Zealot - The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

God—was very much of this world. And while the
     idea of a poor Galilean peasant claiming kingship for himself may seem laughable,
     it is no more absurd than the kingly ambitions of Jesus’s fellow messiahs Judas the
     Galilean, Menahem, Simon son of Giora, Simon son of Kochba, and the rest. Like them,
     Jesus’s royal claims were based not on his power or wealth. Like them, Jesus had no
     great army with which to overturn the kingdoms of men, no fleet to sweep the Roman
     seas. The sole weapon he had with which to build the Kingdom of God was the one used
     by all the messiahs who came before or after him, the same weapon used by the rebels
     and bandits who would eventually push the Roman empire out of the city of God:
zeal
.
    Now, with the festival of Passover at hand—the commemoration of Israel’s liberation
     from heathen rule—Jesus will finally take this message to Jerusalem. Armed with zeal
     as his weapon, he will directly challenge the Temple authorities and their Roman overseers
     over who truly rules this holy land. But though it may be Passover, Jesus will not
     be entering the sacred city as a lowly pilgrim. He is Jerusalem’s rightful king; he
     is coming to stake hisclaim to God’s throne. And the only way a king would enter Jerusalem is with a praiseful
     multitude waving palm branches, declaring his victory over God’s enemies, laying their
     cloaks on the road before him, shouting: “Hosanna! Hosanna to the
Son of David
! Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord” (Matthew 21:9; Mark 11:9–10;
     Luke 19:38).

Chapter Twelve
No King but Caesar
    He is praying when they finally come for him: an unruly crowd wielding swords, torches,
     and wooden clubs, sent by the chief priests and elders to seize Jesus from his hideout
     in the Garden of Gethsemane. The crowd is not unexpected. Jesus had warned his disciples
     they would come for him. That is why they are hiding in Gethsemane, shrouded in darkness,
     and armed with swords—just as Jesus had commanded. They are ready for a confrontation.
     But the arresting party knows precisely where to find them. They have been tipped
     off by one of the Twelve, Judas Iscariot, who knows their location and can easily
     identify Jesus. Still, Jesus and his disciples will not be taken easily. One of them
     draws his sword and a brief melee ensues in which a servant of the high priest is
     injured. Resistance is useless, however, and the disciples are forced to abandon their
     master and flee into the night as Jesus is seized, bound, and dragged back to the
     city to face his accusers.
    They bring him to the courtyard of the high priest Caiaphas, where the chief priests,
     the scribes, and elders—the whole of the Sanhedrin—have gathered. There, they question
     him about the threats he’s made to the Temple, using his own words against him: “We
     heard him say ‘I will bring down this Temple made withhuman hands, and in three days I will build another made not with hands.’ ”
    This is a grave accusation. The Temple is the chief civic and religious institution
     of the Jews. It is the sole source of the Jewish cult and the principal symbol of
     Rome’s hegemony over Judea. Even the slightest threat to the Temple would instantly
     arouse the attention of the priestly and Roman authorities. A few years earlier, when
     two zealous rabbis, Judas son of Sepphoraeus and Matthias son of Margalus, shared
     with their students their plans to remove the golden eagle that Herod the Great had
     placed above the Temple’s main gate, both rabbis and forty of their students were
     rounded up and burned alive.
    Yet Jesus refuses to answer the charges leveled against him, probably because there
     is no answer to be made. After all, he has publicly and repeatedly threatened the
     Temple of Jerusalem, vowing that “not one stone would be left upon another; all will
     be thrown down” (Mark 13:2). He has been in Jerusalem only a few days but already
     he has caused a riot at the Court of Gentiles, violently disrupting the Temple’s financial
     transactions. He has replaced the costly blood and flesh sacrifice mandated by the
     Temple with his free healings and exorcisms. For three years he has raged against
     the Temple priesthood, threatening their primacy and power. He has condemned the scribes
     and the elders as “a brood of vipers” and promised that the Kingdom of God would sweep
     away the entire priestly class. His very ministry is