Tag Archives: Jesus

Jewish Uprisings against the Romans – after Jesus

Some time in the 30s CE, Jesus of Nazareth attempted to – at the very least – cleanse the Temple in advance of Passover, having entered Jerusalem as a Messianic claimant and would-be King. He was caught and crucified together with two Zealot leaders.

In 36 a Taheb, or Samaritan Messiah, and his followers were massacred by Pilate. Pilate was sent to Rome for trial for excessive brutality, but we don’t know the outcome.

About 45 CE, Theudas claimed to be the Messiah and raised an army of 400 men; they were slaughtered and Theudas was beheaded.

About 47 CE, Judas of Galilee’s sons Jacob and Simon were arrested and crucified by the Romans.

In the 50s, 400 followers of the Egyptian Prophet were massacred by the Romans though the Prophet himself escaped and disappeared.

The Great Revolt began in 67 with Menahem – another son of Judas of Galilee – breaking into the armory at Masada and arming the Zealots, then entering Jerusalem as King and executing the High Priest. Vespasian laid siege to Jerusalem in 68, and his son Titus captured it and looted and destroyed the Temple in 70.

All that has been left of the Temple since 70 CE: the foundations of the Western Wall

It took the Romans a further three years to mop up the province, culminating in the capture of Masada in 73.

The Kitos War of 117 began with a massacre – this time by the Jews, of Greeks and Romans in Libya – and spread to Egypt, Cyprus and Palestine.

In the culmination of 200 years of uprisings, the Bar Kokhba Revolt saw Simon bar-Kokhba and Rabbi Akiva take control of Judea in 132 CE, with 200,000 Zealots. The Romans sent 12 Legions to retake and sack Jerusalem. 580,000 Jews were killed. Jerusalem was plowed under, the new city of Aelia Capitolina built on the site, and Judea was renamed Syria Palestine. The remaining Jews were enslaved, dispersed, and barred from Jerusalem.

Jewish Uprisings against the Romans – before Jesus

During a Jewish civil war in 63 BCE, one side paid Romans under the command of Pompey eight tons of silver and nearly a ton of gold to intervene. The Romans gradually annexed Hellenized areas like Syria, Samaria and the Decapolis, leaving Judea and Galilee as a client kingdom. Galilee, being wild and hilly, was a natural center of Jewish religious and military resistance against the idolatrous, pig-eating Westerners. Its 25-year-old governor, Herod, captured and executed the leader of the resistance, Hezekiah.

Herod was created king of Judea by Mark Antony and Octavian (later Caesar Augustus), and he kept order through ruthless suppression of dissent, including the murder of his favorite wife and several other family members. When he died in 4 BCE, at least three Messianic uprisings broke out simultaneously, led by Judas the son of Hezekiah, and Simon of Perea, and Athronges the Shepherd. Judas captured the palace at Sepphoris and looted it of weapons and treasure; he was defeated by the Romans, but escaped. Simon burned down the palace at Jericho and looted what was left; he was defeated, caught and decapitated. Athronges had some success against the Romans, and it took two years to crush his forces; we don’t know what happened to him.

The Temple in Jerusalem. Romans used the Antonia Fortress at left

In 6 CE Judas of Galilee captured and looted Sepphoris; the Romans defeated his army of Zealots and crucified 2,000 of them. Judas was thrown into the sea with a millstone round his neck. It is not certain this Judas is the son of Hezekiah – in ‘The Gospel According to the Romans’ I assume it is.

This disastrous failure of an uprising happened when Jesus of Nazareth was 12, and had been to the Temple in Jerusalem with Joseph and Mary. Nazareth is only 4 miles from Sepphoris. We don’t hear anything about Joseph after this, and we don’t know what Jesus did for the next couple of decades. Regardless of Jesus’ or Joseph’s involvement in the rebellion, these were major and catastrophic events in Jesus’ formative years.

Using current events for historical fiction

Current events are excellent for giving fresh insights into a pre-existing area of interest. I had long wanted to write a non-believer’s novel about Jesus, and it was the Western invasion and occupation of Iraq that triggered the idea of writing about Jesus from the point of view of the Romans occupying Palestine.

What would a local religious funamentalist preach, if his land was occupied by heavily armed Westerners who trampled on the religion and culture?

Six years later, THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE ROMANS is in proof and should be out in a couple of weeks (CreateSpace and Amazon). If you’re interested in the different take, and the use of current events in historical fiction, the first chapter can be accessed from the top of this page.

The premise of the novel

The man we call Saint Matthew, being the tax collector “sitting at the receipt of custom” in Capernaum, is by definition a Roman agent appointed by Pontius Pilate. As such, he has the additional function of keeping an eye on the Zealots and other religious fanatics who head the insurgency against the Roman occupation. ‘Ragheads’, the Romans call them. After Jesus recruits Matthew to help purify Israel and overthrow the Romans – ‘Pigs’, the Jews call them –  Matthew continues to feed information to Pilate.

The local tax collector in Capernaum was - by definition - a Roman agent

Matthew himself tells the story. He is a Greek-speaking Jew, born and educated in Damascus, with a skeptical fascination for religion and politics. He is an irreligious opportunist and has friends on both sides in the conflict. He dines with the Roman military, spies for them, and wants Roman citizenship. But he also lives with Jesus, preaches for him, and falls in love with Mary of Bethany. Whichever way he turns he will cause the death of people he likes, and, in either camp, whoever suspects him will kill him.

By contextualizing the words and actions of Jesus within the Roman Occupation of Palestine and the repeated Jewish insurrections, a strangely modern picture emerges in ‘The Gospel According to the Romans’: a charismatic religious fundamentalist, opposing an occupying superpower.

Why a Menorah?

The cover illustration for “The Gospel According to the Romans” comes from the Arch of Titus in Rome. (Actually, it comes from a Tel Aviv museum’s reconstruction of that part of the Arch.)

The Arch of Titus commemorates the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the looting of its treasures in 70 CE, during the Great Revolt that ended with Masada. This was 35-40 years after the death of Jesus, but part of the pattern of a major uprising against the Roman Occupation once a generation or so, and the Legions crushing it.

Treasures from the Temple in Jerusalem being looted by the Legio X Fretensis under Titus

The Roman attitude towards Palestine was that it was a strategically important province: not just at the crossroads of Mesopotamia and Egypt, not just part of the trade routes with India, but essential to prevent piracy and lawlessness in the eastern Mediterranean. So the Romans were there to stay. If the Jews were going to be quiet, the Empire would farm them for taxes while providing commerce and growth and infrastructure. If the Jews were going to be troublesome, the Legions would loot and pillage while suppressing uprisings. Standard Roman practice.

“The Gospel According to the Romans” puts Jesus into this context of Roman occupation and constant Jewish resistance. You’d be surprised how different that makes the Gospels look!

Contextualizing Jesus

Churches and Sunday Schools teach the Old Testament, the New Testament, the description of the Temple, the differences between Sadducees and Pharisees, food, clothing, etc. But no mention of the Romans.

Jesus opposed those who didn't follow the Jewish Law, and the Romans executed him

High school Ancient History teaches the rise of the Roman Empire and its acquisition of all the provinces around the Mediterranean. But no mention of Jesus.

This is like telling the story of Osama Bin Laden without mentioning the Americans – and then telling the story of the Western occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan without mentioning Islam or religious insurgents!

Historians are apparently scared of dealing with historical realities that bear upon the creation of religions; the talking snakes and virgin births and going up to heaven in chariots don’t mesh coherently with the sociopolitical narrative, so historians ignore them.

And priests and theologians are equally scared of contextualizing their stories, because the stories only make sense if they exist as detached fairytale bubbles. Their stories are self-referential, detached from reality, about a preliterate world where gods and angels walk the earth and perform magic, where demons are the cause of illness or misfortune, and where life will somehow continue after the body wears out and dies.

But Jesus was a person in a particular time and place. He was a religious Jew, an acknowledged rabbi, living under the military occupation of an idolatrous, pig-eating Western superpower – the Roman Empire. The Romans had been controlling, taxing (and sometimes looting) Palestine for a hundred years, in the face of major uprisings once a generation. When you view the words and actions of Jesus in this light, a fresh and powerful picture appears, clearly hostile to the Romans.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE ROMANS explores the life of Jesus within this historical context.