I watched the documentary last night and all I can say is WOW! Since my journey out of the church I've been looking for an explination as to why the christian religion gained such a stronghold and became associated with the Roman empire. This is it. I feel that the research presented provides the strongest evidence ever that the whole thing was made up to gain control over what was fast becoming an uncontrolable situation. Has anyone else seen it? If anyone is interested you can rent or buy it here. http://www.caesarsmessiahdoc.com/index.html. I opted to rent but think this needs to be a part of my library now.

I haven't seen it, but I've seen similar ones.

The movie "Agora" does a really good job emphasizing the religious instability (though it is a fictitious movie, it is based on solid history)

...there's a reason Mormonism is taught in an historical vacuum.

"There was a Great Apostasy... uh, sometime in the past, then there was some religious excitement in central New York. That's all you need to know in the way of background, students. Now, let's talk about the First Vision."

IT IS PRETTY MUCH NONSENCE HISTORICALLY SPEAKING AND THERE IS NO EVIDENCE

It is an interesting idea that the Flavians were behind the writing of the gospels, however there are a number of problems with this...there is no clear, solid evidence for the emergence of the canonical gospels as we have them until much later into the second century. Atwill's dating seems a bit off. The gospels suddenly burst onto the scene much later than the Flavians and with a slew of commentary. Also, what of Matthew and Luke relying on Mark and Q? If Atwill is right, then you would have to ignore a whole lot of scholarship. I read his book, but I was not convinced. It is just too much of a stretch. But I do agree with him that there are a lot of parallels with Josephus in the gospels, and the authors of the gospels possibly had some agenda/propaganda purpose in mind. There are better theories than Atwill's out there.