Zealot - The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

Galileancountryside, altogether bypassing the royal cities of Sepphoris and Tiberias, lest
     they confront the tetrarch’s forces. Although they’ve approached the prosperous ports
     of Tyre and Sidon, they have refrained from actually entering either. They have rambled
     along the edge of the Decapolis, yet strictly avoided the Greek cities themselves
     and the heathen populations therein. In place of the region’s wealthy cosmopoleis,
     Jesus has focused his attention on poorer villages such as Nazareth, Capernaum, Bethsaida,
     and Nain, where his promise of a new world order has been eagerly received, as well
     as on the coastal towns that rim the Sea of Galilee, save for Tiberias, of course,
     where Herod Antipas stews on his throne.
    After two years, word of Jesus and his band of followers has finally reached Antipas’s
     court. Certainly, Jesus has not been shy in condemning “that Fox” who claims the tetrarchy
     of Galilee and Peraea, nor has he ceased pouring contempt upon the hypocrite priests
     and scribes—the “brood of vipers”—who he claims will be displaced in the coming Kingdom
     of God by harlots and toll collectors. Not only has he healed those whom the Temple
     cast out as sinners beyond salvation, he has cleansed them of their sins, thus rendering
     irrelevant the entire priestly establishment and their costly, exclusivist rituals.
     His healings and exorcisms have drawn crowds too large for the tetrarch in Tiberias
     to ignore, though, at least for now, the fickle masses seem less interested in Jesus’s
     teachings than in his “tricks,” so much so that when they keep asking for a sign so
     that they may believe his message, Jesus seems finally to have had enough. “It is
     an evil and adulterous generation that seeks a sign; no sign shall be given to it”
     (Matthew 12:38).
    All of this activity has the sycophants at Antipas’s court chattering about who this
     Galilean preacher may be. Some think he is Elijah reborn, or perhaps one of the other
     “prophets of old.” That is not a wholly unreasonable conclusion. Elijah, who lived
     in the northern kingdom of Israel in the ninth century B.C.E ., was the paradigm of the wonder-working prophet. A fearsome and uncompromising warrior
     for Yahweh, Elijah strove to root out theworship of the Canaanite god Baal among the Israelites. “How long will you continue
     limping along with two opinions?” Elijah asked the people. “If Yahweh is god, then
     follow him; if Baal is god, then follow him” (1 Kings 18:21).
    To prove Yahweh’s superiority, Elijah challenged four hundred and fifty priests of
     Baal to a contest. They would prepare two altars, each with a bull placed on a pillar
     of wood. The priests would pray to Baal for fire to consume the offering, while Elijah
     prayed to Yahweh.
    Day and night the priests of Baal prayed. They shouted aloud and cut themselves with
     swords and lances until they were awash in blood. They cried and begged and pleaded
     with Baal to bring down fire, but nothing happened.
    Elijah then poured twelve jars of water on his pyre, took a step back, and called
     upon the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel to show his might. At once a great ball
     of fire fell down from heaven and consumed the bull, the wood, the stones, the dust
     on the ground, and the pools of water surrounding the sacrifice. When the Israelites
     saw the work of Yahweh, they fell down on their knees and worshipped him as God. But
     Elijah was not finished. He seized the four hundred and fifty priests of Baal, forced
     them down into the valley of Wadi Kishon, and, according to the scriptures, slaughtered
     every last one of them with his own hands, for he was “zealous for the Lord God Almighty”
     (1 Kings 18:20–40, 19:10).
    So great was Elijah’s faithfulness that he was not allowed to die but was taken up
     to heaven in a whirlwind to sit beside God’s throne (2 Kings 2:11). His return at
     the end of time, when he would gather together the twelve tribes of Israel and sweep
     in the messianic age, was predicted by the prophet Malachi: “Behold, I am sending
     the prophet Elijah to you before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He
     will turn the hearts of fathers to their sons, and the hearts of sons to their fathers,
     lest I come and smite the land with a curse” (Malachi 4:5–6).
    Malachi’s prophecy explains why the courtiers at Tiberias see inJesus the reincarnation of Israel’s quintessential