New Testament Gospels
Did Jesus Favor Armed Rebellion Against Rome?
In response both to my thread on Judas and to my post on Barabbas from last week, a number of readers have asked or suggested that the stories about both figures may be explained on the hypothesis that Jesus was indeed a kind of insurrectionist who supported an armed rebellion against Rome. That would explain possibly why Judas turned on him, and why he is treated equally to Barabbas, himself guilty of murder during an attempted insurrection. I have dealt with the issue on the blog, but it has been many years now. The first time I addressed it at any length (in 2013!) was in response to the then recently-published book Zealot by Reza Aslan. This was the first book about Jesus ever to become the Number One bestseller on the NYTimes bestseller list, and back then lots and lots of people had been reading it. It is a brilliantly written book: Aslan is a professor of creative writing. He is smart, creative, and knows how to spin fine narrative. But even though he [...]