When people are oppressed or believe they are oppressed, revolutionary movements seem to almost inevitably pop up. In Israel in Jesus’ time, the rich and powerful had essentially collaborated with the Romans, and others had become rich and/or powerful precisely by collaborating with the Romans. The ordinary people often harbored resentment. But how does resentment become a revolution? This is a question that is on the minds of many today, and I’m sure that a sociological analysis and comparison with other revolutionary movements down the ages would be useful. But perhaps most interesting is the way religion and nationalism were linked, then as now. Thus I think that looking at this aspect of the background of the NT will help us to see its relevance for today, especially as we see Jesus’ attitude to some of the things that were going on back then.
There were then, as there are now, many different types of activity that we could look at. We’ll try to categorize them into two broad groups:
1) Social Brigands. These are essentially the ‘Robin Hood’ type, those who steal from and attack the overlords and redistribute the wealth in their local agrarian community. Galilee and Judea were full of such people, but as one might expect their names and details are not generally known. The focus of this group was social and economic.
2) Messianic Claimants and Prophets. People who believed they were God’s chosen person either to restore Israel’s freedom or to lead the way in preparing the people for a miraculous intervention by God. This category has a much stronger religious aspect. Among this category one finds:
a) A Samaritan in 36 AD who led his followers to Mt. Gerazim.
b) Theudas in 45 AD who persuades his followers to accompany him to Jordan, expecting it to be parted.
c) In the 50s an Egyptian led his followers to the Mount of Olives to experience the fall of Jerusalem’s walls.
d) During the first Jewish war (66-68 AD) Simon bar Giora is popularly acclaimed as king.
e) During the second Jewish revolt (132-135 AD) Simeon bar Kochba was acclaimed as Messiah and king by as great a figure as Rabbi Akiba. Under him Israel had 3 years of independence and managed to mint coins inscribed ‘Year 1 of the liberation of Israel’.
None of this will be understood correctly unless you have the ‘flip-side’ of what was going on. In 4BC Archelaus massacred Passover pilgrims in Jerusalem. In AD 40, the Emperor Caligula tried to have his statue set up in the Jerusalem Temple. In AD 66 Florus, the Roman procurator, antagonized Jews by taking from the Temple treasury. After the first Jewish war, the Romans banned Jews from Jerusalem and rededicated the Temple site to Zeus.
Regarding the Zealots, it is uncertain the extent to which they represented a clearly defined entity with members in NT times. At any rate, they earned from Josephus the designation ‘the fourth philosophy’ alongside the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes. He says that they essentially believed what the Pharisees believed, but with more of a ‘no compromise’ attitude. Thus, for example, the Scriptures seemed to forbid the taking of a census, and thus when the Romans did precisely this aroused the anger and outrage of some Jews. The census carried out by the Romans after they took over Judea in 6 AD seems to have marked the start of the Zealot movement under Judah the Galilean. Likewise the fact that Jews had to use coins with an image of the Emperor on it, when images were forbidden. In order to understand this group, one also needs to read books like 1,2 and 4 Macabees and the Testament of Moses, all of which exalt martyrdom as an ideal rather than compromise one’s faith.
However, this group’s nationalism did not lead to armed struggle until war broke out. A distinct but related group, known as the Sicarii (Dagger-Men) did more to stir up unrest in the second half of the first century AD. They get their name from the fact that they carried small, curved daggers similar to the Roman sicae. This group clearly could be classed as a terrorist group. In a manner similar to the original IRA (not the same as the one that exists today – watch the movie Michael Collins if you want to know more!), they would mix in with a crowd and then carry out an assassination undetected and then merge back into the outraged crowd. The first to die in this way was Jonathan the High Priest, but many others followed. Pro-Roman rulers and collaborators were singled out. This is obviously not the same as the rural banditry of the first category – this is an urban movement, relying on the anonymity of the crowd to strike undetected. The result was that to be expected from terrorism: fear and distrust. Rulers and aristocrats, rather than cooperate with one another, focused on self-preservation and security measures. Thus the fabric of society began to unwind, and this moved the Jewish people towards revolt. The sicarii had a limited role in the actual revolt, and eventually seized Herod’s fortress at Masada and sat out the rest of the war there. When the Romans eventually took Masada in 73 AD, they found the sicarii had already committed suicide rather than be captured.
In a period where there was growing resentment towards Roman rule and mis-rule of Judea and Galilee, Jesus’ teaching comes as striking in its apparent lack of interest in such political and social matters. However, this needs to be put in context. Jesus’ teaching is not about ignoring politics, but about the powerless transforming their world through means other than violence. To look at one classic example, Jesus’ wise answer regarding the payment of taxes to Rome was directly linked to the views of the Zealots. The aim was to catch him out by forcing him to come down either on the side of Rome (thus discrediting himself as a collaborator) or on the side of the Zealots (thus providing them with an accusation by which to bring him before the Roman authorities). Jesus will not play that game. He tells them, essentially, ‘If the Emperor wants back those illicit coins with images on them, why not give them back to him? But you bear the image of God, and thus make sure you do what is more important and give your lives to God!’ Here Jesus, in a time of growing nationalism, sought to turn people’s focus to their inner lives.
This was not because of an opposition of the political and the spiritual. Rather, it was because Israel’s situation was a part of the continuing situation of exile in which Israel found itself. This being the case, it would be like fighting against God to try to overthrow the Romans, when they were God’s instrument of punishment. The only way to bring in God’s kingdom was through submission to God’s righteous judgment and sentence on his people, and repentance. This was what Jesus led the people in doing, going so far as to bear the full brunt of the curse of exile by dying at the hands of the Romans precisely as king and representative of Israel. This seems to be what Paul is getting at in Galatians 2:12-14: Jesus bore the curse, thereby bringing the exile to an end and through his death and resurrection leading his people in a new exodus into the Messianic age.
[I have also been struck by the way Jesus used essentially negative images in relation to God – an absent landowner/tenant, an unrighteous judge. What would people have understood when Jesus on the one hand was friendly not only to non-observant Jews, but even to foreigners and Roman generals, and on the other hand used images of the sorts of leaders that people resented as images of God? Was this precisely a conscious attempt to counter Jewish nationalism, to challenge the common assumptions of the time?]