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Francesco Carotta (b. 1946 in Veneto, Italy) is an Italian former IT entrepreneur, publisher and engineer. Carotta is a co-founder of the German newspaper die tageszeitung. As author he is best known for his claim that the historical Jesus was Julius Caesar. After a few preliminary releases Carotta published his views in the German book War Jesus Caesar? (1999) and in Quaderni di Storia (2003). His book was also translated into Dutch and English.

Diegetic transposition

After comparing the accounts of Julius Caesar and the Roman civil war in Suetonius, Appian, Cassius Dio and Plutarch with the Gospel of Mark, Carotta came to the conclusion that its account of Jesus was based on Divus Iulius, the deified Julius Caesar. He argues that the Gospel of Mark is a corrupted retelling of the Roman civil war — from Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon to his assassination, funeral and apotheosis, paralleled by Jesus' ministry from the Jordan to his capture, crucifixion and resurrection. Using a term from literary theory coined by Gérard Genette, Carotta maintains that a form of "diegetic transposition" (a re-telling of a story in a different spatial and/or temporal context) came about by textual mutation and delocalization, due to a process of copying mistakes, mistranslations, misinterpretations, adaptations and redactions in different cultural contexts for distinct political purposes, which produced the accounts of Jesus in early Christian literature. He further argues that the final metamorphosis of the new religion, which was to reinterpret the Julian cult according to Flavian imperial policies with special regard to ancient Palestine, was induced under Vespasian and historian Flavius Josephus, whose writings, he argues, provided the groundwork for the description of the Apostle Paul in Acts II. According to Carotta Jesus is therefore the Divus Iulius of the Flavians.

Reception

Initial reactions to the first German edition were limited. Based on Carotta's past as a part-time satirical artist some critics assumed that War Jesus Caesar? was meant as a parody, while other journalists praised the book, calling it "provoking", "astounding" and "meticulous". Except for a few statements scholars and clerics remained silent. Likewise, the publication of the Dutch translation in 2002 failed to draw serious academic attention, although it did create some controversy in the Dutch media.

Jerome Murphy-O'Connor criticized Carotta for drawing greatly exaggerated conclusions from coincidences. Based on information gathered from Carotta's website Maria Wyke, professor of Latin, considered the parallels between Caesar and Jesus demonstrated by Carotta as "sweeping and often superficial", despite their being "detailed and justified at book length"."

The Spanish philologist Antonio Piñero wrote that Carotta's reading of the Gospel as a diegetic transposition was one of the most remarkable and ingenious exercises he had read about the problem of Jesus' historicity, but also noted the complexity of his proposal as a possible problem.

Dutch media controversy

Exclamation mark with arrows pointing at each otherThis section appears to contradict itself on the relative dates of reviews. Please see the talk page for more information. (May 2009)

The heated, but small-scale media controversy in the Netherlands mainly centered around the figure of columnist and philosopher Paul Cliteur, who had commented positively on Carotta's work when its translation appeared in 2002. On the television program Buitenhof Cliteur stated that Carotta's "report is of the same order of importance as the scientific discoveries of Darwin and Galileo" and that "his discovery will turn the entire history of civilization upside down." In a semi-popular university magazine, former senior lecturer of Ancient History at Nijmegen University Anton van Hooff accused Carotta of pseudo-science and claimed that his book contained both severe methodological flaws and factual errors. Van Hooff's outspoken statement created annoyed some of the proposal's supporters, and one Peter Veldhuisen used a review to defend the book's scientificity and verifiability. Paul Cliteur replied to Van Hooff's earlier arguments and wrote that Carotta presents an "overwhelming amount of material to support his thesis", which for him was the "key to unlocking a lot of mysteries on the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire". Political publicist and architectural historian Thomas von der Dunk applauded Carotta's "thoroughly researched and documented study", while columnist Willem Dijkhuis emphasized the resulting compelling perspective on the European heritage.

When a few academics were asked for their opinion in a short article of the Leiden University newspaper, they backed Van Hooff's position.

Notes

  1. Date information sourced from Library of Congress Authorities data, via corresponding WorldCat Identities linked authority file (LAF).
  2. Cf. Carotta's vita; cf. also Maria Wyke (2007). Caesar: A Life in Western Culture. London: Granta. p. 255. ISBN 978-1-86207-662-4..
  3. "Cham"; Heide Platen, "Die Legende von der taz aus dem ID", die tageszeitung, 04-17-1984, p. 5.
  4. E.g. in two publications by the author's Kore publishing house (1988, 1989) as well as in newspaper articles in the Stadtzeitung für Freiburg (April 1989) and die tageszeitung (Berlin, 23-12-1991).
  5. Francesco Carotta, "Il Cesare incognito — Da Divo Giulio a Gesù", in: Luciano Canfora (ed.), Quaderni di Storia 57, Milan 2003.
  6. Gérard Genette, Palimpsestes: La littérature au second degré, Paris 1982
  7. Arno Widman, "Jesus—Julius", in: Berliner Zeitung, 06-28-2000; Albert Sellner, "Ein Stück Welträtsellösung", in: Badische Zeitung, 03-20-2000, p. 28.
  8. Helmut Höge, "Er kam, sah und heilte. Römer, Christen, Kult, Weihnachten", in: die tageszeitung 12-24-1999, p. 19.
  9. Ralf Euler, "Euch ist ein Bobbelsche geboren", in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 11-29-1999.
  10. E.g. by theologian Rev. Stephan Ch. Kessler S J, who acknowledged the quality of Carotta's book and wrote that "even if one cannot or will not follow the author’s conclusions, one learns much about Roman religiousness, which became the basis of the development of the Christian faith in the European cultural environment." (Cf. blurbs.)
  11. Hans Ariëns, "Jezus Christus, alias Julius Caesar" (Achtergrond), Mare 19, 02-06-2003, which mentions several negative comments, e.g. by Henk Jan de Jonge, who criticized Paul Cliteur's praise of Carotta's book, stating that the similarities between Jesus and Caesar are simply "accidental similarities" and Carotta's conclusions therefore "nonsensical and unfounded speculation"; for another overview of the Dutch debate by Carotta's translator, see Tommie Hendriks, "Was Jezus Caesar? Receptie vann een historische These", in: De Zwarte Hand 1, Soesterberg 2004, pp. 119–157.
  12. "Francesco Carotta maintains, on the basis of what he sees as a series of parallels—for example, Jesus and Caesar have the same initials, one crossed the Rubicon while the other crossed the Jordan, etc.—that the Gospels are no more than a second-century C.E. rewriting of the story of Julius Caesar. For a reason that is never explained, someone thought it worthwhile to invent a figure called Jesus Christ, and to give him a life modeled on that of Julius Caesar. Any explanation of why there should be four versions of the career of Jesus is also carefully avoided." (Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, Jesus and Paul: Parallel Lives, Glazier (Michael) Inc., 2007, p. 106, ISBN 9780814651735)
  13. Mary Beard, "Cruising with Caesar", in: The New York Review of Books 55 (No. 20), 18-12-2008; Beard criticized Wyke for her "solemn discussion" of Carotta's "eccentric website" as one of the "diminishing returns" in her book.
  14. Maria Wyke (2007). Caesar: A Life in Western Culture. London: Granta. p. 255 sq. ISBN 978-1-86207-662-4.
  15. Antonio Piñero, "A modo de síntesis parcial y conclusiones", in: A. Piñero (ed.), ¿Existió Jesús realmente?, Madrid 2008, p. 345 sq..
  16. Paul Cliteur, interview in: "De geboorte van Jezus Christus", Buitenhof, Nederland 3, 12-01-2002
  17. http://www.proclassics.org/content/view/34/38/
  18. A. van Hooff, Was Jezus eigenlijk Caesar?, in: De Academische Boekengids 67, Amsterdam 2008; for a reaction by Carotta's publisher and translator, see A. P. J. Hendriks et al., "Wetenschappelijke verbeeldingskracht", in: De Academische Boekengids 69, Amsterdam 2008.
  19. Peter Veldhuisen, "Bom onder het christendom", in: Het Parool, 02-20-2003, p. 4 sq..
  20. Paul Cliteur, "Repliek: Hooffsche wetenschap", in: De Humanist, April 2003, p. 54.
  21. Paul Cliteur, "Was Jezus Caesar?", in: De Humanist, December 2002
  22. Thomas von der Dunk, "Bom onder het christendom. De overeenkomst tussen Brutus en Judas", in: Vrij Nederland — De Republiek der Letteren 14, 04-06-2002, p. 66–69.
  23. Willem Dijkhuis, "De vraag hóe Jezus was. Cultus van goddelijke Caesar opmaat tot Messias-cultus", in: Het Financieele Dagblad, 07-24 juli-2004
  24. http://www.mareonline.nl/2003/19/10.html

Publications

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