Roman Piso's Blog: The Roman Piso Blog - Posts Tagged "joseph-atwill"

What do I think of Joseph Atwill's work? I happen to know Joseph Atwill and have discussed the subject matter with him many times. He has also discussed it with Abelard Reuchlin.

As far as his work in relation to ours, he has told me that he likes my work over that of Reuchlin's. However, that may be because of the fact that I try to a) write clearer for a wider audience, and/or b) that I try to write on events chronologically.

Atwill's work leads people to "Titus" as the main creator of the NT gospels. The main difference is in WHICH "Titus" is being talked about. That is because Arrius Piso was also using the name Titus, as he was nephew of emperor Vespasian via his brother T. Flavius Sabinus.

This is where understanding items particular to royals of the time is necessary. Ancient authors were exclusively royals. They gave the public the illusion of freedom of speech and made it appear that anyone could write for public consumption. That was not true.

Since only royals were allowed to write (with the approval of a committee of other royals), they needed a ready source of alias or pen names, and particularly, those which would automatically be associated with the authors using them, so that the authors could be easily identified by other royals.

This practice had been in effect for thousands of years before the time of the Flavians and Pisos of first century Rome. The way they were able to create these alias names and identities was to use names of their ancestors. Basically, these were inherited name/titles.

And that is how Arrius Piso could use the alias name of "Titus" and thus, confuse non-royals into thinking that it was Vespasian's son Titus, who was being referred to instead of him. But royals of the time knew it was Arrius Piso, and not the other Titus.

To get at the truth about this as Reuchlin and I have, one must have personal profile information for each of the principal people of the time, and that includes information on all of their relatives. Thus, one must construct their genealogical information from the information that they had scattered about that throughout their writings. A very difficult task, but not impossible.