They'll probably have to go with the Jesus theme in order to attract a wider audience for the box office. It's probably the selling point to the studios to get the movie made.

I would love for this to happen (even if it won't). Although I don't think that snippet from Heller really tells us anything about the direction it'll take, if Vorenus and Pullo are in it. Either way, I'm in.

The fifth season sounded a bit dumb though. No offense to Christians, but yours is a faith not supported by historical fact. Events were fairly well documented back then, and there was no "historical" mention of Jesus until about 100 years after his death. Same goes for those who think Jewish slaves built the pyramids. Only in your silly magic books, with no facts to support it. I'd rather Heller not superimpose his faith onto history. It was interesting enough, all on its own.

Also, I found the first season of ROME to be one of the best things HBO ever put on the air. However, the second season did suffer a bit from the compressed storyline and timeframe. That being said, it was still better than most broadcast/cable TV.

But in Roman sources there is really never much mention of Jesus himself; it's the movement of Christianity that gets the Romans' attention--a movement which, even if you follow the Christian version of events, has much more to do with Paul than with Jesus himself. Apparently the Christians were blamed for the famous fire that burned Rome under Nero in 64 (?) AD, but our earliest mention of this fact (as I recall) is from the Roman historian Tacitus, who writes in the second century, more than a century after Jesus would have lived.

From this point on, there are plenty of mentions of Christians; the growth of the Christian religion is a historical fact. But the evidence about Jesus himself comes entirely from the gospels, which were obviously written by people who had a very specific (and religious) view of what Jesus meant, and who were probably not eyewitnesses themselves. Even Paul claims not to have known Jesus in life. So the amount that we can know about the actual life and activity of the real Jesus is minimal; all we can know for sure is that he didn't make much of a splash in the 'pagan' world until long after he died.

As for the show "Rome", obviously the time difference between the period of Seasons 1-2 and Jesus makes that seem a strange direction for the series to go. Plenty of interesting stuff happens with Augustus and his family, much of which is referenced in the beginning of 'I Claudius' (and the beginning of Tacitus's history). Augustus only ever has a daughter, Julia; he wants one of his natural offspring to be his successor, but his wife Livia (not the mother of Julia) wants one of her children from a previous marriage to be the successor. Plenty of deaths, accusations of poisoning, and backroom dealings ensue. Lots of material for a good third season/movie.

Ok I'm a Catholic so I shouldn't be making jokes and saying what I'm about to say.

Was there a guy called Jesus who preached in Galilee and Judea? Yes...probably. There is evidence to suggest that he existed...was he the living Son of God who could walk on water, heal the sick and bring people back to life? Well that's much harder to answer...we simply don't know.

From a logical point of view, it's impossible and at best Jesus must have been a conjurer or something...but faith isn't logical. Something happened after his death...something that affected his followers so profoundly that they were compelled to spread his teachings, even willing to die for their beliefs...did Jesus come back to life? Who knows. But something definitely happened in the period following his death.

Ultimately we won't find out until we die...if there is a God then we will find out what is the right faith and whether Jesus was divine. If there is no God it won't matter because we simply won't exist after we die. Happy times.

Well, in this I will fuckin' confide. Every fuckin' day that goes by without a fuckin' resolution to the fine upstanding HBO series Deadwood...means another day that David Milch and his network cocksuckers remain unsafe from the whiles of Al Swearengen.

We know he ruled for 41 years, but the how and why of it is much more intriguing.

Paul's belief in the historic Jesus as Christ was because of this: (1) He knew Jesus was a real person;(2) based on the apostle's knowledge of Hebrew scripture, Paul believed that Jesus fulfilled the particular predications made by the ancient Hebrew prophets (e.g. Isaiah, Micah) concerning the Messiah.

Dammit, I have to see this NOW.

BTW I guess Bruno Heller is a bigot too?

I suggest that you take time to research the many Jewish and Roman historians - such as Thallus and Tacticus - who have confirmed Jesus's place in history (and based on the rules of historical research, certainly remove Jesus from the Romulus and Remus mythical category).

But even if Josephus did write that, he was born in 37 AD; Jesus would have died several years before his birth, so Josephus is not an eyewitness. Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, the other early Roman mentioners of Christianity, lived a century later. All any of their testimony proves is that there was a religion called Christianity that believed they were following a leader who had died many decades before--and none of it gives us any level of detail whatsoever about what people were saying about Jesus, other than the disputed passage in Josephus.

But none of it this is historical evidence about Jesus himself, just about his followers. There is absolutely zero historical evidence outside of the gospels which makes any claim to have been written by a contemporary of Jesus, or by anyone who claims to have known him personally. Most people also accept the Gospels to have been written after about 70 AD, which makes it fairly unlikely (although by no means impossible, especially for Mark) that they were written by people who were contemporaries of Jesus, or who knew him personally.

Given the fact that the earliest historical figure we know who says anything about Jesus is Paul, a man who flatly admitted to never having met Jesus except for in otherworldly spiritual communions with his ghost, we have to accept the possibility that much of what has been passed down about Jesus comes from Paul and his followers--in other words, most of it is made up by people who didn't know Jesus, but believed they had a personal relationship with his ghost.

I personally find it plausible (though by no means proved) that a Jew with a name that can be roughly transliterated as "Jesus" had was executed by Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius for causing discord during a passover ceremony in Judea. Any level of detail beyond that is, in my opinion, outside of the scope of serious historical inquiry.

Regarding Jospephus, as I mentioned, he makes two references to Jesus - one is disputed but still not proven to be incorrect. The dispute springs from the 17th century during the Renaissance when all things were challenged.

His other reference (e.g. James the brother of Jesus) is not disputed and stands as part of the offical record of a respected ancient historian.