Zealot - The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

reduced to slavery. Those who managed to remain on their wasted fields often had
     no choice but to borrow heavily from the landed aristocracy, at exorbitant interest
     rates. Never mind that Jewish law forbade the charging of interest on loans; the massive
     fines that were levied on the poor for late payments had basically the same effect.
     In any case, the landed aristocracy expected the peasants to default on their loans;
     they were banking on it. For if the loan was not promptly and fully repaid, the peasant’s
     land could be confiscated and the peasant kept on the farm as a tenant toiling on
     behalf of its new owner.
    Within a few years after the Roman conquest of Jerusalem, an entire crop of landless
     peasants found themselves stripped of their property with no way to feed themselves
     or their families. Many of these peasants immigrated to the cities to find work. But
     in Galilee, a handful of displaced farmers and landowners exchanged their plows for
     swords and began fighting back against those they deemed responsible for their woes.
     From their hiding places in the caves and grottoes of the Galilean countryside, these
     peasant-warriors launched a wave of attacks against the Jewish aristocracy and the
     agents of the Roman Republic. They roamed through the provinces, gathering to themselves
     those in distress, those who were dispossessed and mired in debt. Like Jewish Robin
     Hoods, they robbed the rich and, on occasion, gave to the poor. To the faithful, these
     peasant gangs were nothing less than the physical embodiment of the anger and suffering
     of the poor. They were heroes: symbols of righteous zeal against Roman aggression,
     dispensers of divine justice to the traitorous Jews. The Romans had a different word
     for them. They called them
lestai
. Bandits.
    “Bandit” was the generic term for any rebel or insurrectionist who employed armed
     violence against Rome or the Jewish collaborators. To the Romans, the word “bandit”
     was synonymous with “thief” or “rabble-rouser.” But these were no common criminals.
     The bandits represented the first stirrings of what would become a nationalist resistance
     movement against the Roman occupation.This may have been a peasant revolt; the bandit gangs hailed from impoverished villages
     like Emmaus, Beth-horon, and Bethlehem. But it was something else, too. The bandits
     claimed to be agents of God’s retribution. They cloaked their leaders in the emblems
     of biblical kings and heroes and presented their actions as a prelude for the restoration
     of God’s kingdom on earth. The bandits tapped into the widespread apocalyptic expectation
     that had gripped the Jews of Palestine in the wake of the Roman invasion. One of the
     most fearsome of all the bandits, the charismatic bandit chief Hezekiah, openly declared
     himself to be the messiah, the promised one who would restore the Jews to glory.
    Messiah
means “anointed one.” The title alludes to the practice of pouring or smearing oil
     on someone charged with divine office: a king, like Saul, or David, or Solomon; a
     priest, like Aaron and his sons, who were consecrated to do God’s work; a prophet,
     like Isaiah or Elisha, who bore a special relationship with God, an intimacy that
     comes with being designated God’s representative on earth. The principal task of the
     messiah, who was popularly believed to be the descendant of King David, was to rebuild
     David’s kingdom and reestablish the nation of Israel. Thus, to call oneself the messiah
     at the time of the Roman occupation was tantamount to declaring war on Rome. Indeed,
     the day would come when these angry bands of peasant gangs would form the backbone
     of an apocalyptic army of zealous revolutionaries that would force the Romans to flee
     Jerusalem in humiliation. In those early years of the occupation, however, the bandits
     were little more than a nuisance. Still, they needed to be stopped; someone had to
     restore order in the countryside.
    That someone turned out to be a clever young Jewish nobleman from Idumea named Herod.
     Herod’s father, Antipater, had the good fortune of being on the right side in the
     civil war between Pompey Magnus and Julius Caesar. Caesar rewarded Antipater for his
     loyalty by granting him Roman citizenship in 48 B.C.E . and giving him administrative powers on behalf of Rome over all ofJudea. Before his death a few years later, Antipater cemented his position among the
     Jews by