I'm using the term anachronistically to refer to the idea of Jesus as revolutionary.
First, the three main ideas of who Jesus might have been, setting aside the fundagelicals and C.S. Lewis' triple-L blather, of course are:
- "Apocalyptic" prophet. (That's in scare quotes because the "irruption of the kingdom of god" within Judaism of the turn of the eras did not have to be apocalyptic in the narrow sense.
- Jewish faith healer, per Geza Vermes, which may have shaded into general-purpose miracle worker like Honi the Circle Drawer.
- Jesus the revolutionary.
(Jesus as Jewish Cynic has been abandoned by most mainstream scholars not named Burton Mack.)
Theoretically, as in the sense not only of philosophical necessity, but more broadly, none of the three are mutually exclusive. That said, faith healer probably squares more with a non-apocalyptic, narrow sense, prophet. Revolutionary would seem to square more with a more apocalyptic prophet, and it and faith healer wouldn't seem to have much Venn diagram overlap.
In reality, though, Jesus the Zealot is traditionally understood as having a primarily this-world political focus.
Was Jesus such a figure?
Yes, Simon the Zealot was a disciple, and yes, Luke "hid" him by using the Aramaic. Yes, Jesus talks about violence. Yes, there are swords at Gethsemane. Yes, yes, and yes.
But, methinks Fernando Bermejo-Rubio doth protest too much. Start at page 9, as the pages are numbered, for a numbered list of bullet-point type arguments. I'll refute just a few.
1. Crucified? Sure. Non-Roman citizen in a world where capital punishment was the sentence for all sorts of crimes, and alleged ones, in a world lacking modern ideas of legal due process.
2. Between robbers? Peshering on the Tanakh is a better explanation than that he was a revolutionary. That Jesus was himself a highwayman, a robber, would also be a better explanation than that he's an insurrectionist. ("Insurrectionist" is not the best translation for λῃστής; it does involve force, not just theft by stealth. That's true in English, too, where a robber is not an insurrectionist. Contra special pleading in a footnote, per Strong's, the noun comes from the verb ληΐζομα which means "to plunder."
3. If Jesus did consider himself "King of the Jews," he elsewhere reportedly says his kingdom is not of this world. (That said, this could be words on his mouth. That that said, Peter's "You are the Messiah" could just be Matthew's words on Peter's mouth. And now, we're into historical Jesus issues.)
5-8. The Gethsemane scene? If Jesus were really trying to overthrow Pilate, would he not have had many more armed followers?
12. John 11:47-50? Totally ahistorical.
14. Referencing the phrase of the Lord's Prayer that "Your will be done on earth as in heaven" as having political implications is laughable.
24. The interpretation of "render unto Caesar" as being that Jesus was implying "render nothing" both misses the context of the pericope and is laughable. (This is even as I deal with someone on Reddit on this very issue.)
29. Referencing Luke talking about the census in Luke 2 ignores all the historical wrongness about that passage, from the misdating of the actual census in Judea to the fact that it didn't apply to Galilee.
So, IF Jesus was a Zealot, arguments like this don't advance the claim.
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