Bible Scholar Claims Ancient ‘Confessions’ Prove Story of Jesus Christ Was Fabricated by Romans

An American scholar claims to have discovered that the  entire story of Jesus was made up by Roman aristocrats.
Joseph Atwill asserts that Christianity did not start as a religion, but was instead created as  propaganda tool to pacify subjects of the Roman Empire. He says he noticed a pattern forming when he was studying the only surviving account of first-century Judea, which he claims contains dozens of parallels between the life of a Roman emperor and that of Jesus in the New Testament.
Mr Atwill argues that these ancient ‘confessions’ provide ‘clear evidence’ that the biography of Jesus is ‘actually constructed on prior stories,  especially on the biography of a Roman Caesar’.
But bible academic Professor James Crossley, from the University of Sheffield, compared Mr Atwill’s theory to a Dan Brown fiction book. He told Daily Mail: ‘These types of theories are very common outside the academic world and are usually reserved for sensationalist literature. ‘People do debate about how much we can know about Jesus, but the idea that Romans invented stories about Jesus is outside of the academic world.’
Atwill, however, insists that the story of Jesus was fabricated as a way of creating peace. He explained, ‘Jewish sects in Palestine at the time, who were waiting for a prophesied warrior Messiah, were a constant source of violent insurrection during the first century. When the Romans had exhausted conventional means of quashing rebellion, they switched to psychological warfare. They surmised that the way to stop the spread of zealous Jewish missionary activity was to create a competing belief system. That’s when the “peaceful” Messiah story was invented. Instead of inspiring warfare, this Messiah urged turn-the-other-cheek pacifism and encouraged Jews to “give onto Caesar” and pay their taxes to Rome.’