Get the entire Tekton site on CD or zipfile. Get a stripped-down copy of this page.

I suppose those whose sanity is on the verge are the sort who tend to have a problem letting their dead dogs lie dead. When I told a classical scholar of our acquaintance of the Roman Piso theorem, his response was a "WHAT?" with enough question marks attached to sink a battleship, and a remark that such people were not worth responding to. I slightly disagree, for responding does have a certain entertainment value, one which reminds me, in a much less cruel sense, of the Post-Enlightenment hobby of visiting insane asylums to watch the afflicted drool on themselves. So it is now with the response from the Lead Dog of the Piso camp.

The dog screamingly titles his response, "A REPLY BY THE NEW CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP (N.C.S.) REGARDING THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE NEW TESTAMENT BY THE ROMAN PISO FAMILY." To begin (and throughout his response) he seems particularly and petulantly offended that (he thinks) we did not know that he calls his school of thought, "THE NEW CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP". We did know that he uses this name, and we don't care. It is on the level of worth of someone with delusions of grandeur announcing that he is Napoleon. Give me 20 minutes and I will start a cost-free website advertising "THE NEW QUANTUM PHYSICS" revealing that all of quantum physics as we understand it as wrong, and that atoms actually spell out secretly-coded messages encouraging us to call 900 Dial-It services. The Dog's delusions of grandeur in supposing that his self-selected title actually means anything, or that there is actually anything worth learning from his self-designated school that supposedly overturns the "old" classical scholarship via the medium of cost-free websites, doesn't mean a thing. He can call himself a purveyor of "THE NEW CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP" until the wax falls out of his ears, and it won't matter. Well then, I designate myself the author of the EVEN BETTER CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP. Take that, Bad Dog.

Don't expect the Dog to have more than these delusions to offer. With reference to my note from Oliver, the deceased Nazi Christ-myther who found the Piso thesis as useful as a kazoo at a fishing tournament, the Dog assures us that his NEW AND IMPROVED WITH BLEACH CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP takes care of that, and that the NEW AND IMPROVED scholarship has "discovered" so much stuff the old scholarship doesn't know, namely, that the Romans were very good at creating facades, but we still don't get any actual proof of this, just the same old begged question that a conspiracy is at work. Oliver's note about the use of Roman names is not actually addressed. Rather, we are treated to a spun yarn about how the royal Romans made use of aliases, how they had conclaves with each other to plot against the common people -- and so on. With not one scintilla of proof offered other than the same old begged question that a conspiracy is afoot. We're sorry, Dog: Paranoia isn't a substitute for actual scholarship and data.

In terms of using a cost-free website as a medium -- as opposed to peer-reviewed journals -- we are told that this is "being adverse to those who are not spending money just to have a website. It is saying that because a person or group has not paid out money for a website that immediately we must ASSUME that their information is invalid or untrue." No, it runs deeper than that, and actually has nothing to do with the money (the Dog gives us a sob story about how he has had to live like a monk). Persons with free websites who promote ideas that run completely contrary to accepted ("old" -- i.e., with a proven track record) scholarship, who refuse to be open about their own credentials, who use an alias while refusing to be open about their identity even privately (the Dog makes the paranoid claim that "religious zealots" may try to harm or kill him, and that "paid" websites suggest backing by special interests!), are immediately suspicious and mark themselves as unworthy sources. As I often told people in Internet classes, give me 10 minutes in a public library and I will have a site up selling cancer cures, and people will buy it, and I'll be out of town with a stash before the cops can come. If Piso has a worthy word to say then why isn't anything he says recorded in The Journal of Roman Studies? Calling such venues representative of "OLD" scholarship is not an answer. Calling them "biased" is not an answer. Calling it "valuable information" begs the question. Skeptics would not accept such an answer from the Flat Earth Society, and we need not accept such answers from the Piso Dog either.

After likewise designating the scholar from Penn as "ignorant" and biased, after designating the member of that Skeptical list as like one "putting your head in the sand", and deludedly claiming that his NEW scholarship will "replace the idea of history" as we know it -- bear in mind how easy it would be to do the same promoting a NEW QUANTUM PHYSICS -- we get to where I spoke of some particulars, and offered some thematic statements from a site sympathetic to the theory. We're told yet again that we just don't understand the genius of all of this, and it is said, "Real scholars do not laugh at new ideas. They investigate them and try to understand them." Oh, yes. So if I go to MIT right now and give them the "new idea" that atoms actually spell out secret messages, I suppose they should "investigate and try to understand" that rather than give me a noogie and call security to kick me off the campus. The Dog rambles on for several sentences about how his critics are lazy, ignorant, irresponsible, and so on -- all of which can be easily reproduced by any lunatic canine with a bone to gnaw on. It's also much easier than getting actual evidence to the fore.

Now we get to where I quoted a Piso-sympathetic website about Arrius Calpurnius Piso as a Roman general who captured Jerusalem. The Dog immediately distances himself from the quote like a salamander carrying molten steel, saying it is from a place that is "NOT an official New Classical Scholarship site" -- oh? No difference to me, dog. My article was a profile of people using this entire family of claims; "official" (one free website) or "unofficial" (some other free website) made no diff to me in context. Not that it matters -- since when do YOU have the right to diss such people? Why don't you instead be a "real scholar" and "try to investigate and understand" this variation on the theory? Why can't the other fellow say, "Well, he's just IGNORANT and BIASED. He needs to address the EVEN NEWER CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP that supersedes the NEW CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP." Maybe the Dog can learn from this just how easy it is to bark loud while biting not at all.

The Dog likewise distances himself from the other site's statement that Arrius was actually Josephus, and issues a vague comeback that, hey, you can't just search the Internet for this stuff, and says: "I have explained to several people just this week that it is not reasonable to expect to find enough information at this point in time on the Internet about this subject as in order for that to happen there first have to be several books out on the subject so that people can quote from them and post that information!" Sounds like an excuse to me, but if you say so, Dog, send some ordering info for the books to -- er, what? He says, "The books will be out in the coming years and so that information will not find its way to the Internet for a few years from now." GAG! All right, so this means we have to shut up and stay low until the Dog stops scratching his fleas and manages to find someone as insane as he is to print his stuff. (I have a suggestion: Try Adventures Unlimited; if they'll publish Acharya S, they'll publish anything.) But if you have anything in print, Dog -- why isn't that stuff on the Net yet? -- send it to PO Box 112, Clarcona, FL 32710-0112, and we will make such corrections as needed. As if needed. It seems rather funny that if all of this special info is actually available, the Dog doesn't respond with just a wee bit of it. The snorting directive to get his stuff in print sounds like a dodge to buy time.

On it goes. I quote some more from this other sympathetic site; the Dog whines back that there is "just too much 'junk' information posted in this article by the author for me to spend my time on as well as information that I cannot affirm because it or parts of it are NOT the research of the N.C.S." Hear that? Dog ain't got TIME to "wade through" 2-3 paragraphs we presented to tell us what he, the NEW CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP, is willing to affirm (from hey, what may be, THE NEWER AND IMPROVED CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP. But he does anyway. He apparently is OK with the idea of affirming an Arrius Piso; to my note that this name appears nowhere on sites devoted to Latin history and such, he agrees and says, "So what? The author was simply looking in the wrong place." Really? So where's the "right place"? What ancient Roman work of history? What inscription mentioning Arrius Piso as a real person? Um, there ain't no such thing. There wouldn't be, the Dog tells us, because after all, this was a CONSPIRACY that the "Old Classical Scholarship" doesn't get because they can't read between the lines and see how these Roman "royals" were pulling their shebang on everyone, and if Arrius was actually mentioned clearly somewhere, that would defeat the purpose. It's like the painting of the cow eating grass. But it's blank, you say. A white canvas. Well, the cow ate the grass, the Dog replies. But there's no cow, you say. Well, the Dog retorts, you didn't expect the cow to stick around if there was no grass, did you? Don't you understand the NEW METHOD OF REALISTIC PAINTING? You idiot.

The Dog does assure us, though, that Arrius Piso's name was given in literary works; it was just "given in the ONLY way in which he could give it - in a way in which it could be hidden and not obvious." How? "...not all together as one name." I.e., an Arrius over here on page 4, a Piso here on page 72. Great. Using that method I can decode a secret world ruler named Saddam Blair Bush from the daily newspaper. Just in case, we are assured that the Dog has some evidence up his sleeve which he hasn't made public yet. How convenient. It's all very convenient. Thus when I noted that Suetonius didn't say anything about Arrius Piso killing Vitellius, we are assured:

Yes, he does! Suetonius DOES say that Arrius Piso killed Vitellius. But he was using one of Arrius Piso's alias names to do so. And this, is what the author does not understand. Suetonius says, "The officer (official) who dispatched (killed) him was one Antonius Primus, a native of Toulouse, and his boyhood nickname had been Becco ('rooster's beak')." Ref. Suetonius, 'The Twelve Caesars', Vitellius, the last paragraph. Of course, the average person would not know this or how to tell that Arrius Piso used that alias name let alone the many other alias names he used. He used so many alias names in fact, that we have yet to discover them all. Where did he get these alias names?

Ah, it's all a SECRET CODE using one of the many convenient aliases that this non-existent Arrius Piso used. As a representative of the EVEN BETTER CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP I object. "Primus" is a secret code not for Arrius Piso, but for a fellow named "Optimus Primus" who owned a Roman chariot consortium. He wanted Vitellus dead because he wouldn't renew the Roman military chariot contract. What, Dog? It's a new idea, don't laugh at it, investigate it! For sure! The only reason you don't agree is because you lack discipline and ability to see it. Pah! When it gets down to where we are told that we're just too "average" to grasp all these secret codes whether in Suetonius or the Bible, when we are told that recognizing all this secret goulash takes "discipline" and "ability" that only the Dog possesses, that there was a conspiracy (whether he likes the word or not) by unevidenced Roman royals that has fooled all classical scholars today; that these same royals "anticipated" that future atheists and non-Christians would not take the the NT seriously and so put secret codes in it to prove that Christianity was a hoax; and that the "whole reality of history" is changed by someone with no reported credentials and a free website, it's past time for the men in the white coats to show up and give the Dog barking at the moon his medication.

The Dog also distances himself from the sympathetic site's bit about Julius Piso and Hadrian, and offers a replacement from the Reuchlin route:

"Jesus, as a hen gathering her chickens in Matt. 23:37… And the term Gollus, for the dispersion (Diaspora) which he ultimately caused. It was only after the second destruction that the Jewish literature referred to both dispersions (Diaspora) as Gollus" (Ref. 'The True Authorship of the New Testament', Abelard Reuchlin, pg. 11-12).

What this has to do with anything isn't said. I didn't say a word about a Gollus or a Diaspora under Hadrian, so even if this is true (for what it may be worth, which is nothing) it makes has no affect on what I have written. The Dog has a budget problem, so he washes his socks. Then we are told:

This leads us to the verge of discussing just HOW the authors of that time could refer to Arrius Piso without mentioning his real name; he was alluded to by using his many alias names which had their origin in his ancestry. He is referred to as "Gallus" or Gollus, because of his ancestral name of "Pollo/Pollio," which means "chicken." However, to explain this so that the reader will understand it as I do would take many cross-references to illustrate and is not possible without all of the related material; and that would require not just one book, but several.

Oh! Oh! How inconvenient. So Arrius Piso conveniently had yet another alias to add to the list (how many is that now? 8,374,238?); and there's a linguistic connection between "Gallus" and "Pollio" that, darnit, it would take several books to explain. We don't doubt it; the linguistic convolutions required to get there would no doubt take years of writing genius to make clear. We are then told, "Let it suffice here to make mention only of this with regards to Arrius Piso being 'Gallus'; the second Diaspora was called 'Gollus' by the Jews (I have also seen it referred to as "the Galuth"), because it was caused by Mr. Gallus - Arrius Piso." The Dog has this much right: the terms "galus" (one "L") and "galuth" are used for Jews living outside Israel -- as in, in exile and as a punishment. And it's related to a Hebrew word galah. So this mysterious "Arrius Piso", whose name conveniently is unattested in any source except by "disciplined" research at cutting and pasting, has yet another alias, also likewise found only by "disciplined" cutting and pasting. The Dog is chasing himself in a circle and still hasn't caught his tail.

Among the further assurances we have are that this Arrius Piso (still yet proven to exist) has "ancestors on the Flavian side of his family" who "derive from a family whose name was 'Pollo' or 'Pollio,' which is 'chicken.'" Um hmm, and the evidence for these persons existing is? Not given. Arrius we are told also had another couple of aliases (#13,847,849 and 50 -- you see, no one actually lived in the Roman Empire; Arrius Piso lived alone there, and he was everyone), "Cestius Gallus" and the "Antonius Primus" who killed Vitellius. Proof? Why, it's simple. Here's what Suey says:

Vitellius died at the age of fifty-six; nor did his brother and son outlive him. The omen of the rooster at Vienne (noted above) had been interpreted as meaning that a Gaul would kill him - gallus is both a 'cock' and a 'Gaul'. This proved correct: the officer (official) who dispatched (killed) him was one Antonius Primus, a native of Toulouse, and his boyhood nickname had been Becco ('rooster's beak').

So, we are told, Suetonius, referring to Antonius Primus as a "Gallus" is the secret codeword identifying Arrius Piso. Get it? The Hebrew word galal was also inserted in the OT by the Romans, I suspect. So 2 Samuel 15:19 proves that chickens were given refuge in ancient Israel, for it actually says, in secret code, "Then said the king to Ittai the Gittite, Wherefore goest thou also with us? return to thy place, and abide with the king: for thou art a stranger, and also a chicken." And why not an allusion to gala, the Greek word for milk? So Peter actually says, "As newborn babes, desire the sincere chicken of the word, that ye may grow thereby..." But wait, there's more! "Pollo" sounds like the Greek polus, meaning "many", but in the NT is a secret code indicating that Jesus was a chicken farmer! (Read: "When he was come down from the mountain, chicken multitudes followed him.") Want more? It's a big grand circle of word-sound association games, with no concern for etymology, with "proofs" constituted not by evidence but by bald and undocumented assertion, suspicion and conspiracy, secret codes behind any and every word (and yes, Dog, we know how ancient languages used letters as numbers; it's still nothing but a game on your part, deserving of the moniker of "numerology" because of the exegetical voodoo it is based on, and deserving of the word "conspiracy" despite any protestations to the contrary). And he admits to our suggestion that Tacitus was in on this conspiracy, yes: "...ALL of the authors of that time were royals who were pretending to be other people by using alias identities; and yes, this includes Tacitus. Tacitus was actually Neratius Priscus." And no doubt also Joe Camel, Kermit the Frog, and Scooby Doo, as the theory requires. Psst! As purveyor of the EVEN BETTER CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP, I dissent. Tacitus was actually a guy named Ta(granius) Cit(ius) Us(urus). He ran a bear farm that ate all the chickens! Trust me!

The Dog again paints distance between himself and the sympathetic site -- though he objects that some translations of Josephus use the title "Wars of the Jews" (or variants like "History of the Jewish War Against the Romans" -- he claims the latter is the correct title, but sorry, it's a little hard to drag all of that out of just Bellum Iudaicum) then in response to my implied demand for more precise evidence on things like Arrius being Philo and descended from Pharaohs, we get -- evidence? Ah ha, you know better! We're told that the "information can be found elsewhere and eventually in upcoming books on the subject." Very convenient. Then we are told just how far back this conspiracy really goes:

But the fact of the matter is that the Bible was composed by ancient royals and the family line of those royals extended back to the author of Genesis. And that author, was a Pharaoh. He was Arrius Piso's ancestor.

No doubt, and there is also a computer called "The Beast" in the Netherlands that has all you personal info on it, and Arrius Piso owned a whole fleet of black helicopters. Also Columbus invented the TV set, but it didn't catch on because there was nothing to watch. Mockery? Yes, that's really all the answer the Dog deserves. But he does give us one answer the other site didn't. We noted:

"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.

The Dog assures us, "As for the place where 'Jesus' is tempted (in the story) to jump from the Temple (Matt. 4:5; Luke 4:9), that may be found in the Whiston translation of the works of Flavius Josephus (Book V, Chap. V, paragraph 5 & 6), pg. 555)." Got it right here. And guess what? It's there, all right -- as part of a huge, chapter-long description of the Temple complex. Josephus spends the whole chapter describing the Temple complex in loving and complete detail, right down to the sharp points on the roof made to keep birds from landing and pooping all over the place. Well, heck, that means a whole lot, doesn't it? Jesus could have jumped from the front porch and "the exact same place" would be there, too. Isn't that significant?

Now for a really amusing note. I noted that:

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.

I think the Dog's reply here is worth quoting in full:

Now the author continues to show his sloppy work again. He has found a different James Hannay and thinks that it is the same one which was referred to! He has not bothered to find a book by James Ballantyne Hannay; but again appears to only rely upon a quick websearch for his information. The author has by now demonstrated time and time again that he actually possesses only a cursory knowledge of ancient Roman history and research methodology, among other things.

Ha ha! This actually shows how out of touch the Dog is, if anything. Did I do a websearch? Yes, I did. I have web access to OCLC, the Online Catalog of the Library of Congress. And true, there is more than one James Hannay -- three of them -- but only ONE is a J. B. Hannay, he was born in 1855, and he is the author of books with these sorts of titles: Sex symbolism in religion on one hand, and On the action of chloride upon iodine on the other. Not the same Hannay? Give it a break, Dog! You're busted! This WAS a man who had no business doing what he was doing (for more on him see here -- from his very own clan!) on the subject of religion, and that's all we need to know to kiss his work goodbye as a reliable or informed source.

Most of the rest of the article the Dog decides to ignore. We now get to where we looked at the Dog's correspondence with a rational atheist, who noted that the Piso conspirators have to "concoct wild scenarios where the scrolls are removed to another location, and loved ones are left behind." As expected the Dog has his conspiracy of faith -- "All of the manuscripts have not yet been recovered, and this does not take into account of the fact that many of the documents which were in the Library of the Pisos did NOT even survive," and by the way, "it does not take a genius to realize that whatever manuscripts were in that library which could ruin the plans that the Roman Piso family had worked so hard to create were most likely snapped up as soon as they could get to them...It would be completely stupid to think that as smart as these people were that they were going to leave behind evidence that could destroy everything that they had been worked so long and hard to produce if there were any way to retrieve that evidence." Yes, it's that old cow eating grass scenario; and without the Dog's rampant genius, you will never be able to see that cow as it runs off into the sunset.

And last, we're also told that "Pliny the Younger records the attempts at retrieval from the Villa of the Pisos by his uncle Pliny the Elder" but don't expect to see this in Pliny's actual works; it has to be read between the lines, we assume, of Pliny Y's actual report that Pliny E -- see here -- went over out of scientific curiosity and to rescue someone's wife, and ended up visiting not the Piso villa at all, by the record, but the bathhouse. The Dog closes with more assurances that it will take "several books" before he will have enough out there to see that he really is the genius he thinks he is, declares that he has "spent far too much time" replying to our "gibberish," and takes his leave. And that is all from the Dog with the fleabitten rump for this round. What more needs be said? The Dog is a man ridden with paranoia and delusions; he imagines things day and night (a reader has sent me a copy of a forum message by the Dog, in which he claims to have written me a letter advising me of his reply -- he did no such thing; our reader informed me of it), howls at the moon, and keeps ants in the refrigerator "just in case of an emergency." Compared to this guy, Wayne Harrington is lead candidate for Sobriety Emblem of the Year.