Introductory remarks. Located on top of a mountain and shaped like a camel's "hump", the residents called their city "Gàmala", not "Gamla".The historian Josephus explains that the name was improperly pronunced in Aramaic jargon (the city was a Jewish enclave bordering on Syria); however, the scribe maintained the original pronunciation wanted by its people and continued o call it  "Γάμαλα" "Gàmala". And this is what we have done, in respect of the memory of those who fought and sacrificed their lives so as not to surrender themselves to the domination of a foreign power.

"The city of Gàmala, for its natural defences, was impregnable, surrounded by walls and strengthened ... it faced the south, and its southern peak, which was extraordinarily high, constituted the fortress of the city, under which a cliff having no walls went straight down into a very deep ravine ... then the Jews, surrounded on all sides and in a desperate attempt to save themselves, threw themselves, along with their wives and children, down into the very deep precipice which had been excavated below the fortress" (Bellum IV 8; IV 79).

It was an ancient Jewish city - previously a Macedonian fortress (Ant. XIII 394) conquered in 81 B.C. by the Hasmonean King Alexander Ianneus - whose ruins were unexpectedly found in 1967 and officially recognized by archeologists in 1976. It was the only city in Palestine which was built on a mountain”, in lower Golan (Gaulanitis), northeast of Lake Tiberias (orGenezareth), important in Jewish history from the second century B.C. onwards. It was attacked in the autumn of 66 A.D. by the troops belonging to King Agrippa II and it was finally destroyed (after a thirteen-month seige) thanks to the direct intervention of three Roman legions led by the generals Vespasian and Titus. It was the theatre of a bloody battle which provoked thousands of deaths among the population, half of which (according to Josephus) are suicides (many, including women and children, threw themselves from the cliffs which surrounded the city in order to escape rape and slavery). This city by the name of "Gàmala", located on a mountain above Bethsaida (the city where the Apostles Peter, Andrew, John, James the Minor and Philip were born and lived was near Gamala), near the lake made famous by history and substantiated by archeology … is deliberately ignored by the Gospels.

"Jesus Christ" travelled all over Palestine; he went by boat and walked up and down Lake Tiberias, he carried out miracles and held speeches in cities and villages which were much less important, but not in Gàmala!: he avoided it.

The ruins of Gàmala

http://www.biblewalks.com/Sites/Gamla.html

Clicking on "Ancient Gamla" of the first image map, above and to the right of the photo you can see the "sea of Galilee" (Lake Tiberias); here we can see the remains of the Synagogue, basins for ritual ablutions and part of the walls. Although the excavations are incomplete, millstone for oil presses have been found (among other things), in addition to - a fact constituting proof of a relative autonomy within the Empire - exclusive Jewish coins minted by the year 64 A.D., but not by Herodian regents or Roman governors; that is to say just prior to the total destruction which took place in 67 A.D. History and archeology identify it as being an impregnable Zealot city. For a more complete view all you need to do is click on the above-mentioned link.

The evangelical verses which we cite have been taken from the Codex Sinaiticus because Catholic Gospels translated into modern-day English replace the word “mountain” with “hill” and the word “city” with “town”. The Catholic translators are aware of the problem deriving from the description of Nazareth in the Gospels - description which is in contrast with the Nazareth which we know today. We will now see why.

Gospel of Luke:
The evangelist informs us that Jesus lived in the city of Nazareth in Galilee in the following passages: Lk 1,26; 2,4; 2,39.

And in Matthew: "Then he settled in a town called Nazareth" (Mt 2,23; 21,11); and also in "Acts of the Apostles" (10,38).

Gospel of Mark:

"It was at this time that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John (the Baptist)." (Mk 1,9).

Gospel of John :

"This (Jesus's baptism) happened at Bethany, on the far side of the Jordan, where John was baptising". (Jh 1,28) ...The next day when John stood there with two of his disciples, Jesus went past, and looked towards him and said, «Look, there is the lamb of God». And the two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus. Jesus turned round, saw them following and said, «What do you want?» They answered, «Rabbi» - which means teacher - «where do you live?» He replied, «Come and see»; so they went and saw where he lived (Mark indicated Nazareth), and stayed with him that day. It was about the tenth hour" (Jh 1, 35-39) ... The next day Jesus had decided to leave for Galilee ..." (Jh 1,43).

We know that Christ carried out miracles, therefore it is not at all strnage that from Bethany (less than two miles from Jerusalem), where he was baptized, he went to Nazareth as fast as a bolt of lightning, covering a distance of over 150 km. But that a God, waking up in the morning at his home in Nazareth (in Galilee), then decides to move to Galilee, unaware that he is already in Galilee ... well, the grave misunderstanding is unjustifiable, therefore let's carry on with the reading of the holy texts in order to study in depth and verify. Let's read what Matthew has to say:

"Hearing that John (Baptist) had been arrested he withdrew to Galilee (until this time Jesus was not in Galilee) and leaving Nazareth ("this" Nazareth was not in Galilee), he went and settled in Capharnaum (finally in Galilee)"  (Mt 4,13).

The presence of Christ in Nazareth, when the Batist was arrested, is confirmed later on in the same Gospel:

"When Jesus had finished these parables he left the country (native land: Nazareth: Codex Sinaiticus) ...and he taught the people in their synagogue" (Mt 13,53-54) ... Now it was Herod who had arrested John (the Baptist) ..." (Mt 14,3).

"That evening the disciples went down to the shore of the sea and got into a boat to make for Capharnaum on the other side of the sea" (Jh 6,16-17).

We can see that "the other shore", in front of Capharnaum where the disciples were headed, was below the mountain of Gamala. Now let's carry on:

The “Nazareth” created after Jesus

Unlike Gàmala, Nazareth is not located on the brow of a mountain but in a valley with slightly rolling hills; it does not have a cliff, it is not near the lake, there are no stone ruins of a synagogue dating back to the first century. The oldest buildings and monuments which are said to have existed at the time of “Christ” and which are admired by pilgrims in devout contemplation - like the Synagogue and the "Church-House of Mary" - in reality were built during the Byzantine era. It is easy to understand why: they were built deliberately and gradually over time - at the time of the Byzantines, during the Christian Crusades and in later times ... obviously in Galilee, as dictated by the Gospel of Mark (Mk 1,9).

The Church is aware of the fact that at the time of Christ the only city in Palestine built on a mountain was Gàmala, and it is fully conscious of this historical gap. No historian mentions the “city of Nazareth” and thus the Church has attempted to find a justification by even contradicting the Gospels; in the last century the Church has downgraded Nazareth from “city” to “village” because, as such, being small and insignificant, it would have gone unnoticed by first century historians and geographers.
Instead this subterfuge has simply confirmed that the city of “Nazareth” never existed; as a result, modern-day archeologists, papyrologists and paleographers (all of whom are pro-clerical) began to go through tens of thousands of papyrus fragments (including the scrolls of Qumran), pottery and ceramics found throughout Palestine; and “finally”, in 1961, a scrap of stone as a big as a hand was found in Maritime Caesarea (among the remains of an ancient Jewish synagogue) and one of the  Hebrew words carved on the stone is incomplete: “nzrt”.  After initially beating the drum with the help of the media, the mystical researchers realized that the four letters carved in Hebrew (the language used in religious documents) rather than in Aramaic (the spoken language) - written on an archeological finding in Caesarea Marittima (over 60 km from Nazareth) - do not represent valid evidence of the existence of the city of Nazareth (regardless of the different meanings which a paleographer can attribute to the four letters: “shoot”, “truth” etc.). Therefore no one, apart from a few “mystic spirtualists”,  considers this archeological finding as “evidence”.
On the contrary the machinations highlight the groundlessness of the existence of a city called “Nazareth” before and during the first century A.D. and render the dating of an insignificant finding superfluous; in spite of this, the finding is archeologically dated to the third century A.D. (therefore not at the time of Christ).

The first Christian to cite "Nazareth", in the fourth century A.D., was Eusebius of Caesarea (HEcI 7,14) but, in order to make his narration credible, he made reference to "Julius Africanus" (170-240 A.D.), a native of Jerusalem and alleged historian and pupil of Origen Adamantius. In his work "Chronography" (from the creation of man to the birth of Jesus: never read by anyone prior to Eusebius), G. Africanus made mention of "Nazareth" and explained the error regarding Jesus's grandfather's name, different in the Gospels of Luke and John. References to G. Africanus's "Chronography" come only from "fragments" reported by Eusebius, which will be drawn on centuries later by the monk Giorgio Sincello (early ninth century) and by the Byzantine Georgios Kedrenos in the eleventh cenury. You do not need great intelligence to understand that Eusebius's deposition (dating back to the beginning of the fourth century) demonstrates that until the end of of the third century the city of Nazareth did not exist ... as proven by archeology. The excavations carried out in modern times have uncovered a very fertile area (like all of Galilee) inhabited since the Paleolithic Era; therefore during the Hellenic and Roman Age the indigenous Jews here built several dwellings, yet they did even not go as far as to build a small village by the name of "Nazareth". This did not occur until the fifth century (during the Byzantine Age) and, as ascertained, with evident ideological motives.

The name "Nazareth" and the city iself were so "inexistent" that, unexplainably, after the death of "Jesus", none of the Apostles, disciples and Apostolic Fathers (the same goes for Gàmala) felt the need to visit its Synagogue ... in order to at least leave the inhabitants a few miracles and perhaps convert them to the Creed of Salvation: nothing. Ecclesiastical "tradition" invented three relatives of Christ "linked to the Lord through the flesh", who were His successors and served as Bishops of Jerusalem: his brother James, his half-brother Simon and Judas Just his nephew; but none of them ever thought to make a brief pilgrimage to Nazareth, the city of Jesus, in His beloved memory and in that of the Holy Extra Virgin Mary.
Immediately after the resurrection of the Saviour, Saint Peter, Saint James, Saint Matthew, Saint John and the rest of the apostolic team went to the portico of Solomon (beside the Temple) where they astonished the multitudes of Jerusalem and of the nearby cities healing everyone from all sorts of sickness (Acts 5, 12-16) ... without ever bothering to organize "field trips" to Nazareth.

No city by the name of "Nazareth" is mentioned by the Jewish historian Josephus, never in the Old Testament, never in the Talmud, ignored by the Leningrad Masoretical Text drawn up in 1008, and above all unknown to the Jewish editors of the Dead Sea Scrolls, buried in the Qumran caves in 67 d.D.. Pilgrims began to visit Nazareth after Christianity came out as victorious over the other Creeds, but no pilgrimage to the city of the "Holy Family" was carried out by the "primitive Christians".
During the first three centures of "Christianization" of the Provinces of the Empire, from the time of the Apostles onwards, the heroic Saints, Prophets, disciples and believers were all unaware of this city. None of Paul's thirteen letters make any reference to Nazareth and the same goes for the seven canonical letters of the Apostles.
The Apostolic fathers and, prior to them, Saint Peter, Saint Paul, saint James and Saint Barnabas - although the latter guided in their "Acts of the Apostles" by the "Spirit of Jesus" and the "Holy Spirit" -  were not directed by Jesus towards Nazareth ... as if this city had never existed or rather: "Nazareth" existed only for "Jesus and the Holy Family".



With regard to the inexistence of the synagogue of Nazareth,  the churchy experts claim that during the Middle Age the Crusaders built the church above the synagogue which Jesus attended regularly and ... those who do not believe this dogma will burn in hell.
The same thing will happen to those who do not recognize the canonical dating - set by the Clergy in the first century A.D. - of the symbols left by the Christians in the "holy places of Nazareth" from the fourth century onwards. But there's more.
The most eminent archeologists of the "holy places of Christ", the Franciscan friars of the "Custodiae Terrae Sanctae", are specialized in "burying" the synagogues which Jesus attended regularly; therefore, once having discovered that even the synagogue of Caphernaum (Mk 1,21; Lk 4,31) did not exist at the time of the Saviour but was erected by practicing Jews two centuries after the "Nativity" of baby Jesus, the good old friars, inspired by the Holy Spirit, "decreed" that the building was rebuilt by the Jews above the one which Jesus frequented ... in the fifth century A.D. (the demonstration of the inexistence of the "synagogue of Christ" can be found in the eighth study).
Another serious "evangelical problem" is that there is no mountain and cliff from which the inhabitants of Nazareth intended to hurl the Christ. Luke's description is so precise thus making it impossible to "sidestep" by means of ridiculous theories, like the one of the synagogue "buried synagogues".
In the last two centuries many ecclesiastical researchers, experts on the Holy Land, have gone on missions to Nazareth to attempt to solve the evangelical complication ... but have been unsuccessful. But let's avoid tiring out our readers with a long list of names of specialists who have tried to unveil the impossible enigma; they all in fact have identified shallow ravines in different locations, none of which compatible with Luke's description, according to which it is evident that mountain and precipice are inseparable from the city of Nazareth. So rather than list all these people, we prefer to mention the "spearhead" of biblical archeology: the "Custodia Terrae Sanctae" of the good old Franciscan friars.
In 2009 Menedict XVI went to Nazareth and held a mass on "Mount Precipice". The Arab name of the hill is "Jebel el-Qaftze" and the incontestable proof  that we are dealing with the "Mountain of Christ" is founded upon ... "medieval tradition" (sic!). Copy and read what the archeological friars have to say:

http://www.nazareth-en.custodia.org/default.asp?id=5868

The mountain is a highland located over two km south of Nazareth and the friars indicate that it is 397 meters above sea level, but fail to mention that the altitude does not take into account the difference in altitude in relation to the surrounding area. For example, the basilica of the Annunciation is 350 meters above sea level.
In particular, the detailed photos of the Precipice are not shown and the funny thing is the footage (its on-line) of Pope Benedict holding a mass in front of thousands of believers and cameras from  ll around the world ... without anyone, starting with the journalists and mass media operators, asking what has happened to "the mountain upon which Nazareth is located" (as described by the evangelist Luke) and the "Precipice".
In addition, all the exegetical believers  pretend to be unaware of the fact that, according to Roman law, in Galilee, at the time of Jesus, the only one with the right to execute, granted by Emperor Tiberius, was Herod the Tetrarch. Therefore it is silly to imagine, on the basis of what is stated by by the Lucan scribe, that an official structure like the synagogue, directed by Doctors of the Law and responsible for the conduct of its members, could have allowed the latter to get away with dragging a man for over two km (this is in itself ludicrous) in order to throw him down into a ravine. A right to execute which Rome did not even grant to the Sanhedrin.
The motive which prompted the evangelical scribe to invent the precipice scene was dictated  by pure doctrine, but in contrast with Roman law. As verifired at the end of the sixth study, the canonical Gospels were written in the fourth century and "authenticated" with the authentic chronicles reported by first century imperial writers. "Luke" had written the scrolls of Josephus's "Jewish War" and learned about the mass suicide of the inhabitants of Gàmala; he was quite struck by this event and wanted to demonstrate that , unlike the Jews, the universal Saviour could not meet their same fate and be thrown down into a ravine, therefore "but he passed straight through the crowd and walked away".
Yes, the search for the "Lost Precipice" of Christ is much more complicated than that of the Ark of the Covenant.


Gàmala is the "Nazareth" of the Gospels: the homeland of Judas the Galilean and his children

It is the only city in Palestine built on top of a mountain, it has a cliff, a Synagogue, it is 9 km away from the lake, it has houses and agropastoral businesses (oil presses), the evidence of which can be found in the archeological ruins dating back to the time of Christ. The city was even known by Suetonius as a “very important city of the Jews” (Titus 4).
Geography, history, archeology: they are all in agreement with the evangelical descriptions. Josephus, in his literary efforts focusing on the Palestine of the first century, with great care cites and describes hundreds of villages and all the cities of his land. He comes close when citing Jaffa, a small village bordering on present-day Nazareth, but nothing about the “Nazareth” - which according to the Gospels was a city with a synagogue - is mentioned. No historian or geographer from the time of Christ or prior mentions Nazareth, just like the Old Testament makes no reference to this city.

The Jewish historian Josephus Flavius explains that the “city corresponded to a ranking which indicated a greater number of inhabitants compared to a village, and required fortification” (Antiquities XVIII 28). 

The Gospel of Saint Thomas, a manuscript found in 1945 (and not tampered with) and dating back to the fourth century states: “a city built on a high hill and fortified cannot be taken or hidden” (Tm 32). This document denounces an attempt to “hide” a city which would have had fortifications if it had been present-day Nazareth; in fact:

“The city of Gàmala, for its natural defenses, was untakeable, walled and strengthened …” (Jewish War IV 9). Josephus, as priest Commander of the revolutionary army of Galilee, was in charge of the restructuring of the fortifications ordered by the Sanhedrin – in particular, the walls of all the cities of the region; the cities were mentioned one by one but with regard to Nazareth there is absolute silence!

“After the success achieved against Cestius Gallus (66 A.D.) I will describe how the Jews fortified the cities and I will describe the suffering of the vanquished” (Bellum I 20/22);

"All of Galilee was transformed into a sea of fire and blood, undergoing all sorts of suffering and ruination. The only way out being the cities fortified by Josephus" (Bellum III 4.1).

The historian relates the suffering of Gàmala and all the other cities while Nazareth, as it was not mentioned, was the only city in Galilee which did not suffer for it did not yet exist.

“According to tradition the domicile of the family of Jesus was in Nazareth so as to explain the nickname «Nazireo» used originally along with the name “Jesus” … Nazirean is undoubtedly the name of a sect with no relationship whatsoever to the city of Nazareth” (“La Naissance du Christianisme” – Alfred Loisy, 1857-1940, priest, theologist and university professor at the Catholic Institute in Paris).

“In the Gospels we never find the expression «Jesus of Nazareth» but only Jesus the Nazoreus, sometimes written Nazaren or Nazoren … none of these appellatives, despite the attempt to force their etymology, can be traced back to a name like «Nazareth». The name of the city of Nazareth derives from these terms and not viceversa. The term instead derives from the aramaic Nazir, which indicates a man with long hair consecrated through a solemn vow to the practice of purity; in Hebrew, these devout were called Nozrim, that is to say Nazireans"  (“Breve Storia delle Religioni”, 1959 – Ambrogio Donini, specialized in greek and Aramaic, a professor at the University of Rome).

Michail Bulgakov, in his work “The Master and Margarita” (considered by many to be the best Russian novel of the twentieth century), describes the encounter between Pilate and Jesus as such:

“«Name?» - «Yeshua» – quickly replied the accused – «Do you have a nickname?» - «Ha Nozri» – «Where are you from?» - «… from the city of Gamala» – replied the arrested man who with a movement of the head indicated that down there, far away, to his right, towards the north, there was a city called Gamala ... «Of what blood are you?» ... «I do not remember my parents. I was told that my father was Syrian»".

The Ukrainian writer (1891-1940) was able to “imagine” this conversation thanks only to the studies carried out by his father, Afanasij Ivanovic Bulgakov - teacher of history of religions and professor of Hebrew during the czarist period influenced by Christian Orthodox religious power - who informed his family of the results of his research. He died in 1906 after discovering that “Nazareth” was not the city of Jesus (as it was not built on a mountain, without a cliff or synagogue), and therefore was aware that the Gospels contained another lie confirmed by a certain “Ha Nozri” (the Nazirean): a title linked to a Jewish vow, incompatible with the doctrine of eternal life, so the evangelists transformed it into "Nazoraios", "Nazarenos" and "Nazaren", justifying it with the birth in "Nazareth" (this is analyzed in detail in the thirteenth study). Even the reference to the Syrian father, despite being apparently indirect, in reality is very precise as it is linked to Gamala, a city which we know was, and still is, located in Gaulatinitis, in southernmost Syria.
 
It is important to point out that he and other experts came to these conclusions long before the ruins of the city of Gàmala were discovered. These experts must be given the credit for having understood the historical truth without the aid of new archeological data essential to critical research.

In the above-mentioned passages we have seen a manipulation of the term “Nazarite” as we know it today. In fact the place of birth was Bethlehem, therefore the correct term should have been “Bethlehemite” as for the Gospels he was a native of Bethlehem.

“The forms Nazoraios, Nazarenos, Nazaraeus, Nazaren confirm that the ecclesiastic scribes knew the origin of the word and were well aware that it did not derive from Nazareth, but from Nazir. The historical name and the geographic location of the birthplace of Christ is Gàmala. This is the homeland of Nazirean. The mountain of Gàmala is the «mountain» of the evangelist Luke. All of the Gospels speak about about the «mountain» without mentioning it”  (“The Essene Origins of Christianity”, 1980; E.B. Szekely, Hungarian theologist, received a Ph.D. from the University of Paris, and other degrees from the Vienna and Leipzig).

From the Codex Sinaiticus:
 
“And Mary arose in those days (after conceiving in Nazareth) and went into the mountainous country with haste to a city of Judah” (Lk 1,39).

"A city of Judah” on the mountain, to be reached “with haste” with departure from present-day Nazareth, is meaningless from both a geographical and historical perspective. In the first century there is no record of "a city of Judah” on a mountain located in Galilee and near Nazareth.
Let's try to change the indefinite article and see if the phrase acquires a meaning:

“And Mary arose in those days and went into the mountainous country with haste to the city of Judah” … the Galilean: Gàmala! Now it makes sense!

A pregnant girl takes a short trip to visit her husband and the nearest village was Bethsaida, on the lake, right below Gàmala, which could be reached (with haste) in no more than a couple of hours on foot, obviously without crossing the Jordan (check the map).

But if Nazareth only existed for “Jesus” and Gamala was the true “Nazareth”, why have the canonic Gospels lied? Come on! Don't say that you have not understood: it was the city of Judas the Galilean and his children who had the same names as the brothers of “Jesus”: James, Simon, Judas and Joseph … in addition to John (as we will see in the next study), who is referred to in the Gospels as “this” (man) without a patronymic:

"Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses (Joseph) and Judah and Simon?"
(Mk 6,3).


Confutation

Aware that Gamala corresponds to the Nazareth of the Gospels, the churchy exegetes, so as to avoid the inevitable overlapping of the two cities inevitably involving the mythical primitive Christians, disseminate documents and maps of first century Palestine containing erroneous geographical and historical data with the deceitful aim of "patching up" the evangelical mistakes, thus diverting experts away from the matter.
In our time several self-styled Jewish researchers , for obvious personal reasons, have chosen to strengthen the false and totally uncritical theories by adopting any sort of expedient in order to make them truthful.

As seen in the sixth analysis, the "Testimonium Flavianum" (a passage dedicated to Jesus Christ, which the scribes included in Josephus's "Jewish Antiquities" from the eleventh century onwards), up until the end of the 1960s, was unanimously considered to be a phony by critics and this had a negative impact on the credibilty of the myth of Christ. In 1971, prof. Shlomo Pinés from the Jewish University of Jerusalem published a new version of the TF - deriving from a manuscript written in Arabic drawn up in the tenth century by the Christian Bishop "Agapius of Hierapolis" - accompanied by an analysis through which the scholar, although availing himself of the conditional tense, took for granted that Josephus had actually written the TF, even if different from the one which has reached us, and as a result admissible for a Jew. Pinés thus managed (thanks to all the media attention) to resuscitate the fate of the Christian divinity. Instead, through the comparison of the Medieval handwritten codexes regarding the testimonies of the Fathers of the Church, we have demonstrated, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the TF written by Josephus is a phony created in the fourth century by Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea and by the latter accredited to the Jewish historian.

Roughly ten years ago the archeologist Shimon Gibson, former Head of the "Israel Antiquities Authority", discovered the "grotto of John the Baptist": a hole carved in the rock by seventh century Byzantine monks, containing the image of the evangelical Baptist. Gibson then included his fantasies in the book written for spiritual mystics, work which he entitled nothing less than "The Cave of John the Baptist: The extraordinary archeolgical discovery that has Redefined Christian History". Can you believe it! 
The fact that history, like the testimony of Eusebius, certifies that the true John the Baptist was eliminated by Herod Antipas between the end of 35 and the beginning of 36 A.D., that is to say over three years after the supposed crucifixion of Jesus, is of no interest to Gibson … let alone the consequential considerations. He is unable to understand that the various locations of John's baptismal fonts, created by Byzantine monks after the fall of the Roman Empire, are on their own enough to demonstate that they are fruit of mere fantasy.
Once again Gibson, through fragments of cloth used in the first century to wrap bodies in a tomb - without taking into consideration that at this violent time there were many cemeteries - comes to the conclusion that we are dealing with the "Shroud of Akeldamà", "The Field of Blood" where accordino to the Gospel "Judas the Iscariot" committed suicide.
Afterwards Gibson, to top it all off, wrote a book on first century Hierosolymitan archeology "The Final Days of Jesus: The Archaeological Evidence”. The "scientist" puts the cherry on the cake when, in order to demonstrate the existence of the historical Jesus, he states that the latter was a "healer"; therefore, according to Gibson, an imperial Roman governor had a man undergo torture because he was a "faith healer". Unfortunately, pseudo-historical culture and religious opportunism represent a lethal alliance for knowledge.

We all know that hypocritical scholars have always existed. In order to win praise and tangible advantages they are willing to endorse silly theories thus conditioning the formation of the young who, unconsciously, end up convincing themselves that what they have been "subministered" is the truth. The usual suspects, "spiritual analysts", zealous opportunistic writers, are well-aware of the fact they are lying; therefore, in the absence of a law contemplating the "crime of falsification of history", we are forced to ask ourselves how these people can look at themselves in the mirror.

Dr. Danny Syon, member of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), is considered to be one of the best Israeli archeologists for having directed the excavations of the ancient city of Gàmala, destroyed almost two thousand years ago by Roman legions during the war of liberation undertaken by the Jews against the hegemonic Roman Empire and, as known, described by the historian Josephus.
The IAA researcher has published numerous studies on the outcome of the work carried out and has held conferences in many famous universities and museums throughout the world. However, the vast public recognition obtained has resulted in the growth of his self-esteem, and he has become ever so eager to show off and present himself as a historian capable of enchanting others through judgements which lie beyond the professional duties of any archeolgist.
Without basing himself on precise evidence or factual information, Dr. Sion has had the arrogance to reinterpret certain historical and geographical findings linked to the remains which have come to light in Gàmala, and which are in contrast with both Jewish and Christian creed. After all, it is clear to everyone that fame and notoriety are proficuous if subservient to vested interests.

The reasons are evident and can be summarized as such. Danny Syon is aware that the precipice of Gàmala is a problem for Jewish faith, which does not admit suicide (in this case it is even collective);he also knows that exegetical Christians are extremely embarrassed by the exact correspondence of this city to the description of the present-day Nazareth contained in Gospels, description which is completely different from the city described by the evangelists. Syon's statements, aimed at rsoving the matter, have been "canonized" by the leading figures of exegetical Catholic biblical exegesis, careful to safeguard the "Truth" of Christian creed at any price and have no qualms whatsoever about demolishing history, archeologyand basic logic.
This is how the ecclesiastical exegete Gianluigi Bastia, in his study updated in 2009, attempts to discredit, through reference to Danny Syon, the correspondence between Nazareth and Gàmala.
http://digilander.libero.it/Hard_Rain/Nazaret-Archeo.htm

"D. Syon has personally offered some precious suggestions on the geography of Gamla, by means of email corrspondence which took place in June 2007".

So let's read one of the "precious suggestions" given directly to G. Bastia by the "historian" Danny Syon and already mentioned in the latter's analyses-lessons-conferences.

"In the time of Jesus, Gamla did not have a wall; the excavations proved very clearly that the wall was constructed only in the months preceeding the siege of Vespasian".

The self-satisfied comment expressed by the genuflexion G. Bastia:
"Therefore Gamla was not a fortified city at the time of Jesus, after all only very large cities could have walls specially designed for perpetual defensive purposes, yet this does not apply to Nazareth, which has no ancient walls, nor to Gamla, fortified only in 66 A.D. under special circumstances. The fact that Gamla was unfortified until 66 discredits the passage of the Gospel of Thomas, loghion 32, which states: “a city built on a high hill and fortified cannot be taken or hidden”. This loghion cannot be used to reveal a special link between the land of Jesus and the city of Gamla".

Well-aware that ancient cities had defensive walls, G. Bastia "justifies" (through a devious consideration directed towards the naive) the lack of walls in the then inexistent Nazareth and cites Gàmala as an implicit  "witness". Through reference to D. Syon, Bastia highlights that the famous Jewish city had no walls at the time, as they were built by Josephus just prior to the war. Bastia then goes on to offer a description of Gàmala written by Josephus (Bellum IV 5-8) and draws "spiritual" historical information perfectly in line with Danny Syon's conclusions:

"This description is to be considered very accurate as Josephus Flavius was the commander of the military garrison in Gamla and had first-hand knowledge of the region".

The true "lesson" which the two fideistic scholars must learn, both the Jew D. Syon and the Christian G. Bastia, comes from history, from archeology and from basic logic … at least as a form of respect towards those citizens who sacrificed themselves, during an uneven struggle, in accordance with the ideal of national indipendence.
The Sanhedrin of Jerusalem appointed Josephus as General Commander of the Jewish forces of the two Galilees and the district of Gàmala when this city for two months had been undergoing a siege carried out by the forces of KIng Agrippa II; as a result, the massive walls of Gàmala were standing before the start of the Jewish war of 66 A.D.
Having to obliterate the distorting influence caused by the mendacious information offered by the two believers, as a form of historical evidence it is necessary to highlight the sequence of events which took place under the principate of Nero Claudius Caesar and brought about the war of the Jews:

- in August of 66 A.D., revolt incited by Eleazar, Captain of the Guardians of the Temple and son of the High Priest Ananias (Bellum II 409):
"… the revolutionaries, fulfilled by the victory and the fires, stopped fighting. But the following day, the fifteenth of the month of loos, the rebels attacked Antonia Fortress and, after a two-day seige, captured and killed the soldiers in the garrison, then they set fire to the fortress" (cit. II 430);
- "loos" was the name of a month in the Seleucid-Macedonian calendar used by the Jews at the time, equivalent to our July-August. In July-August of 66 the insurgents prevailed over the government forces, attacked Antonia Fortress, set fire to it and killed all the soldiers in the Roman garrison, hereby freeing Jerusalem from Roman domination but at the same time provoking the war of the Jews, which spread to Syria and even to Egypt;
- as a result, the Legatus Augusti Gaius Cestius Gallius (Governor of Syria as of 63), from Antioch, with an army of 30.000 men, marched towards Ptolemaida (500 km to the south), thus undertaking the invasion of the Jewish nation, which began in Galilee where the first city to be destroyed was Chabulon.
- at the start of the hostilities (Bellum II 503), next to Cestius Gallius we find Marcus Julius Agrippa II: the client-king to whom Emperor Claudius, in 52, had assigned a territory comprising the city of Gàmala (Ant. II 247). It was then, as we are about to verify, that the imperial Legate ordered Agrippa to send his army - three thousand infrantrymen and two thousand cavalrymen - into Gàmala to reconquer the city.
- Having destroyed Chabulon, Cestius carried on "by sea and by land, through this dual action, they easily took possession of the city" … destroying all those who opposed resistance until reaching Caesarea Maritima, then marched on towards Antipatris and "From Antipatris Cestius advanced on Lydda, which he found deserted. Infact all the inhabitants had gone to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles" (cit. II 515). The Feast of Tabernacles fell in the middle of October. Thereafter, in order to retake the capital of Judea, Cestius arrived in Jerusalem at the end of October 66 A.D.

After several successes in the lower quarters of Jerusalem, below the Temple, the Legatus Augusti renounced the definitive conquest of the city and made the grave error of withdrawing to Bethoron. As the locality was impraticable for the cavalry and unfit for the deployment of Roman divisions, the Jewish forces massacred five thousand legionaries and roughly five hundred cavalrymen: "These are the events of the eighth day of the month of Dios, in twelfth year of the reign of Nero" (Bellum II 555). The month of "Dios" in the Macedonian-Seleucid calendar is the equivalent of our November (of 66 A.D. = 12th year of Nero). Thereafter the defeat of the Roman forces convinced the pro-Roman Jewish notables, made up mostly of High Priests of the Sanhedrin, who, in November-December of 66, held assemblies inside the Temple and … "the High Priest Ananus son of Ananus and Joseph son of Gorion were appointed to the governorship of the city and given full powers" (cit. II 563). All of the wartime leaders were designated as well, including: "Joseph son of Matthias (J. Flavius) was appointed Commanding General of the two Galilees and Gàmala was added to the territories under his jurisdiction, as it was the strongest city in that region" (cit. II 568). After assuming command … "Joseph (he) fortified all the cities in Galilee … and in Galuanitis he fortified Seleucia, Soganea and Gàmala" (cit. II 574).

As we have seen, the new Jewish government took up its duties in Jerusalem after the defeat of Cestius Gallius in Bethoron, which took place in November of 66 and, of course, it did not recognize the authority of Rome. But prior to November-December of 66 A.D., Josephus had no authority to build anything (nor would he have ever dreamt of doing so), let alone the wall of Gàmala. Therefore the statements of Danny Syon and Gianluigi Bastia, made for doctrinal and personal convenience, are aimed at preventing the incompetent from knowing history.

After the Roman defeat in Bethhoron, the double-crosser Josephus, who descended from the most aristocratic of priestly aristocracy to be found in Jerusalem, climbed onto the bandwagon and decided to fortify all the cities in the two Galilees and Gàmala "the strongest city in that region". On various occasions he boasts that he personally carried out the building of the fortifications of the cities, while in reality he had no role in their construction; he therefore often contradicts himself, as in the case of Sepphoris, when he writes that "Josephus (he) allowed only the inhabitants of Sepphoris to build a wall on their own as he saw that they possessed a great deal of wealth" (Bellum II 574). Instead, after the unwarlike subjection of the inhabitants of Sepphoris to the Roman counteroffensive, Josephus attempts to reconquer it and states:
"Josephus (he) took action against the city hoping to retake it, but he himself had fortified the city before it abandoned the Galileans, thus making it unassailable even for the Romans; as a result his aim failed, for he was too weak to persuade the Sepphorites to surrender (to him) or to force them to do so through the use of force" (cit. III 61). As we can see, Josephus credits himself with the construction of the wall of Sepphoris while in reality it was built by its citizens.
Later on, during the war, the historian writes:
"Thanks to its fortified location, the city of Gàmala had become full of refugees and so for seven months it had managed to withstand the troops sent in previously by Agrippa to besiege it" (cit. IV 10); and here is further confirmation:
"King Agrippa then sent in some troops, under the command of Equs Modus, in order to destroy the fortress of Gàmala" (Bios 114). The refugees in Gàmala were Galileans who had escaped the first attack of the forces of Cestius Gallius, when the latter invaded their land and destroyed Chabulon; then the dux continued down the coast "by sea and by land, and through this dual action, easily took possession of the city".

Therefore, as highlighted above, King Agrippa - at the start of the war and long before being defeated by Cestius Gallius in Bethoron - sent in his army to subjugate Gàmala, as ordered by the imprial Legate. But let's carry on with the reading in order to find, verify and compare other historcal data.
Another important detail regarding who ruled over Gàmala:
"Carete and Joseph - these two ruled over the city" (Bellum IV 18).
As instead was stated by G. Bastia and D. Syon, this "Joseph" cannot be the Commanding General Josephus Flavius. In fact, later on, as a result of the insuccess of the forces of King Agrippa, three Roman legions intervened, therefore we read:
"Many were killed by the Romans, including Joseph, who was struck dead while attempting to leave one of the breaches in the wall" (cit. IV 66).
It is important to point out that, in this very moment, Josephus was alive and in chains in prison, therefore he cannot have witnessed the mass suicide, which was described to him at war's end, most likely by a prisoner captured in Gamala by Vespasian. Proof of Josephus's absence also comes from his imprecise description of the fortress of Masada, its buildings erected by Herod and the exagerated account of the siege-ramp built by engineers and legionaries which in reality was much smaller.

The firm resistance of the Gamalitis against the unsuccessful seven-month siege carried out by the troops of King Agrippa II inevitably provoked the intervention of three Roman legions under the orders of Vespasian, which took place after the Roman commander had conquered Jotapata where he captured Josephus Flavius:
"So Jotapata was taken in the thirteenth year of the reign of Nero, on the new moon of the month of Panem" (Bellum III 339). The month of "Panemos" in the Macedonian-Seleucid calendar is the equivalent of our May (of 67 A.D.). This was followed by Titus's conquest of Tarichea, while Vespasian enslaved numerous prisoners who he then gave to Agrippa, so …
"Agrippa, who had invited him (Vespasian), wishing to welcome the dux and the army with royal magnificence and together bring about order in several territories (in Agrippa's kingdom, especially Gàmala) which were in revolt" (cit. III 443).
In fact Vespasian immediately moved his army to Gàmala and after further months of siege carried out by the Roman forces along with those of Agrippa …
"Gamala was taken on the twenty-third day of the month of Hyperbereteos, while the insurrection had begun on the twenty-fourth day of the month of Gorpiaios" (cit. IV 83). In the Macedonian-Seleucid calendar "Hyperbereteos" corresponds to October (of 67) while "Gorpiaios" is the equivalent of our September (of 66 A.D.).

Therefore, from the very beginning, Gàmala refused to yield to King Agrippa II, who laid siege to the city in September of 66 and then razed it to the ground in October of 67 A.D.; that is to say that the city's resistance went on for thirteen months. But, as seen above, Josephus was appointed Commander of the two Galilees in December of 66 A.D. (cit. II 568): three months after Gàmala had warded off the attack of King Agrippa thanks to its fortified wall and defensive towers.

The city had nine thousand inhabitants (including women, elderly and children) but only three/four thousand men, including the refugees, were fit to fight: therefore Gàmala already had powerful fortified walls, up to six meters thick, with towers capable of neutralizing any sort of attack. As a result, with just a few men the city was able to withstand for many months the most powerful war machine of the time: over twenty thousand chosen soldiers, equipped with heavy weaponry and the best logistics and technology to be found at the time.

On the basis of these documented facts, dated on the basis of a logical sequence which takes into account the time needed to move the troops, Danny Syon must exclude his mystical theory and demonstrate, through precise references, when these walls and towers were built? And how long did it take to build such massive structures? Taken into consideration that the work cannot have got underway prior to the end of 66 if ordered by Josephus. If he did not build the wall and towers, who did? As it is proven that the Jewish historian did not build them … nor would he have had the time to do so. Syon must also explain to us why the Gamalitis did not build the wall along the precipice? Here the Jews were pursued by the legionaries who, blinded by hatred, massacred them; as an extreme act of desperation, theJews jumped off the cliff although aware that it would be extremely difficult for them to come out alive … but not totally impossible. Thus we can make this simple observation: if it had been relatively easy to come out alive, even the legionaries could have climbed up the cliff in great numbers and quickly invade the city, instead of taking months to do so.
Danny Syon and Gianluigi Bastia, two thousand years of severe weather conditions have gone by since the war which threw into confusion this territory; you must both stop altering events and orographical details in order to safeguard your creeds; please avoid the elaboration of useless theories which deny the existence of a mass suicide in order to lessen the dangerousness of the precipice and not admit the precise resemblance between Gàmala and Nazareth … as instead is evident, at their expense, in the descriptions of the evangelists highlighted above. Both men need to consider the following precise facts.



Having verified that the most ancient New Testament reading - including the details from the Gospels mentione above - is contained in the Codex Sinaiticus dated to the fourth century A.D., in other words when Catholicism was in power, a scribe with pseudonym "Luke", who was aware that the homeland of Jesus was Gàmala thanks to an original Gospel, until this time was not able to consult the imperial archives; and from a reading of the first century scrolls containing "The Jewish War" by Josephus he came across the description of the city made by the historian.
The pseudoevangelist, struck by the narration of the mass suicide of the Gamalites who had fallen in the precipice, wished to demonstrate that the Chrisitan "Universal Saviour" could not be allowed to die, like the inhabitants of the city, by falling into a ravine; he thus imagined that the "Jewish deicides" attempted to eliminate a Messiah different from the one who the Jews awaited, throwing him down … in vain; in fact, with indifference "He passed straight through the crowd and walked away" (Lk 4,30) …in order to carry out his divine ministry.

The true aim, of fundamental importance for "the doctrine of eternal salvaton" - which obligated the Christian theologists to invent a city and call it "Nazareth" - stemmed from the absolute need to disguise the content of the original Essene Gospel which referred to the Saviour as a "Nazirean" (Lat. "Nazireus").
The myth of the Messiah "Son of God", whose advent was prophetized by the Essenes in the Scrolls of Qumran (fragment 4Q 246), was put into effect by the followers of this sect following the Jewish holocaust perpetrated by the Romans during the Jewish Wars, the last of which, under Emperor Hadrian, ended in 135 A.D.
As the Essene Christian creed (which began immediately after this date) evolved, the vow of Naziritism became incompatible with the subsequent introduction of the "theophagic eucharistic sacrifice", a ritual, as can be seen in the "Rule of the Community" of the Essenes, which the latter did not and could not observe (they were Jews) when they created the Jewish Saviour "Yeshùa"; but, on the contrary, this sacrifice constituted the acme of Catholic liturgy.
The contrast originates from two diverse religious views. The first, in observance of Jewish Law, which prohibited any Jew, consecrated to God through the Vow of naziritism, from drinking wine. The second, deriving from the pagan cults, obligated priests to offer the Hostia (lat. "victim sacrificed to the Gods) as sacrifice on the altar after drinking its blood: a religious ceremony like the one adopted by the subsequent Christian reformers belonging to primitive Essene Jewish Messianism.
In order to make the illusion of "eternal salvation" sound credible to the Gentiles, the new theologists satisfied them by means of a liturgical syncretism ordered by God; for this purpose they had Jesus himself create the Eucharist, the "theophagic pagan sacrifice", during which he transfomed the wine in his Holy Grail into his own blood to be drunk by his followers:

"Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise that person (up on the last day)" (Jh 6,54).

Transubstantiation! This was the doctrine which dazzled the growing masses of proselytes! The grafting of the theophagic eucharistic sacrifice of the "Σωτήρ" (Gr. see "Sotér" = "Saviour") pagan onto the Jewish religion through the Messiah of the Jews.
But a true "Nazirean" who was also "Doctor of the Law", as "Jesus" was called, could have never had a chalice full of wine at dinner, nor could he have ever turned his wine into a "Holy Grail" filled with his blood … therefore the Christian ideologists transformed the original Jewish term "Nazirean" into "Nazarene" and this mutation was justified in the Gospels by having Jesus belong to a new land, deliberately invented: the city of Nazareth, which they purposely located in Galilee in order to also explain the term "Galilean" used to refer to Jesus Christ in the Gospel (Mt 26,69).

"There he settled in a town called Nazareth. In this way the words spoken to the Prophets were to be fulfilled: He will be called a Nazarene" (Mt 2,23).

The Greek word in the Gospel is "Ναζωραῖος" (see "Nazoraios") which, unlike the fraudulent ecclesiastical transposition, cannot be interpreted as "Nazarene" as the correct translation is "Nazoreo" (no Nazorean); but this lemma, vocalized in this manner, is totally unknown to Josephus. The historian, whose language was Aramaic, was an expert of Greek and capable of copying the Semitic vocalisms into the latter language and reproducing the phonetics of the Aramaic language correctly. With regard to this, the Jew describes Moses's dicatation regarding the Jewish "Nazireans" as such:

"All those who consecrate themselves in observance of a vow are called Nazireans (pl. Lat. "Nazirei"). They are people who let their grow and abstain from wine" (Ant. IV 72).
"Yahweh spoke to Moses and said: «Speak to the Israelites and say: "If a man or a woman wishes to make a vow, the naziritism vow, to vow himself to Yahweh, he will abstain from wine and fermented liquor ... As long as he is bound by his vow, no razor will touch his head; until the time for which he has vowed himself to Yahweh is completed, he remains consecrated and will let his hair grow freely …Throughout the whole of his vow of naziritism he is a person consecrated to Yahweh»" (Numbers 6).

We therefore learn from Josephus that the "Nazireans" (Lemma greek is Ναζιραῖοι, pronounced "Naziraioi", plural of "Naziraios") belong to a religious order consecrated to God; they are not the inhabitants of a city. In fact, Christian iconography has always depicted "Jesus" as having long hair and a long beard because the "Venerable Fathers" were aware that Christ was a "Nazirean", even when he was being crucified.
As a matter of fact, in contrast with the Gospel of Matthew, the Old Testament makes no mention of the Prophets' reference to "Nazarene"; instead, as proof of what has just been verified, the Prophet "Amos" (2,11), thanks to a revelation, expressed the benevolence of Yahweh towards the Prophets and the Nazireos, who are of equal importance in the Covenant stipulated with Him:
"I made Prophets rise among your sons and Nazireans among your young" (op. cit.).

The inaccurate transliteration of "Nazirean" into "Nazarene", "inhabitant of "Nazarene" was deliberate as Jesus should have been referred to as a "Nazarethene". As a result, in addition to the many contradictions contained in the manuscripts, we find another: "a city called Nazareth" which did not exist in Galilee in the first three centuries A.D., therefore unknown to all … until the Christians decided to build it for a precise aim. Yet they had no knowledge of the region, and thus unable to understand the importance of geographic coordinates, always mentioned in the Gospels and left unchanged therein; in the holy texts we read about a "Nazareth" located right on the Mount of Gàmala. As we have demonstrated earlier in this study, when we compared, by using a real map, the descriptions of Jesus's trips back and forth from his homeland narrated in the Gospels.

Moreover, the unawareness of "Luke" with regard to "holy places" can also be found in the writings of the other evangelists, who describe the miraculous Messiah and his disciples (passed off as Israelites living in these territories); the fourth century scribes inevitably had their heroes operate in first century Palestine and made a number of huge mistakes, including place names, that no authentic inhabitant of this area would have ever made.
Here are a few examples:

- Jesus exorcises the demons of Gadara (Mk 5,11-13) and Gerasa by having thousands of pigs fall into a ravine (ridiculous account) in Lake Tiberias, while in reality the two cities are located tens of km away from the lake. When the Church realized that the "evangelists" had committed a grave error, in the thirteenth century it attempted to transform the true "Gerasa" into the inexistent (sic!) city of "Gergesa";
- the evangelists narrate that Jesus was baptized in the Jordan (Mk 1,9 and Mt 3,13) and, according to John (Codex Sinaiticus Jn 1,31), Jesus was baptized in Bethany, located in the outskirts of Jerusalem, but 40 km away from the river. In the thirteenth century the scribes of God noticed the mistake and in the "Codex Monacensis Gr 314" wrote "Bethabara" rather than "Bethany";
- the scribes have five Apostles of Jesus be born in "Bethsaida" (Jh 1,43-44) but the evangelist John locates this city, where he himself was born, in Galilee rather than in lower Gaulanitis;
- the Apostle Matthew, passed off as a born and bred Jew, is referred to as a "Publican" (head tax collector of Emperor Tiberius) with headquarters in Capharnaum in Galilee where, according to Luke, there was a Roman centuria. On the contrary, the tributes in Galilee were collected by Herod Antipas in Tiberias, while the Roman centurions made up the "Cohortes quingenariae", under the orders of a Prefect, and stationed only in Judea and Samaria.
- Jesus carries out a miracle inside the synagogue of Capharnaum which, according to Luke, was built in the first century by a Centurion (head of a centuria); in reality, it was built by practicing Jews two centuries after the resurrection of Christ;
- in addition to inventing the city of Nazareth, the scribes of God created the phoney city of Arimathea, once again for precise ideological motives analyzed in specific studies;
- the "Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish", according to Luke, took place in a locality near Capharnaum, west of Lake Tiberias; while, according to John, the miracle occurred east of the lake. And so on.

Having said this, rather than stammer incoherently upon the walls of Gàmala, G. Bastia and D. Syon need to read history, the holy texts and the "Historia Ecclesiastica" of the Fathers of Christianity (the latter copied, over the centuries, by the "scribes of God"). They then must compare all of the findings and the place names in the Holy Land.
Having complied with this duty, Dr. Danny Syon, a believer of "Jesus", needs to respect deontological ethics and allow us to read, in this regard, his considerations on holy Jews, Christ, Apostles  and evangelists … unaware of the places where they were born and raised.
The inexistent Jewish Messiah and his imaginary Apostles have no knowledge of their native land, and proof of this can be found in the eighth study of this website.

After ascertaining the inability of Christian scribes to substantiate their mythical heroes, availing itself of the inaccurate references to the places where these men lived, we can find in history the precise, logical and indisputable proof of the inexistence of the walls of Gàmala.


"He reigned for thirty-four years from the time in which he put to death Antigonus (37 B.C.), and thirty-seven years from when he was declared King of the Romans … and lived until a very advanced age" (Ant. XVII 191/2).

But 58 is not "a very advanced age", therefore all historians (without suspecting the possible tampering of the scribe, with the motive which we will unveil later on) assume that Josephus had made a mistake and they say that Herod died at the age of 69, having taken into consideration the information given by Josephus in "The Jewish War" (I 647) which makes reference to the final illness of King Herod when the latter was almost 70 year of age.
But if we accept this information, the event which sees the participation of Sextus Julius Caesar loses all credibility, because Herod's age at the time in which he had Hezekiah executed is no longer 15 but 25. But the correction conventionally made by historians - which moves the death of Hezekiah forward by ten years, that is to say from 47 to 37 B.C. - is unable to determine the length of Herod's life yet makes the intervention of the Sanhedrin truthful, first of all thanks to the older age of Herod but also due to the fact that in 37 B.C Sextus G. Caesar had already been dead for nine years. After having verified that the event concerning "Hezekiah", linked to the age of a fifteen-year-old Herod, falsifies the former's date of birth and longevity, we must exclude the Roman plenipotentiary from any possible participation in such an absurd incident which sees the arrogant fifteen-year-old, dressed like a King, humiliate with impunity the Israelite Sanhedrin. In order to better understand the events as they truly took place, it is important to be certain of their dating in accordance with Roman history.

Seven years after the alleged Sanhedrist incident concerning the insensate "Herod the Little" and thanks to the intervention of Marcus Antonius, endorsed by Gaius Caesar Octavianus (both Triumvurs), the Roman Senate granted (in 40 B.C.) Herod the title "King of the Jews" with powers over all and, only as of this date, even against the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem. However Herod, at this time, was only a monarch in name for he he could not sit upon the royal throne already occupied by his enemy and direct competitor of Hasmonean descent: Antigonus. Nor would Herod have dared go to Jerusalem as the Hasmonean would have shread him to pieces.
Precisely, in the same year 40 B.C., Antigonus, son of Aristobulus, allied himself with the Satrap Barzaphranes, King of the Parthians, who, after invading Syria and Judea along with his son Pacorus, recognized Antigonus as King of the Jews and "High Priest" of the Temple; therefore, as such, it was then Antigonus who presided over the Sanhedrin.

Two years of war went by before the Romans, in 38 B.C., ultimately prevailed over the Parthians thanks to General Publius Ventidius Bassus. The legions immediately moved into Judea and, after a five-month siege conducted by the new Governor of Syria, Gaius Sosius, Jerusalem eas once again conquered by Rome in 37 B.C. In this year Herod was finally able to take over the reins as "King of the Jews" (Ant. XIV 469). In fact:

"Having received Antigonus as prisoner (from Sosius), Antonius decided to keep him until his triumph (in Rome); but when he realized that the nation was plotting rebellions and remained faithful to Antigonus and was hateful towards Herod, he decided to behead him in Antioch" (Ant. XV 8).

But even before Herod ascended the throne of the Jews, while Jerusalem was being besieged by the forces of Gaius Sosius, this how King Antigonus commented the Roman proposals regarding the capitulation of the city:

"Antigonus replied to Silone and to the Roman army that he was against their notion of Law if they (the Romans) conferred regality to Herod, who was a common citizen and an Idumean, that is to say a half Jew, while they had to offer it to those belonging to the royal family (the Hasmoneans) as was their (the Jews) custom. And if they (the Romans) were not in favour of him, but determined to deprive him of his regality as he had received it from the Parthians, there were many in his (royal) family who, legitimately, could receive regality, for they had not offended the Romans and were priests" (cit. XIV 403/4).

The "Law" of the Jews (the Mosaic Law) provided for an authentic Israelite, of royal extraction, as "King of the Jews", not a half-breed Idumean having no priestly dignity; so, as we have just read (cit. XV 8), being that all the people had this attitude and "felt hatred towards Herod"; this is why, after just being crowned King, the new monarch executed Hezekiah: he who had the right to the throne of the Jews being that he was of royal extraction and well-received by the nation.

It is important to remember that Antigonus's father, Aristobulus, was freed by Julius Caesar who assigned him the command of two legions in order to reconquer a Syria in revolt; but Pompeius had him poisoned before he left (Ant. XIV 123). This event demonstrates that Roman policy did not discriminate against the Hasmoneans, but preferred to choose regents in Judea through personal evaluation, This is why the Sanhedrin, aware of the hatred of the people towards the newly-elected Idumean monarch, deemed it necessary to accuse Herod of "having broken the Law" after killng Hezekiah. But here are the consequences:
"When Herod assumed royal power he killed Ircanus and all the members of the Sanhedrin, apart from Samaia" (Ant. XIV 175).
"Samaia" was not put to death due to the fact that he was the only member of the Synod who (along with the Pharisee Pollonius), during Sosius's siege of Jerusalem, thought it advisable to recognize Herod as King instead of Antigonus (cit. XV 3). Thanks to this position Samaia was spared by the new monarch of the Jews when, having consolidated his power, Herod eliminated the entire Sanhedrin for it had dared to put him on trial by accusing him of murdering the Hasmonean Hezekiah of Gàmala.

We are dealing with an event for which the cause (trial against Herod at a tender age) and effect (Herod's vendetta against the Sanhedrin) would be senseless if a long time passed between one and the other. The incident becomes coherent only after Marcus Antonius beheaded the deposed Hasmonean King Antigonus, and it was then that Herod ascended the throne as "King of the Jews"; and his first act was that of eliminating the young Hezekiah, who was also a potential Hasmonean successor to the throne and, unlike the bastard Idumean King, was not hated by the people: an aspect which politically was very significant also for Rome … and Herod was aware of this. And the latter, so as to assure himself of the support of Marcus Antonius (who was in need of large sums of money to pay his legionaries), paid out exorbitant amounts of talents of gold. The definitive proof that Hezekiah was eliminated after Herod had become King, in 37 A.D., can be found through a comparative reading of the event described by the historian Josephus in "The Jewish War": "Hezekiah, who had once infested this country and had been captured by King Herod..." (Bellum II 56). In this work the Jewish historian makes no mention of the "tender age" of the fifteen-year-old Herod because the Christian copyist of "Codex Sangallen Gr 627" (drawn up in the ninth century), concerning Josephus's "Jewish War", could not have foreseen that two centuries thereafter another scribe would have transcribed the historian's "Jewish Antiquities" into "Codex Ambrosianus Gr F 128", hereby making the serious falsification of Herod's age. After killing Hezekiah, thanks to the protection offered to him by the power of Rome, Herod degraded the Mosaic Law and its tradition humiliating the Sanhedrin, as read above. Having verified all this, we can ascertain that the "divine prophecy":

"When Herod's life, in Court (the Sanhedrin), was in danger, Pollionus reprimanded Ircanus and the judges, and announced that if Herod's life was spared, he would have persecuted them all. And the time came when this took place, as God keeps his word" (Ant. XV 4) …

…is in contrast with the events concerning the history of Rome, so we are dealing with a phony passage interpolated in the name of God, during the eleventh century, by the copyists of the "Codex Ambrosianus Ms F128", in order to bring forward by ten years, as already demonstrated, the dating of the death of Hezekiah of Gàmala, with the motive that we are about to have a look at. We have proven that, regardless of how it is examined, this event ends up distorting Herod's age, but it is impossible to put the blame on Josephus as his history is perfectly interconnected with that of Rome, but not the Herodian chronology in relation to the event concerning Hezekiah. It is evident that the original historical references have undergone changes as their validation, when compared to the personal details of the monarch, does not repeat the same result. But once having established that the motive behind Herod's trial was the killing of Hezekiah of Gàmala, it is our duty to discover what those who manipulated the dating of the event had to gain from making the Hasmonean appear to be older than he actually was.

When they decided to change the history regarding Hezekiah, at the time in which he was killed by Herod, scribes of the manuscript "Codex Ambrosianus F 128" should have paid close attention to and checked the consequences of such an action, so as to avoid, later on, the discovery of the reason which prompted them to act so wickedly. Nonetheless, the subtle Vatican minds carried out the falsification of Josephus's "Jewish Antiquities" because they knew, and still know today, that "Jesus" and his brothers were descendants of the Hasmoneans … and, in particular, that Hezekiah of Gàmala was the grandfather of "Christ, King of the Jews".
Let's see how the "grey eminences of God" arrived at this conclusion.



With the death of Antigonus, the direct descendants of the Hasmoneans definitively lost power, yet their dynasty did not die out and they managed to preserve their priestly dignity, but not their role of High Priests of the Temple:

"After the death of Aristobulus (Hasmonean on his mother Marianme's side and killed in 7 A.D. by his father Herod), Herod no longer assigned the pontificate to the descendants of the sons of the Hasmoneans. Even Arhchelaus, son of Herod (his mother was Maltace, a Samaritan, so not a Jew), with regard to the appointment of the High Priests followed the same policy and, after him, also the Romans, when they took over the government (6 A.D.) of the Jews" (Ant. XX 249).

In particular, a generation earlier, the elimination of Hezekiah did not prevent his widow from giving birth to his legitimate heir …: "There was Judas, son of head bandit Hezekiah, who had been a man of great power and was captured by Herod with much difficulty" (Ant. XVII 271). Judas in turn was: "Judas, a Gaulanite from the city called Gàmala …" (Ant. XVIII 4). Once an adult, Judas bar Hezekiah, after the death of Herod, claimed the right to become, as descendant of the Hasmoneans, "King of the Jews" (Ant XVII 272). And so he led a revolt against Herod Antipas (son of Herod the Great), attacked the royal palace of the Tetrarch and, after defeating the guards, took possession of all the weapons and guided the rebellion of the Galileans. But all of Judea was also in a state of turmoil and Jerusalem was finally liberated by the zealous "patriots" (Ant. XVII 265/270), and several nationalists repudiated the Ethnarch Archelaus e declared themselves Kings of the Jews.  It was then that Judas bar Hezekiah toppled Antipas, proclaimed himself King of the Jews and ascended the throne in Sepphoris, capital of Galilee (from here "Judas of Galilee"). But the undertaking provoked the intervention of the son of Publius Quintilius Varus, who, after besieging Sepphoris, had his troops set fire to the city and raze it to the ground (ibid 289). Judas of Gamalà managed to escape the legionaries of Varus, and a few years later (in 6 A.D.) he reappeared more determined than ever. The Hasmonean founded the sect of the Zealots and led them in their armed struggle against the legions of the "Legatus Augusti pro Praetore", Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, appointed by Gaius Caesar Octavianus to carry out a census in Judea, Samaria and Idumea, which had just been annexed to the Province of Syria by Emperor Augustus.

In order to prevent the Hasmonean line - to which Jesus and his brothers belonged - from being identified, from the writings of Josephus which have reached us, there is no trace of the death of Judas of Gàmala (the sworn enemy of the traitorous pro-Roman Jews) because it was censored by the scribes in the codexes of "Jewish Antiquities", published from the eleventh century onwards. The scribed deliberately censored this information  in order to safeguard the anachronistic event, referred to in "Acts of the Apostles" (Acts 5, 36-37), which mentions the Prophet "Theudas" who died before the Zealot Judas the Galilean: something impossible. The aim of "Acts" was to prevent the head of the Zealots from being identifed as the father of the Apostle "Judas Thaddaeus" (the demonstration can be found in the first study). The incident sees "Theudas" beheaded in 45 A.D. by the Procurator Cuspius Fadus, while the following events indicate that his father, Judas the Galilean, was eliminated by the Prefect Valerius Gratus in 17 A.D.
The guerrilla warfare, fomented in 6 A.D. by the nationalist "fourth philosophy" of Judas of Gàmala, went on for years, to the point that in 17 A.D., under Tiberius, the Roman and Jewish (Sanhedrin) authorities themselves asked Rome to reduce taxation because, as related by Cornelius Tacitus "the population was oppressed by heavy tributes" (Ann. II 42). The request was denied by the Roman Semate, hereby provoking the vehement reaction of the Zealots led by Judas, but crushed by Valerius Gratus who had him eliminated. During these insurrections, in less than four years' time, between 15 and 18 A.D., Valerius Gratus was forced to replace five High Priests of the Temple (Ant. XVIII 34-35), as a result of the difficulty encountered by the priests of the Sanhedrin in their attempt to placate the rekindled hostility of the people towards the tributes imposed by Rome.

We have thusfar given a report of the events linked to the history of the city of Gàmala, along with the fate of the Hasmonean line, in order to understand the motive which forced the copyists to tamper with the passages in the works of Josephus concerning, directly, the imaginary heroes of the myth of Christ. The scribes realized that the violent historical information came into contrast with the subsequent Christian doctrine, as a result of the extremist deeds carried out by the true Jewish protagonists of the Gospels, who, beginning  with "Jesus" and his brothers, all belonged to the Zealot nationalist movement.
In particular, in the fourth century, from a reading of the scrolls drawn up by Josephus in the first century and preserved in the imperial libraries, the Church realized that the names of the brothers of "Jesus" (Mt 13,55; Mk 6,3), contained in the original Gospels, corresponded to those of the Zealot leaders, sons of Judas the Galilean and grandchildren of Hezekiah of Gàmala. Their names were James, Simon, Judas and Joseph, while "Jesus" was referred to as "this". But, as we have said above, in the first and ninth study it can be verified that his name was "John" (Iohannes).

During the conflict which took place between 34 and 37 A.D. between the Roman Empire and the Kingdom of the Parthians, while in Judea was undergoing a grave famine - upon agreements with the Parthian King, Artabanus III - John son of Judas, a Nazirean and Zealot leader, during the Feast of Tabernacles in 35, prompted the nation to rebel and take power in Jerusalem where he was acclaimed by the people as "King of the Jews" and "Saviour" (Yeshùa). The aristocratic constitution of Judea became monarchical, and so the Sanhedrin recognized the Hasmonean descendant as the "High Priest" of the Temple. On this date, the Prefect Pontius Pilate was stationed in the praetorian palace in Caesarea Maritima, but, having insufficient forces at his disposal, was unable to go to Jerusalem to crush the rebellion, and as a result lost the Governorship of Judea.
Owing to the equal balance of power between the two empires, that of the Romans and that of the Parthians,  John adopted the same strategy as his predecessor, Antigonus the Hasmonean, by counting on the victory of Parthia, just like his ancestor.

The event once again forced Rome to intervene with its legions (having full powers over all the forces in the East), which Tiberius placed in the hands of the Legatus Augusti pro Praetore Lucius Vitellius, who, after the defeating Artabanus on the far side of the Euphrates, went to Judea and besieged the Holy City, forcing it to surrender under the threat of destruction. It was impossible to resist due to the famine, so the Sanhedrin was forced to yield to the request of the Roman warrior and handed over the unauthorized "King of the Jews" to Vitellius who crucifed him outside the walls of Jerusalem during Easter of 36 (see historical verification in the tenth study). Jerusalem was once again under the subjugation of the Empire, thus allowing Vitellius to enter the city; and after obligating the people to swear allegiance to Tiberius, he exempted the inhabitants from the payment of tributes on agricultural products, aware that the famine and taxation combined together had exasperated the Jews.

A century after this incident, the spectacular martyrdom of the last "King of the Jews" (of Hasmonean extraction) was drawn on by the Essenic Jews, hereby giving birth to the myth of the "Messiah Son of God", by a Nazirean of name "John" with the divine title "Yeshùa" (aram. "Saviour"), capable of resurrecting the "elected" … Subsequently, once coming to power, the Church, aware of the true incident, modified the original Essenic Gospel by eliminating the compromising name "John", and called the Saviour by his common name: "Jesus".

This is why the future Christian copyists needed to change the information regarding the Hasmonean dynasty, by severing, through the modification of the relative datings, the succession of Hasmonean descendants so as make them questionable; but in doing so they, involuntarily, ended up falsifying the date of birth of Herod the Great. But in order to make Hezekiah of Gàmala seem older (and therefore his descendants, from Judas to Menhaem), the scribes brought his execution forward - carried out by Herod "at a tender age" - by ten years. But the fifteen-year-old "Herod the Little", at this time, was incapable of commanding over any sort of military force nor able to subjugate the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem, an authoritative religious body which would have had no qualms about ordering the Guards of the Temple to eliminate him. In order to make the event regarding the very "little" Herod seem credible, in the eleventh century the copyists (as described above) of "Jewish Antiquities" had a true Roman dominator, Sextus Julius Caesar, Governor Of Syria, come to his aid in 47 B.C.

After John of Gàmala and Judas Theudas, another two Zealot leaders having Jesus's brothers' names - James and Simon, also sons of Judas the Galilean - were captured and crucified in 47 A.D. by the Procurator Tiberius Julius Alexander … until the moment in which the saga of the Hasmoneans of Gàmal came to the end, once and for all, during the Jewish war.
In 66 A.D., during the fight between factions for the conquest of power in Jerusalem, "Menahem" - youngest son of Judas the Galilean and short-lived "King of the Jews" (the correspondence of Menahem to "Joseph", brother of Jesus, is demonstrated in the fifteenth study) - was killed. Seven years later, in 73 A.D., the death of "Eleazar bar Jair"  ,last descendant of Judas (Bellum VII 253): a grandson whose mother was, wife of Jair; and the latter, obviously, was the father of Eleazar (cit. II 447). Eleazar, in turn, was the promotor of another spectacular mass suicide carried out in 73 A.D., along with a thousand Zealots, in the Fortress of Masada, just before it was taken by Roman forces.

When the historian Josephus makes reference to these people he considers them "very dangerous Doctors" (of the Law) and stigmatizes their behaviour as he believes them to be responsable for the destruction of the Holy City and of the Temple. In a distant memory which starts at the time of Quirinius's census (6 A.D.), after an initial reference to Judas the Galilean, he accuses them of being "ruthless towards their close relatives" and concludes:  "this does not seem to be the the most suitable time to worthily express the dutiful sorrow for the victims of their ferocity" (Bellum 252/274). There is a clear reference to his relatives eliminated by the Zealots. As a result, there was, inevitably, a mortal struggle between nationalist Jews, zealous towards the law, and those that were perceived by the former as being traitors: the pro-Roman opportunists to which Josephus's privileged priestly class belonged. Thus the satisfaction expressed through a family memoir:
"They all met the death which they deserved as God gave to each of them the due punishment; in fact all the scourges which can hit a man beat down upon them until their last moment of life, having them die through the most atrocious of all torments".
Due to his personal political motive, from this writing it is evident that the the negative opinion expressed by Joseph is partial and to be expected, and thus cannot constitute a just condemnation of history. This episode, in fact, among all those described during the war against the Romans, is the only one in which the Jewish historian describes the agony of the Zealots by expressing his own satisfaction.

For clarity, the names which are mentioned in the above-mentioned memoir are, in chronological order, "Judas the Galilean", "John" and "Simon son of Ghiora".  Even in this case we are dealing with the umpteenth tampering of copyists, who made these personalities appear to be the protagonists of the Jewish war of 66 A.D.: John of Giscala, son of Levi, and Simon bar Giora.
The falsification is easy to demonstrate because Josephus would have never made reference to them as neither of them died "through the most atrocious of all torments, until their last moment of life".
In fact, while he was writing "The Jewish War" (finished in 79 A.D.) the Jewish historian mentions that John of Giscala was still alive, sentenced to life in prison by Titus: instead, Simon bar Giora was sent in chains to Rome and, in 71 A.D., during the triumph of the Roman Dux, he was beheaded on the Esquiline hill. Beheaded: an instant chop! Nothing to do with a long, atrocious torture practiced by the Romans against those who did not wish to subit to their domination. The historian's memory of this event referred to the torture undergone by two hated Zealot enemies, the Nazireo John and Simon Kefaz, the latter connoted in the Gospel as "barionà" (Aram.: Zealot "fugitive"), personally responsable for having eliminated his pro-Roman relatives.
The scribes were aware that the two protagonists - who were subsequent to Judas the Galilean - of Josephus's distant testimony were "Jesus" and Simon Peter (Kefaz); so they took the necessary measures by removing John's patronymic and falsifying Simon's by calling him the "son of Ghiora", in order to make both appear to be the famous protagonists of the Jewish war of 70 A.D. In the eleventh century, the copyists of "Codex Ambrosianus Gr F 128" removed from Book XVIII of "Jewish Antiquities", dealing with the time of Jesus, the important historical reference concerning "John" , when all the followers of the anti-Roman Zealot movement …

"They destroyed what was left of the social system by introducing total anarchy everywhere. In such a situation the Zealots, an association whose actions confirmed their name, fully flourished; in fact through their deeds they imitated all evil actions and did not neglect to emulate any misdeed recorded in history" (Bellum VII 267/9).

In the Book XVIII of "Jewish Antiquities", due to censorship, we do not find "recorded any misdeed in history" concerning such a grave revolutionary event during which the Zealots "destroyed the entire social system" (the constitution of the Roman governorate and of the aristocratic Sanhedrin was transformed into an absolute monarchy). Two famous Zealots, John and James, in the Gospels (Mk 3,17) written in hellenized Aramaic are called "boanerghès" (that is to say "sons of wrath"); they were in fact ideologically inclined towards setting fire to the villages of their Samaritan enemies (cfr. Lk 9,53). The copyists of "Antiquities" - the work of the Jew with the most details and references dating back to this period - removed from Book XVIII all the bloody deeds of the national liberation movement (mentioned by Josephus) so as not to highlight the names of the guerrilla leaders who underwent torture when captured by the Romans: their names corresponded to those of the holy evangelical heroes. But the lie of the scribes did not manage to avoid the contradictions and in the end they "got caught".

Instead, according to history, from Hezekiah to Eleazar, all the members of the powerful dynasty, descendants of the Hasmoneans, fought and paid a high price for a noble patriotic objective: they resided in their land when it was conquered by the Romans … therefore the pagans had to be expelled. For four generations they conducted constant and dangerous guerrilla warfare, aware that they were risking their lives … and went as far as to face death with disdain and courage formed through their fight against their dominators. They realized that death, if faced head on and without blinking an eye even when undergoing the most terrible tortures,becomes an exemplary ideological weapon capable of convincing other young people to emulate their actions for the achievement of a goal which will later prove to be utopical.
But their inflexible coherence came into conflict with an Empire at the peak of its power; its strength was such that it managed to frighten all the surrounding kingdoms which, at the time, were careful not to provoke it. The Zealots fought against this power and lost … and so did all the Jews.
Regardless of the value judgements expressed with regard to these ancient and pitiful undertakings, it can still be said that, thanks to history, this is how the great heroism of the Zealots will be remembered:

“And since this immovable resolution of theirs is well known to a great many, I shall speak no further about that matter; nor am I afraid that any thing I have said of them should be disbelieved, but rather fear, that what I have said is beneath the resolution they show when they undergo pain” (Jew. Ant. XVIII 24).
" … there was no one who failed to admire their resoluteness and their fortitude, or blind fanaticism if one prefers … welcoming the torments and the fire, with their bodies which seemed insensitive and their souls almost rejoicing" (Bellum VII 416-419).
"There spirit was subjugated in all ways possible during the war against the Romans, in which they were stretched out and contorted, burnt and fractured and put through torture with all possible instruments so that they would blaspheme their Legislator, or eat a prohibited food, but they preserved their own opinion, without even a hostile word towards their tormentors nor even a tear. But smiling at the pain and, mocking at those who were torturing them, exhaling their soul serenely, certain that they would once again receive it" (cit. II 152).

Of the four currents of thought of the Jews of the time, that of the Essenes and the Zealot Phariseans were two "philosophies" which conformed with great fervour to the nationalistic principles of the Law; they also considered themselves to be anti-slavery and open to all social classes. They became ideological allies and, indifferent to the fierce reaction of their dominators, mobilized the Jews in order to fight for the reconstruction of the great Kingdom of david. From the 6 A.D. war of the census, Essenes and Zealots remained allies until their definitive defeat in 70 A.D., culminating in the destruction of the Holy City and of the Temple. It was a period of massacring charcterized by hundreds of thousands of deaths, of which there is no trace in the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles and writings of the "Apostolic Fathers".
Dr. Danny Syon does not take this into account when, he sweetly expresses the belief, in the above- mentioned refence, in the actual existence of "Jesus". We have already deplored the archeologist for being so presumptous as to pass himself off as a "historian" (without having the minimum requirements) … before issuing "superficial" verdicts.
In reality, the true history, concerning the incessant rebellion of a people who did not wish to submit to pagan rule, could not appear in the "Holy Texts", as it would have resulted in the collapse of the Christian doctrine of "salvation for eternal life". Inevitably, an authentic Messiah of Israel, chosen by Yahweh, in execution of the Law and with His help, would have massacred the pagans, adorers of false divinities and occupiers of the promise land.

This awareness was the motive obliging the imaginary "primitive Jesuit Christians" to ignore the wartime events which saw the Zealots as leaders of the Jewish National Liberation Movement: the fourth century scribes, after consulting the scrolls of the first century imperial chroniclers, realized that the Christian heroes were, in reality, the leaders of the movement.
Consequently, in this historical context, theatre of a nationalist Holy War, which saw the bloody repression of revolts, famines and crucifixions, according to the Gospels, around the year 30 of the first century, we learn that …a group of twelve Jewish "Apostles", followers of the rabbi "Jesus", indifferent to the bloodshed in their homeland, wandered about Palestine astonishing flocks of Jews with miracles and "parables". An impossible "son of God", a "Messiah" unaware of the massacre being perpetrated against his fellow countrymen  by the pagans: the invaders (kittim) of the "Land of Israel", promised to the chosen people by Jesus's father ("Abba").

"Prompted by hatred and fury, the Roman soldiers enjoyed themselves by crucifying prisoners in various positions, and there were so many of them that there was not enough space for the crosses and not enough crosses for the victims" (Bellum V 451).

The Jewish holocaust perpetrated by the Romans was the dramatic conclusion of the struggle of a people, zealous towards their own Ancestral law, convinced of the advent of the Messiah: a Dominator capable of massacring the most powerful army in the world. The incessant conflict of the Jewish nation against the ruling Empire saw the Hasmoneans lead the Zealots and face, without intermission, the legionaries and the auxilaries of the Roman cohorts. A gory time which is totallycompatible with the true events of these years, mentioned especially by Josephus and Cornelius Tacitus, but confirmed, though with briefer descriptions, by Philo of Alexandria, Gaius Suetonius and Cassius Dio, whose analyses have already been published in this website.


Emilio Salsi