JESUS THE ZEALOT
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BEN STADA
THE EGYPTIAN
THE
EVIDENCE FOR JESUS BEING A ZEALOT
RIOT IN THE TEMPLE
NO
EVIDENCE AGAINST JESUS BEING A ZEALOT
OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
CONCLUSION
The Zealots were the equivalent of the IRA in the first century. They were Jewish fanatics who maimed and
killed in the name of liberating their country from the Romans. If Jesus existed he was a Zealot. It appears that the life-story of Jesus was
made up from different life-stories and so it could happen that episodes in a
Zealot leader’s life became part of the Jesus story.
If Jesus had been a Zealot it would imply that he was not a
miracle-working Son of God at all but just a normal man with violent
leanings. He did not expect to save the
world by his death and resurrection but hoped to stir up a bloody revolution
that would eject the Romans from his country.
The faked resurrection could have been intended to create a new brand of
Judaism that would be more like paganism and attract the Romans and win an
easier time for the Jews.
Read The Bible Commands Murder which
shows you how far real Christianity and the real Jesus, if there was one that
is - were from pacifism.
BEN STADA
The Talmud appears to confuse Jesus with Ben Stada who it designates as
the son of Pandira. He was a sorcerer
from Egypt
and he had cuts in his skin for magical purposes. It is thought that Ben Stada was around after
the time Jesus supposedly lived.
The
mother was Mary or Miriam who was a hairdresser and the husband was Stada and
the lover, the father Pandira. The
mother was also called Stada meaning gone astray or adulteress. We will see later that Ben Stada would have
been a Zealot and had a following of Zealots.
He
Walked Among Us
suggests that the Talmud is confused for it mixed up Mary Magdalene with Mary
for Magdalene is a similar word to hairdresser which was M’gadd’la. But there is
no support for this idea at all. And the
Jews would have loved to have accused Jesus of sleeping with Magdalene for they
were very close and so they would not have confused the two Marys unless the
gospellers made the Magdalene up after the tradition about the mother of Jesus
was written down.
And there is
nothing wrong with the husband being called Stada and her being called that in
a different sense though the book says there is (page 61). Stada was the nickname of Mary and they
called the husband Stada to avoid calling him Joseph. The husband of Mary’s proper name was Pappas
Ben Yehuda who the book says lived too late and who was alive in the 130s AD
but there were lots of Pappas Ben Yehudas.
The book quotes a
rabbi saying that Ben Stada was not Jesus but that is only to be expected when
Ben Stada was never proved to be Jesus to everybody’s satisfaction. And it is wholly unfair to cite the evidence
of a man who did not say why he believed Jesus was not Ben Stada. Through the centuries, scholars have taken
Ben Stada to refer to Jesus. And Ben
Stada had a wound through which he brought sorcery so was he Jesus having survived
the cross? Jesus was believed by many to
have achieved miracle or sorcery power through the wounds of the cross.
Ben Stada was
described as mad as was Jesus.
If there is confusion it may be a clear testimony that the Jesus it means
was such a nebulous person that nobody could be sure of anything about
him. Perhaps even his existence was
uncertain.
I would suggest that the Talmud could be saying that Ben Stada was Jesus
playing a different role after Jesus’ “demise” or that Ben Stada was suspected
of being this resurrected Jesus person.
The activities of Ben Stada would certainly make him need to masquerade
as a man who did not exist. He could
have been claiming to be a resurrected man though the man never lived. The
Talmud is saying that Jesus did not miraculously rise again at all but did
appear after his alleged death but as an ordinary madman.
Ben Stada is thought to have been the Egyptian in Josephus (page 60, He Walked Among Us)
and in the book of Acts who was guilty of insurrection.
Top
of the Document
THE EGYPTIAN
Josephus stated that about 52 AD a prophet came out
of Egypt to Jerusalem
and persuaded a multitude of ordinary people to accompany him to the Mount of
Olives from where he would call on the walls of Jerusalem to fall down as if by magic and
then they could attack. Felix the
procurator sent an army against them and four hundred were slain and two
hundred arrested. The Egyptian
escaped. He was bound to have claimed to
be the new Joshua. We know that he must
have done when he tried to do to the walls of Jerusalem
what Joshua had done to the Jericho
walls. So it is probable he took the
name Joshua which is the same as Jesus which means God saves and if so he
claimed to be a saviour from God. The
people evidently thought he could do miracles and he must have faked a few to
get their attention and support.
We know Christians did a little tampering with
Josephus’ works so perhaps the prophet lived before 52 AD?
The Matthew gospel says that Jesus was in Egypt as a child. And considering that Jesus was an orthodox
Jew one wonders how one that took on the Jewish law with its belief that
Gentiles were unclean could end up having to be taken to Egypt a Gentile
land and full of impurity and be the Son of God. This is what the Talmud might be driving at
when it calls him an Egyptian.
In Acts 21:38, Paul was asked by a Roman chief captain in Jerusalem if he was the
Egyptian who led four thousand assassins into the wilderness. This differs from Josephus. One would expect the man who asked Paul to
have said the Egyptian tried to attack Jerusalem
instead of just saying he took men into the wilderness. And there would have been more than four
hundred dying and being arrested if there were four thousand assassins. And Acts contradicts Josephus who says the
men were not zealots but ordinary men.
Luke exaggerated Josephus’ account.
But when the man who knew the Egyptian and all about him asked Paul that
it suggests that there was a link between the Christians and the Egyptians
which at the very least would be that the Egyptian was a Christian of some kind
for Paul was a Christian. Was the link
that the Egyptian was Jesus or the man the Christians based their non-existent
Jesus on? They could have invented their
Jesus and then used the Egyptian when people asked for evidence for this man
Jesus.
Paul being mistaken for the Egyptian tells us several things.
Paul was Jewish in appearance so the same must have been true of the
Egyptian.
Paul had been well-known in Israel all his life as a Pharisee
and then as a Christian. The Roman chief
captain’s mistake would suggest that he wasn’t the only one thinking Paul could
have been the Egyptian. Paul vanished roughly about the time Jesus supposedly
died. He was less well known then. If Paul was confused with the Egyptian then the
Egyptian had to have been around some time when Paul was forgotten about. This puts the Egyptian about the time Jesus
allegedly lived.
In Luke 19, Jesus waits on the Mount of Olives
while the disciples go and find a donkey for him. They were told to find a colt and take it and
just tell anybody who objected that the Master needed it. They did as he said and a man objected and
they said what they were told to say. Obviously,
this was staged to fulfil a prophecy in Zechariah that said the Messiah would
ride into Jerusalem
on an ass. The man had already been
asked by Jesus to keep the animal ready for him. Jesus then must have sent word for the
ordinary people to meet with him at the Mount for they all went out there with
palm branches and hailed him as the king of Israel. Some Pharisees were in the crowd and were
concerned about the noise and asked him to quieten them a bit. They addressed him as Master. Jesus sarcastically snapped that if he
silenced them the stones would start!
Humble wasn’t he? These Pharisees
called him Master suggesting that they approved of what he was doing and they
were in the crowd joining in which made it worse. This could have got them into trouble with
the authorities and their confidence hints that this was an armed rebellion
against Rome. We are told the shrieking began when Jesus
reached the foot of the Mount of Olives for it
was believed that the Messiah would go from there to Jerusalem and inaugurate the reign of God and
overthrow the Romans. The noise would
not have bothered them much when they joined the crowd so they were scared of
the Romans being alerted by the racket and attacking before they were all
ready. They would have been seen from
the city but hoped the Romans might delay a bit if the crowd was less noisy and
seemed to be nothing to be too disturbed about.
All this fits the story of the Egyptian.
Maybe
that is where the story came from. Maybe
the Egyptian was not Jesus but his life-story was used in the putting together
of the Jesus story.
What makes the link with the Egyptian more plausible is the fact that
Luke says that some time later Jesus went back out to the Mount
of Olives to a Garden where he had his famous agony and there he
was arrested. This could not be true for
the Mount would have been under surveillance in case another Messiah or Jesus
would start a fuss again. This is a
clumsy cover-up. Jesus would have been
arrested in Jerusalem
and hauled off his donkey. Like the
Egyptian, Jesus must have escaped the trouble that his behaviour had caused
when the gospels present him as being free afterwards.
Also, Jesus said like the Egyptian, that Jerusalem would be destroyed. When the Pharisees asked for a sign he told
them they could predict by looking at the sky what the next day would be like
but they could not predict the signs for their generation. This suggests that the nation and city were
on the brink of destruction not much later in 70 AD but in matter of weeks or
days. We know that the signs always
exist so the sign had to be something unusual.
Was it something that Jesus was going to do to the city? Jesus may have thought that the walls of Jerusalem would fall when he entered the Holy City
just like his namesake Joshua had made the walls of Jericho collapse. This is very likely as Jesus thought he was
the originator of the end. The Egyptian thought
and did exactly the same. Both men made
the same mistake meaning that they were the same person.
There is evidence in the gospels that does not fit with the idea of Jesus
being a Jew by birth like when he was called a Samaritan. And Matthew says that Jesus did come out of Egypt which could be what Josephus meant when he
said that the Egyptian came out of Egypt. Jesus might have gone back to Egypt in
adulthood in the times when the gospels say he was hidden. He would have been safe there and was afraid
to go about freely in Palestine.
The Egyptian incited the people to revolt and opposed payment to Caesar
and claimed to be the Messiah all of which Jesus was accused by the Jews of
doing before Pilate (Luke 23:2) an accusation that could not be made unless it
were true. You wouldn’t go to the police
and say your neighbour was a drug-dealer unless you could prove it and
especially if you are a community leader like those Jews were. The Romans did not tolerate
time-wasters.
Jesus was so
nebulous that the Jews did not know who he was and perhaps indeed were not sure
that he ever existed.
Top of the Document
THE
EVIDENCE FOR JESUS BEING A ZEALOT
Jesus claimed to be the Messiah which means anointed one or king. He was secretive and then he admitted it
openly later. He did not deny it when
people thought he was the Christ so he would have attracted lots of
Zealots. They must have been welcomed
for the gospels would be happy to tell us if they were not. Even his teaching and healings made people
want to make him king suggesting that all believed he had royal blood and could
become the king.
Jesus could have called himself Messiah for hearts, just like Diana was
Queen of Hearts, and avoided the word kingdom.
He talked all the time about the reign or the kingdom of God
which he called basileia which word means empire (page 170, Jesus). If he had not been a Zealot he would have
avoided these political expressions which would only disturb the authorities
and provoke them and make people misunderstand.
Jesus should have waited to call himself the Messiah when the
resurrection was passed. When he didn’t
it shows he was trying to make inroads into politics.
Jesus claimed to be the Messiah to his disciples and never once told them
that he was a different kind of Messiah to what everybody expected, a political
warrior king who would set up a kingdom for God on earth. So he must have been claiming to be that kind
of king. The word meant that kind of
king.
Simon the Zealot was one of his apostles.
And Judas Iscariot means Judas the stabber and Iscariot denotes the
small knives, called the sicarii, that Zealots used to carry out assassinations. Judas’ surname implies a number of knives so
Judas could have been the maker of the knives for them or the supplier or had
several knives himself which he put to much use earning him the nickname. Jesus would have been in big trouble for having
these men as his disciples. It would
bring suspicion on him. He was willing
then to be seen as a Zealot for he was one.
Christians say that Jesus having Zealots as his organisers of the kingdom of God means nothing for Matthew was a tax
collector and it did not mean that Jesus was into supporting the Roman
revenue. But Matthew had left his job
for Jesus. It is naïve to suggest that
Matthew would not have joined with a Zealot, and by implication Rome, when Rome had been his
employer. There is no evidence that
Matthew liked the Roman rulers. And
being a Zealot was not an occupation or job but about being a subversive. A modern prophet who has an IRA man as an
apostle would obviously be approving of that man’s activities. He would probably be an IRA man himself. Even after Jesus rose from the dead the
apostles wanted him to restore the kingdom to Israel so they had nationalistic
ideas all the time meaning that the Zealot apostles were still Zealots. Obviously, they knew that the kingdom of God was to be political and save Israel from its
enemies. They had never been put off
this notion so Jesus must have agreed with what the Zealots were trying to
do.
And the Jews accused Jesus of forbidding taxes and inciting the people to
revolt against Rome
to Pilate which they would not have done unless it were
true.
Jesus marched into Jerusalem on a donkey
in fulfilment of a prophecy that the king would come to take over and save Israel
from its enemies by doing this very thing.
The people hailed him as a political king for this reason. He must have wanted them to do that for he
could have gone discreetly into Jerusalem
that way if he wanted to be seen as a spiritual king. The Zealots would have flocked to him that
day and that would have been enough to get him killed on the spot by the
Romans. But we read that Jesus was still
able to go about preaching after what he did.
That would only have been tolerated if he were being watched to find out
what the secret society of the Zealots might be planning. It seems more likely that the gospels are
covering up the failure to take control of the city. for
delaying was dangerous and it was easy enough for the Romans to be prepared for
further attacks.
Jesus made sure his disciples were armed the night he was arrested and
said that two swords were enough. This
seems strange unless he planned to get his men together that night for an
attack and was preparing his disciples beforehand. Perhaps they were expecting more men to join
them. The fact that a cohort (page
76-77, The Messianic Legacy), a lot of men, was sent to arrest him proves that
they knew what he was up to and expected an army to come to Jesus’
defence. Judas betrayed Jesus by telling
the Jews where he was and what was going on so that they could take him
quietly. They could and would have done
that without Judas who they couldn’t trust unless they were looking for a time
when Jesus could not call his army together which they could have researched by
themselves.
The Gospels say the apostles ran away which is odd if the Jews wanted to
keep the arrest low-key and nobody arrests the ringleader without his men as
well. This may suggest that they faced
Jesus’ army. Jesus was captured and the
army ran off.
Some would say they let the apostles go in order to preserve the
peace. There was no battle for Jesus for
it was thought he was only going to jail or for trial. Not likely.
It is impossible to argue that
when the Jewish leaders and priests went and told Pilate that Jesus was trying
to organise a revolt and opposing taxes paid to Caesar (Luke 23:2) that they
were lying. They were not going to be so
obvious. Anyway it was enough that Jesus
claimed to be Christ – they didn’t need to go any further than that. Would they lie when Jesus was about to be
questioned by Pilate? They knew Pilate
could execute the lot of them if he wanted for he was one of the worst
blood-drinkers that ever graced Palestinian soil. In Luke, Pilate questions Jesus without even
knowing he was a Galilean and when he finds out he sends him to Herod. This is impossible to believe. Pilate was not going to question criminals
unless there was reason to believe they had done something seriously criminal
and he was certainly going to know about the criminal and where he was from and
how he behaved before he would question him.
So why did Luke lie? Probably to
give the impression that Jesus was so harmless that Pilate and the Romans had
no interest in his activities. That this
was a crude cover-up is made clear when Jesus processed into Jerusalem a few days before claiming to be
the successor of King David.
The gospels never explain why the people turned against Jesus so
ferociously after welcoming him to Jerusalem. It seems they bayed for his crucifixion a few
days later. This proves that the gospels
were hiding something. There had to be
more to it than just the Romans killing Jesus to please the jealous Jews. The people could have been adherents to the
Sadducee sect which collaborated with Rome
and they would have hated this zealot for disturbing the peace.
Jesus approved of the evil Jewish Law and even tried to go back to the
original understanding of it so he would have agreed that holy murder was
lawful and even a duty.
Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that if you were well liked you
were doing something wrong and were not living as you should. He was supposed to have been well-liked for a
long time which would suggest that the people liked his politics and that he
let them sense that he was going to do something about the Romans.
Jesus claimed to fulfil the Old Testament prophecies and said he would
fulfil them all. Most of the prophecies
about the Messiah are not about the kind of Messiah that Christians say he was
but about one that would rule the land and vanquish enemies and establish
righteousness on earth after a great war.
They never hint that the Messiah will do this after he dies or rises
from the dead or anything. The Messiah
allegedly was called Prince of Peace in Isaiah but that would only mean he has
to fight to make peace so that his people can enjoy peace without disturbance
from their enemies. The prophecies were
written to Israelites with no hint that they were written to the Church which
claims to be the New Israel. See
Jeremiah 23. Jesus knew he had to fulfil
all the prophecies. He knew Deuteronomy
18 spelled it out that nobody had any right to be believed unless he spoke for
God and predicted the future and was always right. So this would have made him see that he would
have had to fulfil every prophecy before he could ask for faith. He would have to prove it for the same reason
the prophet had to be always right. He
had to have been a Zealot. Maybe not an
orthodox one but he had to be a Zealot for prophecy demanded that he take the
terrorist role if he wanted to be a Messiah.
Jesus being a Zealot would be one explanation for why Paul just cared
about the risen Jesus and not the one that tried to save Israel and
ended up on a cross.
Jesus being a Zealot would also explain why the Romans hated Christianity
so much. They were supposed to have been
hated for immorality and for atheism for they did not use idols. But still the Romans were determined not to
hear their side which suggests their phobia had something to do with who
founded the sect. The phobia was too
deep-set and prevalent to be mere religious prejudice. Though Jesus claimed to be Christ and they
hated that it still would not have made them hate Jesus that much.
Top of the
Document
RIOT IN THE TEMPLE
Jesus organised a riot in the Temple soon
after his political statement that he was rightful ruler by entering Jerusalem in Messiah
fashion. He overthrew baskets and
wouldn’t let people carry things through the Temple.
He must have had people helping him for the Temple Guards
would have taken care of him as soon as he turned the first table and he could
not do all those things on his own. The
attack took place near a festival time and uprisings of some sort were always
happening at such times so the number of guards would have been increased
considerably. The Temple area was well over the size of thirty
football fields. For Jesus to drive the
workers out of the Temple
would have demanded a huge amount of assistance. He must have had over a thousand supporters
to help him. Mark 11:11 says that Jesus
went into the Temple to examine everything and used a professional word to
describe what Jesus did periblepsamenos inferring that Jesus was on what he
considered an official legal mission which would have necessitated a very
thorough examination and had the manpower to help him assess the goings on in
the Temple. Jesus was obviously a
self-appointed king for only that could have let to him imagining that he had
the right to stick his nose into the affairs of the Temple and it indicates
that he and his followers who helped him did not respect the law of the land at
all though Christianity says they did. Jesus
was defying the law of the land and going his own way and even decreeing his
own laws. This was the one that
supposedly said, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth”. He risked death for himself and his followers
and was obviously prepared to command the bloody slaughter of any Temple Guards
that tried to stop his outrageous intrusion.
To pick a festival time was very very provocative. Innocent men and women and children could
have been killed.
Many thousands came to the Temple
at festival time. Mark tells us that
Jesus kept the visitors out and managed to keep people from coming in with
their containers and other things (11:15-16).
Mark tells us that the priests could not kill him though they wanted to
there and then that day for they were afraid of the crowd. This would not have been the case had Jesus
only had a few men with him – then a Temple
Guard could have slain
him and blamed a sniper afterwards to hide the priests’ role in the
matter. The fact that Jesus and his army
got into the Temple
suggests one undeniable fact: Jesus had some of the Roman leaders in his
pocket. Christians take note of that
when you argue that the Romans could not have stolen the body of Jesus or
helped him survive the cross or fake his death.
The Christians say Jesus just threw over a few tables in the Temple. That amount of violence would not have made
any difference or any impact but it would have got Jesus into trouble. Jesus had to have done more than thrash up a
few stalls. John 2 says he did a lot of
damage and even got the animals out of their pens. These pens were strong. He didn’t do that with a whip. He must have had an axe with him as
well. The John gospel is not telling us
everything – but we will not be taken for fools by it.
It would have been more respectful and sensible if Jesus had protested
outside the Temple. He defiled the Temple if he did what the Christian gospels
say. It seems Jesus would have earned no
friends by doing that and so it was very unlikely for him to wilfully defile
the Temple. This view would have it that Jesus and his
army caused what they believed to be a justifiable riot in the Temple to purge it of the abuses that were
taking place in it. The gospels say as
much when they said his point was that the Temple was not to be a den of thieves but the
house of God. But the fact that Jesus
chose such a strange time for it was so busy and the Temple had extra protection and when he knew
the Jews could have rallied together the male visitors to the holy city to oust
him from the Temple
if they needed to shows that Jesus couldn’t care less about defiling the Temple. Spilling human blood in the Temple and tarring all the workers with the
same brush and attacking them and their property and throwing their money to
the ground for thieves to grab it shows absolutely no respect for the Temple and no belief in
its status as the House of God. The
gospels are lying.
The gospels are not saying too much in case they give away the fact that
Jesus led the Zealots to war in the city.
Perhaps his followers saw that he wanted to slaughter the Jewish leaders
as well as the Romans and that was why they turned against him and bayed for
his crucifixion later. John 2:15 says that Jesus used a whip of
cords leading some to say it was an absurd whip that would do no good. They say he just made it not to use it but
for symbolism. But he could have made a
huge whip from cords and depending on what the cords were made of they could
have left a mark on anyone struck by them.
The Christians say he did not use the whip as a weapon but as a
symbol. They have an excuse for
everything unpleasant he did. Jesus was
not going to get sheep and oxen out of the Temple area and knock over several tables
with coins on them like John reported with a symbolic whip. Or did Jesus attach something to the end of
the cords – a weight or something? When
Jesus was not grabbed to stop him doing these things it shows how powerful the
army he had with him was. The Temple workers were
afraid to lay a finger on him showing it was a real ugly brutal riot.
Christians say that Jesus was not a Zealot when he attacked the Temple for that was a
religious not a political act. But the
Zealots were religious people and hated religious corruption which was why they
held such racist attitudes towards Gentiles ruling over their country. They embraced the bloodthirstiness and racism
commanded by the God of the Torah.
The riot in the Temple
makes no sense. The story is so bizarre
and full of inconsistencies and yet it is like something nobody would have made
up about Jesus even if nearly everything else was. For example, it is impossible to believe that
Jesus could have taken an army into the Temple and not been stopped. It is impossible to believe that Jesus would
even have been let into the Temple. The
Jews agreed that he was a heretic and in league with the Devil. Jesus said he was the Messiah which means
Rome would directed that the likes of him be kept away from the Temple for it
was feared that would-be Messiahs would use religion to get political power and
even cause an insurrection. I take it as
evidence that there is no evidence for the existence of Jesus. When even the things about him that you might
think nobody would have made up about him are untrue, Jesus probably never existed
either. Paul stressed a Jesus of peace
indicating that Jesus led no riot in the Temple. The origin of the story seems
inexplicable. The story probably began
among Jewish Christians who had zealot sympathies who were getting revelations
from Heaven that Jesus was on the side of the nationalists and it grew into a
story about Jesus rioting in the Temple.
Perhaps Jews who pretended to be Christians were saying it happened in
the hope of making the Christian believe it and look silly. Josephus never mentioned this momentous riot
so it never happened. It could be that
Jesus Barabbas who allegedly was chosen by the people to be released instead of
Jesus was confused with Jesus. Perhaps
somebody thought Jesus appeared in the Temple and caused the riot while in fact
it was Barabbas. The Luke Gospel says
that Jesus Barabbas was an insurrectionist and who caused a riot in the city.
Jesus made no difference to
the Temple
shenanigans. It would have been business
as usual the next day. The Son of God
failed. No wonder a resurrection story
would have been popularised to make him look better. But it does no good except to convince those
who are already predisposed to believe.
Has the exposures of Sai Babas’ miracles as tricks and his alleged
illicit sexual activities done his religion much harm? Very little!
NO EVIDENCE AGAINST JESUS BEING A ZEALOT
Christians do everything they can to prove that Jesus was not a Zealot.
The Sermon in the Mount commanded turning the other cheek and carrying a
Roman soldier’s pack two miles when asked to do one. These rules would have been necessary to
avert suspicion. Jesus was interested in
getting the Romans out of Palestine
but not in hating them as persons. He
commanded and practiced kindness to them for it was nothing personal. The public face of the IRA seems nice and
reasonable but then the main organisation is not.
Jesus told the Jews to pay taxes to Caesar for his face was on the
coins. It was too soon to have a revolt
so he had to tell them to do that in the meantime. It could be said that when he gave such a
stupid reason for paying taxes that he was saying, “They should not be paid for
the only reason they should be paid if they should be is that Caesar’s face is
on them and that is not a reason at all”.
Jesus ran away when the people tried by force to make him king. That may only proves that the circumstances
were not right not that he was dead set against becoming a king.
Jesus prophesied not liberation but destruction for the nation. A Zealot prophet would seem to prophesy liberation. But Jesus could have wanted the Jews to be
destroyed for most of them were not Zealots and the Jewish leaders even
collaborated with the Romans. The
gospels are full of his rancour against the Pharisees and the scribes or
Sadduccees – the latter were the worst collaborators. He predicted that the kingdom of God
would come. This would probably be made
up of good Zealots and Jews with the majority destroyed. Jesus never said they would all be
destroyed. And the kingdom of God
had to be a political outfit. A kingdom
without laws and penalties and politics is not a kingdom at all. The kingdom of God
was certainly to be a Church but was to be a real kingdom. The Church says that the kingdom of God
is just a non-political collection of people who serve God. Jesus would have believed that those who
sincerely obey God’s laws would be already in this kind of kingdom of God
but he viewed it and stressed it in such a way that it had to be more than
that.
Jesus told Pilate his kingdom was not of this world for his servants
would fight to save him if it were.
Anybody who claimed to be a spiritual as well as a temporal king could
say that if he had lost the temporal kingdom.
Jesus had nobody at that time.
Jesus said that he was going to Jerusalem
to be crucified and die and that he would rise again. It seems a Zealot leader would not be saying
that for he would be expecting to win the war.
But Jesus could have believed that this would happen to him and that it
would be worth it if it incited the people to violence against those
responsible. Maybe he wanted to die for
this reason. To be a martyr.
Jesus did not talk much about politics and the political history of the
people much which seems to suggest he was not a Zealot. But when the gospels are more interested in
the spiritual side of Jesus and see no relevance in the political side for
Jesus was long gone this would be only natural.
We only know a little about what Jesus said and the gospels have most of
the same teachings in common. Jesus
would have had to have been careful for he had to be sure his army was gathered
properly and had to exercise discretion so too much political talk in public
could have got him in trouble.
Top of the Document
OTHER
CONSIDERATIONS
Having established that Jesus was a Zealot then it follows that what
Josephus was supposed to have written about him was forged for it never
mentioned Jesus’ political activities.
Perhaps that was why so few wrote about him for he was a martyr for the
Zealots and they wanted the public to forget him in case the Zealots would keep
his memory alive to incite the people to revolt.
St Justin Martyr mentioned the Samaritan Simon of Gitto who lived in the
time of Claudius Caesar who reigned from 41-54 AD and worked mighty miracles in
Rome
itself. Many of the Samaritans believed
that Simon was God or the first God. An
image of Simon was set up in Rome for the Romans to worship it as an idol. This is very interesting. Samaritanism was much the same as Judaism
except it had extra gods inferior to the first God and worshipped at Mount
Gerazim instead of Zion. When Rome
accepted this devotion and did not accept Jesus who was no worse and perhaps
better in many ways it suggests that Jesus must have been a hated Zealot.
CONCLUSION
Jesus was a Zealot if he lived and so he was not the Son of God and
unworthy of worship.
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BOOKS CONSULTED
JESUS, AN Wilson, Flamingo, London, 1993
JESUS THE JEW, G Vermes, Collins, Glasgow, 1973
HE WALKED AMONG US, Josh McDowell and Bill Wilson, Alpha, Cumbria,
2000
THE MESSIANIC LEGACY, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh & Henry Lincoln,
Corgi, London, 1987
http://www.geocities.com/nephilimnot/historical_jesus_christ.html
Monday, 26 November 2007
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