Product Code Database
The Zealots were members of a Jewish political movement during the Second Temple period who sought to incite the people of Judaea to rebel against the Roman Empire and expel it from the Land of Israel by force of arms, most notably during the First Jewish–Roman War. " Zealotry" was the term used by the Jewish historian Josephus for a "fourth Jewish sects" or "fourth Jewish philosophy" during this period.
At the core of Zealotry was the Jewish concept of "zeal," a total commitment to God's will and law, which was epitomized by the biblical figures of Phinehas and Elijah, and the Hasmonean priest, Mattathias. Zealotry was also driven by a belief in Israel's election by God, and is often seen as a key driver of the First Jewish Revolt.
Eleazar ben Simon's faction is the only group to have explicitly adopted the title of "Zealots," though the term has since been applied to other rebel factions as well. The Sicarii, another radical group active during the First Jewish Revolt, are widely recognized by scholars as a distinct and rival faction, though one that shared significant similarities with the Zealots. Led by descendants of Judas of Galilee, founder of the Fourth Philosophy, the Sicarii, as noted by scholars like Martin Hengel, adhered to many of the same principles as the Zealots, including a "theocratic ideal" and a deep commitment to the concept of "zeal."
According to the Jewish Encyclopedia article on Zealots: Jewish Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., vol. 21, p. 472
Others have also argued that the group was not so clearly marked out (before the first war of 66–70/3) as some have thought.Richard Horsley's "Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs" and Tom Wright's "The New Testament and the People of God"
Simon the Zealot was listed among the apostles selected by Jesus in the Gospel of LukeLuke 6:15 and in the Acts of the Apostles.Acts 1:13 He is called Cananaean in Mark and Matthew (Matthew 10, , Mark 3,) Two of Judas of Galilee's sons, Jacob and Simon, were involved in a revolt and were executed by Tiberius Alexander, the procurator of Iudaea province from 46 to 48.H.H. Ben-Sasson, A History of the Jewish People, Harvard University Press, 1976, , p. 275
The Zealots took a leading role in the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), as they objected to Roman rule and violently sought to eradicate it by indiscriminately attacking Romans and Greeks. Another group, likely related, were the Sicarii, who raided Jewish settlements and killed Jews they considered and collaborators, while also urging Jews to fight the Romans and other Jews for the cause. Josephus paints a very bleak picture of their activities as they instituted what he characterized as a murderous "reign of terror" prior to the Jewish Temple's destruction. According to Josephus, the Zealots followed John of Gischala, who had fought the Romans in Galilee, escaped, came to Jerusalem, and then inspired the locals to a fanatical position that led to the Temple's destruction. They succeeded in taking over Jerusalem and held it until 70, when the son of Roman Emperor Vespasian, Titus, retook the city and destroyed Herod's Temple during the destruction of Jerusalem.
The Zealots are further blamed for having contributed to the demise of Jerusalem and the Second Temple, and of ensuring Rome's retribution and stranglehold on Judea. According to the Babylonian Talmud, Gittin:56b, the Biryonim destroyed decades' worth of food and firewood in besieged Jerusalem to force the Jews to fight the Romans out of desperation. This event precipitated the escape of Johanan ben Zakai and his meeting with Vespasian, which led to the foundation of the Academy of Jamnia and the composition of the Mishnah, ensuring the survival of rabbinical Judaism.Solomon Schechter, Wilhelm Bacher. Jewish Encyclopedia. Bavli Gittin 56b
Other figures associated with zealotry include the biblical prophet Elijah and Hasmonean priest Mattathias. Elijah, in 1 Kings 19, refers to himself as "zealous" when speaking to God after killing the worshippers of Baal; Mattathias, the Hasmonean patriarch who helped spark the Maccabean Revolt in the 2nd century BCE, is celebrated for killing a Jew who agreed to make a pagan sacrifice, as well as the Greek official who ordered it. He is portrayed in 1 Maccabees as a latter-day Phinehas; according to the text, he "had burned with zeal for the law, just as Phineas did against Zimri, the son of Salu".1 Maccabees, 2:24–27
Zealotry was also driven by a belief in Israel's election by God.
While "zeal of the Torah" does not necessarily imply resistance to Roman rule, as noted by New Testament scholar Richard Horsley, Zealot ideas can nonetheless be seen as a key driver of the First Jewish Revolt. Judaic scholar Philip Alexander sees the common goal connecting all Zealot factions as 'freeing Israel from Roman rule by force.'.
According to historian Hayim Hillel Ben-Sasson, the Sicarii, originally based in Galilee, "were fighting for a social revolution, while the Jerusalem Zealots placed less stress on the social aspect," and the Sicarii "never attached themselves to one particular family and never proclaimed any of their leaders king". Both groups objected to the way the priestly families were running the Temple.
Historian Jonathan Price argues that the Zealots were initially part of the broader Sicarii movement, which may have been known by a different name in its earlier stages. He suggests that the Zealots, along with possibly other splinter factions, broke away from the Sicarii in a hostile manner as tensions escalated with the onset of the First Jewish Revolt. According to Price, both groups likely believed they were fulfilling the true intentions of the movement's founders, despite the Sicarii having "dynastic legitimacy.": "My assumption is that the Zealots were originally part of the larger movement, the Sicarii, which was less narrowly defined in Judas' day than under the last procurators, when the Sicarii may indeed have developed their particular form of terrorism involving the sica, and thus earned their name; what they were called before that cannot be known. The Zealots, and perhaps other splinter groups not identified by Josephus, broke away, more likely in a hostile than in a friendly manner. As war seemed about to break out, mutual hostilities intensified: control of an increasingly substantial revolution was at stake. Although the Zealots did not have dynastic legitimacy, each side might have claimed to be carrying out the true intentions of the founders; or the Zealots, the priestly contingent, might have made a clean break over some issue such as the use of violence, while retaining some of the central elements of the philosophy. The murder of Menahem and expulsion of many of his followers from Jerusalem in 66 was nothing more than one episode in a struggle for control over all the revolutionary movements in the city." The murder of Menahem and the expulsion of many of his followers in 66 CE, Price argues, was part of a broader struggle for control over the revolution in Jerusalem. Judaic scholar Philip Alexander as a loose coalition of Jewish nationalists, united by the goal of expelling Roman rule through force.: "…One of the striking features of the post-70 period is the continuing vitality of Zealotry. Zealotry received a heavy blow at Masada, but Masada was not its last stand. By Zealots here I mean loosely that wing of Jewish nationalism—Josephus’s “fourth philosophy”—which was prepared to take up arms against Rome. It was a loose coalition of different groups, which, by their very nature, were prone to fall out with each other, but they were united by one aim: to free Israel from Roman rule by force. ... In Bellum (7.409–19), composed around 75, Josephus records continuing Zealot activity in Alexandria. The trouble was fomented specifically by Sicarii, the group who had made the famous stand at Masada."
Philip Alexander writes that the persistence of Zealot ideas laid the groundwork for later Jewish revolts, including the Diaspora Revolt in 115 CE and the Bar Kokhba revolt in 132 CE.: "…One would readily get the impression that that was the end of the matter, but it was not, because it was in precisely the area of Cyrenaica and Alexandria that a Jewish rebellion against Rome broke out under Trajan in 115, and there were similar uprisings in Cyprus and Mesopotamia. There may have been trouble in Palestine as well, but full-scale rebellion did not erupt there until 132, led by Bar Kokhba. It is reasonable to see Zealotry as lying behind these later outbreaks, and to postulate some sort of continuity with the earlier events. It is surely remarkable that Zealot ideas were still active so long after the end of the war."
In the two cited verses Paul literally declares himself as one who is loyal to God, or an ardent observer of the Law according to the Douay-Rheims of Acts 22:3, but the relationship of Paul the Apostle and Jewish Christianity is still debated. This does not necessarily prove Paul was revealing himself as a Zealot. The Modern King James Version of Jay P. Green renders it as 'a zealous one'. Two modern translations (the Jewish New Testament and Alternate Literal Translation) render it as 'a zealot'. The Unvarnished New Testament (1991) renders Galatians 1:14 as "being an absolute zealot for the traditions".
|
|
