Zealot - The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

the Galilee
, 131–33. See also Eric Meyers, “Sepphoris: City of Peace,” in
The First Jewish Revolt: Archaeology, History, and Ideology
, ed. Andrea M. Berlin and Andrew J. Overman (London: Routledge, 2002), 110–20. I
     actually find Eshel’s argument quite convincing, though the majority of scholars and
     archaeologists do not.
    There is no way to be certain of the exact date of Antipas’s declaration and rebuilding
     of Sepphoris as his royal seat. Eric Meyer says that Antipas moved to Sepphoris almost
     immediately after the Romans razed the city in 6 B.C.E.; see Eric M. Meyers, Ehud Netzer, and Carol L. Meyers, “Ornament of All Galilee,”
The Biblical Archeologist
, 49.1 (1986): 4–19. However, Shirley Jackson Case places the date much later, at
     around 10 C.E. , in “Jesus and Sepphoris,”
Journal of Biblical Literature
45 (1926): 14–22. For better or worse, the closest we can place Antipas’sentry into Sepphoris is around the turn of the first century. It should be noted that
     Antipas renamed the city
Autocratoris
, or “Imperial City,” after he made it the seat of his tetrarchy.
    For more on Jesus’s life in Sepphoris, see Richard A. Batey,
Jesus and the Forgotten City: New Light on Sepphoris and the Urban World of Jesus
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1991). Archaeological work by Eric Meyers
     has cast some doubt on the widely held notion that the city was razed by Varus, as
     Josephus claims in
War
2:68. See “Roman Sepphoris in the Light of New Archeological Evidence and Research,”
The Galilee in Late Antiquity
, ed. Lee I. Levine (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992), 323.
    Although it seems that Judas was actually from the town of Gamala in the Golan, he
     was nevertheless known to all as “Judas the Galilean.” There is a great deal of debate
     about the relationship between Hezekiah and Judas the Galilean, and while it cannot
     be definitively proven that Judas the Galilean was the same person as Judas the bandit
     who was Hezekiah’s son, that is certainly the assumption that Josephus makes (twice!),
     and I do not see a reason to doubt him. See
War
2.56 and
Antiquities
17.271–72. For more on Judas’s genealogical connection to Hezekiah, see the relevant
     entry in Geza Vermes,
Who’s Who in the Age of Jesus
(New York: Penguin, 2006), 165–67; also J. Kennard, “Judas the Galilean and His Clan,”
Jewish Quarterly Review
36 (1946): 281–86. For the opposing view, see Richard A. Horsley, “Menahem in Jerusalem:
     A Brief Messianic Episode Among the Sicarii—Not ‘Zealot Messianism,’ ”
Novum Testamentum
27.4 (1985): 334–48. On Judas the Galilean’s innovation and his effect on the revolutionary
     groups that would follow, see Morton Smith, “The Zealots and the Sicarii,”
Harvard Theological Review
64 (1971): 1–19.
    The biblical concept of zeal is best defined as “jealous anger,” and it is derived
     from the divine character of God, whom the Bible calls “a devouring fire, a jealous
     God” (Deuteronomy 4:24). The most celebrated model of biblical zeal is Phinehas, the
     grandson of Aaron (Moses’s brother), whose example of spontaneous individual action
     as an expression of God’s jealous anger and as atonement for the sins of the Jewish
     nation became the model of personal righteousness in the Bible (Numbers 25). See my
How to Win a Cosmic War
, 70–72. Also see relevant entry in
The Anchor Bible Dictionary
, 1043–54.
    Once again, Richard Horsley rejects the proposition that Judas the Galilean had messianic
     aspirations. But his rejection is based on two assumptions: first, that Judas the
     Galilean is not descended from Hezekiah the bandit chief, which we have already questioned
     above; and second, that Josephus does not directly call Judas “king” or “messiah”
     but instead calls him “sophist,” a term with no messianic connotations. See
Menahem in Jerusalem
, 342–43. However, Josephus clearly derides Judas for what he calls his “royal aspirations.”
     What else could this mean but that Judas had messianic (i.e., kingly) ambitions? What’s
     more, Josephususes the same term, “sophist,” to describe both Mattathias (
Antiquities
17.6), who was overtly connected to messianic aspirations during the Maccabean revolt,
     and Menahem (
Jewish War
2.433–48), whose messianic pretensions are not in dispute. On this point I agree
     with Martin Hengel when he writes that “a dynasty of leaders