Person:Arrius Piso (5)

While researching this line, I ran across a bizarre theory that the New Testament was actually thought up and written by Flavius Josephus' family, the Piso family. and that Flavius Josphus and Arrius Calpernicus Piso were one and the same.

FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS WAS REALLY ARRIUS PISO

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(Compiled from notes 07/14/00, by Roman Piso)

FOLLOWING THE TRAIL (from the family of Vespasian to the Pisos):

The tie-in is that Arria the Elder was married to the emperor Vespasian’s brother (before Vespasian became emperor). He was T. Flavius Sabinus.

From this relationship we find the connection to the alias names of the Pisos as "Paetus". Quoting from "The True Authorship of the New Testament," by Abelard Reuchlin; "Vespasian relied upon Piso because he was grandson of his own brother - Vespasian’s brother, T. Flavius Sabinus, had married Arria Sr. (i.e., Arria the Elder), who was Piso’s maternal grandmother. Piso’s identity as thus also a Flavian is decipherable from the appearance in the Flavian family line of L. Caesennius Paetus (Townend, Gavin, "Some Flavian Connections," Journal of Roman Studies, LI. 54, 62, 1961). That was an alias (like Thrasea Paetus) of Piso’s father, L. Calpurnius Piso [ Note: we now know Arrius Piso’s father to have been Gaius Calpurnius Piso who was executed by Nero]. See page 20 supra, wherein Piso himself also is mentioned as a Caesennius Paetus. That is the true reason Piso used the literary pseudonym of Flavius; it was not because of his alleged - but untrue and hardly necessary - adoption by Emperor Flavius Vespasian. He was in fact (already) a Flavian."

As crazy as this theory above seems, the author Abelard Reuchlin, must have been aware that this Arrius Calpurnicus Piso's family contained other Jews. Drusilla who was his daughter's mother in law was Jewish.

The accepted version of the truth is as follows:

Josephus was a priest, a soldier, and a scholar.  

       He was born Joseph ben Mattathias in Jerusalem in 37 CE, a few years after the time of Jesus, during the time of the Roman occupation of the Jewish homeland. In his early twenties he was sent to Rome to negotiate the release of several priests held hostage by Emperor Nero. When he returned home after completing his mission he found the nation beginning a revolution against the Romans.  

    Despite his foreboding that the cause was hopeless, he was drafted into becoming commander of the revolutionary forces in Galilee, where he spent more time controlling internal factions than  fighting the Roman army. When the city of Jotapata he was defending fell to the Roman general Vespasian, Josephus and his supporters hid in a cave and entered into a suicide pact, which Josephus oddly survived.  

   Taken prisoner by Vespasian, Josephus presented himself as a prophet. Noting that the war had been propelled by an ancient oracle that foretold a world ruler would arise from Judaea, Josephus asserted that this referred to Vespasian, who was destined to become Emperor of Rome. Intrigued, Vespasian spared his life. When this prophecy came true, and Vespasian became Emperor, he rewarded Josephus handsomely, freeing him from his chains and eventually adopting him into his family, the Flavians. Josephus thus became Flavius Josephus.