"...Titus Flavius fulfilled all of Jesus' doomsday prophesies....the parallels between the description of Titus' campaign in the "War of the Jews" and Jesus' prophesies caused early church scholars to believe that Christ had seen into the future.—Joseph Atwill, "Caesar's Messiah
"Here is the Mark temple prophesy:
13:1 And as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!
13:2 And Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
13:3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives over against the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately,
13:4 Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?
13:5 And Jesus answering them began to say, Take heed lest any man deceive you:
13:6 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
13:7 And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet.
13:8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows—Mark 13:1-8
Note that in Mark unlike in Matthew there are no predictions of how the temple will meet its fate and by whose hand. If Mark had known this information, there is no reason why he would not have included it in his temple prophesy.
We pick up Matthew after the eight redundant first verses:
24:9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.
24:10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
24:11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
24:12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
24:13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.
24:15 When ye therefore shall see abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand):
24:16 Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains:...
24:27 ...For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
24:28 For wherever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.
24:29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
24:30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
24:31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other....
24:34 ...Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled."—Matthew 24:9-16, 27-31, 34
Since Matthew slavishly includes almost all of Mark, but on this particular point Matthew supplies answers that Mark was unable to, it becomes obvious that Mark was written first. Matthew not only tells us that the temple will be destroyed, but how and when it will meet its fate as well as by whose hand. It will happen before this generation passes, and a biblical generation is forty years. He tells us that it will be destroyed by the "Son of Man" who will swoop in from the east, like an eagle, with the blaring sounds of trumpets. With the eagle being the symbol of the Roman army and the trumpeters heralding their coming, these conditions fit only one individual and that is Vespasian's son and co-emperor of Rome, Titus. Matthew therefore was written after the fall of Jerusalem and most definitely is laced with Roman anti-Jewish propaganda and was not the work of the Apostle Matthew or any other Jew. While this idea is almost unheard of in today's churches it was common knowledge during the early days of the Christian era. Some of these images also reflect many of those found in the "Damascus War Scroll."
"I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:"—Matthew 3:11
Further evidence of Titus being the "Son of Man" can be found in the works of Epiphanius: "I came to destroy the sacrifices, and if ye cease not from sacrificing, the Wrath of God will not cease from you."–Matthew, Aramaic text; Epiphanius, Panarion 30.16,4-5. Titus ended the sacrifice by laying siege to Jerusalem until there were no animals left to sacrifice, hence it was he, Titus, who stopped the sacrifice."Where will you have us prepare the passover?" And him to answer to that: "Do I desire with desire at this Passover to eat flesh with you?"–Epiphanius, Panarion 30.22.4. Although not part of today's Christian canon, you can bet that these pericopes would have been an obvious casualty of Constantine's Bible correctors, less the faithful would get the impression that Christianity was a vegetarian religion.
While often quoted by some to portray Jesus as a vegetarian, which as an Essene he most likely was, this statement also has a more clandestine meaning, for it was Titus who ended the sacrifice for Jesus. These passages are an attempt by the authors to build a bridge between Jesus and the old Jewish messianic branch and the Emperor Titus and the new Flavian messianic branch. It also completes the Greco-Roman romance of the slain Jesus returning to life as Titus, the long awaited 'Son of Man' foretold by the prophets and in the 'Book of Enoch,' to reap revenge agains the Jews, the slayers of his former incarnation Jesus Christ. This is not exactly something any Jew, including the Essene, would have written.
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