Zealot - The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

Greek philosopher Celsus imagines
     a Jewish holy man roaming the Galilean countryside, shouting to no one in particular:
     “I am God, or the servant of God, or a divine spirit. But I am coming, for the world
     is already in the throes of destruction. And you will soon see me coming with the
     power of heaven.”
    The first century was an era of apocalyptic expectation among the Jews of Palestine,
     the Roman designation for the vast tract of land encompassing modern-day Israel/Palestine
     as well as large parts of Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Countless prophets, preachers,
     and messiahs tramped through the Holy Land delivering messages of God’s imminent judgment.
     Many of these so-called false messiahs we know by name. A few are even mentioned in
     the New Testament. The prophet Theudas, according to the book of Acts, had four hundred
     disciples before Rome captured him and cut offhis head. A mysterious charismatic figure known only as “the Egyptian” raised an army
     of followers in the desert, nearly all of whom were massacred by Roman troops. In
     4 B.C.E ., the year in which most scholars believe Jesus of Nazareth was born, a poor shepherd
     named Athronges put a diadem on his head and crowned himself “King of the Jews”; he
     and his followers were brutally cut down by a legion of soldiers. Another messianic
     aspirant, called simply “the Samaritan,” was crucified by Pontius Pilate even though
     he raised no army and in no way challenged Rome—an indication that the authorities,
     sensing the apocalyptic fever in the air, had become extremely sensitive to any hint
     of sedition. There was Hezekiah the bandit chief, Simon of Peraea, Judas the Galilean,
     his grandson Menahem, Simon son of Giora, and Simon son of Kochba—all of whom declared
     messianic ambitions and all of whom were executed by Rome for doing so. Add to this
     list the Essene sect, some of whose members lived in seclusion atop the dry plateau
     of Qumran on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea; the first-century Jewish revolutionary
     party known as the Zealots, who helped launched a bloody war against Rome; and the
     fearsome bandit-assassins whom the Romans dubbed the Sicarii (the Daggermen), and
     the picture that emerges of first-century Palestine is of an era awash in messianic
     energy.
    It is difficult to place Jesus of Nazareth squarely within any of the known religiopolitical
     movements of his time. He was a man of profound contradictions, one day preaching
     a message of racial exclusion (“I was sent solely to the lost sheep of Israel”; Matthew
     15:24), the next, of benevolent universalism (“Go and make disciples of all nations”;
     Matthew 28:19); sometimes calling for unconditional peace (“Blessed are the peacemakers
     for they shall be called the sons of God”; Matthew 5:9), sometimes promoting violence
     and conflict (“If you do not have a sword, go sell your cloak and buy one”; Luke 22:36).
    The problem with pinning down the historical Jesus is that, outside of the New Testament,
     there is almost no trace of the manwho would so permanently alter the course of human history. The earliest and most
     reliable nonbiblical reference to Jesus comes from the first-century Jewish historian
     Flavius Josephus (d. 100 C.E .). In a brief throwaway passage in the
Antiquities
, Josephus writes of a fiendish Jewish high priest named Ananus who, after the death
     of the Roman governor Festus, unlawfully condemned a certain “James, the brother of
     Jesus, the one they call messiah,” to stoning for transgression of the law. The passage
     moves on to relate what happened to Ananus after the new governor, Albinus, finally
     arrived in Jerusalem.
    Fleeting and dismissive as this allusion may be (the phrase “the one they call messiah”
     is clearly meant to express derision), it nevertheless contains enormous significance
     for those searching for any sign of the historical Jesus. In a society without surnames,
     a common name like James required a specific appellation—a place of birth or a father’s
     name—to distinguish it from all the other men named James roaming around Palestine
     (hence, Jesus
of Nazareth
). In this case, James’s appellative was provided by his fraternal connection to someone
     with whom Josephus assumes his audience would be familiar. The passage proves not
     only that “Jesus, the one they call messiah” probably existed, but that by the year
     94 C.E ., when