Free Republic

Self-proclaimed Biblical scholar Joseph Atwill has written a book in which he claims that Jesus was fabricated by a little-known group called the Flavians. He also claims he has some sort of “smoking gun” type of “confession” from these ancient people that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that they entered into a conspiracy with the Roman government of the time to fabricate a character called Jesus as a “gentle Messiah” figure to wage psychological warfare on, and control, the masses so they would pay Caesar taxes without complaining. He is apparently going to present this evidence at a...

MARK COLVIN: William Shakespeare is one of the most significant figures in history about whose actual life we know the least. Very little survives in his handwriting and the records of him are scanty but mostly concerned with money and lawsuits. This absence has proved the breeding ground for all sorts of conspiracy theories, mostly suggesting that someone much more aristocratic wrote the works of the man we call Shakespeare. Some have said it was Francis Bacon, others the Earl of Oxford. There's even a school that believes Christopher Marlowe wrote Shakespeare even though he was stabbed to death years...