) is an Italian former IT entrepreneur, publisher and engineer, and has been referred to as an independent linguist and philosopher. Carotta is a co-founder of the German newspaper die Tageszeitung

Die tageszeitung

die tageszeitung , was founded in 1978 in Berlin. It is a cooperative-owned German daily newspaper which is administrated by a workers' self-management...

. As author he is best known for his theory that the historical

Historicity of Jesus

The historicity of Jesus concerns how much of what is written about Jesus of Nazareth is historically reliable, and whether the evidence supports the existence of such an historical figure...

 Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

 Christ

Christ

Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...

 was Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

. After a few preliminary releases Carotta published his views in the German book War Jesus Caesar? 2000 Jahre Anbetung einer Kopie (1999) and in Italian Il Cesare incognito - Da Divo Giulio a Gesù (2003). His book was also translated into Dutch and English.

Diegetic transposition

After comparing the accounts of Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

 and the Roman civil war

Caesar's civil war

The Great Roman Civil War , also known as Caesar's Civil War, was one of the last politico-military conflicts in the Roman Republic before the establishment of the Roman Empire...

 in Suetonius

Lives of the Twelve Caesars

De vita Caesarum commonly known as The Twelve Caesars, is a set of twelve biographies of Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors of the Roman Empire written by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus.The work, written in AD 121 during the reign of the emperor Hadrian, was the most popular work of Suetonius,...

, Appian

Appian

Appian of Alexandria was a Roman historian of Greek ethnicity who flourished during the reigns of Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius.He was born ca. 95 in Alexandria. He tells us that, after having filled the chief offices in the province of Egypt, he went to Rome ca. 120, where he practised as...

, Cassius Dio and Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

 with the Gospel of Mark

Gospel of Mark

The Gospel According to Mark , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Mark or simply Mark, is the second book of the New Testament. This canonical account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth is one of the three synoptic gospels. It was thought to be an epitome, which accounts for its place as the second...

, Carotta came to the conclusion that its account of Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

 was based on Divus Iulius, the deified Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

. He argues that the Gospel of Mark

Gospel of Mark

The Gospel According to Mark , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Mark or simply Mark, is the second book of the New Testament. This canonical account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth is one of the three synoptic gospels. It was thought to be an epitome, which accounts for its place as the second...

 is a corrupted retelling of the Roman civil war—from Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon

Rubicon

The Rubicon is a shallow river in northeastern Italy, about 80 kilometres long, running from the Apennine Mountains to the Adriatic Sea through the southern Emilia-Romagna region, between the towns of Rimini and Cesena. The Latin word rubico comes from the adjective "rubeus", meaning "red"...

 to his assassination

Assassination of Julius Caesar

The assassination of Julius Caesar was the result of a conspiracy by approximately forty Roman senators who called themselves Liberators. Led by Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus Junius Brutus, they stabbed Julius Caesar to death in the Theatre of Pompey on the Ides of March 44 BC...

, funeral and apotheosis, paralleled by Jesus' ministry from the Jordan to his capture, crucifixion

Crucifixion of Jesus

The crucifixion of Jesus and his ensuing death is an event that occurred during the 1st century AD. Jesus, who Christians believe is the Son of God as well as the Messiah, was arrested, tried, and sentenced by Pontius Pilate to be scourged, and finally executed on a cross...

 and resurrection

Resurrection of Jesus

The Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus states that Jesus returned to bodily life on the third day following his death by crucifixion. It is a key element of Christian faith and theology and part of the Nicene Creed: "On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures"...

. Using a term from literary theory

Literary theory

Literary theory in a strict sense is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for analyzing literature. However, literary scholarship since the 19th century often includes—in addition to, or even instead of literary theory in the strict sense—considerations of...

 coined by Gérard Genette

Gérard Genette

Gérard Genette is a French literary theorist, associated in particular with the structuralist movement and such figures as Roland Barthes and Claude Lévi-Strauss, from whom he adapted the concept of bricolage.-Life:...

, Carotta maintains that a diegetic

Diegesis

Diegesis is a style of representation in fiction and is:# the world in which the situations and events narrated occur; and# telling, recounting, as opposed to showing, enacting.In diegesis the narrator tells the story...

 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

Vespasian

Vespasian , was Roman Emperor from 69 AD to 79 AD. Vespasian was the founder of the Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Empire for a quarter century. Vespasian was descended from a family of equestrians, who rose into the senatorial rank under the Emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty...

 and historian Flavius Josephus, whose vita provided the groundwork for the life of the Apostle Paul in Acts II

Acts of the Apostles

The Acts of the Apostles , usually referred to simply as Acts, is the fifth book of the New Testament; Acts outlines the history of the Apostolic Age...

. According to Carotta Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

 is therefore the Divus Iulius of the Flavians.

Reception

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.

Dominican

Dominican Order

The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...

 priest Jerome Murphy-O'Connor

Jerome Murphy-O'Connor

Reverend Dr Jerome Murphy-O'Connor O.P., is a Dominican priest, a leading authority on St...

 criticized Carotta for drawing greatly exaggerated conclusions from coincidences. Based on information gathered from Carotta's website Maria Wyke, UCL

University College London

University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...

professor of Latin http://www.ucl.ac.uk/GrandLat/staff/fulltimestaff/mariawyke, 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.

Publications

• F. Carotta, "Verkündigung: Caesars Kreuzigung — Das Evangelium nach Kleopatra", in: Cam (ed.), Memoria 2090 — Kalenden und Iden, Freiburg 1989
• F. Carotta, War Jesus Caesar? 2000 Jahre Anbetung einer Kopie, Munich 1999 (= Was Jezus Caesar? Over de Romeinse oorsprong van het christendom, Soesterberg 2002)
• F. Carotta, "Christus ein Mythos?", review of G. Courtney (1992), Et tu, Judas? Then fall Jesus, Kirchzarten 2002 (English translation)
• F. Carotta, "Il Cesare incognito — Da Divo Giulio a Gesù", in: L. Canfora (ed.), Quaderni di Storia 57, Milan 2003
• F. Carotta, Jesus was Caesar. On the Julian Origin of Christianity, Soesterberg 2005 (extended English edition) ISBN 90-5911-396-9
• F. Carotta, "Los evangelios como transposición diegética: una posible solución a la aporía ¿Existió Jesús?", in: A. Piñero (ed.), ¿Existió Jesús realmente?, Madrid 2008. ISBN 978-84-86115-64-7 (English translation)
• F. Carotta con A. Eickenberg, "Orfeo Báquico: la cruz desaparecida", Isidorianum, Vol. 17, No. 35., Centro de Estudios Teológicos de Sevilla, Seville 2009. ISSN 1131-7027 (Errata-corrige and English translation).
• F. Carotta, War Jesus Caesar? Eine Suche nach dem römischen Ursprung des Christentums, Kiel 2011, ISBN 978-3-937719-63-4
• F. Carotta, Arne Eickenberg, Orfeo Báquico: La cruz desaparecida – Revista de arqueología, ISSN 0212-0062, Año nº 31, Nº 348, 2010 , pags. 40-49
• F. Carotta, Astigi quod Iulienses El misterio de Astigi y la palmera de Munda – Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss / Slaby, Catholic University Eichstätt-Ingolstadt 2010

External links

• Carotta's website
• Interview at metafysiko.org
• The Gospel of Caesar, a documentary feature film by Jan Van Friesland about Carotta's research (2008)