The Jesus Dynasty / James Tabor

The research of many scholars of early Christianity over the past two centuries has enabled us to recover a lost and alternative perspective on the Jesus movement following the crucifixion. This perspective is in sharp contrast to the standard portrayal of Luke-Acts, in which Peter and Paul, as the two chief apostles, work in harmony to take a unified gospel message beyond the confines of Judaism. This reconstruction centers on James, the brother of Jesus, as undisputed leader of a community that remains devoted to Jewish Law or Torah. Peter is fully allied with James, while Paul seen as an enemy or apostate who has abandoned the Jewish faith. Our sources for this perspective, sometimes called “Jewish Christianity,” or “Ebionite,” are scanty. Some have been completely lost, others survive as fragmented quotations, while a few are detectable as embedded sources within larger works.

Prof. April DeConick of Rice University and I will be doing a Biblical Archaeology Seminar on some of these lost and forgotten sources in San Antonio, Texas on October 19th and 20th. The complete program with full information can be found at the BAS Web site. Perhaps we will see some of you there.

I plan to deal with four major sources, each of which potentially provides insight into the Nazarene community led by James, brother of Jesus:

1. The Syriac “Ascents of James.” There is a corpus of literature called the Pseudo-Clementines (PsCl) that dates to the 4th century CE but apparently incorporates and thus preserves materials that are much earlier. The PsCl corpus is made up of two lengthy novel-like treatises called the Homilies and the Recognitions, as well as three shorter “epistles,” including a letter of Peter to James. Embedded in the Recognitions, is an older text that Robert Van Voorst has identified as the “Ascents of James.” Although the Recognitions as a whole survives only in Latin, this section, R 1.33-71, is contained in two Syriac manuscripts. F. Stanley Jones has argued that this early source functioned as a kind of competitive “counter-history” to that found in Luke-Acts.

2. An Arabic 11th century Muslim Anti-Christian text written by ‘Abd al-Jabbar. This text, published by Shlomo Pines in 1966 (The Jewish Christians of the Early Centuries of Christiantiy According to a New Source), is intended as a Muslim refutation of Christianity and a defense of Mohammed as the Prophet. The author, in the course of his polemic, quotes Christian texts that clearly do not derive from our canonical gospels but are reflective of a Jewish-Christian community that is observant of the Torah. These embedded texts touch on Jesus’ teachings, his execution, and the history of his early followers in Jerusalem.

3. Old Slavonic version of Josephus, Jewish War. Our Greek texts of Josephus, Antiquities mention John the Baptist, Jesus, and James, as I have discussed in a recent post, while the Greek version of his earlier work, Jewish War, contain no such references. However, there is extant, in a number of Old Slavonic/Russian manuscripts of the War, three passages on John the Baptist, four on Jesus, and one on the early Christians–none of which are found in the Greek. These were first published in the West in 1906 in German. Scholars are divided over the date and provenance of these passages, but they are quite fascinating and worth considering for their possible historical value.

4. A Recovered Apocalypse of John the Baptist. Josephine Ford and others have argued that embedded within our present Greek book of Revelation, at the end of the New Testament, is a primitive “apocalypse” developed within circles related to John the Baptizer. It is found primarily in chapters 4-11, and represents the core apocalyptic expectations of the movement arising from the preaching of John and Jesus.

I will begin to discuss some of these materials here over the coming days and weeks.

In my book, The Jesus Dynasty, the center and focus of my understanding of the historical Jesus is that he thought himself to be heir to the royal throne of David, the Messiah, and from a Roman viewpoint the “King of the Jews.” The latter was a title Herod and his son Antipas coveted, valued, and feared, since the family had married into “royal” Hashmonean connections but could make no claim for Davidic ancestry. Josephus and Eusebius (following his source Hegisippus), tell us that the emperors Vespasian, Domitian, and Trajan, following the Revolt in Judea, were on the hunt for descendants of David. They were considered threats to Roman stability, given their potential for Messianic claims.

Ironically, Paul is our earliest literary source to Jesus’ Davidic bloodline. He epitomizes his message about Jesus in his letter to followers at Rome with the formula:

“. . . the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom 1:3-4).

For Paul, there was indeed, a “Jesus Dynasty,” but its significance ended with the death of Jesus. It was never passed on to James or other members of the royal family, and Jesus himself, as a “flesh and blood” human being, was transformed into a life-giving spirit as glorified Son of God by his resurrection from the dead (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:45). The physical or “earthly” line of David was made completely obsolete and irrelevant, and the kingdom of God no longer had to do with realizing the “will of God, on earth as in heaven” in this present political and social world. Indeed, the “form of this world” was passing away, and even marriage and sexual identity was fast becoming obsolete, and all dealings with this world, whether social or economic, were fading away (1 Corinthians 7:31)

Paul was, however, quite interested in another Dynasty, and a different kind of “kingdom of God,” one totally outside the realm of “flesh and blood.” He believed that followers of Jesus were infused or “begotten” as “sons of God” through the Holy Spirit, and thus became brothers of Jesus, part of the heavenly “royal family,” and destined to reign as kings, sit on thrones, and wear crowns, in the future Kingdom of God. In fact, Paul even tells his socially disenfranchised followers at Corinth that they were destined to “judge the world” and rule over angels” (1 Corinthians 6:2-3, cf. 4:8).

In Paul’s view the union between the Lord and the group, i.e., the “many children of God,” was one as definitive as the sexual union of a man and a woman, resulting in a child. He quotes the book of Genesis to illustrate how one joined to the Lord becomes one Spirit with him, just as the case of a male and female: “as it is written, the two become one flesh” (1 Corinthians 6:16-17).

For Paul none of this is metaphorical or symbolic. It is absolutely real and literal. According to Paul, being “saved,” is becoming part of a new genus within a new creation–siblings of the glorified Christ and part of God’s heavenly family. When Jesus appears in the clouds the children of this new family, and them alone, including those who might have died, will raise up into the air, through the clouds, and into the heavens. They will experience an instantaneous transformation and enthronement mirroring the heavenly glory that Jesus himself received. They will no longer be “flesh and blood,” or “dust of the earth,” but glorified spirit beings, exalted above all creation, ruling over the entire cosmos under God and their “older brother” Christ, the “firstborn” of many brothers/children.

I call this the Paul Dynasty, not because it literally has to do with Paul’s lineage–though he does metaphorically tell his followers that he has “become their father” through inducting them into this cosmic process. Rather, it is Paul’s idea of an alternative “Jesus Dynasty” in which everything “physical,” “earthly,” and historical is transferred to the heavenly realms above and beyond. The same language originally used in a Jewish Messianic context, such as “king” “son of God,” “throne” “rule” or “kingdom,” is appropriated and transformed. It is removed from its historical, social, political, and economic contexts and implications. There is no “fixing of the world,” but a resignation that the “Creation,” is hopelessly flawed and doomed, happily to soon pass away. It is a view almost wholly dependent on an imminent apocalyptic “end” to history, since people are asked to buy out of, or otherwise postpone, their stake in life itself on planet earth. Slaves can stay slaves, single folk need not marry or reproduce, evil doers can be tolerated for the short time they have left, and creative production of all kind is a vain effort (1 Corinthians 7:29-31).

The “Paul Dynasty” casts off the original messianic vision of the Hebrew prophets, that God’s will would be realized “on earth as it is in heaven,” and that peace, justice, and righteousness would spread to all nations through the example of a Servant people. But in leaving that biblical Project behind it only offers “faith” in a sudden heavenly rescue from the clouds as an alternative.

NB: There is a somewhat technical but fairly thorough review of Paul’s views on the subject, set in the wider contexts of his understanding of his apostolic mission on my University Web site: The Message and Mission of Paul.

I am of the view that the descriptions that Josephus, the 1st century CE Jewish historian, gives us of John the Baptizer, Jesus, and James, the brother of Jesus, are of immense value to the historian of early Christianity. These three figures, all brutally murdered by the political and religious establishment, just happen to be the founding figures of what scholars call “the Jesus movement.” And yet, properly understood in its historical contexts, this Messianic movement is broader than Jesus, beginning with John the Baptist, and advancing significantly under the leadership of Jesus’ successor, his brother James. It is noteworthy that in Josephus’s earlier work, The Jewish War, John, Jesus, or James go comletely unmentioned. It is only decades later, in the 90s CE, when Josephus comes to write the Antiquities, that he includes this material. My own guess is that he is well aware that the emperor Vespasian, following the heat of the War in Judea, is very keen to suppress any movement that might be deemed “Messianic,” and particularly one built around the expectations of a Davidic ruler as rightful king of the Jews. Josephus is surely aware of the Nazarene movement, but he is not inclined to expose them to imperial scrutiny, and perhaps he even wants to shield them in that regard.

What he says about John and James is truly precious material, coming as it does from an “outsider” with no Christian theological agenda. Josephus, of course, has his own multiple and tendentious purposes, but supporting any particular side of controversies about the place and role of John or James in the movement is not on his radar screen.
His “testimony” to Jesus is more problematic since it has been so heavily interpolated by medieval Christian copyists. However, we are more than fortunate that these pious scribes had such heavy hands, since their additions appear to be so blatant and obvious, in both placement and phrasing. Scholars have worked on this text quite extensively and I recommend the summary discussion by John Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (Doubleday, 1991), Vol I, pp. 57-88.

Taking the passage and removing the obvious interpolations we end up with the following results:

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonders, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew many after him both of the Jews and the Gentiles. He was the Christ. When Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things about him, and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day (Antiquities 18:63-64).

This bare and minimal account I find quite instructive. If one reads it again, without the additions, we have:

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, for he was a doer of wonders. He drew many after him. When Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day (Antiquities 18:63-64).

The content of this short report is strikingly close to what critical historians would distill as a kind of bare minimum regarding the historical Jesus–a wise teacher and wonder-worker who ran into opposition from the religious and political authorities and was crucified, but whose movement continued after his death. That Josephus does not mention anything about Jesus being resurrected was what obviously most troubled the medieval Christian copyists.

I am working this semester to complete my new book on Paul, as well as teaching a graduate class in which we are examining the ways in which the presentation of Luke in his two-volume work we call Luke-Acts, functions as a “master narrative” of what happened after Jesus’ crucifixion in such a way that alternative versions become almost impossible to imagine. I am more convinced than ever that the followers of John the Baptist and James the brother of Jesus, in contrast to those influenced by Paul, shaped their post-crucifixion hopes and expectations without any faith in Jesus as raised from the dead and ascended to heaven as cosmic Savior and Lord. Like John before him, and James to follow, the faith of the community was in the eschatological “resurrection on the third day,” spoken of by Hosea, which would culminate in the revival of the Israelite nation and sitting at table with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the elect. Evidence for this perspective has to be teased out of our sources, given the overwhelming influence of the letters of Paul and Luke-Acts and other documents in the New Testament, but it does survive, here and there, and I think it can be adequately reconstructed. It is found in the N.T. texts themselves, and in a variety of sources such as the Didache, the so-called Pseudo-Clementine writings, the gospel of Thomas, fragments of Hebrew gospels, materials from Hegesippus, and these texts of Josephus.

Within such a Jewish context of resurrection hope “on the third day,” the clustered burials in family tombs, or in cemeteries with shaft tombs like those at Qumran, Ain el-Ghuweir, and in Jerusalem, took on a potential meaning beyond ritual segregation and memory of the dead. On the “last day,” those sleeping in the tombs will come forth in a collective way. The notion of the Yachad, the group, together in life, death, and in the future, was a characteristic feature of what one might call sectarian messianism.

Joseph bar Matthias, better known to English readers as Josephus (b. 37 C.E.), the 1st century Jewish historian, is our best literary source for the practice of crucifixion in Palestine during the 1st century CE. At one point he describes the practice as “that most wretched of deaths” (War 7. 203). As a general in command of the Jewish forces of Galilee in the Great Revolt against Rome (66-73 C.E.), he subsequently surrendered to the Romans and befriended himself to the Roman general Vespasian and his son Titus, both of whom who became emperors of Rome in a successive father-son dynasty. Josephus ended up living in Rome, a patron of the royal family, where he wrote his Life, his account of the Jewish War, an apologetic work defending Judaism against the attack of a Greek author, Against Apion, and his massive multi-volume work, The Antiquities of the Jews, that sketched the history of the “world” from the standpoint of the Hebrew people from the “Creation” to the Revolt in his own time.

The following are his main references to crucifixion. I have used the rather outdated translation of Whiston to facilitate keying in these passages, and because it is a translation in the public domain. For this reason I have included the old referencing system found in Whiston as well as the Loeb system that is now the standard.

The archaeological evidence for crucifixion in 1st century Roman Palestine was significantly advanced by the discovery in a tomb in 1968 just north of Jerusalem with the skeletal remains of a Jewish male who had been crucified. There is a nice discussion of this find and its implications by James Charlesworth archived at the Frontline PBS “Jesus to Christ” site.

Josephus attempt to save three of his acquaintances from crucifixion:
And when I was sent by Titus Caesar with Cerealins, and a thousand horsemen, to a certain village called Thecoa, in order to know whether it were a place fit for a camp, as I came back, I saw many captives crucified, and remembered three of them as my former acquaintance. I was very sorry at this in my mind, and went with tears in my eyes to Titus, and told him of them; so he immediately commanded them to be taken down, and to have the greatest care taken of them, in order to their recovery; yet two of them died under the physician’s hands, while the third recovered. Life 77 [420-421]

The invasion of Palestine by Antiochus Epiphanies c. 167 B.C.E. giving rise to the Maccabean revolt (Hanukkah). Josephus graphic and bloody account mentions crucifixion — not clear just what it implies in this context but certainly some kind of hanging.
3. King Antiochus returning out of Egypt for fear of the Romans, made an expedition against the city Jerusalem; and when he was there, in the hundred and forty-third year of the kingdom of the Seleucides, he took the city without fighting, those of his own party opening the gates to him. And when he had gotten possession of Jerusalem, he slew many of the opposite party; and when he had plundered it of a great deal of money, he returned to Antioch.

4. Now it came to pass, after two years, in the hundred forty and fifth year, on the twenty-fifth day of that month which is by us called Chislev, and by the Macedonians Apelleus, in the hundred and fifty-third olympiad, that the king came up to Jerusalem, and, pretending peace, he got possession of the city by treachery; at which time he spared not so much as those that admitted him into it, on account of the riches that lay in the temple; but, led by his covetous inclination, (for he saw there was in it a great deal of gold, and many ornaments that had been dedicated to it of very great value,) and in order to plunder its wealth, he ventured to break the league he had made. So he left the temple bare, and took away the golden candlesticks, and the golden altar [of incense], and table [of shew-bread], and the altar [of burnt-offering]; and did not abstain from even the veils, which were made of fine linen and scarlet. He also emptied it of its secret treasures, and left nothing at all remaining; and by this means cast the Jews into great lamentation, for he forbade them to offer those daily sacrifices which they used to offer to God, according to the law. And when he had pillaged the whole city, some of the inhabitants he slew, and some he carried captive, together with their wives and children, so that the multitude of those captives that were taken alive amounted to about ten thousand. He also burnt down the finest buildings; and when he had overthrown the city walls, he built a citadel in the lower part of the city, for the place was high, and overlooked the temple; on which account he fortified it with high walls and towers, and put into it a garrison of Macedonians. However, in that citadel dwelt the impious and wicked part of the [Jewish] multitude, from whom it proved that the citizens suffered many and sore calamities. And when the king had built an idol altar upon God’s altar, he slew swine upon it, and so offered a sacrifice neither according to the law, nor the Jewish religious worship in that country. He also compelled them to forsake the worship which they paid their own God, and to adore those whom he took to be gods; and made them build temples, and raise idol altars in every city and village, and offer swine upon them every day. He also commanded them not to circumcise their sons, and threatened to punish any that should be found to have transgressed his injunction. He also appointed overseers, who should compel them to do what he commanded. And indeed many Jews there were who complied with the king’s commands, either voluntarily, or out of fear of the penalty that was denounced. But the best men, and those of the noblest souls, did not regard him, but did pay a greater respect to the customs of their country than concern as to the punishment which he threatened to the disobedient; on which account they every day underwent great miseries and bitter torments; for they were whipped with rods, and their bodies were torn to pieces, and were crucified, while they were still alive, and breathed. They also strangled those women and their sons whom they had circumcised, as the king had appointed, hanging their sons about their necks as they were upon the crosses. And if there were any sacred book of the law found, it was destroyed, and those with whom they were found miserably perished also. Antiquities 12. 5. 3-4 [12. 246-256]

Alexander Jannaeus, the Maccabean king (103-76 B.C.E.), turns against the Pharisees and has hundreds crucified.
2. Now as Alexander fled to the mountains, six thousand of the Jews hereupon came together [from Demetrius] to him out of pity at the change of his fortune; upon which Demetrius was afraid, and retired out of the country; after which the Jews fought against Alexander, and being beaten, were slain in great numbers in the several battles which they had; and when he had shut up the most powerful of them in the city Bethome, he besieged them therein; and when he had taken the city, and gotten the men into his power, he brought them to Jerusalem, and did one of the most barbarous actions in the world to them; for as he was feasting with his concubines, in the sight of all the city, he ordered about eight hundred of them to be crucified; and while they were living, he ordered the throats of their children and wives to be cut before their eyes. This was indeed by way of revenge for the injuries they had done him; which punishment yet was of an inhuman nature, though we suppose that he had been never so much distressed, as indeed he had been, by his wars with them, for he had by their means come to the last degree of hazard, both of his life and of his kingdom, while they were not satisfied by themselves only to fight against him, but introduced foreigners also for the same purpose; nay, at length they reduced him to that degree of necessity, that he was forced to deliver back to the king of Arabia the land of Moab and Gilead, which he had subdued, and the places that were in them, that they might not join with them in the war against him, as they had done ten thousand other things that tended to affront and reproach him. However, this barbarity seems to have been without any necessity, on which account he bare the name of a Thracian among the Jews (40) whereupon the soldiers that had fought against him, being about eight thousand in number, ran away by night, and continued fugitives all the time that Alexander lived; who being now freed from any further disturbance from them, reigned the rest of his time in the utmost tranquillity. Antiquities 13. 14. 2 [379-383]

The Nahum Pesher found in Cave 4 of the Dead Sea Scrolls appears to refer to him and his cruelty in a cryptic manner:
4Q169 (Nahum) “He fills his cave with prey and his den with game. This refers to the Lion of Wrath…vengeance upon the Flattery Seekers, because he used to hang men alive, as it was done in Israel in former times…”

Following the death of Herod in 4 B.C.E. there were outbreaks of revolt throughout Judea. Varus, the Roman legate of Syria took two legions and brutally pacified the country, particularly in Galilee.
10. Upon this, Varus sent a part of his army into the country, to seek out those that had been the authors of the revolt; and when they were discovered, he punished some of them that were most guilty, and some he dismissed: now the number of those that were crucified on this account were two thousand. After which he disbanded his army, which he found no way useful to him in the affairs he came about; for they behaved themselves very disorderly, and disobeyed his orders, and what Varus desired them to do, and this out of regard to that gain which they made by the mischief they did. As for himself, when he was informed that ten thousand Jews had gotten together, he made haste to catch them; but they did not proceed so far as to fight him, but, by the advice of Achiabus, they came together, and delivered themselves up to him: hereupon Varus forgave the crime of revolting to the multitude, but sent their several commanders to Caesar, many of whom Caesar dismissed; but for the several relations of Herod who had been among these men in this war, they were the only persons whom he punished, who, without the least regard to justice, fought against their own kindred. Antiquities 17. 10. 10 [17. 295-298]

Josephus mentions the crucifixion of Jesus in passing. The passage is judged authentic by most scholars once the obvious Christian additions (marked here in brackets and italics) are removed. See “Josephus on Jesus” for more details.
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, [if it be lawful to call him a man;] for he was a doer of wonderful works. [a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure,] He drew many after him [of the Jews and of the Gentiles. He was the Christ.] And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, (9) those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; [for he appeared to them alive again the third day; (10) as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him.] And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day. Antiquities 18. 3. 3 [63-64]
In the very next paragraph Josephus recounts the crucifixion in Rome of the priests of Isis, ordered by the Emperor Tiberius himself, for their misdeeds in arranging the sexual seduction of a virtuous woman.
4. About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder, and certain shameful practices happened about the temple of Isis that was at Rome . . . When he had said this, he went his way. But now she began to come to the sense of the grossness of what she had done, and rent her garments, and told her husband of the horrid nature of this wicked contrivance, and prayed him not to neglect to assist her in this case. So he discovered the fact to the emperor; whereupon Tiberius inquired into the matter thoroughly by examining the priests about it, and ordered them to be crucified, as well as Ide, who was the occasion of their perdition, and who had contrived the whole matter, which was so injurious to the woman. He also demolished the temple of Isis, and gave order that her statue should be thrown into the river Tiber; while he only banished Mundus, but did no more to him, because he supposed that what crime he had committed was done out of the passion of love. And these were the circumstances which concerned the temple of Isis, and the injuries occasioned by her priests. I now return to the relation of what happened about this time to the Jews at Rome, as I formerly told you I would. Antiquities 18. 3. 4 [18. 65, 78-80]

The sons of Judas the Galilean, who had led a revolt in 6 C.E. over the Roman taxation census, were crucified by the Roman procurator Tiberius Alexander (46-48 C.E.), who was the nephew of the philosopher Philo.
2. Then came Tiberius Alexander as successor to Fadus; he was the son of Alexander the alabarch of Alexandria, which Alexander was a principal person among all his contemporaries, both for his family and wealth: he was also more eminent for his piety than this his son Alexander, for he did not continue in the religion of his country. Under these procurators that great famine happened in Judea, in which queen Helena bought corn in Egypt at a great expense, and distributed it to those that were in want, as I have related already. And besides this, the sons of Judas of Galilee were now slain; I mean of that Judas who caused the people to revolt, when Cyrenius came to take an account of the estates of the Jews, as we have showed in a foregoing book. The names of those sons were James and Simon, whom Alexander commanded to be crucified. But now Herod, king of Chalcis, removed Joseph, the son of Camydus, from the high priesthood, and made Ananias, the son of Nebedeu, his successor. And now it was that Cumanus came as successor to Tiberius Alexander; as also that Herod, brother of Agrippa the great king, departed this life, in the eighth year of the reign of Claudius Caesar. He left behind him three sons; Aristobulus, whom he had by his first wife, with Bernicianus, and Hyrcanus, both whom he had by Bernice his brother’s daughter. But Claudius Caesar bestowed his dominions on Agrippa, junior. Antiquities 20. 5. 2 [20. 100-104]

Josephus reports on the Jewish custom of taking down the bodies of those crucified by the Romans during the Great Revolt and burying them, if permitted, before sundown. This was in response to the Torah Mitzvah found in Deuteronomy 21:22-23: “When someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death and is executed, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse must not remain all night upon the tree; you shall bury him that same day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse.”
2. But the rage of the Idumeans was not satiated by these slaughters; but they now betook themselves to the city, and plundered every house, and slew every one they met; and for the other multitude, they esteemed it needless to go on with killing them, but they sought for the high priests, and the generality went with the greatest zeal against them; and as soon as they caught them they slew them, and then standing upon their dead bodies, in way of jest, upbraided Ananus with his kindness to the people, and Jesus with his speech made to them from the wall. Nay, they proceeded to that degree of impiety, as to cast away their dead bodies without burial, although the Jews used to take so much care of the burial of men, that they took down those that were condemned and crucified, and buried them before the going down of the sun. I should not mistake if I said that the death of Ananus was the beginning of the destruction of the city, and that from this very day may be dated the overthrow of her wall, and the ruin of her affairs, whereon they saw their high priest, and the procurer of their preservation, slain in the midst of their city. Jewish War 4. 5. 2 [4. 314-318]

Josephus reports that the Romans crucified many before the walls of Jerusalem during the siege of 70 C.E. The idea was to terrorize the population and force a surrender. The number reached 500 a day at one point until there was no wood left in the area for this purpose.
5. Now it happened at this fight that a certain Jew was taken alive, who, by Titus’s order, was crucified before the wall, to see whether the rest of them would be aftrighted, and abate of their obstinacy. But after the Jews were retired, John, who was commander of the Idumeans, and was talking to a certain soldier of his acquaintance before the wall, was wounded by a dart shot at him by an Arabian, and died immediately, leaving the greatest lamentation to the Jews, and sorrow to the seditious. For he was a man of great eminence, both for his actions and his conduct also. Jewish War 5. 6. 5 [5: 289-290]
1. So now Titus’s banks were advanced a great way, notwithstanding his soldiers had been very much distressed from the wall. He then sent a party of horsemen, and ordered they should lay ambushes for those that went out into the valleys to gather food. Some of these were indeed fighting men, who were not contented with what they got by rapine; but the greater part of them were poor people, who were deterred from deserting by the concern they were under for their own relations; for they could not hope to escape away, together with their wives and children, without the knowledge of the seditious; nor could they think of leaving these relations to be slain by the robbers on their account; nay, the severity of the famine made them bold in thus going out; so nothing remained but that, when they were concealed from the robbers, they should be taken by the enemy; and when they were going to be taken, they were forced to defend themselves for fear of being punished; as after they had fought, they thought it too late to make any supplications for mercy; so they were first whipped, and then tormented with all sorts of tortures, before they died, and were then crucified before the wall of the city. This miserable procedure made Titus greatly to pity them, while they caught every day five hundred Jews; nay, some days they caught more: yet it did not appear to be safe for him to let those that were taken by force go their way, and to set a guard over so many he saw would be to make such as great deal them useless to him. The main reason why he did not forbid that cruelty was this, that he hoped the Jews might perhaps yield at that sight, out of fear lest they might themselves afterwards be liable to the same cruel treatment. So the soldiers, out of the wrath and hatred they bore the Jews, nailed those they caught, one after one way, and another after another, to the crosses, by way of jest, when their multitude was so great, that room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for the bodies. Jewish War 5. 11. 1 [5:446-451]

One question I get via e-mail several times a week is: What is the best and most accurate translation of the Bible? That is a tough one, in that there are so many good translations that serve well various purposes. Much depends on what one is looking for, whether for close scholarly study, devotional reading, or a literary overview. Since I have been working for over a decade on a new translation, the Transparent English Bible in connection with the Original Bible Project, I wish I could refer readers to that finished work, but alas, it is only now being released in preliminary samples on the Web.

My leanings are toward more “literal” translations, but unfortunately, most of those are done by evangelical Christians and they tend to reflect a Christian slant within the Hebrew Bible or so-called “Old Testament.” As Bibles go, meaning those that contain both Hebrew Bible and New Testament, I think the Revised Standard Version (that I rate in some ways above New RSV) might be one of the better scholarly translations, though I prefer one that would stay closer to the Masoretic text for the Hebrew Bible. If you can stand the archaic language, the older American Standard Version (1901) might be better in that regard. There is also the English Standard Version (2003) that tries to improve on the old RSV and in some ways does a good job–but again its Christian theological bias comes through all too often.

All in all I think it might be best to split off the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. For the latter I would highly recommend Hugh Schonfield’s The Authentic New Testament, that is unfortunately out of print. It is well worth searching out through the used book dealers or via e-Bay. I would recommend the hardback edition if you can find it, as it is beautifully designed. For the Hebrew Bible, even though it is out of date in many ways, I would say that the original Jewish Publication Society Holy Scriptures or Tanakh, is a good choice. This is the one first published in 1917 but revised in 1955. It too, unfortunately, is out of print, though there are still used copies around. There is also the Koren Holy Scriptures, also called The Jerusalem Bible, published in Israel in 1992 and still in print. The newer JPS Tanakh (1985) does not take a “literal” approach, but something closer to what the scholars call “dynamic equivalence.”

A comprehensive new paper titled “Probability, Statistics, and the Talpiot Tomb,” authored by Profs. Kevin Kilty and Mark Elliot, has just been posted on the Web. It is exceptionally clear in argument, thoroughly academic in approach and method, and in my view advances the discussion of the Talpiot tomb to a new level. I believe that this paper clears the air on any number of convoluted issues, but particularly the matter of whether or not the cluster of names found in the tomb are common and statistically insignificant, or rare and unique. The most common response to the possibility that the Jesus in the Talpiot tomb might be Jesus of Nazareth has been “the names in the tomb are common.” As Kilty and Elliot demonstrate, statistic probability can often be counter intuitive. I highly recommend a close reading of this challenging and ground-breaking paper.

I want to initiate a series of posts on the names on the six inscribed ossuaries found in the Talpiot “Jesus” tomb. There has been quite a bit of discussion of these on the Web, and more recently in print, and I hope I can offer some helpful discussion on a number of issues that have been raised. I have found the work of Stephen and Claire Pfann to be particularly helpful and provocative, though as readers will see below, and in subsequent posts, their conclusions and my own are quite different. Clearly, any case made for this tomb being that of Jesus of Nazareth, in the end, will turn on these inscribed names, how they are to be read or deciphered, and what possible correspondence they might have to the named family of Jesus as known to us in various textual sources.

Ossuary 80.504 in the State of Israel collection (no. 705 in the Rahmani Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries) is a case in point. It is a plain or undecorated ossuary with the following clear Hebrew/Aramaic inscription, namely the letters Yod, Vav, Samech, and Heh:

It is properly read or pronounced in English as Yoseh. It is a shortened form of the full name Joseph/Yehosef, the most common male Jewish name in the period. Although a few scholars have suggested the pronunciation Yosah, this is incorrect for the simple reason that no Hebrew or Greek name Yosah ever existed. Yoseh is built from the Greek form Iose (Ιωσε/Ιωση) and is always found with the Greek letters eta or epsilon, but never with an alpha, which would be necessary to form a pronunciation ending in an “a” sound.

In the time of Jesus, that is, in 2nd Temple times, before the Destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, this nickname Yoseh is extremely rare in either Hebrew or Greek. As far as Hebrew goes, it is found only here, in the Talpiot tomb, on an ossuary, and one other time in a slightly different, but equivalent spelling (Yod, Samech, Hey), on an ossuary from Mt. Scopus. It is also found once on a tomb inscription from the period (Jason’s Tomb), and once in a papyrus from Wadi Muraba’at (pre-135 CE). In Greek, its equivalent forms (Ιωσε/Ιωση/Ιωσης), which are usually translated Yose/Jose or Joses/Joses in English, occur on only five ossuaries. In contrast, the full name Joseph/Yehosef is found on 32 ossuaries and many dozens of literary references in the period. The table to the left is based on the exhaustive work of Tal Ilan (Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity) from Palestinian sources over a particulary broad chronological range of 330 BCE to 200CE. It shows all the variations of the name Joseph in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin from ossuary as well as other sources with the forms of Yose separated out at the bottom. The tag F refers to a fictitious name, the rest are presumed to be real individuals.

This nickname Jose/Joses in Greek is found in Mark 6:3 as the nickname for Jesus’ brother Joseph. There are two further references at the end of Mark that I also take to be that same brother (Mark 15:40, 47, see my arguments in The Jesus Dynasty, chap. 4). Luke removes the names of Jesus brothers from his gospel entirely, while Matthew offers the full name “Joseph” in his parallel to Mark (Matthew 13:55; 27:56). However, it is worth noting that in some manuscripts of Matthew the shortened nickname, Jose/Joses remains, whether as a correction based on Mark or just part of an alternative textual tradition.

In later texts, from the 2nd and 3rd century CE onward, the name Yoseh/Yose in Hebrew does become quite common. It is found in some synagogue inscriptions in Galilee but particularly in rabbinic sources. A comparison of various manuscripts of the Mishnah shows that the form of the name in Hebrew Yosey (Yod, Vav, Samech, Yod) and Yoseh are equivalent, and were pronounced the same–thus we get the English Yose in most translations of these rabbinic sources. The Kaufmann manuscript of the Mishnah (used by Accordance software), which is the best and most reliable, regularly has the form Yoseh where other versions have Yosey, but the vocalization (Nikud) in the manuscript marks both forms with a double-dot or “e” sound, showing one is an alternative spelling of the other, but the pronunciation is the same. At one time I had incorrectly concluded that while the name Yoseh was rare, the nickname Yosi, as it is pronounced in Israel today, was quite common in 2nd Temple times. This is wrong. Yoseh and Yosey are different spelling of the same name, pronounced the same. The spelling ending in the letter Yod never occurs on a single ossuary and is a product of a later literary spelling that became common in some rabbinic manuscripts. This accounts for Tal Ilan’s tally of 29 examples of Yosey–in Kaufmann all of these become Yoseh–spelled with a Heh at the end rather than a Yod.

What we can conclude about this nickname Yose, found on the Talpiot ossuary and in Greek for Jesus’ brother Joseph in Mark, is that it was really quite rare in 2nd Temple times, in Hebrew or in Greek. Even when it does become more common in much later 3rd century CE sources, such as the Mishnah, the sages with this nickname are almost always mid-late 2nd century CE and beyond. Two exceptions, of course, are the first of the famous “pairs,” namely Yoseh son of Yoezer and Yoseh son of Yochanan (mAbot 1:4; mChagiga 2:2), who lived in the 2nd century BCE! The rest of the Mishnaic Yosehs, such as Yoseh of Galilee, Yoseh son of HaOtef of Efrat, Yoseh son of Meshulam, and Yoseh son of R. Yehuda, are late 2nd to early 3rd century CE figures. Since we have good inscriptional and manuscript evidence for the rareness of this nickname in the time of Jesus, that is before the Destruction, it would be very bad method to project back into the late 1st century CE a usage that only can be verified as “common” in texts dating from the 3rd century CE.

Of course this alone does not prove that the Yoseh in the Talpiot tomb is the brother of Jesus. But the data does indeed argue that as a rare nickname, known only on a handful of ossuaries and from two inscriptions of the period, found in a tomb with a “Jesus son of Joseph,” Yoseh is quite striking. And that Mark knows this as the unique and rare nickname of Jesus’ brother Joseph, is surely significant evidence. The occurrence of this nickname can then be combined with the historical data we know about Jesus’ “missing” brother Joseph–since we have not a single reference to him beyond the Gospels, and he does not take over leadership of the Nazarene community after the death of James in 62 CE, though he was 2nd after James by birth. I argue this point more fully in the forthcoming issue of Near Eastern Archaeology in which I suggest a different method be used for evaluating the hypothetical prosopography of the Talpiot tomb names. I think it is quite important, rather than suggesting all sorts of “possible” folk that this Yoseh might be, to recognize that the one Yoseh we know anything about in the family of Jesus, and one of the few males in the period who bore this nickname, was none other than Jesus’ 2nd brother Joseph.

Much of the statistical work on the Talpiot cluster of names has been done using the nickname Yoseh as if it was the equivalent to the much more common name Joseph/Yehosef (8.6% of male names), which it plainly is not. All the rhetoric about “these are the most common names of the period,” begins to have much less force if this is taken into account. I know of two new statistical studies that have factored in this nickname as it occurs in the 2nd Temple period, and the results are startlingly different. One is a paper authored by Profs. Kevin Kilty and Mark Elliot, that will be posted on their college Web site later this week. I will publish the link when it is up. The other is the formal paper presented by Prof. Andrey Feuerverger of the University of Toronto, in a fully peer-reviewed session of the Joint Statistical Meeting in Salt Lake City in July, and now being prepared for publication. My sense is that the discussion of the names in the Talpiot tomb is going to take a significant shift when these and other factors come to full play in our ongoing discussions.

Through this summer I have listened to the new CD by Sinead O’Conner titled Theology many dozens of times–every chance I get. It is the most amazing collection of songs, put together with a skill, a unity of vision, and a power that one seldom encounters. I have not been moved so deeply on a spiritual level by a CD since Ten New Songs by Leonard Cohen (2005), whom I consider to be the high priest of a prophetic musical genre of this type. The power of O’Conner’s work is based on the raw power of her soul, as with all her work, but shaped, often word-for-word, by the words of the Hebrew Bible–namely Jeremiah, Isaiah, Job, and several of the Psalms, cast at times with a Jamaican flavor (Yah for Yahweh, etc.). For me at least the effect was to leave me speechless, sort of “slain in the spirit,” I think the term is, and I have no “charismatic” background or experience.

My own understanding of the message of the Jesus movement (John the Baptizer, Jesus, and James the Just) is that the group was powerfully shaped by the visionary perspective of the Hebrew Prophets (particularly Isaiah and Jeremiah) and certain of the Psalms. That vision centered on the notion of the Kingdom of God, with the will of God being realized on earth as in heaven, through a new world characterized by peace, justice, and righteousness. In my book, The Jesus Dynasty, I try to bring to the public a perspective that many scholars share–namely that there is a vast difference between the message Jesus preached and “Jesus as the message,” as touted by later “orthodox” Christians shaped by the visions of Paul. Sinead seems to have tapped into that in an extraordinary way, but without any reference whatsoever to the “person” of Jesus per se, or anything one could recognizably call distinctively “Christian,” in the later dogmatic sense of the term. I noticed that Christianity Today eagerly latched onto Sinead for an interview when the album came out, but I sensed in reading it that the content must have been quite disappointing to those who might have hoped for something more along Christian evangelical lines. Sinead clearly values her Catholic upbringing on a cultural level, and she “loves Jesus,” as a “spiritual energy,” but she is sharply critical of orthodox Christianity and clearly rejects any kind of exclusive views of Jesus.

There are two discs with eleven songs each, with mostly the same songs recorded in different settings. The first, “The Dublin Sessions” is more acoustic and simple; the second, “The London Sessions,” has a full instrumental arrangement. I much prefer the former for its vocal intimacy and expression. Each disc ends with an interview with Sinead where she talks freely about how she came to do this particular album and what it means to her. You can listen to samples at Amazon.com.

The Jesus Dynasty has been published recently in three additional languages, Czech, Slovakian and Spanish. The Czech publisher is Knizni Klub, while the Slovakian publisher is Ikar. The Spanish version is published by Editorial Planeta, the largest Spanish publisher in the world. These latest three make a total of eleven foreign language editions: previously, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Japanese, Portuguese (separate editions in Portugal and Brazil) and Indonesian, with another dozen or so still to go. There is also a separate UK edition published by HarperCollins. I have offered details on most of these editions in previous entries on this Blog.

I have been quite pleased with my foreign publishers. The foreign editions have been done by highly qualified translators and marketed with intelligence and skill. Several of the translators have communicated with me directly as they were doing their work, asking questions, requesting clarifications, and offering input and suggestions. Translating concepts and even subjects that many of us find common in English, at least in the field of the academic study of religions (terms like “apocalypticism,” or the “Dead Sea Scrolls” or “Gnosticism”) can prove quite the challenge in another language. Also, the basic premise of the book, that Jesus had brothers and sisters, and that James, the eldest, took over leadership of his followers after his death, is an unknown and radical thesis in some of these cultures that are dominated by standard forms of Roman Catholicism.

The Jesus Dynasty is doing quite well in all the foreign editions and has been on several of the national Best Seller lists (Germany, Italy, France). It has raised a surprising level of interest in Indonesia, which apparently has a very active evangelical Christian population. I continue to receive hundreds of e-mails from readers all over the world and the traffic on this Web site indicates a worldwide interest in the topics that are discussed. It is quite informative to hear all the varied perspectives. Most readers are positive, a very few are more negative for expressively theological reasons, but many from all sides of the issues offer insightful observations from which I continue to learn. I have been so impressed with the degree to which so many hundreds of my readers have delved into resources on the historical Jesus, voraciously reading all the major scholarly works and forming well considered views and opinions. There is, of course, much more available in English, but it is clear to me that the “Quest for the historical Jesus” has no language, geographical, or cultural boundaries. It is truly a global phenomenon.

One of the more extraordinary results of the release and translation of the entire Dead Sea Scrolls corpus is our ability to sketch out a rather full and reliable portrait of the community that produced the scrolls, as well as a “life and times” of their otherwise unidentified leader or Prophet: the Teacher of Righteousness. Both Michael Wise, in his book, The First Messiah, and Israel Knohl, in his study titled The Messiah Before Jesus, independently pick up on this subject, but particularly the ways in which the career of the Teacher serves as a precursor for that of Jesus of Nazareth. I highly recommend both books. Of particular interest in this regard is the question of what happens to the community at the death of its leader and how the prophetic vision of the future is maintained despite the failure of apocalyptic expectations–the phenomenon sociologists of religions have come to call “When Prophecy Fails.”

The complicated complex of terminology related to understanding the apocalypticism in the Scrolls–in particular the expectation, appearance, function, and outcome of various “Redemptive Figures” mentioned–has received careful attention by scholars. Among the best studies is that of John J. Collins, The Star and the Scepter. These designations arise, for the most part, directly from the Hebrew Scriptures–Prophet, Priest, Messiahs, Stone, Branch, Prince, Messenger, Servant, Star, Scepter, and so forth. I am using “Messiah” in my title above in the most generic sense–not merely to refer to an ideal Davidic King, but to one who is understood to function as a central figure or chief agent in ushering in and mediating the expected arrival of the Kingdom of God (Dan 2:44). In other words, the Scrolls, as a corpus, do not refer to just one figure but reflect a developing and shifting, even speculative application of the complexity of the Hebrew Scriptures themselves.

In one of the earlier and most foundational texts at Qumran, The Community Rule (1QS), we find no indication that any such messianic figures have appeared on the scene. Rather, the community itself expresses its self-understanding as the new covenant community of the Last Days.

Col VIII: And when these become members of the Community in Israel according to all these rules, they shall separate from the habitation of ungodly men and shall go into the wilderness to prepare the way of Him, as it is written, “Prepare in the wilderness the way … make straight in the desert a path for our God…”

Col IX: This is the time for the preparation of the way in the wilderness…

Col IX.10ff: They shall depart from one of the counsels of the Torah to walk in all the stubbornness of their hearts, but shall be ruled by the primitive precepts in which the men of the Community were first instructed until there shall come the Prophet and the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel.

Here we very possibly have three figures in mind. The Prophet is clearly the “Prophet like Moses” (Deut 18), elsewhere identified as the Star (Num 24:17) or Interpreter (Doresh HaTorah) or Teacher of Righteousness. “Messiahs”, if taken as two, most likely refers to the coming of both a Davidic “Prince of the Congregation” (elsewhere called “the Scepter”; Num 24:17 again), and a Priestly/Aaronic Messiah or anointed one. These are referred to in Zech 4:14 as the two “sons of fresh oil” (b’nai HaYitzhar) “who stand before the “Lord” (Adon) of the whole earth” (Rev 11).

Within the Qumran corpus we can document the appearance of the Prophet or Teacher of Righteousness; however, I find no evidence anywhere in the entire collection of the appearance of his two messiahs. The Damascus Document (CD) is absolutely crucial in this regard. Two manuscripts (A & B) found in the Cairo Geniza by S. Schechter in 1897 were also found in extensive fragments in Caves 4, 5, and 6 at Qumran, inside the very parameters of the settlement. The introductory lines of Col I refer to the appearance of the Teacher 390 years after the Babylonian Exile (586 BCE) and twenty years after the origin of the New Covenant movement:

He visited them and He caused a plant root to spring from Israel and Aaron to inherit His Land and to prosper on the good things of His earth. And they perceived their iniquity and recognized that they were guilty men, yet for twenty years they were like blind men groping for the way. And God observed their deeds, that they sought Him with a whole heart, and He raised up for them a Teacher of Righteousness to guide them in the way of His heart.

What I find rather striking is that in CD manuscript A, other than in this introduction, there is no direct reference to the arrival and career of this Teacher. Indeed, in Col VII we find reference to the “Star and Scepter” promise of Number 24 with a decidedly “future” cast to it–as if neither figure had appeared. And in Col VI we read: “He raised up from Aaron men of discernment and from Israel men of wisdom…until he comes who shall teach righteousness at the end of days.”

But in the important fragment we call manuscript B we have two additional references to the community holding fast to its mission “until the coming of the Messiah of Aaron and Israel” And, in contrast to manuscript A, we find direct references to the “gathering in” (i.e., death) of the Teacher of the Community:

Col B19: From the day of the gathering in of the Teacher of the Community until the end of all the men of war who deserted to the Liar, there shall pass about forty years.

Col B 20: None of the men who enter the New Covenant in the land of Damascus and who again betray it and depart from the fountain of living waters, shall be reckoned with the Council of the people or inscribed in its Book, from the day of gathering in of the Teacher of the Community until the comings of the Messiah out of Aaron and Israel.

What is even more striking is that CD manuscript B recasts manuscript A (Col VII) and quotes Zech 13:7: “Awake O Sword against my Shepherd, against the man who is my fellow, says God–smite the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered, and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.” This “smiting” of the Shepherd, whom I take here to be the Teacher, appears parallel in this fragment to his “gathering in.” At this very point in the text, fragment B edits out the reference in A to the Numbers 24 “Star and Scepter” prophecy–obviously seeing it as in the past.

Here we find a period of “about 40 years” tied to the demise of the Teacher. There is a fragment from Cave 4 (4Q171) that refers to the same period:

“A little while and the wicked shall be no more; I will look towards his place but he shall not be there” (Psa 37:10). Interpreted, this concerns all the wicked. At the end of the forty years they shall be blotted out and not an man shall be found on earth.”

Here things get a bit prophetically complicated, unless one is steeped in the chronological schemes of the book of Daniel (and Ezekiel)– particularly the “70 weeks” prophecy of Daniel 9. The text assumes understanding of a final 490 year period, which the DSS community understood neatly as Ten Jubilees, 49 years each. We then find references in various fragments (11QMelch; 4Q390) that attempt to fit the history of the community within this time scheme. The Teacher himself is to arise, as one would expect, “in the first week of the Jubilee that follows the nine Jubilees” (11QMelch), or just over 40 years from the End. This sort of “pinpointed” chronological placement is rather extraordinary and captures for us a moment in time, not without parallel in the 40 years from the death of Jesus in 30 CE to the “end of the age” associated with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE.

In the DSS commentary on Habakkuk (1QpHab) we find that the community has obviously lived through and beyond this 40 years “countdown” period with the Teacher long gone and the apocalyptic expectations of the arrival of the Kingdom of God anything but fulfilled. The Romans have by now invaded the country and propped up the puppet priests that the community despised as utterly corrupt (perhaps Hyrcanus II). Col I interprets the cry of the prophet Habakkuk of “How long?” as referring to the “beginning of the final generation.”
This extraordinarily precious text offers a line-by-line interpretation of the prophet Habakkuk, applying his message to the present life of the community. I have put the quotations from Habakkuk in italics, with the interpretation following each line:

…Write down the vision and make it plain upon the tablets, that he who reads may read it, and I will take my stand to watch, and I will station myself upon my fortress speedily [Hab 2:1-2]. [VII] And God told Habakkuk to write down that which would happen to the final generation, but He did not make known to him when time would come to an end. As for that which He said, That he who reads may read it speedily: interpreted, this concerns the Teacher of Righteousness, to whom God made known all the mysteries of the words of His servants the Prophets. For there shall be yet another vision concerning the appointed time. It shall tell of the end and shall not lie. If it tarries, wait for it, for it shall surely come and shall not be late. Interpreted, this concerns the men of truth who keep the Torah, whose hands shall not be slacked in the service of truth when the final age is prolonged. For all the ages of God reach their appointed end as he determines for them in the mysteries of His wisdom. Behold, his soul is puffed up and is not upright. Interpreted, this means that the wicked shall double their guilt upon themselves and it shall not be forgiven when they are judged…But the righteous shall live by his faith. Interpreted, this concerns all those who observe the Torah in the House of Judah, whom God will deliver from the House of Judgment because of their suffering and because of their faith in the Teacher of Righteousness. Interpreted, this means that the final age shall be prolonged, and shall exceed all that the Prophets have said; for the mysteries of God are astounding.

I think the evidence is strong, both internally and externally (dating of the texts–paleography/C-14), that the crisis of belief that this text reflects had come to a climax in the mid-first century BCE. In other words, by the time of the Roman invasion of Palestine (63 BCE) and the reign of Herod the Great (37 BCE), such hopes and expectations had been severely tried and found wanting. And yet, the movement as a whole, more broadly speaking, what Eisenman calls “the messianic movement in Palestine,” from the Maccabees to Masada, continues on. Indeed, it seems to find its final expression in the hopes and dreams of the followers of John the Baptist, Jesus, and James. It is against this background that I try to set my own interpretation of the life and times of Jesus the Messiah in my book, The Jesus Dynasty. With the Dead Sea Scrolls we literally have a “trial run” on the Apocalypse, with all the resulting dynamics from “delay of the End of the Age” to the brutal deaths of various leaders and Messiahs.