Brief refutation of the Flavian Hypothesis

 Under the Flavian Conspiracy theory, Christianity was invented by the Flavian emperors (Vespasian, Titus, & Domitian 69 - 96 AD).  They supposedly did this as a way to control people by inventing a false religion. Emperors are well known for creating religious movements as a way of controlling people, but this was primarily a matter of declaring an emperor to be a god. For example, Domitian had Titus declared a god. But this worked within paganism.  Augustus was said to be secretly fathered by Apollo while his mother was at the temple.  The imperial cult boasted temples across the empire.  Cities without a statue of Augustus were rare.

 

A primary problem with the Flavian Conspiracy is that Christianity is subversive of Roman morality.  While it is not openly rebellious, it is harmful to Roman values in other ways.  Christians would not make sacrifices to pagan gods or praise the genius (divine right to rule) of the emperor.  This is the most common reason they were executed.  While technically always a crime, enforcement was usually a matter of local calamities.  When bad things happened, the gods were probably angered.  Those who defy the gods were blamed and killed.  For example, this is why the historian Tacitus (writing just after Domitian's reign) says that the Christians were killed in Nero's time for being "haters of all mankind."   The idea was that the Romans would suffer extermination if the gods got angry enough.  Perhaps even humanity itself may die.

 

Persecution of this sort was typically more local because calamities were local.  For example, after Nero died there was a civil war where the temple to Zeus, greatest in Rome, was burned.  Then, during Domitian's reign, a fire broke out in Rome.  It was followed by a terrible plague.  But these didn't affect other cities.

 

Christianity taught that all who become Christians are sons of God by adoption through Christ Jesus.  Imperial paganism taught that certain wealthy families descended from gods and deserved greater respect than others people.  They literally took the land of the poor and set up huge slave plantations.  The poor had no food and the rich feared a revolt.  So they gave them the "Bread and Circus."  It was free food (called a dole) and entertainment.  None of this oppression was shameful since some people were literally more important than others.  Imperial families themselves started claiming that they had actually been directly fathered by gods in secret.  Domitian was very dedicated to this idea of social class and hierarchy which Christianity rejected.  He made the Flavian Amphitheater (Colosseum) a routine  public reminder of this via seating arrangements.

 

Christianity taught that homosexuality was a sin. In Romans 1, Paul describes sex between men as unnatural.  Some today argue that this means homosexual pedophilia, which was common.  This shows that we moderns really do not understand ancient Rome.  In Rome, an unnatural sexual act was one where there was consent.  The less important person was supposed to just accept whatever the other guy wanted.  They would have thought of pedophilia as natural and would never have interpreted Paul as saying anything else.  Domitian, was well known for keeping a male child sex slave with him all the time.  He was hated for this not because it was sexually oppressive.  Rather, it was a guilty pleasure like being lazy all day and eating sweets.  Domitian had made laws saying that Romans should be tougher and not so given to a comfortable lifestyle.

 

But in reality Paul was a Jew.  Jews rejected all homosexuality.  Since Paul did not specify that he meant "men with boys" then he must have meant "men with men" when he wrote "men with men."   His Jewish readers would not have known that he meant "boys" unless he clearly wrote "boys."

 

Perhaps the Flavian Conspiracy Theorists could argue that this was created to control the Jews instead?  They did rebel in this era.  Perhaps this was an attempt to persuade Jews to be pro Roman?  Christianity was clearly opposed to a rebellion against Rome.  But it was also incredibly subversive of Jewish morality too.  The fact is that Gentiles could become Christians without being circumcised.  They could eat pork and work on Saturday.  Most subversive of all, they worshiped a crucified man as the Jewish Messiah.  They massively reinvented the entire idea of a Messiah.  They even imagined the resurrection at the end of time as something that happened with the Messiah.

Jesus disagreed with the Pharisees who added to God's law.  He disagreed with the Sadducees who denied an afterlife.  He disagreed with the Zealots who started the rebellion by teaching a spiritual, not political, Kingdom of God.

 

The problem is that if Christianity is merely created to be a manipulation tool, then the inventors of it would have made their fake religion as likely to succeed as possible.  Rather, Christianity bears the mark of a totally new idea that was created by those who really believed in this new idea.  This is a normal thing that happens all the time.  People come up with ideas that they actually like.  Christianity was a tough idea to sell to either Jews or pagan Romans.  And if your only goal is social manipulation, you're going to make the idea as easily acceptable and attractive as possible.  You are not going to make it hard to accept unless it's something you believe in as a good thing in itself.   For the Flavians, there is way too much that they were adding into Christianity that didn't help them achieve any goal of social manipulation and direction.

We could go on and on with this, but perhaps we'll do that at another time.  I'll stop by saying that this conspiracy theory lacks any supporting evidence.  The theory proposes numerous parallels between the life of Jesus and the life of Titus.  Supposedly they could not have been an accident and are therefore clear signs that Jesus is a fictional character modeled on the life of Titus.  I haven't looked at all of the parallels, but they keep making more and more up out of nowhere.

 

In other words, the parallels aren't really there.   For example, Jesus tells a parable about cutting down a fruit tree.  Titus, during the wars, cut down the enemy's fruit trees.  This is the type of thing that is offered up as serious proof of the Flavian Conspiracy.  Another is that they both went from Galilee to Jerusalem at one point in life.  Jesus was a preacher in Judea.  Titus was fighting a war with Jewish rebels there.  Another is that one of Titus' battles involves Jews fleeing into the water and being speared while swimming away.  And Jesus calls some of his first disciples from a life of fishing.  I will honestly just leave it to you to draw your own conclusions here.