The member of the Piso family who started it all was Arrius Calpurnius Piso. He was the Roman general who captured the city of Jerusalem for Rome in 66 CE (Common Era), and who, collaborating with Titus (a relative) destroyed the temple there in 70 CE. In fact, both Zela (religious center of Pontus) and Jerusalem were the sites of temples that were destroyed: Julius Caesar destroyed the one in Zela in 47 BCE.

From here is is noted that this "Arrius" is none other than Flavius Josephus himself, and the rollercoaster coasts on. But let's pause for a moment, shall we? It seems rather curious that a Net search of the name "Arrius Calpurnius Piso" turns up nothing but websites that promote or support this theory. The name turns up nowhere on any site dedicated to Roman history, Latin studies, or anywhere having to do with serious scholarship. This is fairly telling, because the existence of this chap seems to be a root for many facets of this theory:

Revelation 1:8 says "I am the Alpha and the Omega; the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." The name Arrius Calpurnius Piso begins with Alpha and ends with Omega. Could this be another way of Jesus (the Lord) saying "I am Arrius Piso."? A general rule is that you can substitute "Arrius Piso" wherever the "Lord" is referred to in the NT.

Revelation 13:18 says "Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six." The number is 600+(3*20)+6, or 666. The "man" is both Jesus Christ and Arrius Calpurnius Piso! Here's why: The number was expressed as Greek characters in the Greek text of the New Testament. Ancient Greek had no "cypher" numbers (0-9) as we have today. Instead, numbers were expressed using characters from the Greek alphabet. The Ancient Greek Numbers that were used to express the number 666 were Chi Xi Stigma. Chi stands for 600, Xi for 60 and Stigma for 6. Chi historically stood for "Christ", both because of the sound of it, and because it appeared as a Greek cross. Could the numbers 600 and 66, put together, mean "Christ is Arrius Piso."?

Is it an accident that the initials JC stand for Jesus Christ and Julius Caesar? Is it an accident that the name given to Jerusalem by Arrius Piso in 66 CE was Jupiter Capitolanum? Another JC.

Another promoting site says, "...Vitellius took control over the empire as emperor. He was killed soon afterwards, by Arrius Calpurnius Piso." Hmm. Not according to Suetonius, who in The Twelve Caesars records that Vitellius was killed by a group of soldiers who performed various atrocities on him before throwing his body in the Tiber. No "Arrius" makes as much as a bow. This "Arrius" is also said to have to have headed Roman forces, and along with Titus, "layed seige upon the Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 C.E." Perhaps Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear were there as well, because Josephus makes no mention of such an Arrius (though we'd guess that's because he was Arrius and was trying to hide it?). We'd like the reader to note that there is no cite or source given for this information, which is apparently typical for this consortium. People are invented from this Piso family based on no more than a whim and perhaps a presumption of an embedded code in the NT and other documents. To put it simply, there is no evidence outside the theory that "Arrius Piso" actually existed.

Here's another one of those types of claims:

Around the end of the reign of Hadrian (after 135 CE) Julius Calpurnius Piso, the son of Arrius Piso, made a big mistake. He had just conquered the Jews at Masada, after which the Jews scattered to all corners of the earth. This was the infamous Diaspora. It was a stunning (if brutal) victory, and Julius wanted to make the most of it. He asked Hadrian to make his son successor to the Emperor, knowing full well that if Hadrian refused, Julius would be obliged to commit suicide. Hadrian refused.

There's quite the confusion here, since Masada was a last stand for the Jews in 73 AD, not in the time of Hadrian, and the "Diaspora" refers to Jews scattered among the nations even long before 70 AD. Not that it matters, because this "Julius" seems to be another invention of the Reuchlin consortium. There was indeed a "Julius Piso" who was mentioned in a letter of Pliny (see here) but he had nothing to do with the Jewish War. The Roman commander at Masada was named Silva (Josephus, War 7.8). We are told that this Julius also wrote the book of Revelation. Like Arrius, though, he is a phantom.

[Julius] Caesar was an in-law of the Piso family. His wife, Calpurnia, was a Piso! He had married her to cement an alliance with Pontus. When he went from the bed of Cleopatra to Pontus in 47 he betrayed that alliance. It was perceived by the Pisos as the act of a traitor, and they swore their revenge.

Three years later, in 44 BCE, on the 15th day of the 3rd month, Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times by conspirators who included Piso family members. The assassination of Julius Caesar is full of clues. His given name, Julius, was written IVLIV in the Latin of his day. Make note of the fact that the number 4 is IV in Roman numerals. Thus the number 44 can be seen to be contained in his very name.

In case you're wondering: it seems to be part of the plan that the Pisos also orchestrated our system of reckoning years and numbering them BC and AD. Don't ask more, you'll ruin the effect.

The 15th day of the 3rd month contains another clue. If you divide 15 by 3 you get three 5's. The Roman numeral for 5 is V. Thus the day of Caesar's death contains three V's, referring to his phrase VENI VIDI VICI.

Caesar was stabbed 23 times. There were exactly 23 letters in the Latin alphabet of his day. This indicates that we are to use old Latin as a cypher.

Apparently any number is fair game here; and any way it can be associated is fair game as well. Julie C. is a real rooter for this group; here's another example. Noting his famous "Veni vidi vici" phrase, they write:

The infamous number 666, for example, is simply VIVIVI, which refers to VenI VidI VicI. Get it? Oh yes, you will say that 666 is really DCLXVI. Yes, it is, but it also can cleverly be represented as VIVIVI, and the Pisos were very clever. They knew people would throw themselves off the track by their need to be literal.

Yes, that's the answer when the data doesn't cooperate: It was actually a "very clever" way of hiding things from people not in on the joke. Here's more:

The number 666 can also be expressed as VI VI VI. If you take the three V's and form a triangle, and then take the three I's and form another triangle, and then overlap the two "against" each other you will form a Star of David. This is yet another way that the number 666 points to the Jews.

You can also rearrange all the pieces to make a nice Lego building. But wouldn't three V's make two triangles plus one line, without the Is? That makes three total. Oops. Elsewhere it is said:

Notice that the phrase "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they [also] which pierced him." contains VENI VIDI VICI! He came. They saw. They pierced (conquered) him. It describes what happened at Zela in 47 BCE, and the assassination that followed three years later. They saw him coming with his troops, and they pierced him 23 times as a result of it.

Hum. "Pierced" = "conquered". And it took place over three years. Fear not, more undocumented creativity follows:

When a Roman needed to attend to nature he or she would say something like "Time to turn water into wine." This was a joke, of course, for the act of urination was something like transforming water magically into a kind of 'wine' - urine. Knowing this, can you ever again think that Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding at Capurnaum was a "miracle?" It was written into the New Testament by the Romans so that everyone in Rome, except the slaves of course, would get a belly laugh.

You won't find any documentation of such a phrase used by Romans, but we wonder whether the priests of Dionysus would have caught on. More yet:

In Latin the word "pistor" (baker) was, like the word "ippos", used by the Piso family to refer to themselves. Could it be that when we read in the Lord's Prayer "Give us this day our daily bread." we are actually reading a request for more "bread" from the Piso family bakery that cooked up the Jesus story?

Yes, and "Piso" is like "pistis" or the faith we are to have in Jesus. Isn't it nice how the Greek and Latin languages evolved so conveniently for this scheme? Some other ideas by this crowd: Emperor Trajan wrote as Plutarch; Pliny wrote the Pastoral letters (and actually died in a battle against the Jews in 116 AD, fighting under a different name); a son of Arrius (Josephus) wrote the Gospel of John and wrote as Justin Martyr. I doubt if such shenanigans need much more comment than this: Pffft. But wait, there's more:

Is it a coincidence that the Piso family originated in Pontus, and there is a character in the NT named Pontius Pilate? Pontus was an ancient country that was located on the southern coast of the Black Sea, province of Cappadocia. The Latin name of the Black Sea was Pontus Euxinus. Did you ever wonder where the name Pontius Pilate came from? Perhaps it was to commemorate the origins of the Piso family. One of the Piso family ancestors was named Pilatus.

Not a shred of documentation if offered for any of these claims, and if you wonder whether they care that Pontius (not Pontus) Pilate is regarded as a real person by Tacitus, we should note that Tacitus was thought to be in on this conspiracy as well. And guess what! The English language is in on the conspiracy, too:

I'm not sure if this means anything, but the word fool is used exactly 66 times in the King James Bible: 57 times in the Old Testament. The writers of the NT would have had to make up 9 uses of the word "fool" to make it come out to 66.

The problem here -- whoops! -- is that the KJV translates a few different words as "fool" (nabal, cakal, 'eviyl, keciyl to name four in the Hebrew, and aphron and moros to name two in the Greek). But maybe the KJV translators were descendants of these imaginary Pisos. In fact, we'll see something like this suggested by this crowd's Fearless Leader below.

Curious Jesus. They inter-changed the words that they use when they say 'Lord'. Sometimes using 'despotes' (despot), but mostly using 'curie'/'curios' meaning not only 'Lord', but also 'curious', 'strange', or 'mysterious'. This is a big hint at what they were doing, especially when mentioned in conjunction with statements such as "the mystery of the Gospels." They take they Latin word 'curia' and then turn it into its masculine form in Greek to get 'curios'. Julius Piso hints at what they were doing in 'Revelations' 18:8, "... for strongly curious is the God that judgeth her." And Julius even ends 'Revelations' snidely, saying in Rev. 22:20; "Yes, come, curious (Lord) Jesus!" Rev. 22:21; "Saints!, praise the Revelations of John!" And that, of course, made them want to exclude 'Revelations' from the canon.

Hum again. "Kurios" (Lord) in Greek matched with "curious" in English? Does this remind you of a certain other nutcase who said that the things he said were true "regardless of etymology"? No surprise -- the same book is part of the Piso crowd's "recommended reading" list, along with Acharya S and Gerald Massey. We have been advised that "curious" comes from a word curiosus, which means "conscientious" and has no linguistic derivation from the Greek "kurios".

The 'Abba' issue. In the New Testament, Jesus, dying on the cross, calls out to God using the word 'abba' - 'father'. And lo, and behold, we find Josephus using this same word while describing something similar in Chapter 8, verse 7, of 'Wars of the Jews'.

The proper title is actually "The Jewish War," and there are 7 books that have a chapter 8 in them. Not one describes anything "similar" (well - similar to WHAT??) and we might add that Jesus did not use the word "Abba" on the cross.

We find 'the Egyptian' mentioned in Acts 21:38, and also in Josephus! The 'Egyptian' referred to was Arrius Piso/Josephus, because Arrius Piso was also 'Philo of Alexandria' (in Egypt), and he is descended from the 'Ptolemies' of Egypt, and because he is of Idumean (Edomite, i.e., 'Egyptian') descent. Not to mention the fact that being a descendant of King David, he has the blood of the Egyptian Pharaohes in him, because King Solomon (David's son), was married to a Pharaoh's daughter!

If you're tired of chasing the cuckoo around the clock of presumptions (i.e., Solomon had hundreds of foreign wives -- how do we conclude this descent???), you will be relieved to know as well, "In the N.T., Jesus is tempted to jump from the Temple in the exact same place that we find described in Josephus!" Described in Josephus...where? It isn't said. Just take their word for it, it's in there.

Apparently God is going to hell! In Matthew 5:22 Jesus says: "but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire." And in Luke 12:20 "But God said unto him, [Thou] fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee." In other words, Jesus says that he who says "thou fool" shall be in danger of hell fire, and then God says "Thou fool"! So, God is in danger of hell fire!...This is either a joke, or an egregious error.

Too bad, though, that the former "fool" is a moros and the latter (and 1 Cor. 15:36) is an aphron. Maybe that was one of those clever Piso ruses? These folks also claim all manner of sexual jokes behind the NT text; for example, "that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die" is said to have sexual innuendos. Likewise, such phrases as "he arose, took up his bed and went" (Mark 2:12), "many knew him" (Mark 6:33), and "having eyes, see ye not?" (Mark 8:18), "eyes" being a codeword known only to Roman aristocratic sorts for another part of the body, one that is active when you sit down, if you get my drift. Acts, we are told, was written to advertise locations of Roman brothels. I'll just let you think about all of that. (One of their sources for this sort of thinking is one James Hannay -- a British chemist of the 19th century known for an experiment in which he artificially produced minute quantities of diamond. In other words, this is someone who as usual had no business drawing the conclusions he did. It is interesting to note that "Abelard" was a saint supposedly castrated for his tendency to lasciviousness!)

...why does it seem that the Romans hated Christianity? After all, didn't they "throw the Christians to the lions" in the Coliseum? The last thing the Roman rulers wanted was for the slaves to catch on to the fact that the Romans wrote the New Testament. If they had said "Here, slaves, is a religion made just for you, and we endorse it." the slaves would have done anything but become Christians. Isn't that obvious?

And our reader was told of "The facade of Roman dislike of Christianity":

They had to create the illusion that they were not involved in creating it, so they would not be suspected. Thus, they had to play the part of not knowing anything about it (as Pliny the Younger does), and/or being indifferent to it or disliking it hence the writings about (false) persecutions

Other "facades" include:

The facade of "What the War Was About." Since the Romans were really the "bad guys," they could not let that fact be known. If the public knew the true nature of the war, they would have revolted against Rome just as the Jews did.

The facade of the idea of "Foreigners." There could hardly have been any real foreigners in the way that we are led to believe because of the cooperation of all major rulers in many different lands and the genealogical data that allows us to see how these rulers were related to each other and/or had the same common ancestors, and knew this.

This latter "facade" is especially in opposition to what we know about ancient social networks and ideas of collectivist "in-groups" -- see link above.

The facade of Dynasties. They had to create the illusion that there were dynasties so that the public would never know of the perpetual rule by the same family. Most, if not all, of these rulers were very cruel and extremely harmful to the public. If the public knew that if this were the true case, they would not have stood for it. Illusions were created to make the public think that if, for example, someone could rise in rank in the military, he stood a chance to become Emperor! This was a very powerful idea for people enduring so much misery.

The facade of authors speaking forthrightly and honestly. Ancient authors were royals, and yet they could not say so. By necessity, they had to lie about who they were and about much of what they said in their writings. They tried not to lie when they did not have to because they made use of devices such as disclaimers and said truthful things - in deceptive ways! For many hundreds of years, the general public has believed these ancient authors to be who they claimed to be and as if they wrote in an honest fashion.

The facade of many different people writing. Since only the royals were doing the writing and recording of history as well as Biblical texts, it was necessary that they made it appear that more people wrote than actually were...Thus, the authors played many parts and wrote using alias names to accomplish this. Arrius Piso, for example, wrote as Flavius Josephus, as well as Philo of Alexandria in addition to writing Biblical texts!

The conspiracy, obviously, is quite vast. I think it enough to state that all of this is merely assumed for the sake of the theory, not shown by evidence. But don't dare tell them that. Our reader sent us a record of a conversation between a somewhat more rational atheist and the Lead Dog in the Piso camp. This atheist stated:

The Piso theory contends numbered scrolls existed in the first century. No such scroll have been found. No secondary documentation even exists that alludes to such scrolls. The destruction of Pompeii and Herculean in the first century AD froze a period in time. The private libraries of at least one on the members of the inner circle was preserved. It had no numbered text. This proved to be an embarrassment to those who claimed they existed. They know have to concoct wild scenarios where the scrolls are removed to another location, and loved ones are left behind.

Now we cannot vouch for the accuracy of this person's statements, but we do wish to note the Piso Dog's answer:

What we had said about numbered scrolls (chapter and verse) is that the Pisos had their OWN private copies that were numbered. And of course, the chances that those scrolls will be found is nearly zero. They were not meant for the public to see/find. They were kept in private family archives for as long as they needed them to be. The numbered copies that were produced for the King James Bible made use of those original ancient numbers which were pulled out of the original ancient texts, because it was SAFE to do so after all of those hundreds of years. And the fact that others had made the attempt to number the biblical texts just prior to the KJV, is just red-herrings so that one could make arguments regarding the claims of anyone such as ourselves. The plan was probably made right from the start as to just when or if numbered texts should ever be made available to the public. What you need to understand is that we are dealing with those of extreme genius. It is necessary to think as they did in order to understand how they made this all work.

Do you get that? This is a work of conspiratorial genius. And if you disagree? Well, just think of Acharya S telling a professor of religion he needs to take a Religion 101 class. The Dog tells the atheist objector:

You need to educate yourself to a higher level so as to be able to understand these things. As I had said before, you are operating under illusions. You need to get beyond being trapped by those facades.

And, for that Paranoia In You:

When one realizes that those who were writing and producing ancient history were in complete control of ALL that would be left to us in terms of evidence, then the threshold in terms of WHAT evidence is, changes. And that is what you have yet to understand. WE are not in any way in control of what evidence there is. We are entirely dependent upon what evidence was deliberately left by the perpetrators themselves. Understand? That, is the true nature of what we are dealing with in the study of ancient history.

But don't object, you are too dense to understand:

This is a broad and extremely complicated subject. It requires genius level thought, and sage dedication to understand fully. It is nothing that can be acheived by amateurs who do not have the ability to know when they are being deceived by ancient authors by any method or means.

And in closing, some statements from the Top Dog that win the Wayne Harrington Annual Delusions of Grandeur Award:

Our work, ultimately, is the ONLY way in which humanity has any real hope of ever gaining sanity. It is the only way in which real security for all will ever be achieved, as it effects so many other things. As I can, I have been trying to reveal this to you all for some time now in the form of various articles and subject matter. And I will continue to do so. But I think it is also important that you know just what the ultimate goal is. It is to enable future generations to think clearly, to learn how to learn, and to know how their own minds work. These very simple things are necessary for any person to be sane. So, our goal, via exposing the truth, is to change an insane world into a sane one. And, that is the truth.

The reality of the situation was that I was a sane person living in a world that was comprised mostly of insane people. Now, how is that for a shocker! What a huge thing to realize. I had already known that nearly everyone was very different that I, in that they were not actively seeking the truth about life and the world in which we all live. They, for the most part, simply accepted the illusion of reality which they saw around them. And I knew that. Which, in and of itself, was indeed alarming, but at that point, I had not yet fully understood the great impact of this, nor had I realized that this phenomenon was actually worldwide. I did, however, realize that even people of the highest rank in our society were taken in by those illusions.

Well, we can say the same about the UFO depicted in the back of the 20 dollar bill, can't we? What more needs be said? The Roman Piso theory is good for a little comic relief, and reminds us that hey, not even skeptics as way out as Dan Barker have gotten as bad as they could get.

Or....have they?

The Lead Dog gums back -- here