skeptiko…

So, a couple of weeks ago I was interviewing Jay Dyer of the very excellent Jay’s Analysis website – that Jay Dyer – and we were talking about film analysis and culture analysis and geopolitics, all of which Jay does a really good job of. But since I had dug into Jay’s work beforehand, I knew there was something else that I wanted to talk to him about because Jay is an orthodox Christian, and somewhat of a biblical scholar. I mean that’s part of his training, and that’s part of what he brings to his website, and he’s open about this in terms of how it informs his worldview, and I don’t mean that in a derogatory way. I mean, Jay’s not like a bible thumper who’s trying to inject scripture verses in every sentence. And Jay’s also a really sharp guy who I have a lot of respect for in terms of his work and his analysis. He’s on point on so many things. But this issue of religion, and in particular his Christian worldview, and how it informs things is something that I just can’t really get away from. I think it’s so central to a lot of things we’re going through today, but I also think that it’s an example of what Skeptiko is so much about, in terms of big picture questions, controversy, and intelligent debate.

So, I had this rather lengthy exchange with Jay – got a little bit bible geeky on it – but it was fun and I decided at the end of it that this dialog would be a great way to, kind of bounce me into somewhat of a threaded debate with a guy who I really, really enjoy talking to and I’ve referenced many times on this show, and that is Joe Atwill, author of Caesar’s Messiah.

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Read Excerpts:

Alex Tsakiris: See but Joe, let me interject something, because I’m not sure I quite see it that way, I think you bring a very important element to this and part of that is that you seem to have been able to put this into a context that few others have been able to really do, and now I’m so glad that we have the term ‘deep state’ to thr...