Zealot - The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

Baptist,from whom he likely picked up the phrase “Kingdom of God.” What made Jesus’s interpretation
     of the Kingdom of God different from John’s, however, was his agreement with the zealots
     that God’s reign required not just an internal transformation toward justice and righteousness,
     but a complete reversal of the present political, religious, and economic system.
     “Blessed are you who are poor, for the Kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who
     are hungry, for you shall be fed. Blessed are you who mourn, for you shall soon be
     laughing” (Luke 6:20–21).
    These abiding words of the Beatitudes are, more than anything else, a promise of impending
     deliverance from subservience and foreign rule. They predict a radically new world
     order wherein the meek inherit the earth, the sick are healed, the weak become strong,
     the hungry are fed, and the poor are made rich. In the Kingdom of God, wealth will
     be redistributed and debts canceled. “The first shall be last and the last shall be
     first” (Matthew 5:3–12 | Luke 6:20–24).
    But that also means that when the Kingdom of God is established on earth, the rich
     will be made poor, the strong will become weak, and the powerful will be displaced
     by the powerless. “How hard it will be for the wealthy to enter the Kingdom of God!”
     (Mark 10:23). The Kingdom of God is not some utopian fantasy wherein God vindicates
     the poor and the dispossessed. It is a chilling new reality in which God’s wrath rains
     down upon the rich, the strong, and the powerful. “Woe to you who are rich, for you
     have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full, for you shall hunger. Woe
     to you laughing now, for soon you will mourn” (Luke 6:24–25).
    The implications of Jesus’s words are clear: The Kingdom of God is about to be established
     on earth; God is on the verge of restoring Israel to glory. But God’s restoration
     cannot happen without the destruction of the present order. God’s rule cannot be established
     without the annihilation of the present leaders. Saying “the Kingdom of God is at
     hand,” therefore, is akin to saying theend of the Roman Empire is at hand. It means God is going to replace Caesar as ruler
     of the land. The Temple priests, the wealthy Jewish aristocracy, the Herodian elite,
     and the heathen usurper in distant Rome—all of these were about to feel the wrath
     of God.
    The Kingdom of God is a call to revolution, plain and simple. And what revolution,
     especially one fought against an empire whose armies had ravaged the land set aside
     by God for his chosen people, could be free of violence and bloodshed? If the Kingdom
     of God is not an ethereal fantasy, how else could it be established upon a land occupied
     by a massive imperial presence except through the use of force? The prophets, bandits,
     zealots, and messiahs of Jesus’s time all knew this, which is why they did not hesitate
     to employ violence in trying to establish God’s rule on earth. The question is, did
     Jesus feel the same? Did he agree with his fellow messiahs Hezekiah the bandit chief,
     Judas the Galilean, Menahem, Simon son of Giora, Simon son of Kochba, and the rest,
     that violence was necessary to bring about the rule of God on earth? Did he follow
     the zealot doctrine that the land had to be forcibly cleansed of all foreign elements
     just as God had demanded in the scriptures?
    There may be no more important question than this for those trying to pry the historical
     Jesus away from the Christian Christ. The common depiction of Jesus as an inveterate
     peacemaker who “loved his enemies” and “turned the other cheek” has been built mostly
     on his portrayal as an apolitical preacher with no interest in or, for that matter,
     knowledge of the politically turbulent world in which he lived. That picture of Jesus
     has already been shown to be a complete fabrication. The Jesus of history had a far
     more complex attitude toward violence. There is no evidence that Jesus himself openly
     advocated violent actions. But he was certainly no pacifist. “Do not think that I
     have come to bring peace on earth. I have not come to bring peace, but the sword”
     (Matthew 10:34 | Luke 12:51).
    After the Jewish Revolt and the destruction of Jerusalem, theearly Christian church tried desperately to distance Jesus from the zealous nationalism
     that had led to that awful war. As a result, statements such as “love your