Title: When did the Canon become the Canon?
Review: Atwill's thesis is interesting, and in some sense, I think that he is right, namely, that Christianity is an excellent method of control, and this couldn't have been lost on the Romans. In other words, that the Romans used Christianity to control Judea and first, and finally, their empire.Yet Atwill's central assumption is questionable, i.e., that the author of the New Testament is the same person who wrote The War of the Jews. The problem is, the New Testament wasn't the New Testament when the War of the Jews was written. That is, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John weren't the canonical gospels until at least 200 yesrs later.This is Atwill's central assumption, and it doesn't hold water. Again, while I think Atwill is right in seeing Christianity as a means of control, I don't think that his argument can work once you remove this central assumption.
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