Asclepius

“And that these things did happen, you can ascertain from the Acts of Pontius Pilate.”

-Justin Martyr First Apology XXXV

It just so happens we can ascertain more than the things Justin mentions. We find this tantalizing piece of evidence in the first chapter, “Pilate saith unto them, ‘This is not to cast out devils by an unclean spirit, but by the god Asclepius.'” The Jews replied that he does his works by Beelzebub. In the fifty-fourth chapter of the First Apology Justin claims that Aesculapius mocks Jesus’ healing of the sick.
 In chapter twenty-one he even mentions that he was struck by lighting and ascended into heaven. He was also the son of Apollo, the Trojan God. Like Jesus, his mother was unfaithful and shunned for it. Zeus killed him for raising Hippolytus from the dead for a monetary bribe, aka simony in a sense.

The College of Aesculapius at Rome was in charge of burials. His son was even named Telesphorus and a prophet named Alexander was a member of his cult in the 2nd century. This is already two names of Popes and an early church father.

This Alexander of Paphlagonia lived between 105 and 170 AD. Glycon was the snake worshiped by this false prophet. It had a lion like head and snake body. Much as the Demiurge. It seems to me this is the Naassene cult.

In John chapter 5, Jesus heals a life long blind man at the pool of Bethesda outside the walls of Jerusalem. There is archaeological evidence that this was an Aesclepion. The phrase hygies genesthai and the word louein are reminiscent of language of the Asclepius cult as is the term soter.

These pools date to the time of Hadrian and have no Jewish markings of older construction projects before that time. Synagogues do not even date any earlier than Hadrian.